Hola, folks! 😊
I’m getting to this a bit earlier tonight–just a bit after 9. Been another good one today–but quite as full, but good.
We got up a bit before 5:30, missing the hotel breakfast, but since they don’t serve much, we’re not missing much.
We left somewhere around 5:45, I think, and headed over to pick up Yasdany (the young man from last night). He brought us to La playa Cochal, one of the best beaches around for snorkeling.
The water was really dirty, and you couldn’t really see anything at all, and at first, I thought he just didn’t really know what he was talking about and didn’t know where everything was, but the Internet seem to confirm we were in the right place, and another family that was there also confirmed it, saying that they had been coming to this beach for 20 years, and they’d never seen anything like it. Normally, it’s a crystal clear beach with a reef teaming with marine life, eels, rays, fish of many kinds.
Anyway, so the snorkeling ended up being a pretty big bust, but it was still fun to go out there. I had a fairly scary moment for me when I got caught in a riptide. I was trying to swim back in having failed to see anything really at all, and as I watched the sea floor as I was trying to swim in, I noticed that I was being sucked back out at the same time as I was trying to swim towards shore.
That was pretty scary for me because I even had fins on and couldn’t beat the current. The thought did actually cross my mind that I may not be able to get back to shore at all. There was someone on a jet ski nearby, so I could have called out for help, but it definitely was pretty nerve-wracking.
At some point I realized that I wasn’t going to get back in to shore the way I was going, so I started a swim sideways, and when I did that, I was able to swim hard enough from another spot to get back shore.
When I got back to land, I was out of breath and tired and a little… Not sure if the word… Whatever the right word is for coming down from being a little bit scared.
John suggested that maybe I had panicked, but I didn’t think so, as my hard breathing was because I had pushed myself so hard trying to get back in.
I realized when I went back out a little bit later in a different spot that he was right. I had a similar experience in the other spot but instead of letting myself get scared, I calmed my fears right away, and just relaxed and rolled with it, and I was able to do what I needed to do without any problems at all.
Lesson learned, don’t fight the riptide if you get yourself caught in one. Try and relax, and recognize that you can last quite a long time in the ocean if you are conserving your energy. Personally, the best way for me to conserve energy is on my back, just doing slow frog kicks, etc.
Anyway, so the snorkeling with a bust. But I did come away with a chinaman’s hat (sea shell). In today’s modern PC climate, maybe I shouldn’t call the shell by that name. 🙃
We also got some decent pictures from a little lookout point.
We didn’t really have much time by that point to get the snorkeling equipment back to the rental place and to get Yasdany back to his house even before that, but we were hungry, so we stopped quickly by a local panadería, grabbed some pastries, and headed back to Filadelfia.
We dropped off Yasdany, returned the snorkeling equipment, and decided to head back to the same area (but different place) where we were yesterday (the part with the waterfall and mini cliff jumping spot).
Today, we went to Las Pozas Los Coyotes. If you’ve been to Havasupai, it’s very similar–beautiful turquoise water, with waterfalls and cliff jumping spots. This place in Costa Rica also included slot canyons ad part of the package.
We spent the entire rest of the day there, Cliff jumping, swimming, exploring, etc. It was a nice relaxing yet exciting at the same time day. We got some pictures, but as always, they don’t show really what it’s like. And we didn’t get the good pictures while there was still sunlight shining on the turquoise water, but I have the pictures in my mind. 🙂
We made quick friends with more Ticos (what Costa Ricans call themselves). Andres helped me figure out if we could cliff jump from a particular spot above a waterfall. He did most of the work and confirmed that we could. So we did. 🙃
I also jumped off a cliff that was higher than any I have jumped off before. Not sure how high it was, but it was pretty darn up there. 🙃 John got it on video, so perhaps one can figure out how high from the video. I would guess maybe 30 to 50 ft off the water?
Certainly felt extremely high. 🙃
What else… We swam through the short slot canyon to get to another waterfall. It was all gorgeous. No justice-pictures again, just… pictures.
But… it was simply beautiful–through and through. There’s more to the stories of the day, of course, but i think that’s where we’ll end for today. We ate lunch at the top of the small jumping spot, then we headed back to the hotel to just relax after being short on sleep. We were going to use the hot tub, but there… wasn’t one. 🙃
John swam in the pool for a little bit, and i went over to the hammocks for a bit.
After a shower, some dinner, and some Spanish practice (in the form of watching parts of Jurassic Park sequels, here I am calling it a night. I’ll post pictures when I get back. 🙂
Love to all. 😊
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 