'Avantura Total'

Taxi Collectivo to/from Carate. Very bad for human butt
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We decided that from David we'll go to Playa Zancudo (Zancudo Beach) stay there for a few days and chill, but we did a complete opposite.

The second boarder with Panama, Paso Canoas, is a huge confusing mess of buildings cars buses, dogs, people screaming taxi drivers... and such. From there we got a taxi to Golfito, because we missed the bus and didn't want to wait an hour for another on.

The boat from Golfito to Zancundo departs once a day and we missed it by 14 minutes!!!!!! There is a way to take a bus there but it's 3.5 hours and and we werent even sure  from there. After some thinking, we decided to go back to our original plan (made in Canada) and go to Peninsula de Osa and check out Corcovado Park. We cought a boat to Puerto Jimenes, and found a basic hotel/hostel in the middle of the town. Almost right after we got off the boat we saw a flock of Scarlet Macaws feeding on wild almonds by the soccer field. Scarlet Macaws are stunning red parrots that are endangered because of loss of habitat and exotic animal trade. They took our breath away. I am sure they are what inspired the legends of golden phoenix. I can't get enough of them.

Our ride/savier from Dos Brazos
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The next morning took taxi collectivo (see pics) to Carate (2.5 hours of butt smashing against hard wooden bench, but worth it). Made friends on the way with 2 tico guys studding eco tourism (studding to be wildlife guides) and a guy from germany, a biology student that works as a guide for the summer in one of the eco lodges in the area, and we decided to hike together. So all of the sudden we had 3 privet guides for the 2 of us. It was super cool and we saw many animals including a very rare blue sweet water shrimp that bit David to blood because we took it out the water to hake pics. I had no idea an shrimps can be sooo blue. Pjorn (the german guy) told us they are sold for exotic aquarium trade in Europe for 1500 bucks a shrimp. 1500 dollars for 1 freaking shrimp!!! So of course they are also rare and endangered. Bloody humans and their viewing pleasures...

On Sunday we got  up at 5 am (we do alot of it here) and went to a small village called Dos Brazos. The guy at the hostel recommended it and he also said that the bus/collectivo goes on sundays, no problem. Well we got there.... The driver said he is coming back at 5 pm sharp and will pick us up.

We hiked in a place called Bolita. It's in a reserve that surrounds Corcovado Park. They call it buffer zone. It was very nice and we saw black and green poison dart frog. Our only one yet. We saw red poison dart frogs in Tortuguero, but no green and black. We also had a dog for a day, one of the local dogs hiked with us the whole way. Maybe this the reason we didn't see much wildlife, but the terrain was also very harsh, so it was hard to look around too much. Had a shower in the waterfall.

Anyway, we got back at five and the guy wasn't there, and at 5.30 he wasn't there either. So we started walking, but it's a least 15 km to town, and it was getting dark quickly, and we were soaking wet as it was raining like crazy, and we were hiking hard hikes all day, and my knee was hurting, and all the Costa Rica's venomous snakes are active at night, and  the road had puddels the size of the swimming pool, and the frogs were singing in this puddles, and snakes feed on frogs... the list could go on, but in short our situation wasn't looking very good. We've been walking for an hour and no car passed us and it got really dark, like really dark, so we couldn't see an inch in front of us. Oh, and it started to rain hard again. And then we saw a car and waved, and he stopped. We could hardly believe it! It was a pick up truck and we rode in the back with the one other local guy and 2 little girls. One was about 5 and one about 7 years old. Now, in Canada SPCA campaigns so people don't put their dogs in the back of their pick up truck without a crate. Here people put their little kids with no hesitation. The guy wasn't going to P. J., but offered to take us there if we payed him. 10 bucks was deffenetly worth it.

Our 'vacation' wasn't really relaxing so far. Now we are in Golfito again waiting for the boat to Zancudo. Given we don't miss it this time, we are not planning to move our bones firther than the hammock or the beach for the next 2 days.