After leaving from San José on the 19th, we arrived in Buenos Aires through Lima, Peru, at 6:30 am on the 20th. We had to wait a couple of hours for our fourth, Marilyn, to arrive. Her flight was delayed.

Apparently the city has been around for about 500 years-since 1580. It is a humongous city with the most beautiful magnificent buildings all on tree lined streets. Some of the streets are very narrow but the Avenida de Julio I would say is close to 12 lanes wide. The subway is below the street plus there a couple of bus lanes in the middle plus parks on both sides and 3+3 in either side. I just know it took 3 lights to cross the Avenida …… walking at a good clip. The building so reminded me of Europe. No wonder they refer to the city as the “Paris of South America”.

The Rio de la Plata is widest river mouth in world…. so we were told.

Met Annamaria and Armando from

Chile and North Carolina on Princess cruise. …. at Tango Porteño. He told us definitely “do not drink the water or eat fruits or veggies that haven’t been cook or peeled.

We bought a 2 day hop on hop off bus for which we got to see a lot. A couple we met on a restaurant (they were from Toronto…. on their honeymoon l), told us to go to this fabulous restaurant called La Mar (seafood) in the area called Soho and Hollywood. Well ….. on the2nd day, we took the bus … got off at the Italia Square and then we walked and walked and walked and finally took a taxi but never found it…….but found some interesting murals. What a huge, huge city. We took a taxi back to hotel with an old guy and his little dog…. a white poodle. It obviously was his little buddy. The ride probably took in excess of half an hour but was including a tip…. about $9 CAD. Cheap! It’s definitely a cheaper country than Costa Rica.

Our hotel was a place called La Fresque. It was at the corner of 9 de Mayo and de Julio…. near the Palace of National Congress in the

Monserrat area of BA.

In the middle of Avenida de Julio is a building used for families and children ….social services. It has an outline of Eva Peron on 2 sides. She was like the patron of the disadvantaged and social programs. Peron was elected 3 different times.

Under highway is a monument to the dark times of Argentina’s history….. “dark for dark times”.

Park 1536… belief Mendosa site

La Boca …. first port of BA.

Italians settled in this area…soccer/football is big. So many buildings are royal blue and yellow

Most famous area of plastic artists!

Russian Orthodox Church seems out of place with its blue domes.

Puerto Madero….. newest part of city built on old port… has many beautiful high rises, parks and many fine restaurants. … where “Argentinians like to be innovative”. It shows in the buildings.

Along water there are many sculptures of sport figures… built for 2018 Olympics.

We went for dinner on the 22nd… very disappointed cuz we went to an apparently very famous place. It was less than stellar, the waiter was kind of cranky. We left just as it started to rain. We bought a bottle of wine, took it to the room then holy crap it was like a bomb went off. It was a single strike lightning thunderstorm! OMG it was incredible. The streets were slick with rain. I would have like to have taken a picture but alas… all photo taking devices were dead. Linda got a great one. Maybe she will share.

Below are some sights around the city displaying the beautiful buildings and tree-lined streets

Park in the middle of Avenida de Julio

Garra -rufa ish are kind of fish used in fish spas. They eat your skin… only fish that have no teeth… cool!cost 10,000 colones or $22CAD for 15 minutes.

A funny thing I saw in a shop in Coco. I had found a dress I wanted to try on but there were no clerks visible so I went looking for one. What do I find at the first open door but two young people laying on the cement floor with wet cloths on their foreheads…. on their devices. They barely moved as they told me that the change room was the next door. Obviously I was not the only one having trouble with the heat.

On Sunday the 17th we left our extremely spacious well appointed 3 bedroom condo (60 stairs up and 60 steps down. The grounds of the complex were manicured to the nth degree and every time you drove in, your pass was scanned).

The drive back to San Jose was uneventful but over 4 hours long….. not just down the road! The unfortunate part of returning the car on a Sunday (it was the same when picking it up) is that the main street that the car rental was on (Paseo Colon) was closed for the day …. for 2 months each year so that the kids would have playground. There were trampolines, zip-lines and sack races. Fun for them. Most of the streets in the area are one-ways. We (even the cabbie from the week before) could not find our way back to the rental place. I eventually got out and walked to it and asked them to help us….. just in time. The same fellow that rescued us (he couldn’t speak English but we got it figured out) end up putting our luggage back in the car and driving us to our new home away from home for the next 2 days. Not quite the same level of quality but still very nice…. and it had a pool!

Monday the 18th we walked into the centre of town (past the car rental place) to the Centro Mercado.

Not too exciting! While down there we went into a cathedral. Not spectacular…. and cabbed it “home”

Roots of the old trees along Paseo Colon… amazing!

One of the many pink buses (along with a whole lot of brilliantly coloured buses…. in front of the cathedral in San Jose

Produce cartage… San Jose

Inside the cathedral

More cathedral

Someone with the handle of “dancers64” seems to like my blog but I am really curious who you might be. Please send me private message and satisfy my curiosity.

Friends from home Roy and Debra, showed us a very, very hard-to-find waterfall …..Catarata Llanos Del Cortez. The turn off was off the highway south of Liberia where there was a cell tower and the “3rd” pedestrian overpass with a ……lol! It was a beautiful refreshing spot. So we all went for a swim/dip. Awesome! While in there we had the little fishes (3 inches?) “biting” our legs……much like the fish spa from the day before only more so. Deb, Roy and I climbed up to the top of the waterfall….. a totally different perspective. On the way, there was a cenote that Roy did a Tarzan dive into….”John Wisemueller eat your heart out”. We saw face-faced capuchins and howler monkeys. One howler had a baby on its back. They are so cool! I just love the howling they do…think it would be neat to have that as my ringtone on my phone. Sorry about the quality of pictures but I only had my phone.

