We will be home a week from today, and what a change in weather that will be! This morning we left San Jose where it was clear and sunny, with a temperature of about 20C, and flew to Drake Bay where it was about 30C and very humid this afternoon when we arrived.
Flying to the Osa Peninsula
It was a beautiful day to fly with Nature Air. The flight, on a Twin Otter, was pretty smooth and very pretty. We flew over the mountains surrounding San Jose and a huge bank of cumulus clouds was built up along the Pacific side. As we got further south we could see the ocean and rivers of the Pacific coast.
We first landed in the sunshine at Puerto Jimenez which is on the south end of the Osa peninsula. About six passengers disembarked, and about the same number got on. We then flew about 10 minutes north to Drake Bay where four of us were staying.
Landed in Drake Bay
The first part of the flight was over the farmland along the east coast of the Osa peninsula, and we saw numerous banana plantations. As we approached Drake Bay it started to rain, but it was clear when we landed on the short little paved airstrip there.
We unloaded our baggage and took it to the waiting van for our ride to Cabinas Manolo. It must be about 5 km, and we had to ford one shallow river along the way. We set up our room, and then went to complete checkin. It was pouring rain absoutely straight down, but very heavily, so we know that we are definitely in the rain forest. We are glad that we have our folding umbrellas.
Saiing ship in the Drake Bay harbor
After that we walked to the ocean, but weren’t really able to walk along the beach as it was high tide, and almost no shore. We walked back along the road the other way after that, and through the very small town. There is a large four-masted sailing cruise ship in the harbor. It looks very fancy. After we’d taken a few pictures we walked on to a small shop where Enid bought a souvenir, and then we stopped and had an ice-cream sundae. It’s the first ice-cream we’ve had since we arrived.
Some of the most expensive resorts in Costa Rica are here, but ours is certainly not. It is good clean accomodation, but we did switch to our mosquito net instead of theirs, since ours is a bit longer, and also doesn’t have a hole in it. There are a few mosquitoes flying around, but in general not a lot of bugs. I commented to Enid at supper as I flicked a small moth off the placemat that if this was Canada on a summer evening we’d be inundated by moths and mosquitoes sitting in the open air under the lights.