Our last night in San Jose (actually Alajuela, a suburb that's clearly not touristy but is close to the airport) was spent drinking a bottle of wine - that Beth wrestled open with a pocket knife after the cork disintegrated - and watching TV. We kind of surrendered. Plus we had a 5:30AM cab, so needed to go to bed early.
Flights home were uneventful but slow, and after a long 15ish hours of travel we made it through customs to find Mom and Lolly waiting to get me and Beth, respectively! Yay!
I had to drive back up to San Jose on Wednesday and spent a lazy-ish day at work mostly uploading photos and going through e-mail. I was going to count my bug bites (I am traveling with Benadryl anti-itch cream to avoid scratching my skin off), but I stopped when I got to 18 below my left knee. (Seven on my right foot and I stopped there too.)
Photos are up at kodakgallery.com - Beth's should be up soon too! Happy to be home in my new fuzzy pajamas watching tv!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Sorry for the Delay...
...but the internet (and the power, in fact!) in Drake Bay is transient at best and seems to function only at the most inconvenient times. Here is what I wrote (as a word document) covering the 7th through last night (the 10th). I'll update in a minute about today's adventures!
************
The morning of the 7th we started with an early cab ride from our hotel in Montezuma to the Tambor airport, or shall I say airstrip? There is no terminal, just chicken wire around the paved airstrip. Taxi drivers wait when the flights arrive to get passengers, and the two airlines (Sansa and Nature Air) seem to schedule their flights pretty close together, so there were two flights’ worth of people waiting. That’s still less than 20 people, so it wasn’t crowded. For our flight the “check-in” involved a guy in a Nature Air shirt checking our passports against a list he had on a clipboard, weighing our luggage on a portable scale, and then handing us our boarding passes that were clearly printed out in an office somewhere and had our flight info handwritten into the empty spaces. There are no seat assignments as there are only about 20 seats on the plane. For intra-Costa Rica flights, the planes are small, and so only allow a certain amount of luggage on the planes, thus the weighing and charging. However, here it is much less weight that you are allowed – 30 pounds per checked bag and 10 pounds per carry-on! For 1-30 pounds over you are charged $25, which apparently works out to 14,300 colones. We had 20,000 colones, pero el hombre no tiene (I don’t know past tense) cambio (the man didn’t have change), so we scrounged about 12,500 with some change and he said that was fine. No receipt, just him tagging our bags and putting them with the others flying into San Jose.
Uneventful flight to San Jose. When we arrived, we had two hours to kill before our flight to Drake Bay (or Bahia Drake). Since it was a separate ticket, we decided to check in right away to avoid messing with our big bags. The airport is small (there are two airports in San Jose – the international one and the smaller regional one that Nature Air routes everything through), so there is one counter, one arrival gate, and one departure gate. We checked in with a nice young gentleman who weighed our bags, then asked how much we’d paid in Tambor and whether we had a receipt. I asked him what the receipt looked like, and when he showed me I said that no, in fact I hadn’t gotten a receipt, but that we’d paid 14,300 colones (or at least were charged that much, I didn’t say how much we actually paid). He frowned and said, “Hm, I have to call him.” I think the guy in Tambor pocketed our money instead and we just got him in trouble. Oops! Anyway, we didn’t get charged in San Jose, but we did have to weigh our carryons and then go through the motions of transferring some of Beth’s things to my bag to even them out (really, an allowance of ten pounds per person, we are two travelers, my bag was 7 pounds, Beth’s was 13. Can we just call it even? Nooooo, we had to transfer goods and reweigh.) THEN he made us each get on the scale with our bags to see how much we weighed total! How embarrassing! We couldn’t see the numbers (thankfully they were pointed at the guy) so we didn’t feel too badly. But, we figured it was a pretty full flight if they were weighing the passengers, as we’d already been on semi-full flights where no passengers were weighed and baggage weights were given lots of leeway.
When they called our flight and no one lined up at the gate, we continued to wait, thinking there must be other people. The gate agent finally asked us if we were going to Drake Bay, and when we said yes he said to follow him, that we were the only passengers on the flight. We had a private shuttle to the plane (that included the captains of the flight of course), and a private plane to Drake Bay. Got photos with the captain, the captain just sat next to us on the plane to describe safety procedures while I snapped photos, and we were off.
Now, what the hell was that gate agent doing by weighing us?! I think he was messing with the touristas, the bastard.
Anyway, what a stunning flight! Drake Bay is at the Northern tip of the Osa Peninsula, and is the hottest and most humid part of Costa Rica, apparently (excellent planning on my part, really). The “airport” consists of a paved but very gravelly and bumpy landing strip carved into the jungle, with a small covered open-air building. It was rush hour when we got there as there was a Sansa plane waiting to take off and people who had just deplaned waiting for us and our first-class private shuttle…
We landed, deplaned, and there were guys waiting for us who took our ridiculous wheeled luggage (next time = backpacks, seriously it’s all dirt here) and packed it onto the shuttle, which looked like a paddywagon but had no locks on the doors. All luggage on top, all people loaded onto the vehicle through the rear doors. Then we embarked on a 20-minute drive through the jungle that included driving dirt roads through a river and over a clearly-new bridge that the vehicle b-a-r-e-l-y fit onto (seriously, you couldn’t see the bridge when you looked out the windows, the tires were exactly on the edges), and finally onto a dark sand beach where the luggage was transferred to a trailer attached to an ATV and we walked the remainder of the way.
I can’t really describe this place except to say that it’s wild. We are on a lovely calm bay, tucked into the jungle. Our first room was inhabited by hermit crabs (small ones), who apparently make their homes in the dirt hills outside the room as well as on the beach. Beth tried to rescue one by capturing it in her underwear and setting it free outside (Beth would like me to mention that she wasn't actually wearing the underwear at the time, in case you were confused), but we woke to more crabs scuttling across the tile floors. We gave up and welcomed them in.
There is an open-air restaurant where all meals are served; it’s very cruise-ship like in that sense, which is a little hard for me – forced socialization is not my strong suit! We arrived just in time for lunch – there are seats for about thirty people at two tables, with a view of the bay, hardwood everything, little bar (thankfully!) in the dining area… Very picturesque!
After lunch we settled into our room, which only had windows VERY high up on the walls and so no view for us. Plus, it is hotter than hell here. There was a ceiling fan but it was ineffectual and just kind of lazily pushed the air enough to make me crazy and want more wind. We decided to walk ~25 minutes through the jungle to a little beach that was just gorgeous – the beaches here are crazy! It’s jungle right up to the sand, where palm trees finally take over. The water is the craziest mix of colors here – light aqua in some parts, and bright turquoise in others! I want to paint my house in all of these tropical ocean colors! We started putting our towels onto the sand and paused, as it looked like the beach was in motion. Seriously, the large collection of shells on the sand was moving – and it was the largest collection of hermit crabs we have ever seen! Apparently they are everywhere here and it’s like hermit crab cities at every beach. Every now and then one will try to climb over your foot while you’re reading on the beach and you feel kind of bad when you freak out and accidentally fling it in the air.
After the beach we hit the bar – and oh what a happening bar it is! Seriously, they house maybe 30 people here at any given time, and they are not full, and so we were the only ones. The staff is fantastic and friendly, and we’ve gotten to know them. Probably because we are the only ones at the bar a lot of the time. We are also tipping pretty well so our wine glasses are getting really full and the margaritas (with freshly squeezed lime juice!) are getting stronger…
Dinner has been a series of breaded meats – pork, fish, chicken – and veggies, with some homemade bread and dessert… Yummy! Of course, there is no night life here, and after a full day and a full tummy and the sun going down we were ready for bed around 8PM. I know, shocking! Beth is calling this rehab. ;-)
So the staff puts coffee out in the public areas around 6AM, with sugar and milk, so you can just help yourself. The white-faced monkeys (a la Outbreak) know this, and hurl themselves onto the metal roof around the time to steal the sugar packets. What an alarm clock! Loud banging and running noises, and when we stepped outside there were monkeys! Like RIGHT THERE! Beth got some good photos – hopefully I will soon too. It’s been like that every morning – coffee gets set out, monkeys arrive, everyone gets up and moving. They’re kind of menaces and seem to like to steal things…
Full day number one involved scuba! Beth’s first dives as a certified diver! Breakfast was at 7, we got suited up in wetsuits (full wetsuits for 82 degree water? Really?) and fins and BCDs, and we were on the boat by 7:30 heading for Isla Caño (Caño Island) – a 45 minute bumpy boat ride out to a gorgeous tropical island! We dropped the cooler full of lunch gear at the beach and then headed to the scuba spot, where five of us (me, Beth, a couple, and another guy) suited up and fell backwards off the boat into the water. It was a free descent in open water, which was really fun, down to some rocks where a bunch of sea life hung out. Our dive master, Vincent, was awesome – we immediately saw two manta rays hanging out in the sand and they swam away in a cloud as we approached! Also, in no particular order: a sea turtle with a hook stuck in its neck and a long thick fishing line hanging off of it (Vincent found a sharp shell and cut the line to at least make it shorter), white-tipped reef sharks (like four of them! Small and clearly not interested in us…), and tons of fish. When we surfaced the boat was there waiting (I have no idea how they knew where we were or WHO we were!), it picked us up and took us to the island for lunch of ham sandwiches and pasta salad and fresh water and lemonade – yum! Then back into the water for dive number two – also open water but at a different locale, where we saw more sharks, a lobster, and a seahorse! Apparently the seashores sightings are very rare, so were very lucky. As we were all jockeying for position to get a view of it, the couple (no idea what their names were) kicked up so much sand it was hard to see, and in her attempt to get out of the way the women accidentally kicked the seahorse with her fin. They are fragile creatures and it was a big faux pas. When we surfaced this time the lone gentleman was having buoyancy issues (we do a three-minute safety stop at 15 feet, and we weren’t hanging onto anything so we had to pay close attention to our depth and monitor our buoyancy closely) and Vincent had to physically hold onto him to keep him from popping to the surface. Clearly Beth and I were the scuba champions.
