A Pictorial Tour of Tamarindo Part II

Yes, the 5:30am surfing lesson was well worth it both in terms of wave consistency as well as instruction! Quick observation - younger surfer dudes at the surf shops are basically working to surf and meet chicks in teeny swimsuits and they are not the greatest teachers. This is a generalization but the better teachers out there tend to be older. Pablo is a 32 year old Tico (Costa Rican) who works at the Matos Surf Shop - much better than the surfer dude I've had from another shop. Took time to go through safety rules and how to navigate your way out to where the waves are breaking. I also appreciated his taking some time to help me understand how to read the waves - breaking left or right and what a "fat wave" looks like. Spent the other day being really frustrated with my ability to barely stand up and then today, I was able to paddle, pop up, stand and ride in about 75% of the time and felt awesome. So now I'm going back tomorrow and rented a board overnight so I can get out there before the surf shop opens. Granted, I'm not particularly coherent by the time I show up for Spanish class at 1pm but what the heck....

Let me continue my pictorial tour of Tamarindo. -- I left off where I showed you the roads and bit of town. Here's a photo of the Spanish school... the downstairs is sort of the "student lounge" with a snack bar where a lady makes breakfast, smoothies and lunch. Upstairs are a bunch of classrooms as well as classrooms off the snack bar.

Ironically, the competition is located just across the street:

Around town are a bunch of lots and properties for rent and sale...

Surfer towns seem to have a particular culture - drugs on the street, homeless people shuffling along and new age treatments and businesses. Here's a sampling of what is available here in Tamarindo in case you are looking for Mayan Astrology, Massage Therapy or Reiki...

These signs are located at the turn off for the school and the road leading up to where I am living.

Finally, what's a town anywhere in the world without the requisite Chinese restaurant.... I don't think I've ever seen anyone in it but they certainly have a nice sign....

Surfing with Patrick who is another student from Switzerland who lives next door (ironically one of the "student houses" if you don't want to do a home stay happens to be located in the next building to mind) 5:30am was a little early for him so we settled on 6:15am. Debating diving on Friday with a German woman, Gabrielle, who has done 2 liveaboard dive trips already in the last 6 weeks . If that happens, tomorrow will be my last day of trying to master surfing - I suppose one never completely masters this stuff but heck, I'm a lot better than I started out last Tuesday when I took my first lesson.

Hasta manana or la manana proxima .....

Lisa | Rincon de la Vieja

I'm actually writing this from the cool and comfort of Minnesota, but I want to tell you about our trip to Rincon de la Vieja, one of three active volcanos in Costa Rica.

We took a two-hour shuttle ride northwest of Tamarindo to the base of the volcano.  Mauricio, our driver, was especially helpful and happy to practice Spanish with us.  Or practice with Mimi anyway, I mostly sat and listened.  I feel like I can understand 60% of a slow conversation, but it's really hard for me to put together sentences in Spanish, beyond "I can speak Spanish," which I really can't very well.  But I've learned a lot this week!

We didn't actually go up up the volcano, though you can.  It's a difficult five-mile hike, no thanks!

We got signed in at the base camp, then they put us into safety harnesses.  At this point I was starting to get a little nervous.  I'm not a big fan of heights, though I really like going fast--which it sounds like you do on a zip line.  We walked up the stairs to the first zip line platform and it's really high.  I'm not sure I'm going to be able to step off the platform, but the guide solved that by hooking me up to the zip line, checking to make sure it's safe, then giving me a shove.  So high but so fast and fun!  Exhilerating!  But then I realize there's another zip line and I have to do it all over again, yikes!  (This isn't Mimi or me, but I wanted a photo of the zip line anyway.)

There were 21 zip lines in total and I did get used to them.  However, I was NOT ready for the "bungee jump" drop down from the narrow bridge over the river down to the close to ground level.  The guide hooked up your harness and lowered you down to the ground.  The brave people then flipped their feet up, let go of their hands and desceneded head first--CRAZY!!! 

Would you believe that by the time Mimi and I got to the front of the line we both flipped our feet up and went down head first?!??  Here is proof that Mimi went down head first, no hands.  Believe it!

I'm sure my brother and sisters will think I was briefly possessed, but I did it, woo-hoo!!!!!

Next we went white-water rafting down the river below on innertubes.  No photos because no cameras allowed, but this was the best part of the day.  The rapids were rapid only briefly and in short bursts.  Otherwise we were floating slowly down the beautiful river in a perfectly quiet and beautiful canyon carved out of the lava rock long ago.

