It's been a while since our last log, but we somehow manage to fill our days with exploring, doing nothing, and relaxing. We're getting up earlier then we used to at home and going to bed earlier and staying busy all day. Even everyday actions like grocery shopping and errands take longer when they're done on a bus. And we're spending more time relaxing, reading, and socializing with other boats. Not a bad life!

After a week in the touristy but fun surf town of Tamarindo, we were ready for new adventures. The anchorage was a bit rolly, and the dingy ride was through some pretty big waves, usually at night after a few beers at the bar.

We took advantage of the touristy opportunities in Tamarindo. I went on a horseback ride to see howler monkeys, and a boat tour up the river estuary to see many shorebirds and osprey. I also saw:

• A tree full of howler monkeys
• Osprey
• Boat billed herons
• Blue herons
• Whimbrel
• Hummingbirds
• Spotted sandpiper

Bahia Carillo
From Tamarindo, we worked our way down the West side of the Nicoya Peninsula to a beautiful anchorage called Bahia Cabrillo. It's a long, wide sandy beach lined with thousands of coconut palm trees. We took a bus into the town of Samara and sat on a beautiful beach and ate ceviche. Ceviche is readily available here and has become a favorite dish. It's white fish cured in lime juice with cilantro and tomatoes and served cold with crackers. We've been eating it several times a week and never get tired of it.

Marc found a local, unnamed, secret surf spot right in our anchorage.

Bahia Ballena (Whale Bay)
Bahia Ballena, on the east side of the Nicoya Peninsula was a memorable stop. It's a long, sandy beach in a large protective cove with the small town of Tambor in the center. Tambor is little more than a grocery store, a local bar, and a couple hotels. Down the beach is one of the largest resorts in Costa Rica, owned by the Spanish hotel chain Barcelo. There has been a great deal of controversy about the construction of this resort, as they filled in a river and didn't use environmentally-friendly building techniques when they constructed it.

We spent lots of time at the local Tico (what Costa Ricans call themselves). We discovered that Tico bars offer free "bocas", small bar snacks, for every beer you consume. This bar offered small fish pulled right out of the water, fried whole with garlic. With a little splash of lime, they were delicious.

Puntarenas
Our next stop was off to the big city of Puntarenas. Beth was coming to join us, and Puntarenas has a marina where it was easy to leave the boat and travel inland. The marina is located down a river that has very shallow sections. It was dicey maneuvering the boat through shallows of 6 feet and around sandbars, but we did it successfully, albeit slowly.

The city of Puntarenas itself is unremarkable and the river we're moored in is filthy. You'll often seen bags of trash float by, and you definitely don't want to end up in the water. However, the city has good grocery stores, hardware stores, and boat stores.

We had several boat projects to do, and purchased some new fans to try to fight the heat and humidity. We thought we'd be here for a week and have now been here for almost two weeks. However, the marina has great facilities like showers, a restaurant, and a swimming pool so we've been living large. They also have superb security, with the marina personnel checking every boat every 30 minutes around the clock.

We left the boat safely moored and did some inland travel to see the rest of Costa Rica that we're missing from the coast.

Rancho Mastatal
Our first trip was to the agricultural village of Mastatal, population 150. This town, hidden in the mountains and jungle, is so small that most Costa Ricans don't even know it exists. Which made getting directions problematic.

About 50% of Ticos don't own cars. Consequently, the Costa Rican bus system is fantastic and even the smallest of towns have bus service. To get to Mastatal, we had to catch one of the two buses a day. The buses look like Greyhound buses, and they're driven daily up bumpy, gravel, unpaved, and pothole-ridden roads.

This trip was quite an adventure. We bumped up a hairpin windy and mountainous gravel road. Dirt blowing in the windows. For about $1.50 per person, we rode the bus for about 2 hours. We were finally dropped off in the middle of nowhere at the end of a dirt road leading into the jungle.

The next challenge was to hike 7 kilometers (about 2 miles?) down a hilly gravel road Got dropped off in the middle of nowhere and had to hike 7 km to the ranch. It was getting dark and we had no idea whether we were in the right spot, or where we were heading. Fortunately, Marc's Spanish has gotten pretty good and we started to ask around.

Unfortunately, the first person we asked was the town crazy person. An old man tending a cow along the road. We asked "is this road to Mastatal?" He responded with the word "Mastatal", followed by an evil cackle that sounded to us like "you're lost and you will never make it before dark in the jungle." After a sweaty hour and a half of walking, we reached the ranch unannounced.

Rancho Mastatal is a communal living situation run by two former Seattleites. They own two houses on 250 acres of jungle. The ranch offers a bunk bed in the guest house (or a hammock outside on the porch) and substantial and delicious vegetarian meals for about $20 per day.