Post-scuba, we had a beer at the bar and took a little siesta. Snacks are serve at 4, and Beth and I seem to have a “snack alarm clock” – taking a nap, we will both wake up at 3:45, just in time to walk down to the bar for snacks (and perhaps a cocktail). We moved to a different room – this one with an extra floor fan (that I aim at my bed – Beth gets the big bed, I get to aim the fan at my little twin bed, seems fair, yes?) and a balcony with an ocean view. The walls here are thin – and the bathrooms (I think in an effort to keep them cool) don’t have walls that go all the way to the ceiling. Interesting, and not very private. But, the showers (finally!) are not suicide showers – there are actually two knobs and a showerhead and the water is hot! Not that I want a hot shower, but it’s nice to have the option.
Yesterday was scuba day number two (after the monkey alarm clock of course). This time it was only Beth and me going, and Vincent (after we all talked some trash about the idiot divers from the day before) agreed to take us to another place called Baja del Diablo (Under the Devil). This one was AMAZING! Seriously open-ocean – the boat captain (Junior) and Vincent find it by going a certain distance from Caño Island and placing the boat equidistant between Caño Island and a rock outcropping, then looking into the water at the rock formations (the water is so clear you can see rock shadows at ~100 feet!). We dropped in and the boat took off and down we went!
It felt like we were in an aquarium! Huge rock formations, huge schools of fish, moray eels, an octopus, and we went to ~95 feet and worked our way back up. It was just stunning – clear water, fish not afraid of scuba divers at all and letting us swim right with them… Like swimming through the little rock formations you put into an aquarium – gorgeous! We brought an underwater camera but are not sure how it worked, so we’ll see…
Then it was lunch on the beach again, then dive number two back at the place we went to the second dive the day before. This time we descended and swum a bit away from the rocks to try and see manta rays, and saw one swimming about 25 feet above us! Then, back to the rocks, where we saw more eels, lots of fish, three white-tipped reef sharks who were hunting! We even pet a fish that was hiding in a rock crevice.
We took a little siesta before dinner, and after dinner we had our night tour. I thought this was a night tour of the jungle, which is kind of was, but in fact we took a night insect tour. I hate spiders, and we saw a LOT of spiders. In fact, the “bug lady” showed us that if you shine a light at night into the dirt, you can see the eye reflection from spiders large and small.
They are everywhere.
We saw frogs, toads, spiders galore (trap door spiders, a Bolivian poisonous-as-hell-but-not-interested-in-us spider, HUGE wolf spiders), a boa constrictor, a little semi-venomous snake, and a scorpion! (Shake out all clothing and shoes before putting them on! Duly noted!) We also saw some crazy kind of bug that kills beetles by drawing them into its spiked long legs and eating them alive (called the original iron maiden) – can’t remember the name, but we have amazing pictures of this apparently very friendly bug on Beth’s face. I of course wouldn’t let it near me. Super cool, but now I know there are spiders around me constantly. I don’t like that.
The bug tour ended at 10:30 and we were exhausted. This morning we were signed up to take a boat to Playa Sirena in Corcovado National Park, which meant we were up at 5AM (!) for breakfast at 5:30 (we missed the monkey alarm clock), then on the boat at 6. The park “opens” at 7, but really the boat just landed on a beach (after an absolutely stunning ride down the coast – turquoise waters and dark sand beaches with a row of palm trees backed by solid jungle) and we headed into the jungle on the only available trail. Oh, the jungle – it was lovely in the morning – we saw monkeys galore! Spider monkeys, howler monkeys, and squirrel monkeys (so we’ve officially seen all four monkey species in Costa Rica) – so cute, and so hard to photograph! Our guide, Rolando, was amazing – he would set up a scope so we could see things far away, and then take pictures for us with our cameras through the scope. We saw Macaws, agouti (like a cross between a rabbit and a guinea pig I guess; rodent-like but BIG), monkeys of course, a bunch of really weird-looking birds, and crocodiles. We saw the crocodiles on the shore where a river met the ocean. There is also a river that meets the ocean very near our hotel. Apparently there can be crocodiles IN THE OCEAN at our hotel. (!!!) I got a GREAT photo of the crocodiles thanks to Rolando and his scope.
As the day progressed (like as it got closer to 8AM-ish) it got HOT. Like I didn’t know I could sweat that much hot. Like I wanted to jump in the water crocodiles be damned hot. There were eight of us on the tour, and we were all dying. We had lunch on a beach (opposite the crocodiles, thankfully) where again it was hermit crab central, and we saw the largest hermit crab I have ever seen. In fact, Rolando also said it was the biggest hermit crab he’d ever seen. We all called him The King. We were starting hermit crab wars by tossing little pieces of bread into the sand and watching them fight. Lovely breeze, everyone cooled off, and then it was back into the jungle! Walking into the jungle from the beach is like walking through a door into a completely different world – from sun and sand and wind (and what a freakishly hot sun it is – I can’t stay in it very long at all and you can feel it cooking you) to shade and leaf litter and canopy and the stillest air ever. Without airflow, it’s impossible to stay cool! And the noises! In the early morning we could hear the howler monkeys from so far away, but as it got hotter the jungle quieted down as animals found cool places to hide from the hottest part of the day (who can blame them!).
The end of it became kind of like a death march – just put on foot in front of the other, wipe the sweat off your brow, drink your water, don’t think about how much longer you have! But we finally made it back to the beach, where there was a cooler with cold pineapple and watermelon, and Coca-Cola, Fresca, and Iced Tea (all in glass bottles and the Fresca was maybe the best drink I’ve had here so far). The boat ride back was lovely and cool. We had an ice cold glass of white wine and then took a two-hour siesta before snacks (woke up promptly at 3:45!). We grabbed a margarita and headed upstairs to the deck where we read our books in hammocks until it got too dark, then headed back downstairs for dinner.
Dinner tonight was snapper – caught fresh today! – and mashed potatoes with veggies and fried plantains that looked liked hash browns. Yum! We sat with the other people from the tour today, and it’s kind of like now that we’ve all been through this hardship together we’re all friends! Too funny. An older German couple and a younger Candian (Quebec) couple, all very nice. Beth keeps explaining that we’re sisters, not lesbians, as this seems to be a very couple-y place.
It is 8PM and I am surprised to still be awake – tomorrow we fly to San Jose for one night and then it’s back home. I’m ready for regular bathrooms and a REAL shower! Everything I own smells, nothing dries here (as it’s so humid), and we’re ditching the beach towels we bought here because we think they are beyond hope. Wet for days, won’t dry, smell terrible!
More tomorrow! Internet is awful here so hopefully will be able to post this tomorrow from San Jose!
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The morning of the 7th we started with an early cab ride from our hotel in Montezuma to the Tambor airport, or shall I say airstrip? There is no terminal, just chicken wire around the paved airstrip. Taxi drivers wait when the flights arrive to get passengers, and the two airlines (Sansa and Nature Air) seem to schedule their flights pretty close together, so there were two flights’ worth of people waiting. That’s still less than 20 people, so it wasn’t crowded. For our flight the “check-in” involved a guy in a Nature Air shirt checking our passports against a list he had on a clipboard, weighing our luggage on a portable scale, and then handing us our boarding passes that were clearly printed out in an office somewhere and had our flight info handwritten into the empty spaces. There are no seat assignments as there are only about 20 seats on the plane. For intra-Costa Rica flights, the planes are small, and so only allow a certain amount of luggage on the planes, thus the weighing and charging. However, here it is much less weight that you are allowed – 30 pounds per checked bag and 10 pounds per carry-on! For 1-30 pounds over you are charged $25, which apparently works out to 14,300 colones. We had 20,000 colones, pero el hombre no tiene (I don’t know past tense) cambio (the man didn’t have change), so we scrounged about 12,500 with some change and he said that was fine. No receipt, just him tagging our bags and putting them with the others flying into San Jose.