Instead of just hanging out at the pool we decided to go searching for something interesting to do. We were all wanting to go snorkelling. The second place we checked, the gal that ran the “tourist information” was…..you guessed it…. a gal from southern Ontario. Nice! Just about everyone we meet are from Canada. I wonder why??? Escaping winter maybe? Anyway we booked a catamaran cruise that included snorkelling, open bar, a great dinner and seeing the sun drop into the sea…..on Valentine’s Day. For many it was a romantic cruise. For us…..it was fun.

Monkey Face rock

Before we booked the cruise, we were crossing an “island” in the road when a very large iguana….believe it or not, fell out of the banyan tree…..almost right at our feet. Scared the crap out of us!

While we were trying to kill some time before we were to go out on the boat, we found a “fish spa” and decided to give it a try. It was a weird feeling having those toothless fish (Garra -rufa ish) sucking all the dead skin off your feel and legs….kind of like little electric charges. Fun!

Yellow nape parrot at first stop. Can live to 100 yrs. …mate for life … considering humans their mate. Because humans don’t live as long as parrots, when the owner dies the parrot is lost and lonely.

We are travelling to Arenal volcano (by bus) 2nd most active in world, and to La Fortuna across a lake… on boat then a bus.

Because of damage caused by the exploding volcano, the government moved the 2 destroyed villages. In doing so were able to make a huge damn for electricity …which began 1970. It created Arenal Lake.. biggest lake in Central America. The country’s goal is to be carbon neutral by 2020 (I’m impressed) by the use of hydro dams, windmills.. (wind farms) and water heating by solar….. in hotels

Imported vehicles are taxed but electric cars are tax free.

Another innovative thing they have done, is drill a tunnel through mountains transporting water from the lake (on the Caribbean side of the continental devide) which is very wet… through to the dry side in Guanacaste province, hence making it arable farming.

We saw a herd of white nosed coatis….. all of which are female. Never are there males in the group unless they are mating. The more scars on their noses from fighting, the older they are …… They are very aggressive animals… don’t mess with them.

We three left the GAdventures group of 16 plus our guide Daniel…. yesterday. It was wonderful meeting this group touring most of Costa Rica for the last 16 days. Now we are on our own for the next week plus. We had rented a car in San Jose, planning to drive to Playa del Coco to our new home away from home at Pacifico. The signage on the roads is less than ideal….. of course if we understood Spanish it would help… lol! Consequently we had turn around a couple of times and retrace our steps….. arriving here closer to 4.5 hours instead of 3.5. We were to meet our “concierge” before 3pm but when we arrived at his office, he was not there. As we were wondering how we were going to reach him….. with no wifi to call with, he arrived…phew! All was well. Beautiful huge 3 bedroom condo….. with a washer/dryer…. yes! Guess what we did after living out of a suitcase and kind of roughing it for the better part of 2 weeks? Yup…. laundry!

Finally we have good wifi so of course I have posted a whole lot of pictures etc. Maybe now I have caught up!!!

Lichen hanging in the trees

Hibiscus

Elephant Ears Philodendron

Bird of paradise

Bromeliad hiding place for vipers… searching food of frogs and hummingbirds

Sapphora… most wonderful fruit

Agouti…largest rodent

Coati….so hard to capture… move too fast. Almost blind but smell and sense vibrations for food. Biggest Coati in world.

Blue crown muttmutt

2 toed sloth…live for 20 yrs… only one (of the two types) that can survive at these altitudes and lower temperatures as opposed to 3 toed sloth which needs higher temperatures. Predators are puma, Jaguars & ocelots. They poop like cats … dig hole then cover up so the big cats don’t know they are in the trees above.

Ficus tree … biggest parasite tree in the country….takes 40-50 years to kill host. Can reach 500 years old.

53 types of hummingbirds in country. Males makes the nest. Vipers are their predator.

Can’t seem to find if I posted this before. Forgive me if I have.

Feb 1…Kayaking with Jeanette and guide Gustavo. The other kayakers were Barbara from Ottawa, Suzanna from Sudbury via Hungary, Diane from England and Anne from upstate NY. All are with Toucan tours and J and I with GADVENTURES

It was a good work-out of my core muscles just trying to get across the open windy waters of Arenal Lake….. a first time in a kayak for me. I paddle outrigger at home but this is different. Once across, the waters were peaceful and calm checking out the shore for the many egrets, osprey and a wild pig….which I missed because it moved so quickly.

The views of Arenal Volcano were spectacular….the sky clear so we could see the little puffs of steam coming out.. usually it is “shy”. Apparently it could be weeks when it is impossible to see the volcano.

Later in the evening we three went to “EcoTermales” mineral springs….a natural hot spring. The water is heated by the volcano. Oh my was that wonderful! Hot water pools, cool water pools and waterfalls pounding on sore muscles.. pure heaven.

Next day the 2nd, a bunch of us went white-water rafting down the Balsa River. This is the dry season but there is a hydro electric dam on the river but a certain times of the day, they open the floodgates…good for us. So…..it was so much fun! There were probably 8 rafts with 6 in each but…..no one went for an unscheduled dump. I’ve done it a few times before but this was the best even if it was rated only a three.

Later we went to another hot springs Los Lagos, which was more commercial type operation..with hotel . We three preferred the first. The others on the tour, did not go to the first so how could they compare