The Mud and The Frog and The Sloth by Maeve

Some of the really cool flowers near Rio Celeste.

This weekend, Mama, Daddy, Sam, and I and my Grandma and Grandpa went to a place called Rio Celeste and the Tenorio Volcano National Park. It is a blue, blue river that runs between two volcanoes. It's blue because another river runs into it and where they meet, their different minerals make a chemical reaction. It's stinky but very pretty. We stayed at a pretty good, small cabin at a farm that grew vegetables and coffee and had a butterfly garden and snakes.

You can spot a little of the blue river in front of Sam.

When we were about to start the long 3 hour hike to the waterfall, we were walking on a concrete trail that was sort of like a sidewalk and I said, "Is it going to be like this for the whole thing because that would be really boring?" But, it wasn't!! A little further down the trail there were pebbles and then it got muddier and muddier and then muddiest of all and I LOVED it! I got my boots really dirty. Even though it's the dry season (and it hasn't rained for weeks and weeks in Nosara) we were now in a part of the rainforest where it rains at least a little all year round and people had been walking so the mud was formed and gooey. My boots nearly came off a few times.

Me, at the waterfall

We heard something in the distance. I thought it was the waterfall. We kept walking a little faster now and then we got to a set of stairs going down. They were steep and had a beautiful railing that looked like a polished tree branch and there were so many steps!! When we got to the end, there was a little lookout over the waterfall. The waterfall was BEAUTIFUL. It was also noisy with so much water and you got sprayed a lot. It wasn't as blue as it is sometimes and I think it was because there had been so much rain which was mixing up the mud and things.

Isn't it beautiful?

We headed back up the stairs (which was tiring) and then we headed down a different trail. There was another lookout of the rainforest and you were supposed to see the tops of two volcanoes but they were hidden by the clouds. Then, we kept hiking and on a post by the side of the trail, there was a little frog! It was soooo cute! Hie eyes were striped black and red and his body was bright green. Its toes had big suction cups on them and it seemed to be asleep. He might have let me touch him but I didn't. It was a Fleischmann's Glass Frog, we are pretty sure. At the end of the hike we had a great lunch which included the best fried cheese EVER. Then we drove home on the bumpy road.

SLOTH!!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the sloths! When we got to our cabin, Mama told the person that she really wanted to see a sloth. He took us right to the place on the trail at their farm where there were three lumbering along on the branches!!! They were so furry and wet and faster than I thought. Later when we were walking through the farm we saw a mama and its baby. It was so awesome.

Everyone at one of our fancy dinners

We have been having lots of fun with grandparents visiting. We've played lots of Chinese Checkers and Pente and we've gone to the beach a lot and eating gelato and having fancy dinners. So far though we have not had any luck showing any of our grandparents a sea turtle because it's not the right time of the month for mamas or hatchlings. Now we're going to go snorkeling. Bye for now!