We had a delicious lunch at the hacienda, then it was time for horseback riding.  Not my favorite activity.  My butt didn't like it much either.

The thing that was funny was the "horse rage" that our horses displayed for us.  My horse insisted on going ahead of Mimi's horse, who was smaller and shorter.  Mimi's horse wasn't too happy about that and kept tailgating my horse, nipping at his tail.  When he saw an opening, he put on a burst of speed and tried to edge ahead of my horse, which my horse wouldn't tolerate.  So my horse would move over to cut off Mimi's horse.  Give it a minute or two, and the horses would do the same thing.  Then they picked up speed and started trot while trying to pass each other, which was even harder on my butt.  Not fun.  But watching the horse rage was amusing.  We stopped at a little waterfall, went for a swim, then repeated the whole thing.

The last activity was the mud bath and hot springs--fantastic!  The mud pools had supposedly dried up until the rains started again, so we were painted with mud rather than swimming in mud pools.  Just like a facial for your whole body, it felt really good.  And I thought it was really funny that while all the guides during the day were Don Juan young guys, the men doing the painting were the old guys.  I was happy about that. :)

We washed off the mud in the showers then stepped into the hot springs pools--ahhhhhh.  So relaxing!  They had pools of different temps, so while I stayed in the cooler pool, Mimi ventured to the hotter pools.  They were hot!  A very beautiful setting, right along the little river and landscaped with natural stone.  I think we could have stayed in those pools for hours and hours.

We headed back to the van and the drive back to Tamarindo while watching the sun set behind the volcano, it was gorgeous.

Overall, a fantastic day.  The innertube rafting was the best part, with the mud bath and hot springs a close second.  I can do without horseback riding ever again, but I must admit the zip line scared the daylights out of me. Never need to do that again, but at least I can check it off my bucket list!

Mimi's turn to blog tomorrow, so she can tell you what an ace surfer she's becoming!

Mimi | 1st Week of School Done... May 6, 2011

Hard to believe that Friday has come upon us so quickly. It felt like yesterday that they were trying to place us in the right Spanish class on Monday. So what have I learned this week ? Yes, I have gone to class and actually done homework every night. Sylvia, our teacher has made it fun by having us do a lot of talking rather than correcting every miss of every accent I forget to write For instance, we talked about the differnces in health systems in countries - Betsy, an attorney from Chicago and I talked about the US system and medicare/medicaid but also the issues of having or even obtaining private insurance. Isabelle from Quebec talked about Canadian health care and Gabriela about the system in German. We also learned about how the health care systems works here in Costa Rica, and I have to admit, it's actually better than what we do in the US with making it more available to more people - maybe more like universal medical care?

So..... by Friday, we are able to haltingly broach some interesting topics for our class although we all seem to struggle with when to use the words "por" and "para" and "a la" and "en" in sentences.

Most importantly, its a chance to meet a diverse group of people from all over the world and with very different life experiences that under "normal" circumstances wouldn't have been a social group. Where else would a 19 year old high school student going to college next year be hanging out with a French/German translator who is going to class with the attorney who is doing legal defense work for victims of domestic violence..... The diversity of languages spoken, ages, life experience is vast and makes it so interesting and the thing that we have holding us together is that for our own reasons, each of us has an interest in learning Spanish.

Tomorrow, we wake up bright and early for a 6:30am pick up in front of our adventure to Rincon De La Vieja volcano about 2 hours away. There, we have an "all day adventure" including horseback riding, rapelling, zipline and tubing down the river to be finished with time at the hot springs and mud baths. We won't get back to Tamarindo until probably 6pm. It'll be a chance to see outside of the beach towns and head a bit in to the hills where the climate and animal life is also a bit different.

Lisa or I will need to come back to this blog tomorrow to quickly describe today's adventure at Playa Conchal after our classes and also our meal at La Caracola - the best seafood I've had all week! Whole grilled red snapper, seafood with rice (arroz con mariscos) - all for under US$25 including 2 drinks. Pictures forthcoming of our food too.... stay tuned....

Mimi | Los Animales de Maglares y Selva May 5, 2011

Lisa's last post should have convinced you that we actually do attend school. Hard to believe that it's Friday already and a full week of classes have already gone by. My Espanol has improved in leaps and bounds, in spite of the fact that unlike when I went to Cuernavaca for the week 3 years ago, I decided not to do a home stay with a local family - 2 reasons - one, I found it so stressful to have to speak Spanish 24/7 that I found myself a bit overwhelmed by day 2 - although it is definitely the way to really move the needle on fluency. Secondly, with Lisa here, we found a good deal on this 2 BR / 2 BA condo about 5 minutes walk from the school - and, it has air conditioning! Full kitchen, wifi, small pool, cable - all the amenities of home.... If you are interested, email me and I'll give you the contact of our landlady.

