Costa Rica 2024: Day 2

I woke up early on day 2 and left the hut. I wanted to feel the quiet of the early morning, something that I don't experience back home, because early mornings are for prepping for work/office.

I found myself basking in the tranquility of my surroundings. The peacefulness of the surroundings is quite soothing.

It was drizzling but I didn't mind it. I decided to walk around the gardens. I heard howler monkeys and thought I could see one, but they were somewhere on the trees next to the hotel/resort. They were very loud. And then I saw my friend Rosie walking towards me. She, too, got up early seeking something that I can't remember anymore. We heard different bird sounds, nothing familiar, craning our necks to see where the sounds were coming from, but we couldn't tell where. Then I saw a wild turkey that is so different from the ones I'm familiar with.

For breakfast, I ordered the the typical Costa Rican breakfast (which is one of the four choices). The tipica as it is called consisted of rice and beans, plantains, eggs cooked your way and a slice of cheese.

After breakfast we drove to town and stopped at St. John Bosco Church. I just wanted to see the church again after so long. This was my post from the first visit. As you can see, it's still the same.

Across the church is a town square, plaza, and of all places I found ylang-ylang, my favorite flower growing up, in the plaza. I love the scent of it; I was giddy. Nobody shared my delight.

Walking around, we stopped for breads and pastries at a bakery and saw a shop selling tours. I remember in the past that this area was filled with tour companies but not as much this time around. I believe I saw two only. Perhaps the others only operate online now. However, the company only deals with cash payment and only in Costa Rican colon, which we didn't have. We were then directed to the nearest bank where we could get colons. At this time, the rain was pouring hard. The rain was on and off the rest of our stay here.

Across the bank was a fruit shop, a good spot to wait out the downpour. The store carried the typical tropical selections like papaya, mangoes and pineapples. I found something that resembled a chico or also known as sapota or sapodilla, but this one's much larger in size and still very hard. The storekeeper told us that it is expected to ripen in 3 days. I was excited, this is only our second day here and we have 5 more. It will ripen while we're here and I can finally get my husband to try it. I grew up eating it, even getting sick of it because my aunt had a tree and she would supply us with so much fruit we got tired of eating it.

Spoiler alert, the fruit remained rock hard and didn't ripen. Ended up throwing it out before going to the airport on departure day, sigh!

With cash in hand, we went back to the tour place and signed up for a tour. The tour would begin at 2:30 pm and a shuttle would fetch us from the hotel at 2:00 pm. With that all taken care of we had 2 hours to do something else, explore this area outside of the downtown. We decided to go to the Butterfly Conservatory.

We also visited the Frog Habitat.

Realizing that we stayed here longer than necessary, we hurried back to the hotel to be in time for the shuttle pick up at 2 pm.