Our farewell dinner took place at L’Olvio, the Italian restaurant around the corner from our hotel. The food was great, but this is definitely not a restaurant to frequent if you are in a hurry. It was an hour before our food started to arrive, one dinner at a time. But the food was very good, and luckily, we were not in a rush.
Randy managed to get everyone (except himself) into one photo,
so I fixed that by taking this photo of him with his lovely wife,Cindy. I’m so glad that they are coming on the post trip, along with Mike and Jo-Lynne, Jolene and me.
The start of OAT’s post trip was a little sad, because we had to say goodbye to Esther, Cindy, Edwin, Lee Fa, Phil, Marianne, and Lester.
We will miss them all greatly, but especially Edwin’s superb translation skills, and Phil’s excellent photos. At least we still have Malo, who is an amazing photographer. I’m sure he will miss Edwin the most, because Malo will now have to do ALL the translations…no breaks for him!
Before we posed at the airport, I told Randy I’d hang all over him so he looks like he travels with TWO chicks. Is it my imagination, or does he look a little worried? Cindy was rightfully unconcerned.
I’m glad the 7 of us were the only passengers because the plane was TINY! So how many times do you think I bumped my head?
Our boarding pass was almost as big as the airplane!
Here’s what Mike and Jo-Lynne think about our flight. They were in the second row. Now how did THEY get to be in business class?
Because we were flying so low, we were able to get a spectacular view of Costa Rica, starting with the arial view of San Jose,
and ending with the Caribbean Sea.
We still had another leg of our journey, because you can only get to Tortuguero by boat. No cars or buses are allowed on what is essentially a sand bar and yep, I bumped my head yet again climbing into the boat.
We had just enough time to watch a short video about the efforts to save turtles from extinction and walk into town before we checked into our lodge.
Where did our group end up? In a bar, overlooking the river, of course.
Malo told us that Tortuguero’s nickname is “the little Amazon” because of the abundance of wildlife along the river. That was also the case by our lodge’s pool. For those of us willing to get up early, (Jolene and me) Malo offered to take us on an optional tour starting at 6 AM. Our reward? Rare footage of a spider monkey pooping,
and having the jungle (and pool area) all to ourselves.
Because weather has always been somewhat unpredictable in the tropics, and now even more so due to climate change, we were very grateful we were given ponchos for our morning cruise.
Despite the poncho, I still got soaked, but the wildlife we saw made the intermittent showers inconsequential.
Tonight is our last night at the Pachira Lodge. Our return to San Jose is first by boat, then by bus. We spend the night in San Jose and fly home the next morning.
My last afternoon in this paradise was spent by the river, with a tropical drink, catching up with some of the important people in my life and writing this post. The perfect ending to a wonderful trip!
Next adventure, Antarctica in February.
Destination NOW 