I still need to update the blog for my adventures from my nightwalk in the cloud forest and safari on the river by the volcano but maybe next week - there's just too much to do in the afternoons to get caught up with the blogging. But a quick post about the manglares (mangroves) that we toured yesterday after class.

North of Tamarindo Beach is an estuary that is a national park and we took a 2 hour afternoon tour. The wildlife refuge covers about 1000 acres and is home to 5 different species of mangroves and a ton of wildlife. 5 of us from Wayra got together and hopped on to what was essentially a wooden 12 foot boat with a motor on the back with 6 seats. Motoring slowly up the estuary, we spotted a caiman (crocodilo en Espanol) basking on the shore - probably about 4 1/2 feet -maybe 1.5 metres max. We got pretty darn close to it - Patricia who was sitting closest to it was warily keeping an eye for any sudden movement but we observed without incident.

We also were able to see different types of crabs that make the mangroves their home and various birds that I can't identify. No toucans or anything colorful like that - I guess this area is too hot for them. We did see a tribe of howler monkeys a short walk from the river - the middle of the day, they are mostly sleeping although our guide made noises to make them respond and one of them roused himself enough to "howl" at us - although it was more of a series of grunts. It's hard to take photos of them so high up in the trees but there was one that was completely asleep with it's arms and legs just dangling off the tree - I tried to take a picture of it and am posting it but it's sort of blurry.

No nature adventure for us today - we're thinking about perhaps getting a group together after class to go to Playa Conchal which is about 20 minutes from here by cab and is supposed to have really clear water and sand that is made from shells -- the one thing about Tamarindo beach is it reminds me more of a Minnesota lake with sand that forms a mud like texture when it's wet - plus the visibility just stinks......

Lisa | Wayra Spanish School and Tamarindo

You may not know it, but in between our outings, Mimi and I have been attending the Wayra Spanish School here in Tamarindo.  We study Spanish for four hours every morning, then hit the beach to unwind our brains.  Learning a foreign language is hard work!  But it's paid off by letting us be able to talk to people in Spanish while we're here, which is pretty fun.

The best part of Wayra is the interesting people attending the school.  It's based in Switzerland, so many students from Switzerland, also Germany and a few from the US.  There are two students from Switzerland in my class.  Patricia works in Lucern, Switzerland and Sebastian is a German who has been living and working in Switzerland for the past two years.  And he also looks just like Sting when he was 25 years old.  :)

Patricia decided to leave her accounting job to travel for several months. I find that amazing!  She doesn't have real specific plans, spend 2 months in Costa Rica learning Spanish, then off to South America to visit friends in different cities and finally meet up with her father and brother in Buenos Aires (I think).  How many Americans do you know who would or could do that?  Incredible!  Why don't we Americans feel free to do something as exciting as that?

I also want to describe the town of Tamarindo for you a little bit.  It's a small, sleepy beach town on the Pacific/western coast of Costa Rica.  The houses are very small with tin roofs, open windows and plastic furniture. The shops are small and run-down and no one has air conditioning.  And it's HOT here, I can't imagine trying to sleep in one of those houses.  The streets are all dirt with a little gravel, there is only one brief paved section of road in town.  As a result, cars do not have suspensions.  You can hear a Tico (nickname for Costa Rican natives) car coming a mile away by the noise of the muffler bumping along on the ground and who knows what else dragging and rattling along.  Many people have dogs as pets, and when they're not walking them, they wander the streets.  But they're very well behaved and don't bother anyone, they simply lay on the ground and pant and wait for their owner to return.  The people are very friendly and especially friendly when you let them know you're learning Spanish and want to to try your best to speak to them in Spanish.  They all look very tan and at ease in the heat, while I feel like an albino I'm white.  I hope to come back to Minnesota with at least a little bit of a tan.

Today we took a boat ride up an estuary to see the Mangroves, but I'll let Mimi tell you about that another time.  Tomorrow we hope to visit Playa Conchal (Shell Beach) for a beautiful white sand beach and possibly some good snorkeling.  Then Saturday we head up to Rincon de la Vieja volcano for a full-day adventure tour.  Should be fun!

Hasta luego!

Lisa

Lisa | Catamaran Trip!