Uneventful flight to San Jose. When we arrived, we had two hours to kill before our flight to Drake Bay (or Bahia Drake). Since it was a separate ticket, we decided to check in right away to avoid messing with our big bags. The airport is small (there are two airports in San Jose – the international one and the smaller regional one that Nature Air routes everything through), so there is one counter, one arrival gate, and one departure gate. We checked in with a nice young gentleman who weighed our bags, then asked how much we’d paid in Tambor and whether we had a receipt. I asked him what the receipt looked like, and when he showed me I said that no, in fact I hadn’t gotten a receipt, but that we’d paid 14,300 colones (or at least were charged that much, I didn’t say how much we actually paid). He frowned and said, “Hm, I have to call him.” I think the guy in Tambor pocketed our money instead and we just got him in trouble. Oops! Anyway, we didn’t get charged in San Jose, but we did have to weigh our carryons and then go through the motions of transferring some of Beth’s things to my bag to even them out (really, an allowance of ten pounds per person, we are two travelers, my bag was 7 pounds, Beth’s was 13. Can we just call it even? Nooooo, we had to transfer goods and reweigh.) THEN he made us each get on the scale with our bags to see how much we weighed total! How embarrassing! We couldn’t see the numbers (thankfully they were pointed at the guy) so we didn’t feel too badly. But, we figured it was a pretty full flight if they were weighing the passengers, as we’d already been on semi-full flights where no passengers were weighed and baggage weights were given lots of leeway.
When they called our flight and no one lined up at the gate, we continued to wait, thinking there must be other people. The gate agent finally asked us if we were going to Drake Bay, and when we said yes he said to follow him, that we were the only passengers on the flight. We had a private shuttle to the plane (that included the captains of the flight of course), and a private plane to Drake Bay. Got photos with the captain, the captain just sat next to us on the plane to describe safety procedures while I snapped photos, and we were off.
Now, what the hell was that gate agent doing by weighing us?! I think he was messing with the touristas, the bastard.
Anyway, what a stunning flight! Drake Bay is at the Northern tip of the Osa Peninsula, and is the hottest and most humid part of Costa Rica, apparently (excellent planning on my part, really). The “airport” consists of a paved but very gravelly and bumpy landing strip carved into the jungle, with a small covered open-air building. It was rush hour when we got there as there was a Sansa plane waiting to take off and people who had just deplaned waiting for us and our first-class private shuttle…
We landed, deplaned, and there were guys waiting for us who took our ridiculous wheeled luggage (next time = backpacks, seriously it’s all dirt here) and packed it onto the shuttle, which looked like a paddywagon but had no locks on the doors. All luggage on top, all people loaded onto the vehicle through the rear doors. Then we embarked on a 20-minute drive through the jungle that included driving dirt roads through a river and over a clearly-new bridge that the vehicle b-a-r-e-l-y fit onto (seriously, you couldn’t see the bridge when you looked out the windows, the tires were exactly on the edges), and finally onto a dark sand beach where the luggage was transferred to a trailer attached to an ATV and we walked the remainder of the way.
I can’t really describe this place except to say that it’s wild. We are on a lovely calm bay, tucked into the jungle. Our first room was inhabited by hermit crabs (small ones), who apparently make their homes in the dirt hills outside the room as well as on the beach. Beth tried to rescue one by capturing it in her underwear and setting it free outside (Beth would like me to mention that she wasn't actually wearing the underwear at the time, in case you were confused), but we woke to more crabs scuttling across the tile floors. We gave up and welcomed them in.
There is an open-air restaurant where all meals are served; it’s very cruise-ship like in that sense, which is a little hard for me – forced socialization is not my strong suit! We arrived just in time for lunch – there are seats for about thirty people at two tables, with a view of the bay, hardwood everything, little bar (thankfully!) in the dining area… Very picturesque!
After lunch we settled into our room, which only had windows VERY high up on the walls and so no view for us. Plus, it is hotter than hell here. There was a ceiling fan but it was ineffectual and just kind of lazily pushed the air enough to make me crazy and want more wind. We decided to walk ~25 minutes through the jungle to a little beach that was just gorgeous – the beaches here are crazy! It’s jungle right up to the sand, where palm trees finally take over. The water is the craziest mix of colors here – light aqua in some parts, and bright turquoise in others! I want to paint my house in all of these tropical ocean colors! We started putting our towels onto the sand and paused, as it looked like the beach was in motion. Seriously, the large collection of shells on the sand was moving – and it was the largest collection of hermit crabs we have ever seen! Apparently they are everywhere here and it’s like hermit crab cities at every beach. Every now and then one will try to climb over your foot while you’re reading on the beach and you feel kind of bad when you freak out and accidentally fling it in the air.
After the beach we hit the bar – and oh what a happening bar it is! Seriously, they house maybe 30 people here at any given time, and they are not full, and so we were the only ones. The staff is fantastic and friendly, and we’ve gotten to know them. Probably because we are the only ones at the bar a lot of the time. We are also tipping pretty well so our wine glasses are getting really full and the margaritas (with freshly squeezed lime juice!) are getting stronger…
Dinner has been a series of breaded meats – pork, fish, chicken – and veggies, with some homemade bread and dessert… Yummy! Of course, there is no night life here, and after a full day and a full tummy and the sun going down we were ready for bed around 8PM. I know, shocking! Beth is calling this rehab. ;-)
So the staff puts coffee out in the public areas around 6AM, with sugar and milk, so you can just help yourself. The white-faced monkeys (a la Outbreak) know this, and hurl themselves onto the metal roof around the time to steal the sugar packets. What an alarm clock! Loud banging and running noises, and when we stepped outside there were monkeys! Like RIGHT THERE! Beth got some good photos – hopefully I will soon too. It’s been like that every morning – coffee gets set out, monkeys arrive, everyone gets up and moving. They’re kind of menaces and seem to like to steal things…
Full day number one involved scuba! Beth’s first dives as a certified diver! Breakfast was at 7, we got suited up in wetsuits (full wetsuits for 82 degree water? Really?) and fins and BCDs, and we were on the boat by 7:30 heading for Isla Caño (Caño Island) – a 45 minute bumpy boat ride out to a gorgeous tropical island! We dropped the cooler full of lunch gear at the beach and then headed to the scuba spot, where five of us (me, Beth, a couple, and another guy) suited up and fell backwards off the boat into the water. It was a free descent in open water, which was really fun, down to some rocks where a bunch of sea life hung out. Our dive master, Vincent, was awesome – we immediately saw two manta rays hanging out in the sand and they swam away in a cloud as we approached! Also, in no particular order: a sea turtle with a hook stuck in its neck and a long thick fishing line hanging off of it (Vincent found a sharp shell and cut the line to at least make it shorter), white-tipped reef sharks (like four of them! Small and clearly not interested in us…), and tons of fish. When we surfaced the boat was there waiting (I have no idea how they knew where we were or WHO we were!), it picked us up and took us to the island for lunch of ham sandwiches and pasta salad and fresh water and lemonade – yum! Then back into the water for dive number two – also open water but at a different locale, where we saw more sharks, a lobster, and a seahorse! Apparently the seashores sightings are very rare, so were very lucky. As we were all jockeying for position to get a view of it, the couple (no idea what their names were) kicked up so much sand it was hard to see, and in her attempt to get out of the way the women accidentally kicked the seahorse with her fin. They are fragile creatures and it was a big faux pas. When we surfaced this time the lone gentleman was having buoyancy issues (we do a three-minute safety stop at 15 feet, and we weren’t hanging onto anything so we had to pay close attention to our depth and monitor our buoyancy closely) and Vincent had to physically hold onto him to keep him from popping to the surface. Clearly Beth and I were the scuba champions.
Post-scuba, we had a beer at the bar and took a little siesta. Snacks are serve at 4, and Beth and I seem to have a “snack alarm clock” – taking a nap, we will both wake up at 3:45, just in time to walk down to the bar for snacks (and perhaps a cocktail). We moved to a different room – this one with an extra floor fan (that I aim at my bed – Beth gets the big bed, I get to aim the fan at my little twin bed, seems fair, yes?) and a balcony with an ocean view. The walls here are thin – and the bathrooms (I think in an effort to keep them cool) don’t have walls that go all the way to the ceiling. Interesting, and not very private. But, the showers (finally!) are not suicide showers – there are actually two knobs and a showerhead and the water is hot! Not that I want a hot shower, but it’s nice to have the option.
