saltwatersteve.com/travel

We ate raisin and coconut french toast for breakfast, made our Rainmaker (private nature reserve) reservations, then drove to Hacienda Baru (near Playa Dominical) on the shittiest road in the universe. No joke, dirt and occasionally gravel, huge mud pits to drive around. It is the norm in these parts to cruise for a while on the oncoming side of the road, if it’s better there. Meghan got a bit more aggro with her driving here. At Hacienda Baru we did our own hike on the lookout trail, where we saw a little black land crab, a green and black poison frog, little red mushrooms w/ white stems that look like wineglasses, and millions of leafcutter ants going everywhere. The view from the lookout huts was amazing all the way down over the forests to the beaches of Dominical, to the south. We ran a bit low on time so we kind of double timed it through the loop and went back downhill to meet our guide. He had 2 guys with him, one to carry his mono scope and one to translate. We first saw more leafcutter ants and one guy explained how there were 3 sizes of ants, big ones to police, medium ones to work, and small ones to inspect the leaves. Sometimes you see a couple little ones riding on a leaf that is carried by a medium one. Then the guide showed us sloths, a toucan, a couple monkeys, then we got to a blind where we saw a caiman (small gator relative) and tons of birds in the mangrove swamp setting. Then we checked out a strangler tree with butress roots taller than me! We tipped our guides very well and headed back down the shitty road to Quepos. We stopped at the ATM there then decided that we both wanted pizza so we went back to Mono Azul, known for their pies. Meghan got pepperoni, onions, and garlic, I got chicken, tomatoes and garlic. Yum. Time for bed.