WOW! What an amazing afternoon out on the Pacific Ocean today!  We took a 1/2 day Catamaran trip that included a 90-minute sail out to a snorkel spot, snorkeling, swimming, sunning on the tramp, lunch, drinks, then the 90-minute sail back to the beach while the beautiful Costa Rican sun set behind us.  Amazing!

We really enjoyed meeting an interesting woman from Turkey, her name is Melei.  Like many of the Swiss people we've met in our Spanish classes, she is taking several months off work to travel.  (Why can't we get that kind of vacation in the US?)  She's been all over South America, and is now spending a week in Costa Rica before going home.  She speaks fluent Turkish, Spanish, English and German, and a little French and Italian.  She is that engaging kind of person you want to talk to and get to know.  It was so much fun sitting in the sun with her and learning about her travels.  And she highly recommends visiting the Galapagos Islands, in case anyone is looking for an exotic new vacation destination...


I must say that snorkeling in this part of Costa Rica stinks.  There is an estuary nearby which kicks up so much silt in the water that you can't see anything.  That wasn't much fun.  Go to Hawaii for snorkeling, or the Maldives (Mimi's recommendation) instead.

The catamaran cruise also included lots of really loud AC/DC and Bob Marley music, not quite sure why.  We did get the chance to do a little salsa dancing on the cruise back.  Too bad Americans are unable to move their hips the same way Central and South Americans can!

 We were also the very conscientious students and practiced our Spanish with the Captain and crew of the catamaran while on the tour.  Mimi was much more diligent about sticking with her Spanish, I gave up after the "Hello" and "How are you?" parts.  But I must admit I can understand a decent amount of Spanish, but it's hard work.  Harder than I thought it would be!

I have 3 more days left in Costa Rica, and hope to learn a little more Spanish, check out another beach north of here, take a guided boat tour up the estuary to see some animals, then visit a real-live volcano on Saturday.  Lots of fantastic adventures ahead!
(I hope to post photos tomorrow)

Mimi | Pura Vida Surfer Girl - May 3, 2011

Me gusta mucho surfreo!

Took my first 2 hour surfing lesson this afternoon- so much fun. Didn't realize how much paddling is done and how little surfing you actually do - great exercise especially since I have been doing nothing but eating 3 or 4 times a day and drinking beers on the beach.

Here's how it works. Huge boards - must have been like 8 feet long and about 18 inches wide. Evidently, the larger the board, the more stable it is - makes sense in retrospect.... We lug these boards out to the beach where there are lots of folks surfing and a steady stream of waves. There are 6 of us taking the class so they divide us into 2 groups. My instructor, Gerard - a cute stereotypical "surfer dude" grew up near here - skin in blackened by the sun and his hair in dreadlocks.

First we lay the boards down on the sand and he walks us through the basics of where to position ourselves lying down - feet close to the back of the board, head looking forward, arms out on the sides. Then he has us practicing on the command "up" - basically pulling your arms in as if you're doing a tricep pushup quickly coming to a plank position on your hands and almost at the same time shifting your feet so one is in front of the other and hopefully at that point, you're balancing on the board and you're on a wave. Or not....

Easier said than done.... we paddle out 50-75 yards out and line up our boards facing the beach. The first couple of times, Gerard is holding on to the back of the board and instead of paddling and then standing, he pushes us when the wave comes at the optimum time and yells "stand up... stand up" at which point, you're supposed to do that tricep pushup, skooch, position your left foot at a slight angle and step forward with your right - all the while looking forward, crouching down a bit to lower the center of gravity and positioning your hands forward and away.

Of course, at this point, we're doing more falling than standing. Sometimes, it's how my feet are balanced (or not) on the board that make me tip off immediately. Sometimes, I've missed the timing of the wave and sometimes just pure lack of coordination - which for me, seemed to be most of the time.

About 20 minutes of "stand up stand up" and flailing around in the water and then paddling back to Gerard, I was finally able to stand, crouch and ride a wave ALL the way in to the sand. WOWWWWWW!!!!! I was so exhilerated and got such a sense of accomplishment.

Of course, it must have been serendipity and not so much my evolving skills that allowed me to do my first successful surfing. Paddle paddle paddle back and try it again .... and again ... and again...... each time, I'm getting marginally better and finally Gerard allows us to add in the paddling and THEN standing on the board.

Over the course of the 2 hours, I succeeded in getting up and riding on the waves about 4 or 5 times with many half attempts where I'd be able to get up and then fall right off again. Each time, I couldn't wait to do it again.... So much of this surfing is watching and seeing where the waves break and anticipating when to paddle in order to catch the wave at the perfect moment. I was amazed at how Gerard was able to look out into the horizon and see how big the wave was going to be - a couple of times, he actually told us to get off the board as the wave was going to be so big and break right over us.