Yesterday was scuba day number two (after the monkey alarm clock of course). This time it was only Beth and me going, and Vincent (after we all talked some trash about the idiot divers from the day before) agreed to take us to another place called Baja del Diablo (Under the Devil). This one was AMAZING! Seriously open-ocean – the boat captain (Junior) and Vincent find it by going a certain distance from Caño Island and placing the boat equidistant between Caño Island and a rock outcropping, then looking into the water at the rock formations (the water is so clear you can see rock shadows at ~100 feet!). We dropped in and the boat took off and down we went!
It felt like we were in an aquarium! Huge rock formations, huge schools of fish, moray eels, an octopus, and we went to ~95 feet and worked our way back up. It was just stunning – clear water, fish not afraid of scuba divers at all and letting us swim right with them… Like swimming through the little rock formations you put into an aquarium – gorgeous! We brought an underwater camera but are not sure how it worked, so we’ll see…
Then it was lunch on the beach again, then dive number two back at the place we went to the second dive the day before. This time we descended and swum a bit away from the rocks to try and see manta rays, and saw one swimming about 25 feet above us! Then, back to the rocks, where we saw more eels, lots of fish, three white-tipped reef sharks who were hunting! We even pet a fish that was hiding in a rock crevice.
We took a little siesta before dinner, and after dinner we had our night tour. I thought this was a night tour of the jungle, which is kind of was, but in fact we took a night insect tour. I hate spiders, and we saw a LOT of spiders. In fact, the “bug lady” showed us that if you shine a light at night into the dirt, you can see the eye reflection from spiders large and small.
They are everywhere.
We saw frogs, toads, spiders galore (trap door spiders, a Bolivian poisonous-as-hell-but-not-interested-in-us spider, HUGE wolf spiders), a boa constrictor, a little semi-venomous snake, and a scorpion! (Shake out all clothing and shoes before putting them on! Duly noted!) We also saw some crazy kind of bug that kills beetles by drawing them into its spiked long legs and eating them alive (called the original iron maiden) – can’t remember the name, but we have amazing pictures of this apparently very friendly bug on Beth’s face. I of course wouldn’t let it near me. Super cool, but now I know there are spiders around me constantly. I don’t like that.
The bug tour ended at 10:30 and we were exhausted. This morning we were signed up to take a boat to Playa Sirena in Corcovado National Park, which meant we were up at 5AM (!) for breakfast at 5:30 (we missed the monkey alarm clock), then on the boat at 6. The park “opens” at 7, but really the boat just landed on a beach (after an absolutely stunning ride down the coast – turquoise waters and dark sand beaches with a row of palm trees backed by solid jungle) and we headed into the jungle on the only available trail. Oh, the jungle – it was lovely in the morning – we saw monkeys galore! Spider monkeys, howler monkeys, and squirrel monkeys (so we’ve officially seen all four monkey species in Costa Rica) – so cute, and so hard to photograph! Our guide, Rolando, was amazing – he would set up a scope so we could see things far away, and then take pictures for us with our cameras through the scope. We saw Macaws, agouti (like a cross between a rabbit and a guinea pig I guess; rodent-like but BIG), monkeys of course, a bunch of really weird-looking birds, and crocodiles. We saw the crocodiles on the shore where a river met the ocean. There is also a river that meets the ocean very near our hotel. Apparently there can be crocodiles IN THE OCEAN at our hotel. (!!!) I got a GREAT photo of the crocodiles thanks to Rolando and his scope.
As the day progressed (like as it got closer to 8AM-ish) it got HOT. Like I didn’t know I could sweat that much hot. Like I wanted to jump in the water crocodiles be damned hot. There were eight of us on the tour, and we were all dying. We had lunch on a beach (opposite the crocodiles, thankfully) where again it was hermit crab central, and we saw the largest hermit crab I have ever seen. In fact, Rolando also said it was the biggest hermit crab he’d ever seen. We all called him The King. We were starting hermit crab wars by tossing little pieces of bread into the sand and watching them fight. Lovely breeze, everyone cooled off, and then it was back into the jungle! Walking into the jungle from the beach is like walking through a door into a completely different world – from sun and sand and wind (and what a freakishly hot sun it is – I can’t stay in it very long at all and you can feel it cooking you) to shade and leaf litter and canopy and the stillest air ever. Without airflow, it’s impossible to stay cool! And the noises! In the early morning we could hear the howler monkeys from so far away, but as it got hotter the jungle quieted down as animals found cool places to hide from the hottest part of the day (who can blame them!).
The end of it became kind of like a death march – just put on foot in front of the other, wipe the sweat off your brow, drink your water, don’t think about how much longer you have! But we finally made it back to the beach, where there was a cooler with cold pineapple and watermelon, and Coca-Cola, Fresca, and Iced Tea (all in glass bottles and the Fresca was maybe the best drink I’ve had here so far). The boat ride back was lovely and cool. We had an ice cold glass of white wine and then took a two-hour siesta before snacks (woke up promptly at 3:45!). We grabbed a margarita and headed upstairs to the deck where we read our books in hammocks until it got too dark, then headed back downstairs for dinner.
Dinner tonight was snapper – caught fresh today! – and mashed potatoes with veggies and fried plantains that looked liked hash browns. Yum! We sat with the other people from the tour today, and it’s kind of like now that we’ve all been through this hardship together we’re all friends! Too funny. An older German couple and a younger Candian (Quebec) couple, all very nice. Beth keeps explaining that we’re sisters, not lesbians, as this seems to be a very couple-y place.
It is 8PM and I am surprised to still be awake – tomorrow we fly to San Jose for one night and then it’s back home. I’m ready for regular bathrooms and a REAL shower! Everything I own smells, nothing dries here (as it’s so humid), and we’re ditching the beach towels we bought here because we think they are beyond hope. Wet for days, won’t dry, smell terrible!
More tomorrow! Internet is awful here so hopefully will be able to post this tomorrow from San Jose!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
So Much To Tell!
So Monday we did indeed make it to the waterfalls - a series of three waterfalls that you can hike right up to just a few minutes' walk outside of Montezuma. We left just after noon, and ran into Joe and Shannon as we were leaving, so we hiked together. Beth and I went to grab sandwiches before we left at a little open-air bakery place, and as we were waiting a troupe of monkeys invaded - they got into the trash, came and sat at tables, and the poor woman who was working there was frantically moving the silverware and condiments away from them as apparently they are little thieves. These were white-faced monkeys like in Outbreak, not the howler monkeys from the surf day. Super cute, and apparently quite the little menaces.
You walk out of town on a dirt road, cross over a tiny one-lane bridge, and take an immediate right through a little chicken-wire gate onto the trials for the waterfalls. The first one is easily accessible, and people were swimming below a cascading falls over a series of graded rock formations - it was gorgeous. I was already sweaty and wanted to hop in, but we decided to push on and hit the top first and work our way down.
To get to the second falls you hike on a riverside trail that takes you over the creek at one point - lots of rock jumping and getting your feet wet, but nothing dangerous. The trail is well-marked and there were lots of people, and the second set of falls were pretty spectacular - about 100 feet tall and fell into a great swimming hole. About 40 feet up was a jumping-off spot, but to get to it you pretty much had to scale a sheer wall - the local Ticos were doing it and it was like watching spiders climbing a wall! They just leapt from hold to hold like it was nothing, and I swear it looked vertical. We hopped in and Beth jumped off a lower rock - video forthcoming - the water was pretty chilly and even though we figured it was about 90 or 95 degrees and really, really humid, with the cold water and the breeze from the falls I actually got a little chill!
After we ate our sandwiches we pushed on to the third set of falls. This hike was not so easy. It was a nearly vertical climb (not up the side of the falls though - kind of around to the side) up a dirt hill where roots and branches made up a large portion of the hand and footholds. The dirt was slippery, and honestly on the way up I was a bit worried about the way back down. We climbed up and up - the kind of place where you just do not fall - and followed the creek a bit and then climbed up and over something else - there were people doing it in flip-flops, which I found insane! Big slippery hills right on the edge! Ack! At the end you climb down a hill - again with the tree roots and branches providing much of the support for your hands and feet - and you're on a pretty sheer face. One part actually has a rope anchored into the side of the hill to help you get over a rock hump - and you really don't want to let go because that fall... Whew! But once we made it to the third pool there was an amazing rope swing! Beth of course immediately jumps into the water to use the swing, and because the swing is a hair short, to get the rope out the water while climbing up the rocks she put it into her mouth! She was a champ, although there was one minor injury that I will post in video format later. I haven't laughed that hard in years and am thrilled I have it on tape. (Nothing major, don't worry!)
