What are we doing in Costa Rica?

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.