Speaking of breaking big waves, I ended up being engulfed by one that was so strong that it pushed all this sea water in to my sinuses. I actually sat on my board for a couple of minutes as it felt like my ears were popping. I must have flooded my sinuses so much that several hours later, back in the condo, I leaned down and as my head dropped forward, more sea water poured out of my nostrils - and again throughout the evening - no wonder my sinuses felt blocked!

Something funny to share - Gerard asked me if I was a college student and I told him that I graduated from college over 20 years ago. I told him I was 45 and he looks at me and says "you are older than my mother" - is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I'm definitely going to do this again during the course of the next 2 weeks I'm here. It's sort of like swimming with the paddling you have to do and it's a great way to get some sun without being on the grainy sand with insects flying around.

Oh yeah, school - that is, after all the reason I came here, right? Our second day was spent learning the past tense for irregular verbs. I was.... he was... they were.... etc. Sylvia, our teacher does a nice job of focusing on conversation and speaking rather than exactly where the accents go on the words when writing them. Since we are using the past tense, she had us (myself, Gabriela, Betsy and Isabelle) describe a trip we took. Then she passed around a picture from a magazine and had us tell a story about it. We also did this exercise where we had to first write out 10 events in our lives - like, in 1985, I moved to Minnesota. In 2003, my son was born, etc. All of realized that when we had to read our sentences, we shouldn't have written the years since we now had to say them out loud in Spanish - and so saying "One thousand nine hundred eighty five" was hilarious as we were all botching our numbers. Only Isabelle was smart enough to write her sentences as "When I was 6 years old....." so she got to avoid the spectacle we made out of ourselves.

Lisa spent the afternoon back in the condo as she was fighting a headache. Probably a combination of the heat, dust and the fact that her brain is getting overloaded. 4 hours of Spanish is a lot, especially when even the beginning classes are conducted entirely in Spanish. I hope she's feeling better this morning.

Off to do my homework that's due in about an hour - more past tense stories .....

Pura vida everyone!

Mimi | El primer día de clase de español May 2, 2011

Behind on the blog so will have to do some catch up posts on my night walk in Monteverde and the river safari in La Fortuna.


Made it through my first day of class after a placement test at 7:15am (ouch!).   3 other people in my class this week- a 21 year old French speaking Canada who is spending 2 weeks here and 2 weeks volunteering on a turtle project, a family law attorney from Chicago who is unemployed right now (probably early 30s) and a German woman in her 50s who has been traveling since February and is going back in June.   Turns out she's an avid diver and did 2 ten day liveaboards on this trip - one to the Cocos Islands and one off the coast of Panama - we were talking about going diving together maybe Sunday.

Entire school is probably 75% Swiss - probably because it's Swiss owned and they do some sort of certification.   About 20 people split between morning and afternoon classes - mostly kids in their early 20s.   In fact, the German woman, Gabriela, and I clicked probably from an age as well as interest perspective  - she's a freelance German - French translater and her partner is a computer/IT guy who evidently works a lot and meets up with her for a couple of weeks on these long trips.

I'm in the perfect class for this week  - we're all about the same level with differing levels of vocabulary..   Gabriela is hard to understand in Spanish sometimes because of her German accent though...    Learning the past tense - which I had some exposure to living with my host family when I was in Cuernavaca, Mexico 3 years ago since I had to tell my family what I did in the afternoons when I got back.  Teacher, Sylvia, seems pretty good - has taught at the school for 9 years and before was a criminologist in San Jose.

Too hot though to spend a lot of time in the sun without a dip in the pool or the ocean.  I was just outside on the balcony at 6:30am and started a major sweating boat.    Condo is perfect for Lisa and I - pretty quiet except some cat yowling in the wee hours this morning.   Just cut up some mango and papaya, brewed a cup of coffee and catching up on email.

Today, Lisa and I are planning to sign up for the 3pm surf lesson class.   We're talking about signing up for the afternoon/sunset catamaran cruise tomorrow starting at 1pm which includes kayaking, snorkeling, lunch on the boat and free drinks - but much smaller than those party cruises that we've seen with the drunk Springbreakers in Mexico.   

Hasta luego!

Lisa | Pura Vida!

Pura Vida is what they say in Costa Rica to mean the "pure life", it's the Tico's way of saying everything's great. And it's the truth, everything is great in Costa Rica!  Warm sunshine, the ocean rolling in, my luggage that is taking a siesta somewhere between Atlanta and Liberia...wait a minute, maybe it's not all pura vida.  (The missing luggage just gave me an excuse to buy a Costa Rica tank top, something I've always wanted, but never knew it.)