The climb back down was actually easier than the climb up, which surprised me. I was so focused on each step and where to put my hands and feet that when I looked up we were almost at the bottom.
The four of us had celebratory drinks at the hotel Beth and I are staying at, and a lovely British woman overheard us saying something and commented, at which point we realized she was traveling alone so we invited her to join us. Her name is Katherine and she's from Manchester, and while she's lovely she can also be extremely negative, which a little tough for us.
Anyway, we ended up going to dinner - Beth, Rolando the surf guy, and Katherine - to a Mediterranean place up the road that was really good. We think Rolando doesn't like Katherine as he pretty much shut up when she was around, and after a couple of glasses of wine (no idea what kind - you get a choice of red or white on the menus here!) Beth and I were in bed around 9.
Yesterday was our Isla Tortuga adventure - we boarded a small, fiberglass boat at 9:30 AM with Joe and Shannon and six other tourists (four French and two American), and rode for an hour over gorgeously smooth ocean to Turtle Island. Beth and I think that Montezuma is missing a tubing/banana boat industry here, so we might move here and start one. (Just kidding!) Anyway, as we're nearing the island there are all these funny rock formations in the water, and the boat suddenly veers right towards this rock shaped like a rainbow, complete with a hole in the middle. They were going really fast and we all gasped when we thought they were going to speed right through the hole! They slowed quickly and had a good laugh at our expense - can't blame them for having some fun with the tourists! We did go through the rock hole, but slowly and much more safely.
We snorkeled for an hour, and the snorkeling was pretty crappy - bad visibility, but they gave us bread so we could get the fish right in our laps. Then lunch on the beach - Mahi Mahi with potatoes cooked in foil on the grill in a spicy red sauce - SO good! And beer, two per person (although we brought extra)... As we were eating, a little wild boar approached us - and we all jumped up from the table and squealed as she ran underneath! The guides, however, who didn't speak or refused to speak English, started cooing, "Oh Filo Filo Filo!" Apparently this boar is like a pet and they've names her Filomena - and she came right up to us and let the guides push her over into the sand and scratch her under the chin and on the belly and back! They piled sand on top of her and I swear that boar smiled. They also told us she liked cerveza, so I am ashamed to admit people poured beer into a plate and Filo drank it and was a bit wobbly afterwards. We all got photos with her - GREAT photos! Then more crappy snorkeling, and then back to town.
We had a not-so-great dinner last night and again were in bed early. Today the internet in the entire town went down, which means not only no internet/e-mail, but the single ATM was out of order, no one's credit card machines worked... And no one knew when it would all be back up! Exciting. It all worked out though, and we spent the afternoon at the beach with Joe, Shannon, Rolando, Mauricio (the two surf instructors), and their two new clients. Beth and I lounged on the beach reading. On the way there we ran into the same group of monkeys and fed them peanuts to get them close enough for photos - Beth has some awesome ones! Dinner tonight was with Joe, Shannon, and Katherine at Cocolores very near the water, and then we all said our good-byes as we are all off to different places tomorrow.
Our taxi comes a 7AM; Beth is already snoring in bed (have to roll her over to get that to stop!) and I am not close behind.
The next leg is the most wild and remote - we supposedly have wireless internet but I have no idea about phones. We fly into Drake Bay at ~12:30, then get into a shuttle that takes us to a boat that takes us to our hotel - that is only accessible by boat! Tomorrow night we have a tour of the Corcovado National Park, supposedly one of the best wilderness places (and the hottest/most humid - great) in the country! Then - two sequential days of scuba, then a day tour of the park. This is the kind of place where all meals are included because they have to boat everything in and there are no restaurants to speak of and you certainly can't walk anywhere... Should be an exciting grand finale! Hopefully more soon, but please don't worry if we go MIA for a few days as I am not confident of the communication capabilities down there! :-) The resort is called Jinetes de Osa if you want to look us up!
You walk out of town on a dirt road, cross over a tiny one-lane bridge, and take an immediate right through a little chicken-wire gate onto the trials for the waterfalls. The first one is easily accessible, and people were swimming below a cascading falls over a series of graded rock formations - it was gorgeous. I was already sweaty and wanted to hop in, but we decided to push on and hit the top first and work our way down.
To get to the second falls you hike on a riverside trail that takes you over the creek at one point - lots of rock jumping and getting your feet wet, but nothing dangerous. The trail is well-marked and there were lots of people, and the second set of falls were pretty spectacular - about 100 feet tall and fell into a great swimming hole. About 40 feet up was a jumping-off spot, but to get to it you pretty much had to scale a sheer wall - the local Ticos were doing it and it was like watching spiders climbing a wall! They just leapt from hold to hold like it was nothing, and I swear it looked vertical. We hopped in and Beth jumped off a lower rock - video forthcoming - the water was pretty chilly and even though we figured it was about 90 or 95 degrees and really, really humid, with the cold water and the breeze from the falls I actually got a little chill!
After we ate our sandwiches we pushed on to the third set of falls. This hike was not so easy. It was a nearly vertical climb (not up the side of the falls though - kind of around to the side) up a dirt hill where roots and branches made up a large portion of the hand and footholds. The dirt was slippery, and honestly on the way up I was a bit worried about the way back down. We climbed up and up - the kind of place where you just do not fall - and followed the creek a bit and then climbed up and over something else - there were people doing it in flip-flops, which I found insane! Big slippery hills right on the edge! Ack! At the end you climb down a hill - again with the tree roots and branches providing much of the support for your hands and feet - and you're on a pretty sheer face. One part actually has a rope anchored into the side of the hill to help you get over a rock hump - and you really don't want to let go because that fall... Whew! But once we made it to the third pool there was an amazing rope swing! Beth of course immediately jumps into the water to use the swing, and because the swing is a hair short, to get the rope out the water while climbing up the rocks she put it into her mouth! She was a champ, although there was one minor injury that I will post in video format later. I haven't laughed that hard in years and am thrilled I have it on tape. (Nothing major, don't worry!)
The climb back down was actually easier than the climb up, which surprised me. I was so focused on each step and where to put my hands and feet that when I looked up we were almost at the bottom.
The four of us had celebratory drinks at the hotel Beth and I are staying at, and a lovely British woman overheard us saying something and commented, at which point we realized she was traveling alone so we invited her to join us. Her name is Katherine and she's from Manchester, and while she's lovely she can also be extremely negative, which a little tough for us.
Anyway, we ended up going to dinner - Beth, Rolando the surf guy, and Katherine - to a Mediterranean place up the road that was really good. We think Rolando doesn't like Katherine as he pretty much shut up when she was around, and after a couple of glasses of wine (no idea what kind - you get a choice of red or white on the menus here!) Beth and I were in bed around 9.
Yesterday was our Isla Tortuga adventure - we boarded a small, fiberglass boat at 9:30 AM with Joe and Shannon and six other tourists (four French and two American), and rode for an hour over gorgeously smooth ocean to Turtle Island. Beth and I think that Montezuma is missing a tubing/banana boat industry here, so we might move here and start one. (Just kidding!) Anyway, as we're nearing the island there are all these funny rock formations in the water, and the boat suddenly veers right towards this rock shaped like a rainbow, complete with a hole in the middle. They were going really fast and we all gasped when we thought they were going to speed right through the hole! They slowed quickly and had a good laugh at our expense - can't blame them for having some fun with the tourists! We did go through the rock hole, but slowly and much more safely.
We snorkeled for an hour, and the snorkeling was pretty crappy - bad visibility, but they gave us bread so we could get the fish right in our laps. Then lunch on the beach - Mahi Mahi with potatoes cooked in foil on the grill in a spicy red sauce - SO good! And beer, two per person (although we brought extra)... As we were eating, a little wild boar approached us - and we all jumped up from the table and squealed as she ran underneath! The guides, however, who didn't speak or refused to speak English, started cooing, "Oh Filo Filo Filo!" Apparently this boar is like a pet and they've names her Filomena - and she came right up to us and let the guides push her over into the sand and scratch her under the chin and on the belly and back! They piled sand on top of her and I swear that boar smiled. They also told us she liked cerveza, so I am ashamed to admit people poured beer into a plate and Filo drank it and was a bit wobbly afterwards. We all got photos with her - GREAT photos! Then more crappy snorkeling, and then back to town.
