Another family vacation completed, and although we really had a wonderful time in Costa Rica, there's nothing like coming home, late at night and crashing in your own bed.
I will post pictures as I get them downsized and downloaded, and tell travel tales associated, but for the moment, how about a summary? OK,it's not short, but read it anyways.
Day 1 Tues March 6 Spend day doing final packing and clean up. Get kids and husband organized, car packed and everyone in it. Just as we are about to pull out, husband notices roof vent on lawn. Stops car, climbs roof to patch hole left by absent roof vent. Makes comment that house just has to kick him in the ----- one more time before we leave. Arrive in Syracuse to our basic accomodation. Everyone too excited to get to sleep but that's what homeopathics and melatonin are for.
Day 2 Wed March 7 Mom hardly slept, too worked up about details, perhaps. Will we make our flight? Will we make our connection? Will the guy in San Jose be there, really, even though I've paid for the ride in advance? No need for the 4:30 am alarm, as I am awake well before. Rouse family and get ourselves to airport for 5:10 or so. Everyone cranky, no time for breakfast, the thought being that we'd pick something up at Syracuse Airport.
Good thought, but that's all breakfast turned out to be. Security line-ups were ghastly and we barely manage to catch our plane. Really only the captain's grace at delaying flight time (there were more than a few of us chewing our nails) got us aboard. Atlanta was a bit of a rush too, but we managed to grab hotdogs from a kiosk there ("Whatya want on your hotdawg girlfriend?"), and on to San Jose.
San Jose, warm, not that furnace-like heat though. Windy, sunny, pleasant, and so was Gustavo, outside the terminal building with his little "Anne Cameron" sign. "Espanol?" "Non". So our conversation was somewhat limited, but he was a really good driver. Our van was comfy and we could all crash. The sun disappeared into the clouds shrouding the mountains around San Jose. We went up up up then down down down. Lush. Two lane road. Slow. Tonnes of transport trucks. We probably could go only 60 kmh or so. Gustavo was a little frustrated, obviously this is not his normal route. At the bottom it remained cloudy, a long drive to Limon by banana and palm and pineapple plantations and seedy little towns. At Limon we were finally by the sea and then headed south-ish toward Panama.
Arrived at our lovely little guesthouse after dark, and were greeted by the first of many good looking Latinos hanging around this place. (Call me) Ishmael was our first introduction to the little commune we had infiltrated. The German owner was away so Ishmael and his long dreadlocks led us to our room by the light from a lighter (I don't know why he didn't know where the lightswitch was) and we settled in. Bed by 8:30 probably! Long day.
Day 3 Thurs Mar 8 We are supposed to get breakfast here, but aren't sure if we should count on it, having experienced the "owner away, mice will play" scenario before in other countries. We head out and find our own, as the kitchen and dining area are as quiet as the dead. Later we get many apologies from yet another lovely Latino, Alexander (Ishmael seems to have disappeared), who turns out to be a Tico (Costa Rican) Biology teacher, on sabbatical.
I should also relate that even before breakfast, we had our first adventure which brought out the Trip Angels that are constantly with us. (Oh, I forgot, they were with us yesterday too, sitting on that pilot's shoulder as he thought, hmmm, I can't leave until that nice Cameron family is aboard.) We were up early because of the Chakka Lakka bird, and around 6:30 am headed down to check out the beach. Long story short, while Bob and Sky were climbing (and falling, well Skyler anyways) out of coconut trees, Sean and Evie were playing in a little creek flowing into the sea. I was there too, preferring to stay dry. That didn't last long, because a rogue wave came rolling up the creek. Not large, but strong enough to knock Evie off of her feet. And she was gone, just like that. I couldn't see her under the water. But Sean had grabbed her hand, and I pulled her up. "THANK YOU SEAN, for saving Evie!" "Ya," he responds, "and I saved my shoes too". Our angel at work again.
The interesting thing is that last time we were in this part of the world, Skyler had saved Sean, when he went under water at a pool. Both those boys are my heroes. And thank you to God and his angels, who are so obviously with us.
That was probably the most interesting thing that happened that day. We did go beaching, and the boys did enjoy the waves. Evie, understandably, was a little wary for the first couple of days.
The beaches here are lovely, all natural, shaded if you want, no garbage, not very peopled, so easy to find your own chunk of paradise. The waves were large though, but there were numerous little creeks running down into the sea, and we were diligent about those rogue waves.
Lunch was at a roadside restaurant specializing in Caribbean food. The Rondon was a soup to die for. Actually we never had a bad meal anywhere in the area.
I should explain that the road we were on was a small paved one, about 13 km long, dead-ending at the village of Manzanillo, lined with jungle, and spotted with guesthouses and little restaurants. Everything is set back at least 100 metres from the beach. Nothing feels crowded. Quite a few expats running the little shops and eating places, but lots of Ticos too. A bit of a hippy feel to the place. Organic this and that, the occasional waft of pot coming from the macrobiotic cafe, little shops selling homemade clothing, soaps, jewellery. At night, twinkle lights would illuminate the cafes and restaurants. (The stars above of course, were amazing........we were 9 degrees north of the Equator, and the Milky Way was spectacular).
The first night we ended up buying a few things at the little pulperia down the road, and cooking our own meal in the kitchen off the open air dining area. Nothing is locked, you just wander where you will. The sign at the entrance to our "lodge" says to make yourself at home, and that's what we did.
Day 4 Mar 9 To the village, Puerto Viejo this morning. Caught the local bus, all of a buck each (550 colones). We sent Bob into the bank alone, since the 2 guards at the entrance who let you in and lock the door behind you, wanted my backpack. We waited outside, pondering what kind of outlaw activity had brought the banks here to such a level of security. (At least these guys weren't carrying automatic rifles, like the guards in Honduran banks did). The process of exchanging currency took awhile, so we ended up using bank cards after that, which worked out fine.