Really, it's been a wonderful day!  Flights were fine and Mimi was all checked into the condo when I arrived.  We spent the afternoon walking around the small beach town of Tamarindo, had tacos de pescado with a Costa Rican Imperial beer for a late lunch, then walked up and down the beautiful beach.  See below.

  We're off to Spanish lessons in the morning then surf lessons in the afternoon.  I'm too tired to come up with anything more interesting, hopefully more tomorrow!
Buenas noches!

Mimi | Monteverde Ziplines & Canopy Hanging Bridges April 29, 2011

(and no, this is NOT me but approximates what I experienced today)

Can I start this entry with the observation that Costa Rican mosquitoes are louder than Minnesota ones? My first night in Costa Rica and I was awoken at 3:08am (yes, I looked!) by the incessant unrelenting high pitched whine close to my ear…. And through a pair of ear plugs no less!

Canopy ziplining was pretty cool – especially the ones where you are suspended a hundred feet over the canopy line. I do think the advertising is misleading – they always show a girl holding on and looking down over the canopy as though she’s slowing her speed, stopping to gaze at the vista out yonder. Reality?? – once you’re strapped in and you let go, ain’t no stopping… the idea of a “controlled speed” zipline experience is a complete myth – your speed is a function of the line’s incline, your takeoff push and your body weight – bigger people go faster and smaller people (like me) sometimes lose momentum and get stuck dangling a couple of feet away from the platform, particularly if you try to slow your speed. Then you get the privilege of amusing the rest of the group by having to go hand over hand across the line until you get to the platform. In all, we did 13 different lines – some of the shorter ones were 300 feet or so but there were about 4 spectacular ones where the line was suspended clear over the canopy - once you got started, you moved at a terrifying speed with the valley that you are crossing blurring by. One line was almost 1/3 of a mile and the final one we did was 1000 meters or a little over ½ a mile. Ok, I have a pretty good idea of what it’s like to swim a half mile but it’s terrifying when halfway in, the wind picks up and you start to sway side to side dangling hundreds of feet with nothing below your feet – and there’s not a thing you can do it except hope your speed is enough to get you to the platform (actually on this long one, they made people pair up to get enough weight to create the momentum)

After the zipline I opted for a 3 mile walk of the hanging bridges This is much more like a nature hike and is in the canopy itself although these bridges do traverse different sections of the cloud forest. The only thing I regretted was having missed the guided naturalist tour – they only go out about 3 times a day so I walked some other folks. We spotted a couple of cool birds and butterflies but it’s hard to know what you’re looking for.

As I’m walking for 90 minutes up and down these trails, I got to thinking about the 11 Quakers from Alabama who moved to this area in the 1950s and purchased 3000 acres due to their beliefs about the military as well as the fact that Costa Rica had abolished their army – what must they thought of this Valley a place to settle in and given the ordeal in the 21^st century to get here, what it must have been like to settle here. Evidently, they started dairy farming and it became one of the big businesses here – although given the state of the cows, I wonder how prolific their milk production could be.

Night walk later tonight – hopefully will spot some creatures of the night….

Lisa | Packing

Minnesota tan meets Cost Rica summer

Mimi | The Bumpy Road to Monteverde April 28, 2011

Ok, I have a ton to learn about positioning photos and stuff on this but for now, I thought it would be more expedient to just load my photos and figure out the editing for another time....

Dadadadada…thumpa.. thumpa….I hope my teeth and fillings are intact after a bone jarring ride to Monteverde. Good news – my shuttle actually came 45 minutes early and the other couple was ready to go. We drive through downtown Liberia – a typical medium sized town with all the trappings of North America – MacDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway…. Sigh, you just can’t get away from it. Stopped to pick up 2 other guys and proceeded to drive the Pan American Highway. So the 10 seater van was nice and roomy with just 5 of us and the driver – Thailand bus nightmare averted…..

90 minutes in, the shuttle pulls off at a rest stop and we’re told that we’d take a 10-15 minute break. I took off to wander around a bit. What the heck? Are those bits of orange squishy things actually mangos? Everywhere I look, there’s ripe fallen mangos and the occasional big thud as another ripe mango hits the tin roof of the little coffee/snack stand and rolls to the ground. Ripe, luscious mangos literally raining down over me – you know, the ones that cost a buck or more at Target. I bend down and turn them over gingerly to see if I can find one that hasn’t split the skin from falling – peeled it and if you think you’ve had good mangos, you ain’t tasted nothing yet until one rains down on you a minute before you bite into it. Wow … wow…. wow…..