We had a not-so-great dinner last night and again were in bed early. Today the internet in the entire town went down, which means not only no internet/e-mail, but the single ATM was out of order, no one's credit card machines worked... And no one knew when it would all be back up! Exciting. It all worked out though, and we spent the afternoon at the beach with Joe, Shannon, Rolando, Mauricio (the two surf instructors), and their two new clients. Beth and I lounged on the beach reading. On the way there we ran into the same group of monkeys and fed them peanuts to get them close enough for photos - Beth has some awesome ones! Dinner tonight was with Joe, Shannon, and Katherine at Cocolores very near the water, and then we all said our good-byes as we are all off to different places tomorrow.
Our taxi comes a 7AM; Beth is already snoring in bed (have to roll her over to get that to stop!) and I am not close behind.
The next leg is the most wild and remote - we supposedly have wireless internet but I have no idea about phones. We fly into Drake Bay at ~12:30, then get into a shuttle that takes us to a boat that takes us to our hotel - that is only accessible by boat! Tomorrow night we have a tour of the Corcovado National Park, supposedly one of the best wilderness places (and the hottest/most humid - great) in the country! Then - two sequential days of scuba, then a day tour of the park. This is the kind of place where all meals are included because they have to boat everything in and there are no restaurants to speak of and you certainly can't walk anywhere... Should be an exciting grand finale! Hopefully more soon, but please don't worry if we go MIA for a few days as I am not confident of the communication capabilities down there! :-) The resort is called Jinetes de Osa if you want to look us up!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Montezuma
I just had breakfast with an iguana. Our hotel - and the new room - is actually pretty nice and we now have two beds (I am in the twin and Beth is in the queen), and it includes breakfast. There is a back patio where you can sit in a little garden and have American or Costa Rican breakfast, and there are two gorgeous blue birds who are constantly flying around trying to steal the sugar packets, which they take into the trees and rip open and eat. This morning I heard a small noise on the gravel behind me and when I turned, a huge iguana was sauntering by. It stopped and looked at me for a second and then disappeared down the side of the hill and into the little creek.
Montezuma is a funny little town full of hippies and ex-pats and locals, and is about one or two blocks long. Our hotel is right in the middle of it, which is nice because we can walk to everything. To get here from the airport the cab ride was about 30 minutes over mostly-paved but very potholey roads, and the last leg into town is a dirt road that descends steeply to the coast. Montezuma is tucked into a little cove that until about 40 years ago was only accessible by boat. There are ordinances against developing near the coast here, so the town will probably stay just like this for a long time. It's a bunch of little shops and restaurants, one grocery store, and lots of beaches. Beth and I had dinner at a restaurant in the sand our first night here - great seafood, great local food, nice people. There are tons of dreadlock-wearing people selling handmade jewelry and other fun things all along the street, dogs are everywhere (so Beth is happy), and there is a constant stream of ATVs, motorcycles, Jeeps, cars, and taxis crowding the street. No one here wears a helmet and they get v-e-r-y close to pedestrians. Kind of scary!
Yesterday we spent the morning at the beach. We set up camp underneath a little tree (the sun here is intense and I burn easily!) and hopped into the ocean - great waves, good body surfing, and I swear the water is like 80 degrees. It's almost too warm! The coast is stunning - jungle right up to the water, white sand beaches, not super crowded. After we were appropriately cooked we had a nice lunch at a little bakery/cafe outside on their patio and then we were off to our afternoon surf lesson!
The lesson was with two locals and a few other people who had been out the day before with the guides (Rolando and I forget the other guy's name). Beth and I were the newbies, so we were with Rolando. They walked us to a secluded beach you can only get to on foot, where we climbed over rocks and walked from cove to cove. One of the small beaches we walked through was covered - I mean covered! - in driftwood. It was low tide so not too scary. The beach we ended up surfing at was stunning - trees almost to the water, excellent waves, and of course that warm water. The guides took us to where the boards were stored in a little cluster of beat-up houses where the locals who live there rescue turtle eggs, incubate and hatch them, and help the little guys into the water. There was a HUGE spider - the spiders here are humongous, no joke, and they look kind of mean - one of the guides tossed a little acorn into the web and she pounced on it, spun some silk around it, realized it was not a bug, and dropped it. I might have nightmares about that.
Anyway, surfing! Rolando gave us some good pointers, and by the end of the afternoon both Beth and I had officially caught a wave! At one point, Beth came running over (I was in the shade as I could feel my face getting pink, even with SPF 70 applied and reapplied!) waving her arms about something - she'd seen two stingrays (non-dangerous we were assured) in the surf. One of the guys in the group actually ran into one and said it felt slimy and gross - lovely! After the lesson, we walked the boards back to the spider-haven and there was a troupe (herd? Seriously, what's a group of monkeys called anyway?) of monkeys hanging out in the trees immediately above us. Lots of babies - very cute! The male monkeys make these great "hoo hoo hoo" noises when they hear something weird (like the surf guides imitating them), so we spent a good bit of time getting a rise out of them.
The walk back was crazy - the tide had come in and the driftwood beach was seriously frightening. When the waves went out we sprinted across the sand, and when the waves came back in we made a break for the jungle because a sea of driftwood was coming right at your legs! No injuries though. Today our knees are bruised and my ribs are pretty bruised, but it was really, really fun.
Dinner last night was at a place called Cocolores and one of the guides came with us - amazing beef fajitas and a couple of cocktails, and then back to the local bar to finish off the evening. Beth is still sleeping (it's 10:40 and I am trying to type loudly to get her moving), and we're supposed to go to a series of three waterfalls this morning but I'm not convinced we're going to make it at this rate!
Tomorrow we're taking a boat to Tortuga Island to go snorkeling and spend the day playing on the beaches - should be fun! We're in Montezuma until the 7th, then we head to Drake Bay on what should be another exciting set of flights!
Montezuma is a funny little town full of hippies and ex-pats and locals, and is about one or two blocks long. Our hotel is right in the middle of it, which is nice because we can walk to everything. To get here from the airport the cab ride was about 30 minutes over mostly-paved but very potholey roads, and the last leg into town is a dirt road that descends steeply to the coast. Montezuma is tucked into a little cove that until about 40 years ago was only accessible by boat. There are ordinances against developing near the coast here, so the town will probably stay just like this for a long time. It's a bunch of little shops and restaurants, one grocery store, and lots of beaches. Beth and I had dinner at a restaurant in the sand our first night here - great seafood, great local food, nice people. There are tons of dreadlock-wearing people selling handmade jewelry and other fun things all along the street, dogs are everywhere (so Beth is happy), and there is a constant stream of ATVs, motorcycles, Jeeps, cars, and taxis crowding the street. No one here wears a helmet and they get v-e-r-y close to pedestrians. Kind of scary!
Yesterday we spent the morning at the beach. We set up camp underneath a little tree (the sun here is intense and I burn easily!) and hopped into the ocean - great waves, good body surfing, and I swear the water is like 80 degrees. It's almost too warm! The coast is stunning - jungle right up to the water, white sand beaches, not super crowded. After we were appropriately cooked we had a nice lunch at a little bakery/cafe outside on their patio and then we were off to our afternoon surf lesson!
The lesson was with two locals and a few other people who had been out the day before with the guides (Rolando and I forget the other guy's name). Beth and I were the newbies, so we were with Rolando. They walked us to a secluded beach you can only get to on foot, where we climbed over rocks and walked from cove to cove. One of the small beaches we walked through was covered - I mean covered! - in driftwood. It was low tide so not too scary. The beach we ended up surfing at was stunning - trees almost to the water, excellent waves, and of course that warm water. The guides took us to where the boards were stored in a little cluster of beat-up houses where the locals who live there rescue turtle eggs, incubate and hatch them, and help the little guys into the water. There was a HUGE spider - the spiders here are humongous, no joke, and they look kind of mean - one of the guides tossed a little acorn into the web and she pounced on it, spun some silk around it, realized it was not a bug, and dropped it. I might have nightmares about that.
Anyway, surfing! Rolando gave us some good pointers, and by the end of the afternoon both Beth and I had officially caught a wave! At one point, Beth came running over (I was in the shade as I could feel my face getting pink, even with SPF 70 applied and reapplied!) waving her arms about something - she'd seen two stingrays (non-dangerous we were assured) in the surf. One of the guys in the group actually ran into one and said it felt slimy and gross - lovely! After the lesson, we walked the boards back to the spider-haven and there was a troupe (herd? Seriously, what's a group of monkeys called anyway?) of monkeys hanging out in the trees immediately above us. Lots of babies - very cute! The male monkeys make these great "hoo hoo hoo" noises when they hear something weird (like the surf guides imitating them), so we spent a good bit of time getting a rise out of them.
