We headed to Oregon to see Tom's parents for Thanksgiving and we even got to help celebrate his Grandma Crysta's birthday on Saturday....Kolby made the cake with help from grandma Debbie ;) Yum.
Chamberlin girls at Thanksgiving
Chamberlin boys at Thanksgiving
Part of our daily ritual....put on bug spray before you start you day...and then put more on as the day goes on!!
After we went up the river and saw the monkeys...we went out in the lagoon area and tried to see the manatees that feed in there....but it was a cloudy, rainy day and we didn't see any...but Darwin, our guide picked up this jellyfish for us to see.
Howler monkey- we parked the boat an ran around the jungle following our guide down the "roads" he called them...they were just barely trails...he kept darting all around...and saying "don't worry we aren't lost...I'm just trying to find the fastest road to get to the monkeys" We heard them along the river as we approached, and heard them even louder in the jungle...They are loud...we were listening to 2 tribes that were hollering at eachother about who was in eachother's spot
At one point our guide told us just to stand there and he'd come back when he found the "road" to the monkey's ....so we stood around for what seemed like a long time...swatting the masses of mosquitos and spraying bug spray while we prayed he knew where to come back and get us :) We at one point waited by this Huge stand of green bamboo!!
the village of Monkey River...we got to eat lunch here on our way back -our guide's aunt was the one at the shop who made our lunch...very nice...more rice and beans and chicken too ;) He said that just last year this village got electricity-which makes it a lot quieter at night with no generators running.
Going through the mangroves...we went down one called starfish lane...and everywhere you looked you saw starfish
We went out for about 3 1/2 hours. We were with another couple- they were from Colorado-Our guide took us to 2 different areas. The first stop he got out and went with us-showing us different corals and fish. The second stop was along the Barrier Reef and was obviously deeper and he just followed us for 45 min in the boat since he couldn't anchor. Amazing fish and coral!
Our guide said he liked Tom's "tan"...it is the classic farmer tan :)
Relaxing
The waterfall along the hike....we could of swam up under it..but I was the only one who wanted to so I decided not too.
Here's our guide Gabriel, he was showing us why these flowers are called "Hot Lips"....he's a funny guy :)
See the Hot Lips ;)
They are around...just not during the day time
Our guide rolled up a leaf to make a whistle...and TA DA this guy came crawling out of a hole in the ground.....Crazy!!
They have night cameras around the trail -so they can catch pictures like this of the jaguars-since they come out at night...not during the day when all us tourist are hiking around ;)
a partial paw print ...can you see it???
Here we are in front of our room at Almond Beach. We stay here from November 15-19th. The room was called Starfruit....again...I had a name issue and occasionally call it the Starfish room....getting chuckles out of the staff....
On our arrival day the 15th we walked into our room with the beautiful hibiscus floweres tucked in all the towels and in an arrangement on the bed...beautiful!
We had to paddle upstream in our tubes and then every so often our guide, Andre, would lead us up into different caverns deep in the cave. It was DARK, we saw lots of beautiful stalactites and stalagmites and also many bats, even the one vampire bat that lives in the cave, cave crickets, and scorpion spiders, ewww.
Night view from the restaurant (which was outside on a covered porch) It overlooked the pool out into the lights of town.
At Church we had an Apple Cider making party on the 31st......I can't figure out how to turn the picture the right way (sorry) It was quite the process and lots of people helped to make it..as a group we ended up with 62 gallons..... it was good!
