Costa Rica: The End!

A small delay in posting, but delightful descriptions are forthcoming! One of the wonderful things about Costa Rica is that, like Hawaii, you can be on the beach, and then a short couple hours later in the mountains. So on my birthday we left Jaco and started the drive to Santa Elena/Monteverde. My mom said it would take several hours, so when we got to the base of the mountains not too long later, I was kind of surprised. We'd stopped at a gas station earlier where I stocked up on Tostitos and surprise eggs (as if my blond hair didn't give away my Americanness, I bought "imported" chips from the U.S.A.). As we headed up the moutain the clouds started floating in and out of view revealing the ocean below. Then, when we were a mere 30 kilometers away, the road became gravelly and rocky and unmaintained. This slowed us down considerably. We passed cyclists going faster than we could (again, kids on bikes, going uphill without huffing and puffing!). But it was a pretty day and we had Tostitos and Cokes. About half an hour later we passed a sign saying 27 km to Monteverde. A Dios mio! This was going to me a long trek.
By late afternoon we hit the town and asked a local woman if she knew where the Mirador Lodge was. She didn't speak English, but said in Spanish that it was quite far. We kept driving not knowing how far was "far". We eventually came upon an office with "Mirador Lodge" and various activities on it, but we parked and it looked quite locked. Signs on the door revealved it had been shut down! We figured we could find alterate arrangements, but this was strange. We turned back to town and Liz and I sought help. A man told us the lodge was quite far (that word again!) and brought us upstairs to point through the window where we needed to go. He indicated the place we had been so...we inquired at the Chamber of Tourism. The woman said no one had been answering the phone at the lodge, so she didn't know if they were open or not. But, we convinced her to give us a map and looked up the lodge. Lo and behold, it was actually much farther than we had gone before. And...on more unmaintained road. We were getting low on Tostitos too! It took us about another 40 minutes to get there, but when we did, it was breathtaking! The lodge is literally off the grid, making their own electricity. Our cabin had a small porch overlooking sloping green hills and the Arenal Volcano and Lake. Clouds drifted in so that walking on the grounds was liking walking through a moor or heather. We hiked down a small trail near our cabin and found ourselves in the middle of the rainforest.
We dined at the lodge restaurant that night, but were warned ahead of time that a large group of students had a reservation at 7:30. We arrived around 6:45 and practiced our Spanish (the young waiter spoke very little English). The food was delicious and then...the Frenchies arrived. The student group was large-- probably around 20 French students and a few adult chaperones. We surmised they were French by a) they spoke French, b) their European clothes and c) the fact that they smoked at the table. We quickly finished and retired to our cabin.
In the middle of the night a fortuitous event happened (for my mom and myself): my sister got sick. Many people get sick in foreign countries, but Liz gets sick in foreign countries like Canada, and California. So, while she was in the bathroom, my mom and I took turns out on the porch-- the sky had cleared and the stars were out. And by stars I don't mean the pinpricks one sees in the city, I mean 3-D layers of stars-- some dim, many bright, some close, some far, clusters, colors...it was like nothing I had ever seen. I couldn't help but think of all my city girlscouts who might never have seen the sky like this. Further, to add to the magic, the lake was illuminated and fireflies darted about. None of us slept so great the rest of the night, so we also got to see the sun rise over the volcano.
Liz still wasn't feeling so hot, but rallied the next day (if college teaches one anything, it is that being sick from a hangover, say, should not deter one from following through with the next day's plans). So, we headed to the forest where we had reservations to do the canopy tour. I was a bit apprehensive about sailing on a zipline hundreds of feet off the forest floor, but Liz agreed to do it despite a timid tummy, so I couldn't let her show me up. Plus, I just turned 30, so thought it a memorable way to celebrate. In our group there were kids, parents, teenagers, and maybe some grandparents? You get strapped into a harness and the (cute and friendly!) Costa Rican guys working there hook the pulley to the zipline and send you on your way. Some of the lines were more than a hundred feet and you probably zip up to 20 mph (well, it's hard to judge-- maybe more, maybe less?) through trees and clouds until you land at the next platform. It was a really amazing experience-- totally solitary and beautiful and it felt safe and not scary at all. Of course it's no way to see any animals, unless a bird flies right into you. The tours lasted about 2 hours and towards the end it had started raining. We warmed up in the restaurant waiting for the rain to die down. It didn't really, so we bought plastic ponchos and walked the bridges through the forest.
The next day we headed out early to drive back to San Jose and catch our flight back to D.C. It would have been nice to stay longer, perhaps as long as it's taken me to post all these updates. I'll get some quality photos up too, for those of you not brave enough to read this whole thing.

Costa Rica, Part III

The midpoint of our trip (both in time and location) was the small town of Jaco. It's a touristy surfing town, but there was the allure of the Best Western Resort replete with pool. On our way out of Manuel Antonio, we got a flat tire, reminiscent of last year's escapades with the rental car. Two locals immediately helped us change the flat and directed us to the nearest service station. In the time it took Liz and I to remember how to ask "how much" in Spanish, my mom had communicated to the non-English speaking attendant the universal language of flat tire. Liz and I watched the telenovela in the parking lot and hoped the sunny day would hold out.
Eventually we were back on the road and made it to Jaco by lunchtime. The main drag in Jaco consists of mega hotels and small tiendas, and the requisite strip mall. We headed to a little French Bakery for lunch and the native French speaking owner spoke with us in nearly the same passable Spanish that we spoke. We all ordered the same sandwich for simplicity's sake, but then Liz's Spanish came out like gangbusters; those who do not like mayonaisse are very adamant about it and will find a way to communicate it! After lunch Liz and I were eager to hit the pool (the beach was full of waves, but also debris, so the pool was the better option) before it stormed.
And storm it did. That evening we took the covered walkway out to the bar while the rain pounded down all around us. We were three of about five people at the bar (maybe at the resort at all). The bartender was friendly and asked us where we were from (being from Seattle, Washington, DC and Boston caused endless confusion for most people, so we started just picking one place) and made us margaritas. Since it was dark and rainy (I mean soooo rainy!) we didn't feel we could easily walk along the highway to find someplace to eat, and we were unsure about taking out the car and parking. So we bid adieu to our bartender and went in to the restaurant. And that's when things got really dicey. Because although it was a Tuesday night, it was International Night. Nothing good comes from International Night. A mishmash of pastas and taco salads and leftovers to create not one signature dish, but a series of mediocre dishes. Plus it was buffet. We headed back to the bar and the bartender laughed when he saw us coming back. This time we really were the only people there. We ordered hamburgers and they were just right. Bar food is bar food-- it doesn't pretend to be anything else. So we were satisfied.

next up: canopy tours in the clouds