The walk back was crazy - the tide had come in and the driftwood beach was seriously frightening. When the waves went out we sprinted across the sand, and when the waves came back in we made a break for the jungle because a sea of driftwood was coming right at your legs! No injuries though. Today our knees are bruised and my ribs are pretty bruised, but it was really, really fun.
Dinner last night was at a place called Cocolores and one of the guides came with us - amazing beef fajitas and a couple of cocktails, and then back to the local bar to finish off the evening. Beth is still sleeping (it's 10:40 and I am trying to type loudly to get her moving), and we're supposed to go to a series of three waterfalls this morning but I'm not convinced we're going to make it at this rate!
Tomorrow we're taking a boat to Tortuga Island to go snorkeling and spend the day playing on the beaches - should be fun! We're in Montezuma until the 7th, then we head to Drake Bay on what should be another exciting set of flights!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Gatos: The Llamas of Costa Rica
We made it Montezuma and holy crap is it hot here!
Dinner last night was lovely, except for the fact that I decided Lisa and Sophie were really annoying - mostly because we ended up paying the bill with a credit card, dollars, and colones (Costa Rican currency - Beth and I were colones), and Beth and I ended up getting a little screwed on the bill, but I was so embarrassed by the negotiations I just threw in some extra to get it over with.
Today we were pretty lame in La Fortuna (at least I was) - Beth went for coffee and brought me back pan dolce (pastries) and a Coca Light (Diet Coke), and we watched an awful Harrison Ford movie and packed. We left our hotel at 11:30 because in the US you need to be a couple hours early. We assured the desk guy (who made our reservation here for us via phone - adventurous details to follow) that we would write glowing reviews of the hotel on tripadvisor.com and I plan to write letters to the guidebooks we are using to get them in there. Seriously, that place was awesome. Well, except for the muddy entrance part, but when it's totally done it's going to be amazing and still only $40 a night.
So last night after dinner as Beth and I started walking home it started sprinkling. Now, in the US a sprinkle is usually not a big deal. Here, apparently, it's foreshadowing something terrible. We got stuck in a humongous rainstorm sans any kind of raingear. Beth was trying to keep the cameras dry using her hand to block the opening to the top of the purse she was carrying, and she was kind of running, but my flip-flops were so slippery and my legs are so short I couldn't keep up and was yelling at her as we were laughing. A guy in front of us at least had a t-shirt over his head but we returned covered in mud (seriously, ALL of my pants/bottoms have mud on them) and soaked. I washed my flip flops in the shower today.
We also inadvertently let a mosquito in, and if you know Beth, you know she has sangre dulce, or sweet blood. I have two smallish bites on my shoulder that don't itch very much. Beth has bites on her arm (so many bites) that are so big they look like muscles.
Then, oh THEN, we got on the plane to Tambor. Well, we thought it was a PLANE (singular), but in fact is was PLANES - as in two very small, kind scary planes. Thankfully we arrived like two hours early for our flight (ha ha). No one was there except a kitten that Beth tried to steal. She named it Erica even though the guy at the bar assured us it was a boy. Oh so many photos.
Anyway, the first flight was into San Jose, the hub for Nature Air (our airline), and was extremely turbulent. Rob, if you're reading this you'll be happy to know I was assuring everyone as we were landing (in Maui-esque winds and fishtailing like crazy) that it would smooth right out once we got close to the ground. The gay couple in front of us liked that and thanked me for my calming words after we landed safely. I was admittedly nervous and I think Beth prayed. So we get off the plane, get into a minivan (oh right, NO security anywhere, no passport check, just let ya on the plane if your name matched their little printed out list!) where we drive to the terminal (of course we landed on the tarmac), then take the same van back to the same area with the same planes where we get on a different plane (this one had an intercom, as opposed to the first plane where the pilot literally turned around and yelled to the plane the "safety" rules - awesome!) to fly to Tambor. GORGEOUS flight - it looked like the Hana coastline (but it's much, much hotter) - and the landing - whew! The runway is RIGHT at a beach, so we literally flew over people horseback riding (those are the bravest horses I've ever seen) and we could see hair blowing in the wind from the props! Crazy! But our pilot was fantastic and escorted Beth and I to the "gate."
No, literally it was a chickenwire gate. There is no terminal here. Just some asphalt and a bunch of people waiting to get on the next plane. We grabbed a great taxi driver (who we were really nice to once we realized he wasn't ripping us off) who took us to our hotel.
Oh. The hotel.
We are right in the heart of Montezuma - a hippie haven apparently - lots of dreadlocks and B.O. (that Beth and I swore we could taste at one point, gross). The gentleman at our last hotel was kind enough to make the reservation for us. However, while we were clear that there were two PEOPLE, we were not clear on needing two BEDS.
Yes, our room has one bed. And it's the smallest thing you've ever seen - like hardly enough room for our suitcases. We threw an appropriately American hissy fit and tomorrow we move to a room with two beds. We have Ambien for tonight. We also have AC, and in my passive-aggressive hissy fit I left it set at 17 degrees C, so when we got back to the room later today it was so cold I had to make it hotter.
We have windows, but imagine this: you walk up a staircase. You turn immediately to the right, then immediately to the right to get into the room. Our "windows" are also the right. If you make three right turns what do you think you are looking at? Yes! The staircase! Seriously, we look at a staircase and a brick wall. And we think we're at one of the nicer places - there are lots of people camping on the beaches...
We found a custom jewelry shop and I think Beth has already scared the proprietor by asking him if he can make her a spider necklace (see Peru blog for reference), but we might buy each other presents there to justify spending a bit more on something nice as a souvenir.
Tomorrow we're taking a surf lesson (SURE to be an entertaining blog post), maybe the next day will be snorkeling, and who knows after that - maybe ATV rental? For now we are keeping cool with cerveza...
Dinner last night was lovely, except for the fact that I decided Lisa and Sophie were really annoying - mostly because we ended up paying the bill with a credit card, dollars, and colones (Costa Rican currency - Beth and I were colones), and Beth and I ended up getting a little screwed on the bill, but I was so embarrassed by the negotiations I just threw in some extra to get it over with.
Today we were pretty lame in La Fortuna (at least I was) - Beth went for coffee and brought me back pan dolce (pastries) and a Coca Light (Diet Coke), and we watched an awful Harrison Ford movie and packed. We left our hotel at 11:30 because in the US you need to be a couple hours early. We assured the desk guy (who made our reservation here for us via phone - adventurous details to follow) that we would write glowing reviews of the hotel on tripadvisor.com and I plan to write letters to the guidebooks we are using to get them in there. Seriously, that place was awesome. Well, except for the muddy entrance part, but when it's totally done it's going to be amazing and still only $40 a night.
So last night after dinner as Beth and I started walking home it started sprinkling. Now, in the US a sprinkle is usually not a big deal. Here, apparently, it's foreshadowing something terrible. We got stuck in a humongous rainstorm sans any kind of raingear. Beth was trying to keep the cameras dry using her hand to block the opening to the top of the purse she was carrying, and she was kind of running, but my flip-flops were so slippery and my legs are so short I couldn't keep up and was yelling at her as we were laughing. A guy in front of us at least had a t-shirt over his head but we returned covered in mud (seriously, ALL of my pants/bottoms have mud on them) and soaked. I washed my flip flops in the shower today.
We also inadvertently let a mosquito in, and if you know Beth, you know she has sangre dulce, or sweet blood. I have two smallish bites on my shoulder that don't itch very much. Beth has bites on her arm (so many bites) that are so big they look like muscles.
Then, oh THEN, we got on the plane to Tambor. Well, we thought it was a PLANE (singular), but in fact is was PLANES - as in two very small, kind scary planes. Thankfully we arrived like two hours early for our flight (ha ha). No one was there except a kitten that Beth tried to steal. She named it Erica even though the guy at the bar assured us it was a boy. Oh so many photos.
Anyway, the first flight was into San Jose, the hub for Nature Air (our airline), and was extremely turbulent. Rob, if you're reading this you'll be happy to know I was assuring everyone as we were landing (in Maui-esque winds and fishtailing like crazy) that it would smooth right out once we got close to the ground. The gay couple in front of us liked that and thanked me for my calming words after we landed safely. I was admittedly nervous and I think Beth prayed. So we get off the plane, get into a minivan (oh right, NO security anywhere, no passport check, just let ya on the plane if your name matched their little printed out list!) where we drive to the terminal (of course we landed on the tarmac), then take the same van back to the same area with the same planes where we get on a different plane (this one had an intercom, as opposed to the first plane where the pilot literally turned around and yelled to the plane the "safety" rules - awesome!) to fly to Tambor. GORGEOUS flight - it looked like the Hana coastline (but it's much, much hotter) - and the landing - whew! The runway is RIGHT at a beach, so we literally flew over people horseback riding (those are the bravest horses I've ever seen) and we could see hair blowing in the wind from the props! Crazy! But our pilot was fantastic and escorted Beth and I to the "gate."
