Last week we spent four nights in Playa Samara.  Mom finally had her wish of air-conditioning throughout the house granted.  Another major bonus was a large pool that had a deep end.  Apparently Playa Samara is in a drought so we had to be careful using the water.  The overall climate was dry, even all the creek beds were dried up.  Three of the days we had full schoolwork.  The second afternoon Dad and I went out fishing on the rocks.  About ten locals, eight men and two women, were there fishing with hand lines.  They had only caught two small grouper which was very surprising to me.  Another thing I found a little strange was that they were keeping everything that they caught, including needle fish which don't have much meat!  It did not take Dad long to reel in a small grouper.  He gave it to the locals and they were very happy about it.  Not long after, I caught a much larger grouper that had florescent green spots on it.  The locals were cheering me on as I brought it in and walked it over to them.  Dad caught another one almost exactly the same as his last and so did I.  We also gave these to the locals.  We left having made good friends and a successful fishing night!

Another one of the days Dad and I went kayak fishing.  Kayak fishing here isn't that easy because the good fishing is up against the rocks where the waves break.  Several times a wave came out of nowhere and we had to immediately set our poles down and paddle straight toward it so that it wouldn't knock us over.  Dad did manage to catch two small grouper and a small snapper.   I caught another one of the green groupers.

On Monday we moved houses again to Playa Flamingo.  The house is up on a hill and has a cool infinity pool overlooking a spectacular view.  This house also has air-conditioning throughout and is new.  We are here for seven nights.  There is a turtle night tour we might do where you get to see endangered leather-back turtle laying eggs on the beach.

After the ficus tree we drove down into a neighboring valley to Melvin's family's farm.  It used to be a dairy farm, but now it is an ecological farm with sugar cane, banana and plantain trees and a lot of hiking trails.  Before the hike Melvin's sister made us pizza and we watched birds fly to and fro around a homemade bird feeder.  The bird feeder was neat because it was a small dead tree with banana pieces all over it.  We counted over 18 species of birds, including an emerald toucanet which is really hard to find because they blend in with the forest so well.  We then went hiking for several hours and found several fresh puma tracks from the night before!  Even though we choose not to go into the Monteverde Reserve with all the tourists, we had more fun doing what we did!

Sunday morning we were back on the road by 10 AM.  We drove three hours north to a place close to the cloud forest.  Our destination was a house on a little farm next to a river.  The landscape changed drastically on the way there.  It went from jungle to dry hills to sparsely forested jungle.

When we arrived we found a river next to the house and went swimming in it.  We also arranged for the farm hand to take us around with him in the morning and feed the animals.

Monday through Friday we went to Spanish school as usual and the only thing out of the ordinary that happened was that Dad and I learned the basics of surfing Thursday afternoon.  Dominical is known as one of the best surfing places in Costa Rica and attracts people from all over.  Dad had arranged for an instructor to meet us at Playa Dominical.  He had us spend the first twenty minutes practicing how to stand up correctly on the board in the sand.  Then we swam out about 100 yards with our boards and rode the whitewater in.  The first time Dad fell off and I managed to stay on.  We did this for about an hour.

Saturday morning Dad and I were in the car by 6:15.  We had an all day fishing trip ahead of us!  Our boat, called the First Row, met us at Quepos Marina and after an hour boat ride we were out to sea.  When we got to the spot our captain picked we found it was quite crowded.  I counted over twenty boats in this one area!  It turns out that when the boats first go out, they go to where the fish were last caught the day before.  

The first mate managed to set 8 lines out in less than ten minutes and not long after we had a bite.  I let Dad go first to show me how it's done.  It took him ten minutes to bring it in and when it jumped we found out it was a sailfish.  The fish was about 90 inches and looked to be 80 pounds.

Our weekend started on Friday, but we didn't get to sleep in.  We were all in the car by 9:00 AM since we had planned a 3 day vacation in Drake Bay.  We drove an hour and a half to Sierpe then took a very small and cramped ferry another hour to Drake Bay.

Drake Bay is on a small peninsula called the the Osa Peninsula which is home to 50% of all species in Costa Rica.  We went to Corcovado National Park which is the most biodiverse place on the planet according to National Geographic.  Our guide told us the peninsula has almost twice as many species of trees than the whole United States and Canada combined.  Dad had found us a cabin in a small lodge that had an amazing view.

As soon as we unpacked we went on a canopy tour that was down the road.  The canopy tour was zip lining through the jungle canopy.  Sometimes we were closer to the floor and sometimes we were up really high.  The longest zip line was 400 meters.  You control your own speed by using a leather glove and pressing down on the line to break.  Not something you would find in the US!  On several of the zip lines Kylie didn't make it all the way across because she is so light.  One of the guides had to go get her!