Two Unfortunate Journeys by Sam

A few days ago we took two unfortunate but exciting journeys. One is to the Nosara Beach Hotel (which is currently abandoned and is off limits to the public), and the other is on a rainforest hike.

The Nosara Beach Hotel:
 
We were walking on the path between Playa Guiones and Playa Pelada, when we noticed a path leading to the hotel. Jet and I decided to investigate (bringing cameras). There was a staircase straight out of a movie, with spiderwebs and dead trees lining the edges. At the top of the stairs, we came upon what appeared to be the main courtyard, with stairs leading to different parts of the hotel, and a huge pool in the middle (it was at least 10 times bigger than ours!). There was algae in the pool with dragonflies buzzing everywhere. A bush with branches hanging with red flowers was right beside one of the staircases.

The walls were white with tons of green mold growing on them and wasp nests hanging from the ceiling. In the first building we peered into there was a painting that looked to be broken and fire burned. It was blackened. We were starting to head up the main tower, when we heard distant voices. We thought we would be able to go up, when suddenly the voices got louder, and loud barking started! We  broke our speed record sprinting out of there.

The Rainforest Hike: (We didn't take a camera on the hike because we needed both hands, but here is a picture from the top of the path, by our house.)

There is a path leading from our house into the rainforest, where you have to scramble down a series of waterfalls, with insects and spiders guarding the path. It eventually comes out in a clearing with vines hanging down, right by the centre of Guiones (the most touristy part of town.) I have tried it three times before, but never without an adult. This time however, Jet and I tried it out by ourselves.

We set out into the rainforest carrying sticks (for spiderwebs). You have to be quiet for about a minute, because we go onto the neighbours property to get to the creek. Starting out, we saw three big centipedes about two inches long. About halfway through the trip, we were starting to get a bit worried, because it was getting dark and we heard thunder rumbling in the distance! We hurried along, splashing ourselves up to our waists getting very wet and dirty. It didn't rain and we didn't see a Brazilian Wandering Spider (they come out at night as they are nocturnal and night was approaching!). That would have been terrible.

We managed to get to the clearing. We were about 30 minutes late and there was no one there to pick us up like we'd arranged. Dad had walked up the path to meet us but somehow our paths didn't cross.  We waited for about 5 minutes to be picked up and then walked to the main part of town to try to check time but the security guard at the cafe kept just saying "Cafe Closed, Cafe Closed". In the end, Mom and Patti picked us up and then we met up with Dad and then we had an enormous, delicious dinner. Also on the plus side, we spotted 7 Golden Orb spiders, which weave a really strong web.