Costa Rican day 2 and Critters!

Today was quite a busy day. It started bright and early with a 7:30 pick-up for our kayaking trip. We kayaked out to a beach a little ways off and stopped for a brief snorkeling trip. The region north of jaco is experiencing super strong winds (I hear 60-90 mph!!!) which has churned the ocean up quite a bit, even in the much calmer playa [beach] Jaco. Unfortunately, that also means relatively cloudy conditions for snorkeling. Despite this problem, I did however find several very bright blue fish which I think were some type of wrasse (however this is such a large family encompassing so many different species, I am probably safe guessing wrasse). I also think there were a couple of surgeon fish or butterfly fish, but it was hard to tell from above through the murky waters. After a brief break on the shores and some delicious fresh pina [pineapple], sandia [watermellon], and coconut we hopped back in the kayaks to head back to the vans.

Following our kayak adventure was our second surfing lesson. My mom did great catching a bunch of waves all the way in to the shore! I had a couple of good waves today, but I tanked on a bunch of waves and the instructor just kind of looked at me and gave me a look that said, "what just happened?" I also was trying really hard to get the board turned parallel to the wave to ride it in, but I just couldn't get it around! I asked him for advice and he said, " don't know why you are having problems, that is just strange. it is so easy." Well great. Anyways, I did catch one that I got the board around and I did have a few I road all the way in on, so it was still good. This evening my mom and I continued on for a Bikram class at the studio at the hotel. It was a good way to end the day.

Anyway, I promised critters in this blog. Sadly, because I didn't have my camera out with us during all of the water adventures, I don't have my own pictures to share of all of the exciting animals, but I found some pictures from other sites. The first evening we were here, we were eating dinner outside in the resteraunt and pieces of bark kept falling from a nearby tree. I was really confused until someone came out with a flashlight and found up in the tree a coatimundi or "pizote." They are kind of like the tropical racoon.

(from naturalphotos.com)

Today during our surf lesson we actually spotted several different types of birds: the giant frigate birds (or fragata en espanol) and the beautiful macaw. The Macaws were flying in a group overhead, so I am not entirely sure if it was the scarlet macaws, but they definitely looked red and blue so I think it is quite possible.

(two scarlet macaws from http://cityparrots.org)