The Flying Crocodile

The “Flying Crocodile” is a beautiful place, hidden away in the Rain Forest, feeling very remote. There was only 1 other couple staying there, a young couple from Germany, friends of the owner. The owners are away in Germany (for 6 months I believe). The staff, with a little help from Chad, apparently keep the show running without them. Chad flies the ultralights and takes customers up in them as well. Other than that, he seems to just be hanging out and doing a little overseeing and making trips to the airstrip and such. He apparently wandered out there one day a year or so ago, wanting to find out about the ultralights. He learned to fly them well enough that the owner, Gaido, trusts him to take others up for rides, so he hangs out and helps out from time to time. He was in the Marines for 6 years and has been out for 10 years, so I put him at about Mark’s age. He likes to wander and has lived in a lot of different places.
We had good meals, breakfasts of fresh fruit, toast and cold cuts, cheese etc. Dinners different every night but seeming rather “German,” with meat cooked well and other things on the dry side, except for the salads, which were over-sauced. Nevertheless, generally the meals that the Tica cooks turned out were fairly impressive. The veggies were good.
We walked down to the beach the first day, 15-20 minutes over a muddy, rutted road, and made it back almost before the rains came. The beach area is beautiful and we went for a nice walk down the length of it. There’s a lot of driftwood and some trash on the beach. Not terrible, but not the beautiful immense stretch of pristine beaches that you see in the pictures. Since there was usually only a short stretch of sun time each day in between the rains, we spent the rest of the week sunning at the beautiful pool area at the Crocodile when the sun came out. It was steps from our cabina. The rest of the time we read, took naps, played cards or rummitile.
One day we spent the better part of the afternoon watching about a dozen howler monkeys in the trees outside our cabina. They are amazing – and amazingly loud! It was fun and we took many photos, but although we could see them all well enough running around in the trees, it is hard to see them in the photos. There were 2 fabulously beautiful macaws in a large cage by the dining area. The blue and yellow one was often allowed to fly free around the area, and even sat on my shoulder. He can talk, but his vocabulary seems to be limited to “Hola.” I think his Spanish is coming along about as well as mine! There were peacocks – a male, female and 2 babies. They were fun to watch. There were 3 dogs and several cats. There were a few squirrels around in the trees.
The sounds of the rain in the trees and the crickets at night. Relaxing and calming. Very good sleeping weather. Our cabina was a beautiful “Moorish” décor thing, with 2 big beautiful beds made of some sort of gorgeous wood. The building itself was sort of “rounded,” with seven or so sides, the floor on 3 levels, with a couple of steps down between each level. The bathroom was all tile, with exquisite designs made with different color tiles. The step down in the bathroom was rounded, everything free-form. There was a snake-like red light stream, like a neon thing, built into the tiles on the counter-top and up the walls. Fabulous open shower, with all the hot water you wanted!!! Above were different colored glass insets in the tall rounded ceiling.
The paths and gardens throughout the property were fabulous, with a real “hidden away in the rain forest” feeling. Probably my favorite part of the property was the kitchen and eating area. I seem to really be into kitchens – especially when they are “outdoors.” This was beautiful with lots of open shelving of gorgeous woods, beautiful European appliances, tile, and big serving areas. Although it could all be closed up like a smallish room, and was actually the bottom floor of the owners’ house, it led out onto the tiled eating area, and felt totally open and outdoors. The large eating area was covered with bamboo roof and also contained a turtle pond (2 big turtles), the macaw cage, and a hammock. Everything about the place was designed for total relaxation.
A big fun part of the week was catching a ride with Chad into town a couple of times. Each time he would check to see if we could cross the river to go the short way and decide it was too high. So we would take the long way around (about an hour to town), crossing 3 rivers along the way, one of which was pretty big. We stopped once to pull another vehicle out of the middle of the river, and another time to make sure that the smaller truck we had passed along the road made it across o.k. Chad always stopped to pick people up along the road. The Ticos walk for long distances all the time, but are very appreciative when they get a ride! There were a lot of dogs everywhere we went, and they were all skinny as hell. Also there were a lot of cows in pastures and they were all skinny. We saw a few horses and they were not fat either. It was about an hour into Samara and the beach there was wide, long, and beautiful. It was also virtually empty, this being the green season. I could live here.
Got an e-mail from son Mark, who said he “couldn’t help worrying a little,” when he doesn’t hear from us for a few days! Couldn’t help remembering trying to track him down back in his college days. Don’t you just love it. Paybacks are hell!