What are we doing in Costa Rica?

We made it! We had a long day, and not without stress, but we’re safe and sound.

Some highlights:

• our property manager arriving 45 minutes late to pick up our money and keys
• driving around and around the airport looking for the car rental office which turned out to be half a mile away with no signs
• the $25 per-person departure tax!
• finding out one of our bags was too heavy to fly
• having the sinking realization that our 70-minute layover in Houston did not account for baggage claim, customs, and re-checking our bags
• miraculously making our connection!
• Dean being “that baby” on the Houston-Austin flight

Before I went to bed last night I bought a six-pack of Fireman’s #4 and some Taco Cabana. I kept spontaneously laughing out loud in the grocery store: How could I choose from all the milk? Shelves upon shelves of maple syrup!! We’re all so amazed right now by the opulence of our Texas life that we’re walking around in a kind of daze. The Internet is so fast! The U.S. quarter dollar coin is so small!

We’re not done blogging just yet. We have a little post-processing to do.

Just kidding. We’re amoral. However, we’ve learned a thing or two this summer? Here’s a smattering of wisdom:

• When faced with a fork in the road and no directional signage, always take the paved road.
• It’s hard to spot sloths up in the trees when you’re always watching your small children on the ground.
• Ticos are known for being friendly. In our experience, Texans are generally “friendlier” than Ticos, but the Ticos are way more helpful. So while your Texan customer service person is more likely to greet you with enthusiasm, your passing Tico motorist is more likely to stop and help you fix your bike chain. 
• Breathtaking surroundings don’t mean a thing if you don’t have friends to share them with.
• It’s impossible to know what a place is like without going there. No matter how much we read about and researched our destinations, we were always surprised by the reality (in ways both good and bad). 
• Salsa Lizano is the key to a killer batch of gallo pinto.
• If you see someone jogging in Costa Rica, s/he is almost certainly not a native.
• This kind of adventure is worth all the hassle. 

We brought a few items that have proved so useful this summer that I think they deserve some recognition. We highly recommend the following for a trip like this: 

Bungee cord. Our only gripe with this is that we only brought one. It’s excellent for Macguyver-style baby-proofing, securing groceries or a pizza box on your bike, and more. 

Swiss army knife. Whether we needed tweezers for splinter removal or a knife for slicing my flat-and-wound-up-in-my-bike-spokes tire free, this was an excellent and compact tool. 

Inflatable bedrail. Instantly transforms any regular bed into a safe place for Dean to sleep. 

Travel booster seat. This little thing was impressively sturdy and kept Dean well contained at home and in restaurants. 

First aid kit. Probably a no-brainer, but I was amazed at how often I turned to my trusty kit. I learned never to leave the house without it!

GPS device. Intuition is great when there are no road signs telling you which windy road to take, but knowing which direction your traveling — and maybe even having a map — is even better. 

What didn’t we need? A billion diapers. Every grocery store I’ve entered in this country has had them for sale. Other than that, I think we packed pretty admirably.

In no particular order…

In Puerto Viejo:

• Wildlife. Finding frogs in the shower, hearing monkeys howling in the jungle, never knowing what’s lurking in the kitchen sink, huge blue butterflies, dozens of hummingbirds, giant moths, and even molting grasshoppers
• The view of the ocean as we biked down the driveway 
• The ice cream shop (it really is that good)
• Being surrounded by the most beautiful plant life ever. The unreality of opening the shutters in the morning and realizing what incredible variety and abundance we have in store for the day
• Picking star fruits off our own tree
• The fresh fish vendor and our tofu man
• The Loco Natural dogs. Come home with us, Rumba!
• Lack of marketing — bags weren’t printed with the grocery store name, zero billboards, etc. 
• Horses walking down the beach like it’s no big deal
• The smell of ylang ylang trees
• Hey, we may have complained, but it was a pretty magical place. 

The phone rang at the house this evening and I picked it up. I think it was a salesman of some sort. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello?
Spanish Speaking Gentleman: Bueno! Very Fast Spanish for about 30 seconds. 
Me: Uh… No habla Espanol.  
SSG: No habla Espanol?
Me: No, no habla Espanol. 
SSG: Rapid Spanish for another 15 seconds. 

It was clear to me that communication was unlikely. I hung up the phone. 

Zach: Who was that?
Me: Some guy. I could only catch a few words of what he said, so I told him I don’t speak Spanish.
Zach:  Actually, you told him HE didn’t speak Spanish. 

At which point I hung my head in deep, abiding shame.

This morning we drove to the zoo in nearby Alajuela for a dose of Costa Rican wildlife.

This monkey is nursing her baby!
 

The zoo had a lot of interesting conservationist signs, including this one:

That’s Viagra in the turtle’s hands, in case you couldn’t tell.

The afternoon was rainy and sleepy. Everyone napped and I finished a good book (The Tenderness of Wolves). Tomorrow we pack; Monday we go HOME!

More photos in the slideshow.

Zoo Ave

Such as lime, floral, and bouquet!

Hopefully the local grocery store employees weren’t too freaked by our photographing their disinfectant.

According to National Geographic, our home for the last few nights in the country has the best weather in the world. It is rather nice here, warm and sunny but not sweltering, low humidity, etc. It’s also nice here because we’re staying in a pretty American-style house with amenities such as a washer and dryer. I love doing my own laundry — especially after the service in Monteverde returned our load shrunken and reeking of cheap cologne. Yuck!

Monteverde was a great place to take kids. We had so much fun hiking there and visiting Insect World, the bat exhibit, and the Serepentorium. It was great to cool off from the Caribbean, too. Aside from my tummy bug, it really felt like a vacation. However, we’re happy to be here in a comfy house with a pool and a spectacular view for our last few days. Life is good!

The view going down the mountain from Monteverde.

We encountered several traffic delays on the way down. First a herd of cows…

Next some roadwork. We got to watch them scoop a lot of dirt into that dump truck…

Delays not pictured: dogs sleeping in the road and a long detour caused by lack of signage to Atenas…

View from the pool.

This is a great place to watch the storms roll in.

We leave on Monday! We’re excited to see everyone very soon.

I saw this ice cream treat in the grocery store freezer and thought it said Amnio. “I have to get it!” I thought. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it actually says Mmmio. I bought it anyway.

On our last day in Monteverde, we hiked in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. It’s protected land that children from all over the world have donated money to buy. The trails were lovely, and there was a cool learning house with games and puzzles for the kiddos to play with at the end.