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December 18, 2016

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Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica days 1 & 2

Early Saturday morning we boarded our flight from Houston to San Jose, Costa Rica. After an hour delay, we were on our way. After arriving in San Jose, we picked up our luggage and rental car and hit the road to Quepos. After some exciting driving getting out of San Jose, we were on the toll road for a while before stopping for lunch at a roadside stand selling authentic Costa Rica food – we all had rice & black beans, plantains, and either meat or fried cheese.

Upon arriving in Quepos we met the manager of the AirBnB property I booked and took a truly terrifying drive up a steep and curvy hillside to our house with an awesome view.

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Rental house up a steep hill

 

We settled in, hit up a local supermarket, and then had birthday dinner for Mom at La Luna at GAIA Hotel & Reserve. The food was good and I imagine that the view would have been good if it weren’t dark outside.

Sunday we headed to Manuel Antonio National Park for hiking, beach time, and to meet the monkeys. The hiking trails were well maintained with a ton of steps. We saw a ton of wildlife at the park: white faced monkeys, squirrel monkeys, three toed sloths (including a mamma with a baby), leaf cutter ants, iguanas and other lizards, coatimundi, and agouti. The white faced monkeys were particularly numerous and excited about people, we definitely saw people feed them when they shouldn’t!

Beach at Manuel Antonio Park

Beach at Manuel Antonio park

Viewing the fish trap built by natives a long time ago to catch fish at low tide

White faced monkey

Squirrel monkey

Coatimundi (similar to a raccoon)

Iguana

Leaf cutter ants

We stopped for lunch at El Avion and enjoyed a great view and good food next to an old airplane converted into a bar.

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Carl enjoying some seafood curry

After that we went on a bike canopy tour… which basically is a little carriage hanging from a cable amongst the trees and you use a throttle to go fast / slow down. The bike part is simply that there are bike pedals that you can put your feet on but don’t do anything. It was pretty fun to slowly move amongst the trees, even if only one of us saw a sloth. I did see a vulture with a red head.

We watched a lovely sunset from our porch and then eventually headed back down to Quepos for dinner at Runaway Grill in the marina area.

Our porch view

 

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July 9, 2015

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Saint Martin day 9: Pic Paradis and Loterie Farm

On Sunday we ventured up the steep, narrow, and windy road to the highest point on Saint Martin, Pic Paradis. We were told if we headed for the radio tower off to one side of the peak, we’d find a trail to hike up the ridge. It turned out to be a short trail but the peak had amazing views. 

The view of etang aux poissons (a salt pond) and Le Galion:
  Marigot:

After coming back down the hill a bit we stopped at Loterie Farm, an old plantation that has a micro climate that is wetter than the rest of Saint Martin. It has hiking trails, extensive zip lining, a super fancy pool you have to pay to access, and two restaurants on site. We were there to hike and did a relatively short hike through the trees and past some springs.
  After climbing up jumbled rocks for a while we came to a great overlook with a view of Marigot.  
  After making it back down we stopped in the Tree Lounge for refreshing frozen drinks of course.  
The we headed into the Hidden Forest Cafe for lunch. I had the salad special which was very good.

Carl went for a fish sandwich, but it wasn’t as good as the one he’d had at a beach club previously. 
   
After lunch we headed back to Orient Bay and lounged on the beach chairs there. The visibility was the best it had been all week and the color of the water was gorgeous, despite the high winds. 

  That night we went to Philipsburg for dinner. Before eating we strolled along the boardwalk but most places were closed because it was Sunday. We did pause at a little bar with a few locals and had some rum punch.

I took a few long exposure shots along the boardwalk. I love the one below because the dog laying all alone on the beach was a common sight, the island has a high number of wandering dogs.  
  For dinner we went to Chesterfields, a place our Fodors book claimed is a hit with tourists and locals. We found the food good, but once again, not great. I missed a photo of our conch appetizer. Carl had a steak and I had grouper.  
 

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July 8, 2015

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Saint Martin day 8: Hiking to Petite Cay from Anse Marcel

 On Saturday we started with breakfast at the little French bakery and cafe across the street from our apartment. We both ordered breakfast sandwiches which were served on an entire half of a baguette. We also had delicious croissants so half of my sandwich went back as leftovers.     

On our bike tour guide’s recommendation, we headed to a trail head in Anse Marcel to hike around Pointe des Froussards to Petite Cayes, a secluded set of beaches.
The first part of the hike was a gravel road that took us above Anse Marcel with a view of the marina there when there was a break in the brush. Next came some single track trail with interesting plant markers along the way. There were giant air plants which are apparently related to pineapple, this one was growing on a rock:

  

After climbing some rough trail for awhile we were rewarded with fantastic views of Petite Cayes.  