Turns out this stop is a “shuttle bus hub” – 6 of these mini-buses parked alongside disgorging passengers and drivers sorting out luggage – a bus isheading to San Jose, another to Arenal and so on. Pretty slick system. The San Jose bus was packed to the brim but I headed to Monteverde with just 2 Canadian guys in our 10 seater, leaving me to spread out comfortably… or at least for the first 30 minutes. As we steadily climbed into the mountain valley on a narrow road winding around hairpin turn after turn, the road suddenly gave way with a thud to what was now an unpaved road with rocks – this road may have been paved at some point but gave up the asphalt for the rock foundation a while ago. We literally jostled along for another hour going up and down, up and down perched precariously on the edge of a deep drop. This ride made the “unpaved road to nowhere” in Manado, Indonesia look tame. Here and there a random house stood with horses and cattle dotting the valley. I’m thinking that this cloud forest thing had better be worth this jarring ride – and thank goodness I don’t have to make the return trip on these roads as I’m supposed to take a “taxi – boat – taxi” combo across Lake Arenal to get to the volcano on Saturday. But who knows – could the road to get to the boat be worse than this?

Random observation: clearly dry season with brown fields and bone dry riverbeds. Emaciated cows standing in the brutal sun forelornly picking at whatever fresh grass there possibly could be left in their pastures – these aren’t any corn fed cattle you see driving through the fields of Minnesota, that’s for sure. Makes me swear off any local beef for the trip. Oddly, in between these dry pastures are green pastures of what looks like, yes, rice paddies. And yep, confirmed by seeing those steel grain silos in a small town that said “Arroz”. Strange – doesn’t rice need tons of rain?

At last, we pull into the town of Santa Elena – base camp for Monteverde. My bus stops - I step out and have to stifle a laugh… if there was a stereotypical backpacker lodge, this would have to be it. Unshaven guys with tattoos up the length of their leg with Birkenstocks paging through their Lonely Planet Costa Rica book with girls with Rastarfarian dreadlocks wearing hiking boots with black socks smelling strongly of patchouli. No wonder the driver gave me a look when I said I was going to the “Pension Santa Elena” ! Ok, it’s a bit on the other spectrum from the Mandarin Oriental in Singapore of the Empire in Brunei. The young man leads me through the dimly lit communal kitchen with the sign on the refrigerator warning people not to take other people’s food and a young man is eating his concoction of penne pasta from the pot. Actually, for 20 bucks a night, I can’t complain - I get a private room with a bathroom. The double bed has a duvet and what looks to be fresh sheets and there is running hot water – a bonus!

Off to explore and figure out where to eat. The “town” is an odd triangular shape - each side about 75-100 meters in length with a couple of desultory souvenir shops, a myriad of tour desks and a few places to eat lining each street plus the requisite town supermarket and pharmacy. The restaurants look deserted - I know high season Is winding down and it’s only 6:30pm here but where are people eating? I find a place slightly off the “triangle” where I spot about 8 tables with people, 2 of which looked to be locals. Menu was full of the basic sandwiches and pasta but they also had the local “casado” plate consisting of rice & beans with a choice of meat. Got a yummy watermelon shake and a casado with grilled fish. . I forgot to take a picture of it but believe me, the fish was deliciously fresh although the side veggies of frozen mixed peas, carrots and something else left something to be desired.

Zipline and canopy tour at 8am tomorrow. Hope the weather is nice as it’s drizzling a bit right now. And yes, it is much cooler than the 95 degrees I experienced stepping off the plane a few short hours ago.

Mimi | In Costa Rica At Last - Let The Adventure Begin!

April 28, 2011 at 1:30pm local time. My very first blog entry…. I’m coming to you from the bar of the Hilton Garden Inn in Liberia, Costa Rica. Travel for the day is halfway over and the adventure begins!

3am wake up stinks! However, unlike other times I’ve traveled, I was able to get almost 7 (!) hours of sleep – yes, that does mean I went to bed at 8am…..didn’t have to stay up into the wee hours checking work email and rushing like a madwoman like I usually do.