Puerto Viejo has a very Afro-Caribbean vibe, lots of black women with scarves wrapped around their heads, lots of Bob Marley looking types and Bob Marley kitsch for sale. Lots of beach paraphenalia to buy, as the village is right on the beach. Lots of surfers. We looked around then Bob got a Rastafarian guy mad at him for ordering 2 tacos and not telling him we wanted it to go. We had a bus to catch, but thankfully the Carib vibe extends to bus schedules, (manana) and the extra 20 minutes till it actually came gave us the opportunity to eat.
Days 5 to 8 Mar 10 to 13 Days settled into a routine. The German owner came back, breakfast was then available every morning at our lovely dining pavilion, and we'd head off to a beach here or there. One day we got screwed over by a taxi driver when we decided to go down to Manzanillo. 5000 colones to get there, 7000 to come back. (Same guy; he'd told us to call him when we were ready to go home, but we really didn't need to, as there were taxis available in the village). Didn't do that again.
The kids loved the beaches. Evie got over her fear of the water, and would let us hold her in the waves at the shallow part of the beach. When the tide receded, there would be tide pools she could swim in. We called them Evie's Swimming Pools. Sky and Sean absolutely loved the waves, and body surfing. Our kids don't need anything fancy to amuse them at the beach; waves and sand are just about perfect.
Our simple guesthouse had a great porch with hammocks, and we'd while away rainy spells or evenings here. We'd walk to our evening meals, a couple of restaurants becoming favorites. Wifi was available at the lodge to keep the Teenager happy, and kind of neat for him to be able to chat with his friends back home in real time. Sean amused himself by reviewing all of the day's photos or videos. Evie would lay with somebody in a hammock and sing or chat. One of the nice young men volunteering here quite took to her, and would call out "Hello Evie" every time he went by. He wasn't too hard to look at. A lot of students spend time volunteering at farms and guesthouses and animal refuge centres here in CR. They get their room and board and weekends off to go and enjoy the beach, and it's not a bad life.
One day there was a whole gang here preparing food for a wedding being held at a neighboring hotel. A big cauldron covered in banana leaves steamed over a grill. A pot of what turned out to be flower leaves for a tea, was steeping on the stove. Large bowls of salads and I don't know what else, but everything I saw being prepared in that kitchen (the simplest room; it had a concrete floor and plywood walls, and just a table, sink, stove and shelves) over our week there, smelled delicious.
We visited an animal rescue centre one day to see sloths, howler monkeys, a wildcat, birds, frogs, snakes and 2 caimans. The monkey experience was fun; we got to go into their enclosure to interact with them; one started to eat Evie's hair and another almost peed on Sean!
Day 9 Mar 14 Our travel day back to San Jose. Packed up, said goodbye to all of our buddies here (Evie draws a lot of attention!) and rode back with Gustavo. He smiled when I pulled out a Dora the Explorer book for Evie. Yes they have Dora and Diego here too.
Our hotel in San Jose was beautiful, with murals decorating the exterior walls, little fountains and landscaping everywhere. Our apartment was very nice; it would be a very comfortable place to spend a few days. They greeted us on arrival with glasses of fruit juice, rimmed with sugar. The apartment was a change from our guesthouse, with a different sort of charm (especially once we found the English language TV channels; although Sean and Evie were quite content to watch Spanish language cartoons for the first while...poor kids had been TV deprived for the week). We had the option of swimming in an outdoor pool or jacuzzi, but the wind had picked up and it was a cool evening.
Day 10 Mar 15 Regrettably, our last day in Costa Rica. After breakfast by the pool (included in the apartment price....all of $120 for the night!) we caught an airport shuttle and began the amazing process of getting out of this country.
1. Enter airport and queue up to pay airport fee of $26 US.
2. Take immigration forms fee lady gives you and find a flat space to fill them out.
3. Enter check-in line.
4. Give passports to Immigration official (all who had "K-9" written on their shirts, not sure I understand this, didn't see a dog in sight) who has desk in check-in queue. They check them, return them.
5. Check bags.
6. Enter Security. Give passports to yet another Immigration official with K-9 on their shirt who has a little desk in the security queue. They return them.
7. Through security. False sense of security achieved that the process is done.
8. Enter gate area, and have to again haul out passports to give to Immigration K-9 people, who then point you all over the place to different tables to have your carry-ons searched yet once again, by hand this time.
9. Ditch freshly bought coffee that you had only three gulps of, as no liquids allowed onto the plane. (Huh?)
10. Gather various family members dispersed around different K-9 security area and show boarding passes to gate officials.
11. Finally get aboard. Coffee isn't as good.
And then off to Atlanta. Whole other story there, as we had to reclaim bags, then check them again (sort of...a large black man yells "Come over here, come to me come to me" ,ya, doesn't sound really secure but he was an official and the bags did make it home), even though they had been checked through to Syracuse....everybody had to go through the same process...and then go through security again. More angels, as another official took us to the head of the line because of "the baby". The baby was charming people left and right, but that likely had nothing to do with this special treatment. Overall Atlanta is a very efficient airport though.
And back to Syracuse by 11:00, and to our hotel by midnight.
Day 11 Mar 16 Our shopping day. Carousel mall and the Waterloo outlet. The angels chose to be with us again, as we had a dead battery at Waterloo. Thank CAA also. I didn't have my card with me, but just giving them my name and address was sufficient. And thank the nice lady who let Bob use her cell phone, and the other nice lady who had the AAA number.
What better place to have a car breakdown? Mom chose to ease stress with SHOPPING.
And then home.
Pictures to follow.
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