Lisa's last post should have convinced you that we actually do attend school. Hard to believe that it's Friday already and a full week of classes have already gone by. My Espanol has improved in leaps and bounds, in spite of the fact that unlike when I went to Cuernavaca for the week 3 years ago, I decided not to do a home stay with a local family - 2 reasons - one, I found it so stressful to have to speak Spanish 24/7 that I found myself a bit overwhelmed by day 2 - although it is definitely the way to really move the needle on fluency. Secondly, with Lisa here, we found a good deal on this 2 BR / 2 BA condo about 5 minutes walk from the school - and, it has air conditioning! Full kitchen, wifi, small pool, cable - all the amenities of home.... If you are interested, email me and I'll give you the contact of our landlady.
I still need to update the blog for my adventures from my nightwalk in the cloud forest and safari on the river by the volcano but maybe next week - there's just too much to do in the afternoons to get caught up with the blogging. But a quick post about the manglares (mangroves) that we toured yesterday after class.
North of Tamarindo Beach is an estuary that is a national park and we took a 2 hour afternoon tour. The wildlife refuge covers about 1000 acres and is home to 5 different species of mangroves and a ton of wildlife. 5 of us from Wayra got together and hopped on to what was essentially a wooden 12 foot boat with a motor on the back with 6 seats. Motoring slowly up the estuary, we spotted a caiman (crocodilo en Espanol) basking on the shore - probably about 4 1/2 feet -maybe 1.5 metres max. We got pretty darn close to it - Patricia who was sitting closest to it was warily keeping an eye for any sudden movement but we observed without incident.
We also were able to see different types of crabs that make the mangroves their home and various birds that I can't identify. No toucans or anything colorful like that - I guess this area is too hot for them. We did see a tribe of howler monkeys a short walk from the river - the middle of the day, they are mostly sleeping although our guide made noises to make them respond and one of them roused himself enough to "howl" at us - although it was more of a series of grunts. It's hard to take photos of them so high up in the trees but there was one that was completely asleep with it's arms and legs just dangling off the tree - I tried to take a picture of it and am posting it but it's sort of blurry.
No nature adventure for us today - we're thinking about perhaps getting a group together after class to go to Playa Conchal which is about 20 minutes from here by cab and is supposed to have really clear water and sand that is made from shells -- the one thing about Tamarindo beach is it reminds me more of a Minnesota lake with sand that forms a mud like texture when it's wet - plus the visibility just stinks......
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