Economics With A Face

The best part about the rain was that we had the park all to ourselves. The area was incredible with the tropical rain forest coming right up to sandy beaches along the Pacific. A couple of times the downpour was so strong, it was difficult to tell if we were still on a trail or if we had suddenly ended up in a river coming off the mountain side. At one point the trail abruptly came to an end as several trees and lots of mud had fallen across it. As we found out later, this was in fact the result of a huge mudslide that we saw were able to see more of from a trail above. The rangers had not discovered it yet, but it was big. Taking out an entire hillside, hundreds of trees had been uprooted and had fallen into the sea below. It would have been trouble if anyone had been on that lower trail.

The mudslide prevented us from getting to a secluded cove with a beach for swimming, but I suppose we were already wet enough. Em waited around with hope to see some of the squirrel monkeys that the park is famous for, but except for a few teasing calls from up in the tree canopy, we were without luck. In fact hardly any animals were out and about in the heavy rain, but the views and the experience of being there by ourselves made it well worth it.

By the time we left the park we were soaked to the bone. The tide was in, and so the estuary crossing was much deeper and wider. A local with a small boat gave us a ride across so we didn’t have to swim. We are so soaked, I have no idea how we are going to dry out all these clothes and shoes without sun. We may just have to get used to the mildew.

Later, we walked down to the end of the beach and found the small hotel I had originally hoped to stay in. It was still a hotel and had not been turned into a restaurant. Go figure. Alas, the monkeys visiting this morning made our hotel more than worth it.

We are constantly moving. Tomorrow we are off to Monteverde in the center of Costa Rica.