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Next Stop Samara

2/26/2016

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We were sad to leave sweatshirt weather behind.  After a three hour drive we arrived at our destination, Samara.  Casa Pacifica was a nice house with a pool and was a short walk to the beach.  However, it did not have a nice view but that was ok because we finally had air conditioning in the entire house!

During the days we did schoolwork, swam and went to the beach.  Our first morning there we heard all sorts of weird noises on the roof.  Mom went to investigate and we found out the answer -- large lizards that are similar to iguanas!  They were climbing and sliding on the metal roof.  The scraping and screeching noises from their claws hurt our ear drums!

On the second night Dad, Mom and I went out for dinner.  As we were leaving our driveway Dad said, "Oh bleep!  The brakes just went out!"  We almost ran over the security guard.  It was a good thing it happened there and not the day before driving down from Monteverde!

We still went out for dinner thanks to our friend Victor.  A mariachi band serenaded us.  I was trying very hard not to laugh!
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The Sights of Monteverde

2/20/2016

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PictureClimbing inside a ficus tree! Read Ryan's blog for more.....
We left Rancho El Rio where it was very dry.  Traveling on a curvy, bumpy, dusty gravel road to Monteverde took a long time even though it wasn't that far away.

When we first got out of the car we yelled, "Oh man it is cold!  We need sweatshirts!"  I thought Costa Rica was a place where you wore a swimsuit every day.  Not in Monteverde!  It was a nice surprise.

After we got settled into the house we decided we would grab some lunch, visit the Monteverde Butterfly Gardens, and go on a chocolate tour.

The butterfly gardens also had a creepy crawlers section.  Inside there was a giant cockroach named Timmy.  Our guide told us how they have a bad reputation for being dirty and gross.  Actually they have a cute face if you turn them over to look and they are quite clean.  She even put Timmy in her mouth to prove it!  My favorite was the stick insect.  They are so well camouflaged they look exactly like a stick.  They asked me to release a newly formed blue morpho butterfly into the butterfly garden.  I learned that you can touch a butterfly's wings as long as you do it carefully.

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The chocolate "tour" was actually learning all about the history of cocoa beans and different ways to make chocolate.  While roasting cocoa beans, he told us different facts such as how beans were used for money by the Mayans 3500 years ago.  The aroma of the roasting beans smelled like brownies cooking!  However, when they were finished they didn't taste like brownies.  He put them through a homemade blower machine to knock the papery shells off.  Next he ground them up and kept grinding until they became liquid.  He mixed this with hot milk, sugar and vanilla.  It was pretty good.  Finally, he talked a bunch about tempering and crystallization.  It was boring and I didn't understand most of it because I was busy thinking about eating the chocolate!
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On Wednesday Melvin, our guide, took us to his family's farm.  It is called an Ecología Finca which means it is an ecological preserve.  They work to keep the wildlife and their habitats happy and healthy.  Melvin's sister has a pizza restaurant there and they have a place to feed the birds.  So many birds came to eat off banana pieces.  I now have my favorite bird of Costa Rica it is called the blue crowned mot mot.  Zelmira is also a painter.  She was working on handmade cards and books.  I was touched when she gave me a toucan card she had painted. We went on a long hike.  Along one section we saw puma tracks from the night before.  Melvin was very excited about the prints, "¡Muy increíble!"
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Later that day we stopped by the Hummingbird Gallery.  It is a store and cafe with many feeders outside.  Hundreds of humming birds were zipping all around.  It was a feeding frenzy!  There were so many different colors and sizes of birds.  It was a great experience!
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Traveling Again!

2/15/2016

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¡Hola mis amigos!  Hi to my friends in Mrs Williams class!  I miss you all!

I graduated Spanish class last week.  It was fun and I learned a lot but I'm happy to be moving on.
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We are near Monteverde staying at a big farm for 2 days.  It is a self sustaining farm which means they grow their own food and have animals too.  They have lots of fruit trees, a milking cow, water buffalo, a cow, pigs, sheep, horses and chickens.  The farm is located on a river.  The river is fun because the water is cold, clean and has pools to swim in!  The house is very rustic but it is cozy and there is an old foosball table on the back patio.  