Smooth check in Minneapolis – rumpled travelers stifling a yawn as we shuffle along …. in almost no time, I settle into my seat and promptly manage to fall asleep again. Transfer in Atlanta with just enough time to grab a coffee and find my seat. Played the “I hope that big fat guy in the wife beater shirt with hair poking out of his neck and ridiculous straw hat doesn’t sit next to me for the next 4 hours” game and breathed a sigh of relief when doors closed and realized I won the middle seat lottery – yesssssss! An empty middle seat all the way to Costa Rica. After always being relegated to the middle seat, wedged in between squirmy Kai and the broad-shouldered, knees touching the seat in front of him Dan, I took the opportunity to relax in my comfy seat. Taxiing in, caught a glimpse of the cloud covered mountains that I’m going to be bumping along on en route to Monteverde this afternoon/evening.

Plane taxied to a corrugated tin shack airport that clearly was a regional local airport until very recently – seems hardly big enough to process the hundreds of thousands of travelers passing through. Stepping off the plane, I was assaulted by hot, humid air and the strong sun immediately started rivulets of sweat pouring down my back, trapped between the straps of my backpack - pretty different from this morning’s sleety freezy slush. The airport reminded me of the Punta Cana airport in the Dominican Republic although probably about 1/3 of the size - corrugated rusty tin roof, industrial sized fans slowly swirling the hot air while we waited in line to have our passports stamped. Both immigration and the wait for luggage were quick – getting off the plane to collecting luggage took about 20 minutes – probably faster than in Minneapolis and clearing immigration to boot.

Arrival area outside the airport - predictably chaotic and noisy – hordes of hopefully looking people with placards showing names of travelers/ hotels and taxi drivers in search of a fare crowded around, kept at bay by a chain and 3 policemen who kept motioning the particularly aggressive taxi drivers away. A lamb led to slaughter, I endured placards waved in front of me and a gauntlet of “hey lady, need a taxi”, “I go where you want cheap”, and stumbled out of the jostling crowd, craning my neck to catch a glimpse of the Hilton shuttle to catch my bus to Monteverde . I wonder what Lisa will think of this as she emerges off the plane on Sunday…..

What the heck? I’ve got plenty of time to spare….but I have absolutely no idea whether there is a hotel shuttle let alone if I’m in the right place for it. I wheel across the street where shuttles were parked – hmmm…. no shuttle. Found a fatherly looking policia who was nice enough to call on his walkie talkie back to the tourist desk and explained to me in muy rapido Espanol that el autobus would be coming every 15 minutes – at least that was the bit that I caught. Hopefully by the end of this trip, I’ll catch more than 20% of a conversation.

Whew …. shuttle bus finally swings around and I board for the 5 minute ride. The Hilton must be used to people using the property as a pickup point as the reception desk didn’t bat an eye as I stride in to find the restaurant to cool off and wait the 2 ½ hours. A group of tattooed kids with well worn backpacks clustered in the lobby slumped over sleeping or watching CNN, obviously waiting for transportation to their next destination. Sitting at the bar, ordered my first Costa Rican beer – a local Imperial beer with a Germanic looking eagle/bird logo and colors to match and the words “La Cerveza de Costa Rica”. Bienvenidos a Costa Rica and adventures! Full from my sumptuous lunch of takeout sushi on the flight but ordered ceviche so the alcohol wouldn’t go to my head within the first 3 sips. Wow !!! Firm bite sized chunks of raw fish sublimely marinated in lime juice and onions served with crackers hit the spot. My body is finally cooling down. Time to organize my backpack a little bit for the next part of my travels….. Sure hope the transport shows up at 3:15pm and beats the 6 seater sardine can minibus with 9 crammed travelers that we took out of Thailand across to Malaysia after the airport riots.

4 1/2 days to go

Quick post to see if my email notifications are working: 
Only 4 1/2 days until I leave for Costa Rica to meet Mimi for a week of fun in the sun!  I'm thrilled to leave the rain, cold, snow and wretchedness that has been spring in Minnesota this year.  Though I'm not sure I'm ready for 95 degrees and 95 percent humidity in Costa Rica...  But my suitcase is only halfway packed, lots more to do!

My first blog post...ever

My friend, Christin, suggested I blog about my upcoming trip to Costa Rica with our mutual friend, Mimi.

I think Christin has an ulterior motive--given that Mimi has a history of finding natural disaster and political unrest prior to, during, and after her travels, Christin is hoping for some entertaining adventures.  I, on the other hand, am a newbie international traveler.  I have never traveled farther out of the United States than Winnepeg.  And that was before a passport was required. So I'm hoping for an uneventful trip, beautiful weather, quiet and calm streets and peaceful Costa Rican natives.  My hope is simply to avoid being pickpocketed.  I'll let you know what we find once we arrive on May 1.

The countdown to Costa Rica is on: T minus 58 days.