Los Suenos Marina, Herradura, Costa Rica

It's been some time since we last updated our blog. One key reason is that we have been stationary at Los Suenos marina, Herradura in Costa Rica for 2 and a half months. It's a great marina that has no less than 7 restaurants including an amazing sushi place! 

We haven't only been relaxing though and have also been busy working and preparing the boat for our trip south as well. Serena went back to work in the US while I worked on the boat in Costa Rica. 

Serena went to Texas, California and Illinois and even managed a visit to see Nicole in Canada. We also managed to travel together back to San Francisco where we were able to finally get our storage container emptied and visit all of our friends at Westpoint. 

While Serena was in the office, I visited Santa Monica Blvd

As a consequence of emptying our storage locker we now have items that no other cruiser in the Pacific is likely to have, two sets of ski's. We also brought back two bikes! We got some strange looks at the airport arriving in Costa Rica with ski's, but also some strange looks in the US when we checked in 6 very unusually shaped bags. When we returned to the boat we had to get to work in making room for all of this extra stuff so we had a massive week long clear out where we became quite famous for our trash with the marina workers. We hadn't realized that they go through everyones rubbish and recycle everything and so they had a field day with all of the stuff we were getting rid of. We literally had 5 sacks of rubbish a day for a week. Here are some pictures just to give you an idea of the size of this little project. 

I hate to think of the distance most of this has traveled and how much faster the boat might have been without it. 

Serena has been dying to see a crocodile since Mexico where we saw many croc warning signs but no actual crocs. Well that all changed while were in Los Suenos and have now seen more than we care for. You wont find us swimming off the back of the boat as often as we used to.

So now that the boat is in order we're ready to leave the comforts of Los Suenos and head back out into the wild! Our first stop is Manuel Antonio national park.

Drakes Bay - Indiana Moreton and the temple of monkeys

On August 15th we travelled from Manuel Antonio to Drakes Bay, where we spent 3 days exploring. Drakes bay is on south west coast of Costa Rica and was until recently, inaccessible by land. There are only a few dirt roads that lead to the village from the water, and which are only accessible during dry season. We were very happy to find a nice dinghy dock at Drakes bay where we could step off our boat onto dry land, what a luxury! It was nice not to have to plan a beach landing, where we usually have a 50-50 chance of getting very wet. It was also nice not to have to figure out how and where to tie our boat up and wonder if it might still be there when we return from our adventures ashore.

The dinghy dock

After tying up the dinghy, we decided to try and find somewhere to have breakfast and discovered that the dinghy dock belonged to an ecolodge that has a couple of cool restaurants that look almost like tree houses, sitting on the waterfront. Unfortunately the restaurants are for residents only unless booked in advance, so we weren't able to get breakfast there. The waiter at the restaurant pointed us in the direction of the village where we would be able to find some food, so we headed off through the jungle to find the road.

View of Solent from the jungle.

Giant bamboo

As we walked through the grounds of the eco lodge, we spotted a gardener who was collecting tropical plants for this stunning arrangement. We also saw a few guests and noticed how differently we were dressed to them. They were fully kitted out in their jungle outfits of quick dry, long but convertible trousers, long sleeve shirts and hiking boots. We must be getting used to being in the jungle as we were wearing flip flops!

Finally we made it to the dirt road which we followed past the school, through a river, over a river and into the village. The village is very small, but we managed to find a cool place up the hill where we had a really good breakfast and some fresh rainforest coffee. Whilst eating breakfast we had the most amazing view of a large group of scarlet macaws sitting in the trees. Scarlet macaws are the largest parrots in the world, so it was great to see them in their natural habitat. There was also an open air supermarket attached to the restaurant, brilliant!

Road to village

Drakes bay school

Scarlet Macaw

The open air supermarket

Crossing one of the old and rusty suspension bridges.

Crocodiles below!

Drakes bay was Sir Francis Drake's most likely landing spot on the west coast of north America during his travels around the world in the 16th century. Apparently it is also the location of some of the British pirates hidden treasures.

The following day we decided to go on a treasure hunt. Lee decided to wear his Indiana Jones outfit and bring along his lasso just in case. After a while trekking uphill through the jungle we came upon another suspension bridge. This one was much longer and higher than the others we had seen and really did look like it was part of a movie set. As we approached the bridge we saw that a large group of monkeys were making their way across the bridge towards us. Lee was keen to cross the bridge full of monkeys, but I hadn't forgotten about our last monkey encounter and managed to persuade him to wait until they had crossed before we did. I didn't fancy having flying screaming monkeys jumping in my face whilst hanging onto a rusty old suspension bridge surrounded by crocs! Once the monkeys had disappeared into the trees we headed across.

