What are we doing in Costa Rica? » Kids

Children’s Eternal Rainforest

elizabeth — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:56:35 +0000

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.

Costa Rican Mother’s Day

elizabeth — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:37:32 +0000

Last Friday was Mother’s Day in Costa Rica. I didn’t think much about it at first, but after being wished “feliz dia de madre!” by a few Ticos, I was quite into enjoying my special day — I’m so easily influenced!

In the morning I took the boys hiking in the Santa Elena Cloud Forrest Reserve while Zach worked. It was a perfect outing. They have a 1.4 km youth trail that was just long and challenging enough to be fun. Graham led the way with boundless enthusiasm; carrying Dean in the Ergo, I lagged behind just a bit. It was so indescribably beautiful. The pictures I’m posting don’t begin to do it justice. After the first trail, we took a break at the reception area, got something to drink, and the boys talked me into some stuffed monkeys. Then we hiked some more!

In the afternoon we visited the used bookstore/cafe/laundromat in town, then picked up some Japanese food for dinner. I finished up the evening with a trashy novel and some chocolate-covered macadamias while a massive storm thundered all around us. It was a perfect day!

Photos from the forrest. Our interwebs here are too slow for me to post individually, so here’s a slideshow.

Belated Feliz Dia de Madre to all my beloved mamas out there!

Bats Give Birth Upside Down

elizabeth — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:39:25 +0000

With a midwife bat to help! The boys and I learned that and other interesting facts about bats this morning at the Monteverde Bat Jungle. We saw hundreds of bats eating, flying, drinking, and grooming on the tour, followed by a kids’ movie about bats. It was so much fun!

Hose Fun

elizabeth — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:22 +0000

I taught Graham to use his fingers for spraying, something I’m sure I’ll come to regret.

Famous last words: “Don’t point that thing at anyone else!”

Rainy Days and Muddy Boys

elizabeth — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:26:35 +0000

This last weekend we got a taste of what the “real” rainy season here is like. Apparently, it rains really hard, and for a long time. We got a little stir crazy.

On Monday I took the boys to the botanical garden, which was hazardously muddy, but a lot of fun.

Even the tree here have to decorate themselves so as to out-beautify.

Notice Anything Funny?

elizabeth — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:10:53 +0000

We’ve noticed something really random about the diapers we’ve bought here.

See it? How about a closer look?

All the diapers have one tab stuck to the inside of the diaper, rather than folded over neatly as we would expect. It’s odd. Of course, it doesn’t bother Dean! But does anyone have any theories about this? It’s a mystery!

Graham and a Friend

elizabeth — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:13:38 +0000

Graham spent a long time conversing with this moth the other day. It hung out on the inside of the mosquito net for hours, so I guess the admiration was mutual.

Road Trip: Arenal Volcano & Guayabo Lodge

elizabeth — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:44:45 +0000

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

WE’RE ALIVE!!!

elizabeth — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 03:04:33 +0000

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.

Punta Uva

elizabeth — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:10:10 +0000

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.