Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui

Good morning! Today a bit later as I sleep better every night and have no time to write at night 😅 it's 8 o'clock now and we've already had breakfast and explored the area. But let's start from the beginning...

Yesterday morning we had a nice breakfast in La Fortuna. This time I had my phone with me and took some pictures.

We saw great birds, very close to us in the tree. Probably 5 of them. They look a bit like toucans. Also colorful with a large curved beak.

During breakfast, we met an Austrian immigrant who has been in Costa Rica for 15 months and wants to explore some regions. It was very interesting to talk to her.

Then we set off. Said goodbye to all the dogs 😅. But my goal was to see a sloth 🦥.

We decided to visit a reserve that you can explore yourself. Only 800 meters away, but very concentrated with many animals. It wasn't fenced.

And actually, we were lucky. We saw a two-toed sloth and a three-toed sloth. It was difficult to take pictures because they live very high up in the trees. We even had more luck. The sloth is called the sloth because it doesn't move much. Especially not during the day. However, one sloth cleaned itself, ate, and even crawled along the branch for a bit. Of course, in slow motion. Very sloth-like 🤩🦥.

Then we saw caimans, many frogs, a Jesus Christ lizard, and many beautiful butterflies. By the way, butterflies here are actually much bigger than at home. I added a picture with the cocoons. They look totally unreal. Very fascinating.

We were very satisfied and continued driving towards the east, towards the Caribbean coast. After a few navigation difficulties, we were on the right road. Navigating is not that easy. The towns don't have signs. We would be pretty lost without Google Maps. Although we really try to navigate most of it with a paper map. But like I said, we constantly wonder where we are. Town signs are really cool 🙈😂.

Our new accommodation that I booked through Airbnb was 20 minutes away from Puerto Viejo. But we stopped in the town and bought groceries. Then we arrived at our new accommodation around 3:30 pm. A real stroke of luck. A detached house on a large plot of land with leafy trees and palm trees. Located by a river. When we entered the river, a lot of turtles greeted us.

Basically, there is only one room with beds and a nice bathroom, everything else is outside. Big table for eating, seating, and a great outdoor kitchen.

In the evening, the son of the property manager went with us to the nearest town and we bought fish and meat for dinner. He offered to cook for us tonight. I'm curious if it will work out. I have heard a lot about the reliability of the Ticos 🙈😅.

I will report. Everyone here is really nice and helpful without exception. We can communicate almost effortlessly in English. This morning we explored the area. We met a dog that looks just like Kathy, Mom. She walked a bit with us. When we came back to the property, the neighbor's dog greeted us. It looks like our neighbor's dog Willi, only in brown.

The kids squeezed orange juice for us for breakfast. By the way, oranges are green. For whatever reason. And while I'm writing this, Marco and the kids are busy opening coconuts and filtering coconut water. Maybe I'll get some coconut flesh too.

We don't have much planned for today. Just take it slow and relax a bit. See you tomorrow!