Lee, keen to get on the bridge

Lee catching dinner.

Watch out Indiana!

Lookout point at Drakes Bay

Solent anchored in Drakes Bay

Me checking for creatures before relaxing in this hammock chair

Me pretending that the hammock is really comfortable and relaxing

We didn't find any treasure but we did manage to hunt down this monument presented by the city of Plymouth, England. It translates to something like "Commemorating the ship's visit, Drake, the "Golden Hind" to this bay to source fresh water during his circumnavigation of the globe"

Kindred spirits?

Exploring El Salvador

 El Salvador is a small country and since we were only planning on staying for a short time, we decided to organize a trip inland to optimize what we could see. We decided on an archeological tour of the local Mayan ruins and started investigating the best tour companies. The company we chose had a nice air conditioned van with a brilliant tour guide and driver and we set off early in the morning for our first stop, Joya de Ceren.

Joya De Ceren is a pre columbian Maya farming village that was preserved by volcanic ash. It was preserved when a volcano in close proximity erupted, forcing the people to flee and leave everything exactly where it was, so you can see exactly how they lived and what they ate. Food was found on plates and soup left in pots over fires, which indicates the haste in which they departed. The farming community of Joya de Ceren was inhabited as early as 900 BC and was evacuated when the nearby volcano erupted in AD 536. Unfortunately only 10 percent of the site is on display.  The rest is still underground, left untouched as exposure to the elements has caused those parts that have been exposed to rapidly deteriorate from rain erosion which you can clearly see in the pictures. The ruins should be kept in climate controlled buildings so that they can be properly preserved and protected and the Salvadorians have been heavily critisized by archeologists from other countries because of this. Unfortunately they just don't have the money to do this, so the best way to preserve them is to simply leave them underground for the future. They still struggle to protect these sites from the heavy rain and humidity and have to have a significant army detachment patrol the grounds at night to stop the looters!

Our guide pointed out this bird, the Torogoz which is the national bird of El Salvador. Apparently it symbolizes family because it participates with its mate in the caring of its young, awwwww.

 

This is an ancient steam room. The Mayans believed that you could sweat out your demons or illness, so they would crawl through the very small doorway and sit in this steam room. The circular thing on top was used to control the climate as a pressure release valve...

This is a Cocoa pod. Yes its chocolate in its rawest form and apparently this was the inspiration behind the coca cola bottle.

Here you can see three structures, at the back there's a bedroom where you can see the bed. In the middle is a store room and the in the front is the kitchen area. The rooms were all separate incase of fire, very sensible. 

This building is where the people would visit for the telling of their future. It was very much like the Catholic confessional with the priest in a separate room.

This is a ripe Cocoa pod.

Coffee

After Joya De Ceren we visited San Andres which is where the political and ceremonial sites are located. The granduer of these sites is more evident as this was the residence of kings. The kings maintained their dominence from their superior knowledge. The kings knew when there would be a full moon and solar eclipse, so the people thought that they had direct communication with the gods.

Next on the list was a panoramic visit to Coatepeque lake. This lake is fabulous and has been a popular site for Salvadorian honeymooners for centuries. I can see why.


Next we visited Santa Ana city.

Santa Ana Theatre

Our guide pointed of the cashew fruit. Did you know that the cashew nut grows just underneath this orange cashew fruit? I had no idea. The Salvadorian people eat both the fruit and the nut. You can see the nut shell just underneath the fruit. The nut is poisonous until it is roasted and only then is it safe to eat. I always wondered why cashew nuts were so expensive. Can you imagine how many of these you would have to pick and roast to make a a jar of nuts!

We bought a large bag from a local street merchant and suddenly didn't feel bad at all for spending $5 for a bag of cashews! This guy weighed them out with copper weights on a hanging scale.

Our final stop was a visit to the Tazumal archaeological site

Human sacrifice was performed on the chest like platform at the top of the stairs. The priest would stand in-between the two large rectangular boxes with each have two holes in the top and bottom which would act like speakers! Apparently the amplification was amazing and Lee is going to investigate how this works as it's amazing for it's time!