What are we doing in Costa Rica?

Here are three things that we were surprised we miss:

Local Phone

“Who would call us?” we thought. “We don’t need no stinkin’ local phone!” This has turned out to be a big mistake. We live on a gated property, and the fact we don’t have a phone means no one can stop by without pre-arranging an exact time to meet them at the gate. This has caused problems with the taxi, the Tofu Man, our rental car, and our new friends. We would never attempt another long-ish stay overseas without a phone.

Washer/Dryer

We thought we would “go simple” and wash our own clothes. This would be fine except when it takes more than 48 hours for them to dry. If you’ve never let clothes stay damp for two straight days, let me tell you what they smell like: a cross between a wet dog and a locker room. Mmmm, fresh! Our landlords have a washer and dryer that they charge us around $10 per load for. Hey, at least we’re not buying gasoline!

An Oven

We knew when we came down here that we would only have a two-burner gas range and no oven. No big deal, right? When do we use an oven, anyway? We really miss being able to roast/bake/broil/warm whatever. There are those days when all you want for your life is to cook a frozen pizza. We have been in several homes here with an oven, and we get jealous.

Tom and Kay’s visit wrapped up with a zipline adventure!

This is how they suit you up!

Plunge into the jungle, 150′ in the air!

Zach and Tom went first, and I mocked the helmets when I saw the photos. Then I couldn’t break on the first line and had a bit of a crash landing — boy was I glad for my helmet! In my defense, the lines were wet when Kay and I went and all of us had a hard time braking. I was not the only gringa flying too fast through the jungle that day.


One of the guides, a certifiably insane person.


The views were breathtaking, and zipping along like that felt like being a kid again. It was a really cool experience!

Zach’s Uncle Tom and Aunt Kay are here this week and it’s great! Yesterday we went down the coast to Manzanillo beach. Beautiful, of course.




Tom has had a huge influence on Zach, and this opportunity for the boys to get to know him and Kay is really precious. We’re so glad they were willing to make the trip!

We’re back to sweating and itching in our jungle home after a whirlwind trip through the center of the country! I’m happy to report that there were no more brushes with death, though we wildly underestimated how long the driving would be on each leg of the trip, so Graham and Dean would probably argue that they were perilously close to being bored to death quite a lot.





We arrived at the Arenal Lodge in the late afternoon on Saturday, played on the playground, introduced Graham to foosball, and had a delicious dinner. On Sunday we were able to upgrade to one of their “chalet” rooms — it was incredible! The chalets are up on a hill with a gorgeous view of the volcano and surrounding valley and lake. We took a nature walk, played in the butterfly garden, and spent some time in the nearby town of La Fortuna. A pizza for dinner in our room, Star Wars Episode 3, and an awe-inspiring thunderstorm completed our day.









We didn’t see any lava (too cloudy at night), but the volcano did make some impressive sounds. We were suitably impressed.


On Monday morning, we set out for Santa Cruz, a little town in the hills between San Jose and the Atlantic coast. “Surely,” we said to each other, “driving through San Jose would be faster!” Oh, to be so naive and starry-eyed again! Six hours of driving, and much doubt in my heart that we would ever reach our destination, brought us to the Guayabo Lodge, a remote little jewel of a bed and breakfast.


Its beauty could not be adequately captured by photographs, but here are a few anyway.

The boys especially enjoyed making friends with the resident baby animals, and Graham played his first game of ping pong against an eight-year-old Dutch girl.






Click below for more photos.

Arenal & Guayabo Lodge

Wow, this has been quite a day. There have been some twists and turns, both literally and figuratively, in our journey.

The not-so-good side:

The journey took about 2 hours longer than we expected and we almost died. I know I have been known to speak… hyperbolically… in the past, but I swear I’m not now. As we were winding our way through one of the narrow mountain roads, an 18-wheeler driven by a complete imbecile nearly ran us off the road. We were in a stand-off for a couple of tense minutes as we were blocked in by a ravine (gorge? valley?) on one side and this dude to our left, front, and back. Some heroic driving by Zach (backing up on the windy road, pulling within an inch of doom to the shoulder, etc) finally freed us. I was leaning towards him in the hopes that shifting my weight towards his side would save all our lives. Seriously. Near collapse of Elizabeth’s nerves afterwards, not relieved until consuming half a bottle of wine with dinner. My precious children need to live. I don’t even know how to express how scary that was.

Arrived 2 hours later than anticipated at our hotel to find our reservation did not go through. We’ll be in very cramped quarters tonight in the standard room, which was all they had left. Also, no power at the hotel until about 7 pm, which was inconvenient but not, you know, life threatening or anything.

The plus side:

We got our rental car this morning with no major issues. Our Daihatsu Terios is compact, adorable, and has 4-wheel drive. The children were great on our drive. We saw a monkey crossing the road as we were leaving the Caribbean side! (Mommy: Graham, why was that monkey crossing the road? Graham: Because he wanted to go to the other side!)

Our hotel is AWESOME, even with a small room. The Arenal Lodge has a kids’ playroom, a very decent restaurant, a butterfly garden, excellent volcano views, and a playground! Apparently we can switch rooms tomorrow, and we’re hoping to get one with a view and enough beds for all of us. The nearest town, La Fortuna, looks really neat, and we’re excited to explore tomorrow.

This part of the country, with its rolling hills, lush greenery and COOL weather, is amazing. It is so beautiful and lush. Oh, and no bugs so far! We’re pretty excited about the break from heat, humidity, and mosquitos.

And, of course, we’re alive. And incredibly grateful for that. Life is very, very good. We are grateful.

Tomorrow morning we are renting a car and heading West into the Central/Northern zone. Our destination is Arenal Volcano and its environs (including hot springs and a lake). Crossing our fingers for some cooler weather and — dare we dream?? — fewer mosquitos…. We shall update there if we can, but if not, expect pictures and a full report on Tuesday.

On Monday we tackled some stir-craziness with a taxi ride to Punta Uva, a gorgeous beach that is about 9 kilometers south of Puerto Viejo. It was a nice, overcast day — perfect for playing in the sand!

The boy loves to get dirty!

Even Graham, Hater of All Things Beach, had fun!

The coolest part of the excursion… MONKEYS! We saw a whole family of them swinging through the trees. While we have heard a monkey (there’s one lurking around our property), we hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing any. It was awesome.

It was hard to get any good photos, but this is a mama monkey and her baby.

On the downside, the mosquitos and no see-ums were out in full force and we got a lot of bad bites just as we were starting to look less like horror movie props. Gah! It was worth it anyway.