a few more pictures at the beach

Future cool surfer dude...

And another one...

More photos of Nosara

We stayed at the Nosara guest house. It is a beautiful building made up of individual apartments that seemed to be condos. The courtyard was quiet and the pool was beautiful.




We are just a five minute walk to the beach.

The Pacific Coast, Nosara

After our accident with the huge dump truck we continued down the mountain and over to the Nicoya Penninsula. We stayed in Nosara, which isn't really much of anything but the beach. It's extremely popular with surfers. This time of year the ocean is very stirred up and the water isn't clear at all. The waves aren't as good as they are in the winter but they were fine for all of us.

The beach was beautiful and the shells were fantastic!

Boston Bagels Bakery

I forgot to mention that David's business is a bakery that makes bagels and challah. He also makes dough for pizzas and dinner rolls. He sells his products all over the country. His bagels come up to Santa Elena, to the cafe when I am sitting, on the bus! That turns out to be the most efficient way to send small deliveries.

Here's the whole family! Olga, David, Dukey, Max and Alex.

A little too close for comfort

We were in an accident with the HUGE dump truck full of rocks. He was driving up the mountain and we were coming down. When we came around this corner the truck was in the middle of the road which is already really narrow. Artie swerved to avoid a really bad accident and our damage was pretty minimal.

We hit just the corner of our bumper. Artie went to the mechanic when we got home and he hammered it out. He's going back to have a little more repair done.

Our visit to San Jose

We drove to see friends who live just outside San Jose, on the east side of the city. David is American and his wife is Costa Rican. They have two boys named Alex and Max. The boys all got along really well!

Here they are getting in the car to go see the play, Nunsense.


We went to a very small theater in San Jose. Since Oren was born on Shakespeare's birthday I thought I would take a picture!


Here are the boys playing four square.


This is Dukey, their yellow lab.

A new way to eat an orange

We learned a new way to eat an orange. This works especially well on the oranges that grow here. They are great for juice but not for pealing. I'm getting better at the cutting but the idea is to put the peal off and then chop off the top.



Then you suck the juice and squeeze the orange. It works really well!

I think some haircuts are in order...

More parade photos

Here are the boys dressed up!


These guys are my favorite. They are water boys. They handed out water to people who were thirsty! It was a super hot morning.


This is a group of children from the Cloud Forest School where Oren and Ethan go to school. These children are in Kindergarten.

Independence Day in Costa Rica

This is a picture of a traditional Costa Rican ox cart. They are still used by farmers all over the country. They started off the parade in Santa Elena on Independence Day which was September 15.


Here are some children dressed in the traditional dress. The girls wear white blouses and colorful three tiered skirts. The boys dress in white, with a kerchief and a little white hat. They dance to typical music. It's a little like square dancing.


There is a lot of drumming in the parade. There were about 5 school groups with bands and girls dancing. Each school wore a different color.
This is the youngest drummer in the parade!

More sloth action...

A sloth is not usually an animal that you would think about touching, or even want to touch BUT how can you pass up the opportunity when a sloth is right there in front of you. Oren said it wasn't very pleasant, as you can imagine. Sloths are famous for being hosts to a large variety of other animals. Anyway, it was worth it!


VERY photogenic sloth.

Attempt to load sloth movie, take 1

slowly, slowly, FAST! said the sloth

Ethan found a sloth in a tree right outside his classroom. It seemed to be sleeping in the tree. We watched it for about an hour and that this was hustling!
The sloth became very active. It could have been because of all the human commotion! He was trying to get some shut eye!
Here the sloth is, making a quick get away!