But then of course we had to scramble down some huge rocks to get to the water.      

We found a nice shaded bench to hang out on, read, and eat lunch. We explored the coast line and Carl swam in the waves for a bit before we hiked back out.   

We obviously deserved frozen fruity drinks after our hike so we stopped at a little bar on Anse Marcel beach and had some delicious drinks.  

Then we swam in the calm waters before heading back to our apartment.   

That evening we went into Grand Case for dinner at La Villa. The main waiter was super friendly and started us out with a free glass of champagne and an amuse bouche of tasty cold vegetable soup.

We started with an appetizer from the special board, baked Brie cheese with asparagus and a side of salad, all very good.  

For my meal I ordered the scallop appetizer, not realizing how tiny the scallops would be. At least they were delicious, paired with avocado, tomato, and sweet potato. Many of my much larger meals were not nearly this good.   

Carl had duck breast for his dinner and says it was very good, one of the better meals he had on vacation.   

Our dessert was a pear tart paired with a cold pear compote and caramel ice cream. Caramel ice cream isn’t my favorite, but the tart and compote were amazing. 
    
   

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July 4, 2015

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Saint Martin day 6: Ilet Pinel and sunset searching on Cupecoy Cliffs

On Thursday we headed to Ilet Pinel, a tiny uninhabited island off of the northeast coast of Saint Martin, not too far from where we are staying. You just go up the road to Cul De Sac and catch the ferry. We never saw a ferry schedule and just assumed it started early. Wrong. In the off season it starts at 10 am. Luckily we got there at 9:30 and didn’t wait too long. It’s only a 5 minute ferry ride and you can even kayak over if you’re so inclined. I wanted to take my DSLR, so the ferry was our best option. When we arrived, the beach was pristine and we had our pick of chairs at Karibuni beach club.  
We set our stuff down and headed for the hiking paths that would take us to all sides of the little island. First we went by the iguana colony. See grandma iguana surrounded by the younglings, even a tiny one to the right of grandma and behind the two juveniles. There were more… So many!

  We hiked over the hill to the Atlantic side beach, which was quite rough.  
Young me would have freaked out here because of the huge amount of broken up coral and shells. Big pieces! Someone constructed an artfully arranged pile on the beach. I still feel the pull to collect my favorite pieces, but it’s not allowed in a nature reserve like Ilet Pinel.

  

We followed the trails to each of the signs and had some great views of Pinel, Saint Martin and the surrounding islands. In this photo you see one of Pinel’s Atlantic side beaches, the thin channel separating it from Saint Martin, and then Saint Martin.   

A little peninsula jutting out from Pinel and Orient Bay of Saint Martin.

  

Pinel had the most lovely beach on the side towards Saint Martin.
After our hike we snorkeled where there used to be an official snorkel trail, but is now abandoned. 

 We had lunch on the beach at Karibuni beach club. Cod fish fritters, pork spring rolls, and a delicious fresh salad. Later I enjoyed a wonderful frozen mojito.  
   

  The last ferry leaves Pinel at 4, so we decided to try to walk along Cupecoy beach to look at the cliffs and see the sunset. We knew the beach would be thin, but apparently when we were there the beach was mostly gone so we ended up walking on the cliffs and settling down for the sunset. The cliffs had wonderfully colorful strata.
  

We enjoyed some wonderful strawberry infused sparkling wine picked up at Bacchus.  

We were able to see the sun near the horizon, but then it was obscured by clouds. Unfortunately the sky did not light up in wonderful colors.

 

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August 29, 2014

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Videos from our Alaskan hikes

I’ve finally slightly figured out how to do this GoPro video thing. I’ve been mostly using my GoPro for pictures, but we took it with us in Alaska and took some 360 degree videos from the top of the hikes we went on. I was able to use Adobe Premiere Elements to import those videos and stitch them together, much easier than when I tried to use the GoPro video app. So this first YouTube video is made up of multiple hikes, with the video taken with my GoPro. The hikes were the Savage Alpine Trail and Mt. Healy Overlook in Denali National Park, Flat Top in Anchorage, and the Harding Ice Field trail in Kenai Fjords National Park.

The second video was taken with a point and shoot camera, since somehow my GoPro battery was dead, despite charging it the night before. This one is probably my favorite though, because it’s video of a hand tram in the Kachemak Bay State Park near Homer, Alaska!