We woke up early to help Jose milk the cow and feed the animals.  Milking the cow was kind of disgusting. The baby fed first to help get it started.  He was a very slobbery drinker!  They barely cleaned the cow with water before we starting milking her.  We decided to drink our store bought milk this morning instead of fresh.  Feeding the pigs and sheep was very dusty but they didn't mind.

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After breakfast we walked to the Guacimal Sustainability Center.  We had to cross the river in three places.  It felt good because it is hot here.  We  were greeted by a 5 week old baby donkey named Elsa.  They had turkeys, more pigs, sheep, an emu and a coati.  The coati has lived there since it was a baby.  It is similar to a raccoon but it has a very long tail.   He is free to leave but he doesn't want to.  He is good friends with a crazy, playful dog that lives there.  The people that own Rancho El Rio own and live in the sustainability center.  They are educating the people in the community about organic farming.  The center is the place in the community where people gather to do activities.  They do lots of different things there. They are working to help save the rivers in Costa Rica.
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After I do some schoolwork we are going to go swim in the river again!
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Muchos Monos (Many Monkeys)

2/10/2016

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The other day my mom and I encountered a bunch of monkeys.  They were by the pool and so close we could almost touch them.  More importantly they could touch us which was a bit intimidating!  There were 2 different groups of white faced capuchins that came through.  They were leaping from tree to tree!  Near us 5 monkeys sat in a palm tree.  They were opening coconuts with their teeth and claws then they drank the coconut milk.  We could hear them slurping.  One monkey kept trying to scare us.  She made her teeth show, hissed and would shake the palm branch at us.  It made us a little nervous!
The next afternoon I saw that there was a monkey in our kitchen.  We startled each other!  A bunch more monkeys came.  We gave them a ton of bananas and several came into the house to grab one.  It was really cool and funny!
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Drake Bay

2/2/2016

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​We sure have done a lot this last week!  Our time at Casa Ramone was over and we moved to our next rental home called Portocito Point.  It is very close by but it is a different kind of house.  The other was fancy and modern.  This one is older but the sunset is a million dollar view.  There is no air conditioning in the main living space but it all opens up to the outside.  We have 20 tent making bats that live in the front courtyard and fly around every night.  Sometimes one or two come through the house!  We also have Ralph and Maude who are black headed vultures.  They look so funny.  Ralph and I are buddies because I give him scraps every morning.  He hangs out on the patio waiting for me.

Last Friday we went to Drake Bay which is located on the Osa Peninsula.  We had to take a boat to get there  When we arrived we checked into a nice place called Tranquilo Lodge.  We had a canopy zip line tour scheduled in the afternoon.  It was unique because you had to use a heavy leather glove as a hand brake which was a little bit tricky at first.  We did 14 zip lines through the primary and secondary rainforest.  A primary rainforest is  untouched, which means there have been no trees cut and it is undisturbed.  The trees are very thick, tall and old.  It was pretty cool zipping through the trees.
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On Saturday we had a whole day of adventure.  We went on a horseback, hike and river float.  My horse's name was Rambo and fortunately my mom got to ride his good buddy Hercules.  Ian was our guide and he was really nice, fun and knew a lot about everything.  I learned all about rainforest reptiles, plants and he even found a glass frog!  They are nocturnal and he has never seen one out in the day.  The river float was my least favorite part.  I thought I was getting hypothermia because the water was so cold!  We hiked back to our horses and then rode to an old house in the jungle.  Doña Maria (Doña means Mrs in Spanish) had made lunch for us. After lunch we rode our horses back.  The riding was my favorite part!
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    Hi, I'm Kylie.  I'm 11 years old.  I love horses and art! I want to be a sucessful businesswoman when I grow up.

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