No, literally it was a chickenwire gate. There is no terminal here. Just some asphalt and a bunch of people waiting to get on the next plane. We grabbed a great taxi driver (who we were really nice to once we realized he wasn't ripping us off) who took us to our hotel.
Oh. The hotel.
We are right in the heart of Montezuma - a hippie haven apparently - lots of dreadlocks and B.O. (that Beth and I swore we could taste at one point, gross). The gentleman at our last hotel was kind enough to make the reservation for us. However, while we were clear that there were two PEOPLE, we were not clear on needing two BEDS.
Yes, our room has one bed. And it's the smallest thing you've ever seen - like hardly enough room for our suitcases. We threw an appropriately American hissy fit and tomorrow we move to a room with two beds. We have Ambien for tonight. We also have AC, and in my passive-aggressive hissy fit I left it set at 17 degrees C, so when we got back to the room later today it was so cold I had to make it hotter.
We have windows, but imagine this: you walk up a staircase. You turn immediately to the right, then immediately to the right to get into the room. Our "windows" are also the right. If you make three right turns what do you think you are looking at? Yes! The staircase! Seriously, we look at a staircase and a brick wall. And we think we're at one of the nicer places - there are lots of people camping on the beaches...
We found a custom jewelry shop and I think Beth has already scared the proprietor by asking him if he can make her a spider necklace (see Peru blog for reference), but we might buy each other presents there to justify spending a bit more on something nice as a souvenir.
Tomorrow we're taking a surf lesson (SURE to be an entertaining blog post), maybe the next day will be snorkeling, and who knows after that - maybe ATV rental? For now we are keeping cool with cerveza...
Friday, January 1, 2010
La Fortuna
We have decided out hotel is a miracle - that place is awesome! Yesterday we had our best meal yet - at a little "soda" food stand - that included the following: the best white rice I have ever had (lots of butter probably),, black beans, chicken and peppers/onions, mashed potatoes that had so much butter they were bright yellow and just delicious, a fried egg over hard, and fried plantains. Random, totally delicious, and I can't wait to go back there tomorrow.
Next on the agenda was Baldi hot springs after Beth's second massage (neck is much better), which is a series of naturally heated pools of varying temperature - one was 154 degrees F, no joke! No one was in that one, clearly. There was music playing on loudspeakers, huge tropical plants everywhere, it was pretty fun. Anyway, we spent about five hours there in the different pools, jumping from hot to cold, drinking our Cuba Libres that you can buy in a can (Rum and Coke!) and our beer, and going down the very non-US safety standard water slide. There were three, two were the "water slide in a tube" kind of hting so you can't see where you're going, and the fastest one had this crazy turn right before a drop that seriously left you free-falling. I dropped my sunglasses after round one and the nice lifeguard went swimming with a mask and found them for me. On my second round I whacked my head really hard and got a nice little lump, but it feels fine today. Beth has video, it's entertaining. We met a nice couple from Michigan, probably in their late 60's, and the husband (David), who was very overweight and walked wtih a cane, was determined to do the faster slide. He did, and came crashing out at the bottom - it was a little scary as he'd also hit his head and was a bit disoriented, but recovered rather nicely and we all had a good laugh over it. For an extra $2 we bought the meal, which was a great buffet of typical food - rice and beans and chicken. Then we headed back to the hotel for a time out, regrouped and went out for drinks with our zipliner friends. We ended up running into another ziplining couple - Sean and Kim - and the six of us (S, K, me and Beth along with Sophie and Lisa) spent the evening drinking beers at various bars - and for New Year's proper headed into the square and set off fireworks - big ones! I have photos and video. Pretty awesome and totally legal. I love no rules.
Today was our big Canyoneering day - and oh my god it was the best thing ever. You ride in the back of a pickup up these crazy dirt roads to the "base camp" or whatever they call it, where they harness you up and give youa helmet and gloves, and then after safety demos and signing your life away we all headed into this gorgeous rainforest canyon where we started by rapelling down 20-feet IN a small waterfall. We worked our way downriver to a huge platform, where we rapelled 150 feet down a huge waterfall - actually most of it you were totally suspended above the ground, it was ridiculous fun. We met a couple from Atlanta - Adam and Gwen - and ended up hanging out with them for most of it. One group included a woman from North Carolina that had very short hair and a rat tail down to her butt. I wish I had photo evidence as it was pretty spectacular. After the 150-footer, they "surprised" us with a canonball into a big water hole, and then had us sit in groups of six in a tight canyon region while one of the guides abolve you made a human dam to block the water. After we were properly jammed in the space, bracing against the walls of the canyon, they let the water go and we were pummeled with a ton of rushing water - it was crazy! Then another 20-foot rappel, and the grand finale was a 200 foot free rappel down a stunning waterfall. All this in a volcanic canyon with rainforest growth all around you... Pretty amazing, really!
Tonight we are splurging on a nice dinner in town with Sophie and Lisa, and Adam and Gwen said they might show up as well - should be a good time! Tomorrow we fly to Tambor and take a cab to Montezuma (not Mal Pais), where we are staying at the Sano Banano for five nights - and yes, we have a reservation already. No more hotel adventures for me, thank you very much. We plan on doing yoga, lying on the beach, exploring the national park that's in the area, and maybe renting ATVs.
Happy New Year!
Next on the agenda was Baldi hot springs after Beth's second massage (neck is much better), which is a series of naturally heated pools of varying temperature - one was 154 degrees F, no joke! No one was in that one, clearly. There was music playing on loudspeakers, huge tropical plants everywhere, it was pretty fun. Anyway, we spent about five hours there in the different pools, jumping from hot to cold, drinking our Cuba Libres that you can buy in a can (Rum and Coke!) and our beer, and going down the very non-US safety standard water slide. There were three, two were the "water slide in a tube" kind of hting so you can't see where you're going, and the fastest one had this crazy turn right before a drop that seriously left you free-falling. I dropped my sunglasses after round one and the nice lifeguard went swimming with a mask and found them for me. On my second round I whacked my head really hard and got a nice little lump, but it feels fine today. Beth has video, it's entertaining. We met a nice couple from Michigan, probably in their late 60's, and the husband (David), who was very overweight and walked wtih a cane, was determined to do the faster slide. He did, and came crashing out at the bottom - it was a little scary as he'd also hit his head and was a bit disoriented, but recovered rather nicely and we all had a good laugh over it. For an extra $2 we bought the meal, which was a great buffet of typical food - rice and beans and chicken. Then we headed back to the hotel for a time out, regrouped and went out for drinks with our zipliner friends. We ended up running into another ziplining couple - Sean and Kim - and the six of us (S, K, me and Beth along with Sophie and Lisa) spent the evening drinking beers at various bars - and for New Year's proper headed into the square and set off fireworks - big ones! I have photos and video. Pretty awesome and totally legal. I love no rules.
Today was our big Canyoneering day - and oh my god it was the best thing ever. You ride in the back of a pickup up these crazy dirt roads to the "base camp" or whatever they call it, where they harness you up and give youa helmet and gloves, and then after safety demos and signing your life away we all headed into this gorgeous rainforest canyon where we started by rapelling down 20-feet IN a small waterfall. We worked our way downriver to a huge platform, where we rapelled 150 feet down a huge waterfall - actually most of it you were totally suspended above the ground, it was ridiculous fun. We met a couple from Atlanta - Adam and Gwen - and ended up hanging out with them for most of it. One group included a woman from North Carolina that had very short hair and a rat tail down to her butt. I wish I had photo evidence as it was pretty spectacular. After the 150-footer, they "surprised" us with a canonball into a big water hole, and then had us sit in groups of six in a tight canyon region while one of the guides abolve you made a human dam to block the water. After we were properly jammed in the space, bracing against the walls of the canyon, they let the water go and we were pummeled with a ton of rushing water - it was crazy! Then another 20-foot rappel, and the grand finale was a 200 foot free rappel down a stunning waterfall. All this in a volcanic canyon with rainforest growth all around you... Pretty amazing, really!
Tonight we are splurging on a nice dinner in town with Sophie and Lisa, and Adam and Gwen said they might show up as well - should be a good time! Tomorrow we fly to Tambor and take a cab to Montezuma (not Mal Pais), where we are staying at the Sano Banano for five nights - and yes, we have a reservation already. No more hotel adventures for me, thank you very much. We plan on doing yoga, lying on the beach, exploring the national park that's in the area, and maybe renting ATVs.
Happy New Year!
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