no turtles yet

So we are thinking there might be a parent curse as far as seeing turtles.  When Courtney and Victor's moms were visiting they didn't get to see turtles, and neither did my parents (or I because they were in close proximity).  They're gone now, Mom and Dad left for San Jose around 2:30 ish, they should be there just waiting to hear from them (hopefully they aren't stranded on the road some where).
My Spanish is coming back to me a little, well I only really knew a little, three years or high school and a semester in college doesn't really get you far. I've given up on making sure that I conjugate everything correctly and just going for vocab (hoping conjugating will come with time).
Lets back track a few days, Friday we left Arenal.  We got to the volcano national park around 10:30 and contemplated going on the shorter trail (about an hour long). In retrospect we were glad that we did not even try that one (my previous blog talked about our long car ride).  

 Here are the horses that were right next to our hotel when we were in Arenal.   

 This is from crossing the dam that creates Lake Arenal.  IT IS HUGE! We drove around it and when we got to the other side we couldn't even see the dam.

 On the other side of the dam, I believe, there was this stream.  I could be totally wrong and it is some place I don't even remember.

There was this water fall we encountered while on our dirt road from Samara to Javilla.  We thought we were lost, Laguna Mar is not on the GPS program yet and I had no real directions as to where I was going except Playa San Miquel y Playa Coyote.

Here is our kitchen in Costa de Oro.  We have a stainless steal refrigerator AND and oven.  Oven is a pretty big novelty around here, at least non of the other projects have it. The house mates are great, Victor has been our cook he informed Court and I tonight that he was going to go on vacation though. Victor really isn't our like cook he is one of the research assistants on the project who just happens to like to cook and make good food with left overs for lunch the next day.  We have clean water, on the well system here (so no flushing toilet paper).  The out door shower makes since to where I will probably shower the most while I am here, but we do have a bathroom in our house.

So Drew, who owns Laguna Mar, told us that we would find the house on the street with the Pretoma sign.  It was dark out and the sign hadn't been made yet.  Today Victor and Matt worked on hanging it up on the two logs and maybe tomorrow we will start painitng it.  Thinking it will end up saying Costa de Oro house of PRETOMA.  It is cool working at this house because it is a trail project and so a lot of the work hasn't been done yet.

Here is our living room.  Through the door on the left is our porch where we have two hammocks, some chairs, Matt's surfboard, my yoga mat, and lots of little crawling critters.

So the view of the back porch from the mangroves.  We can see the ocean and the waves but not like Mike's house (the house my cousins stay at in North Shore).  We do have beach front property though but they have building laws in Costa Rica as to where the house can be placed.  Where we are the house has to be 50 m from the beach (I believe and at least it looks like I'm standing at the other end of a long course pool when I look back from the beach).  But there are leases on the land that are 25 years and you can "own" those 50 yards.

Our outdoor shower, not nearly as nice as Betty's shower.  We don't have a water heater so all of our running water is just regualr temperature.  I wouldn't say it's freezing but it's not a hot shower either.

Here are our mangroves filled with coconuts.  My task for the next few days is to learn to get cocount water from them.  this is actually our view from the porch too.  I did yoga up there tonight about 5 so right before sunset.  Victor told me later that it was a really pretty sunset and was going to tell me to go look but didn't want to interupt.  I should probably plan my practice better so that  I can get some pictures for everyone it really is gorgous.  The sky turns beautiful colors and the ground turns gold (pretty fitting for the gold coast right?).

Here is our hatery, Court is really proud of it.  I'm going to have to get more pictures to show it off she and Victor really did do a great job at constructing the whole thing.  We were hoping for baby turtles today for Mom and Dad, one of the nests have hatched, they just have come up yet.  Hopefully later tonight or tomorrow they will.  One of the other projects called Courtney today and asked her if we have had babies yet, apparently the earthquake (we're thinking) wasn't easy on their hatery.  They had a nest hatch, well kind of,  only one survived the rest were developed turtles but for some reason didn't make it which is why everyone is thnking the earthquake had a lot to with it.
There wasn't any real damage done from the earthquake, no turtles nested for three days after and rumor has it the peninsula came out of the water a centimeter and a half.  There are still aftter shocks being felt, they are usually around 3 or 4's we are guessing.  Lotti gave Courtney a website that lists the Costa Rican earthquakes 10 seconds after they happen.  We all know the evacuation route if another big one happens though.  Basically closed toed shoes only and we were told by locals that if we can get to the bus stop up the road we should be fine because there are so many mangroves.  I told Courtney when she told me about the evacuation route that if I hear there is a tsunami coming I'm going to keep running up those hills as fast as I can.  But over all the Pretoma group has figured that Drew's hotel (which is on a hill) is a good meeting place for the group and the hill keeps going up so we  can keep going if necessary.

Laguna Mar is like our hang out spot I guess.  We went last night, Drew had live music and a friend in town it who he was trying to impress and we didn't want to just bail at dinner time when the party was just getting started.  Mom and Dad were our shuttle service, the car they had seats five.  our way out there we had six and we came back for Victor adn Ingrid came with us so the drive home was a little crowded.
Today I went up and hung out with Mom and Dad by the pool and got lunch and took my last hot shower for a while, though Drew said we can come up at any time for warm water and he will give us towels too.  The treck is about 10 min by car.  He is also having live music next weekend too and said that if we all want to go he would send the car down to pick us up.  The friend he was trying to impress was quite the character.  He says he owns The Springs resport up in Arenal (which is the celebrity hang out in Costa Rica).  According to Courtney's dad, Tom, said that if he is who he says he is and can get us a deal we should take him up on it.  Rooms hardly ever go less than $400 a night and told Courtney and I we could stay for $89 a night (we might have to look into this after we are done here).  For all the Bachelor fans out there, this is the hotel that Brad went to when they went to Costa Rica, and it puts all the other resorts up there to shame according to Tom.
Anyways, this is long enough for now.  Patrol tonight hopefully there will be a turtle or two or three now that Mom and Dad are gone the curse might be lifted.  Since its independence weekend here we are having a lot of poachers from out of town.