The property contains waterfalls, rivers, and abundant birds and other wildlife. It borders La Cangreja Forest Reserve, Costa Rica's newest park, dedicated to preserve the last virgin rainforest of the remote mountainous area between the southern coast and the northern cities. Residents of this park include sloths, monkeys, boa constrictors, poison-dart frogs, coyotes, anteaters, blue morpho butterflies, and scarlet macaws. We did our best to see all of them.

Check out the slideshow of our hike around Rancho Mastatal.

We spent three nights at Mastatal, and spent the days hiking and birdwatching. The trail led us through the dense jungle and went by two waterfalls and swimming holes with icy and refreshing water. We hiked about three hours a day and were constantly stopping for animals:

• Poison dart frog: a vivid green and black spotted frog. We were cautioned not to lick the frog, because it secretes a deadly poison through its skin. Indigenous tribes used to gather this poison and put it on the tips of their arrowheads.
• Blue Morpho butterfly: the most incredible butterfly I've seen. It's the size of a small bird, with iridescent turquoise wings on top and yellow undersides. It literally glitters as it wings its way through the patches of sunlight in the forest.
• Iguanas: these are plentiful in Costa Rica, and we've had almost daily sightings. They can range from a foot long to five feet long. I was taking an afternoon siesta in a hammock outside when I woke up to see a five-foot long iguana watching me.
• Armadillo: we encountered an armadillo walking along the road to Mastatal from the bus stop. They are funny looking leathery creatures, with surprisingly furry legs sticking out of their shells.
• Mussarana snake: we were hiking along when Marc almost stepped on a 4-foot black snake. Luckily, it was a non-poisonous snake that eats the deadly fer-de-lance snake. I didn't get a good look at it, because I was too busy running back down the trail away from the snake.
• Hummingirds: Costa Rica has 52 species of hummingirds, and we have seen them flitting everywhere! The velocity of their wings and their ability to fly backwards and sideways is amazing.

Rancho Mastatal also has a volunteer program where people can work five hours a day and pay $10 for their living expenses. Volunteer jobs include trail and grounds maintenance, and many other projects. Lately, the volunteers have been building a house for an American expat. They were using native materials and building techniques to build a gorgeous house. They used local river rocks for the foundation; large rounds of bamboo stacked vertically, with the gaps packed with a mixture of sand, clay, and manure (I was surprised that it didn't smell); and tropical cedar for the wall construction.

Quepos and Manuel Antonio
After returning from the hot, sweaty, and slow bus rides, we rented a 4x4 car so we could travel more efficiently. We headed south from Puntarenas down to the beach and Manuel Antonio National Park in search of surf. At one beach stop, we saw two scarlet macaws perched in the trees on the beach.

We spent two nights in the former banana port of Quepos at a family-owned hotel called Cabinas Mary. Quepos is a great little town with lots of restaurants and a great base for exploring Manuel Antonio National Park.

We spent the day hanging from trees and zipping through the jungle on a zip-wire canopy tour. We were hoping and hollering so much we scared the wildlife away, but we did get to zip down wires of 1200 feet and rappelling from 200 feet above the ground.

Check out the slideshow of our canopy tour.

In search of wildlife, we went to the bar. The Anaconda bar at a resort has very scheduled squirrel monkeys that appear from the trees every night at 6 p.m. About 30 squirrel monkeys showed up right on time and ate bananas out of our hands.

The next stop was the El Avion bar, built from one of the planes funded by Ollie North to deliver supplies to the Nicagaruan Sandinistas in the 1980s. The plane was deserted by the US at the San Jose airport, and was reassembled in Quepos as a bar.

Here, we sampled Guaro, the local Costan Rican firewater, brewed from sugar cane. It has the taste of a grain alcohol, and the hangover is supposed to be just as deadly.

Volcan Arenal
From the beach, we headed north about 91 kilometers to Arenal, one of Costa Rica's five active volcanoes. Dormant until the 1960s, nobody knew it was a volcano until a series of eruptions. The pyramid-shaped volcano towers over the entire area. In July 1968, earthquakes shook the area and the volcano blew, sending out shock waves that were recorded as far as Boulder, Colorado.

The volcanic eruptions are quite common and the town residents seem to have come to peace with living under a volcano. From our hotel, we could see the red glow of explosions, and red lava and stones bouncing hundreds of feet down the side of the volcano. Luckily, the volcano is completely closed to hikers, but it's a scary and exhilarating feeling to realize you've chosen to enter this blast zone.

We went to the thermal springs (six different pools with varying temperatures). The resort has a swim-up bar and a great view of the active side of the volcano. So, we lounged in the hot waters, sipped daiquiris in the pool, and watched the volcano spew lava.

The next day, we drove through the incredible countryside of Lake Arenal, a huge reservoir where people windsurf and boat. The countryside is green and lush with rolling hills.

Take a look at the photos of Volcano Arenal and our hike around the Lake.

We should be leaving Puntarenas by March 15, and heading south again to see Manuel Antonio by boat. Then, further south to Panama and through the Panama Canal.