Days 9 and 10 - Dolphins and dancing in the rain

 Day 9

I had had a text from  Eric to say that the boat trip was postponed until the following day. To be honest this suited me as I was still knackered from the efforts in Corcovado, my head still hurt, neck was sore and my feet were in tatters.

Honestly... I felt fine!! 

Pretty much the normal kinda broken for me, but an extra day to chill wouldn't go amiss. Besides La Palapa Hostel, where I was staying was the perfect place to chill, given that most of the animals in the jungle

I sat there in the morning, reading my book and watching the jungle and its occupants which came to say hello every now and again. I caught the racoon making his way into the kitchen and he then scurried away.

The squirrels were active today as well and I watched them for a while.

I did drag myself out for a very late lunch/early dinner and lodged myself in one of the sodas. The sodas here serve good cheap local food. Dinner was essentially rice, veg and some meat. very simple but very filling. This one had some. curry flavour to the veg which was really nice and different.

Just as I was finishing up, the rain came down

.. 

in a deluge...

no it didn't stop and after 20 minutes of waiting I decided. to go. Essentially I got as far as the other side of the street, when it came down even harder and I ducked under an awning to wait....

just then a taxi drove by... I looked at him... he looked at me... stopped and i jumped in. It was only a 2 minute ride but it saved me getting my only really dry pair of shorts, wet.

Day 10...

I woke up early and confirmed with Eric that the boat and snorkelling tour was on. I grabbed my. full face snorkel mask, put my swimming kit on(shorts and a kayak top), put the rest of my essentials (water, wallet etc) in a waterproof bag and headed down to the dock.

There I bumped into Adonis (Croc man) who was waiting with a load of people for a boat over to Golfito for an appointment he had. Unfortunately he hadn't got a ticket and it looked like there were too many people for the boat.

I was looking for a man known as pucho and picked him out when 2 other ladies asked him if he was pucho... job done for me. The 2 ladies were from the states and the 3 of us followed Pucho to his boat, clambered into it and he set off into the Gulf.

Golfo Dulce was a very large inlet, so deep that it is where humpback whales choose to. come and give birth and then train their little ones to swim and avoid predators here before taking them out into the big bad wide world. It was apparently the beginning of the season so most of them would be near the mouth of the Golf whereas we were heading further in. We first spotted a fin in the distance and got excited as the boat headed towards in, cameras at the ready. 

.... 

and then it disappeared and didn't resurface. We scanned around.... 

there... 

again cameras out but when we got there they disappeared. Not quite ready to play. Then one burst up on the other side of the boat, making one of the 2 ladies jump! 

One, two, three... so many... 

all swimming around and under the boat. There were a few smaller ones and then a couple of large adult ones that looked a bit battered... scarred fins. 

We watched them for over an hour, diving up and around. When we moved. off, they seemed to enjoy surfing the wake of the boat for a bit! 

At one point, we also saw a turtle, at least its head, but it dissappeared quicker than I could get my camera out. 

We then headed over to a more secluded place on the other side of the Golfo Dulce. When we were in position, Pucho asked if we wanted to snorkel... of course. If nothing else I wanted to try the full face mask out. 

We clambered in... 

I put on the mask but something wasnt quite right and it filled with water. I tried to get in the boat again to fix the straps better, but the boat had such high sides, it made it very difficult to get up when you were treading water. So Pucho towed me to a place where I could stand and I managed to fix the mask. In the course of the towing, my legs floated up under the boat, scratching my knees to shreds on all the barnacles underneath. 

Hopefully the sharks won't smell the blood! 

I fixed the mask tighter and started swimming over the coral. As promised, visibility was really poor due to the recent rains, but it was more as an opportunity to try out this type of mask. 

I really liked it... once I had got used to it, it meant I could breathe through my nose underwater and the wide window meant I had really good vision all around. 

Despite the water being pretty poor visibility wise, I did see a school of I think parrot fish (like Dory in finding nemo) but that was about all that was really clear. 

We didn't snorkell for long but it was a useful exercise for the equipment... who knows, my next holiday may be a beach one 😁😂

Getting back into the boat was an interesting exercise... I managed to clamber in from the shallows... this boat deffo wasn't made for snorkelling off...

The 2 ladies got assistance from another boat which had a platform but again there were a lot of scratches from barnacles and bleeding. knees. The great thing in some ways was the complete lack of health and safety... no forms to fill in because of some blood, no lifejackets, no waiver forms... just get on the boat and have fun!

We travelled back again. watching the dolphins... there was a massive group/pod of around 50 I think.

They were completely non plussed by the boat and swam under it, popping up beside us and then diving down again. So fun to watch and so lucky to get soo close to them.

We were outrunning the storm that we could see moving along the mainland to puerto jiminez. In some places, the black cloud had obliterated everything.

We docked and said goodbye and went in opposite directions... I hastened back to La Palapa... knowing that I was about to get soaked... again. The rain started before I got to safety, so is all I could do was shrug. I was in my swimming shorts anyway so it didn't really matter

I knew that the snake hunt tonight would be called off... and sure enough Eric rang and left a message to that effect... which meant I had to brave the deluge to get back my money. La Palapa were kind enough to let me borrow an umbrella and I dived into town, picked up my 25 dollars and ran back again.

Then I had my last evening of sitting. listening to the sounds of nature. The proprieter, Jackie, told me about  the sloth that had been sitting in the tree and pointed out a bundle which I could just about make out....

A while later I heard the distinct crashing that monkeys make and out of curiosity went to see if they had annoyed the sloth enough to make her move... sure enough, as I stared up, there she was... slowly reaching across branches in an effort to get to the next tree and out of the way of the monkeys! Wow, she was so clear and easy to see compared with my other sighting.. I even managed a short video of her moving across.

(Video will be uploaded onto my you tube channel along with the dolphins videos - link below

https://youtube.com/channel/UC7vCqpW8KQ6Q--JnT_RKD1A) 

I danced about in the rain, ecstatic about this recent animal sighting!

It was like La Palapa was saying goodbye... I was quite sad to leave this little oasis of calm. But I was headed back to San Jose tomorrow and then to Tortuguero for an altogether different experience. 

I sat watching the night draw in... La Palapa had one more surprise for me... 

The racoon came right up to me, clearly wondering if I had food... you are not supposed to feed the animals. I told him I wasnt allowed to give him any of the bread roll I had. I wrapped it up and packed it away...

He looked at me with big eyes.. pretty cute little thing.

I told him no... and walked away. I don't think I dropped any bread on the way out... there wasn't any there when I went back to double check....

I went back to my room and organised my. stuff, packed up ready to leave in the morning. Another early start awaited me!