What are we doing in Costa Rica?

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.

Some photos from the past couple of weeks, as well as a few notes on jungle living that have been rattling around in my brain. I’ve been way too lazy about uploads! You can view more photos here.

Horses wander freely about the town.

Dogs do too!

Our closest beach, Playa Negra, in the late afternoon. The black sand is super fine and gets into everything.

Graham is very dramatic in his refusal to love the beach.

Big, crazy spider in our sink one morning. It hopped at me when I tried to scoop in into a glass. YIKES!

Zach preparing one of the fish he caught. Such a provider!

Finally got close enough to one of the dart frogs to take its picture.

Dean bringing me flowers.

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Both boys are expanding their vocabularies in Costa Rica. Dean is saying dog, cat, thank you, bye, mama, and dada. He also pants like a dog whenever he sees any four-legged creature, and he has started waving. Graham has started saying “chillax.” That’s chill + relax for all you oldsters . As in, “Daddy, it’s time to go to bed and chillax!”

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How humid is it here? Dishes don’t dry in the draining rack. Some of our clothes are mildewing. Books and paper are just slightly damp at all times. Our bathroom is like a swamp.

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The big, exciting news this week is that we are making friends! Graham had his first play date yesterday with an awesome little boy and it was a big success. His parents own the coffee shop in town — could there be a better family to befriend?! They played with rocks and cars, chased each other around the shop, and got ice cream cones. We have some more potential friend irons in the fire as well.

The more time passes since I last wrote, the harder it is to write anything at all, because all my observations are competing for space. This is going to be a hodge podge assortment of ideas, hopefully enough to get me out of “blog debt.”

Simpler, But Not Easier

Life here is simpler than in the States, but simple things are hard. There is less of everything except untamed wilderness: fewer people, less traffic, less media barrage, less stuff to buy, fewer choices. If you had a million dollars down here, nobody would know it because there’s nothing to buy except food, sundries, and what few garments are suitable for sweating it out in the jungle. Imagine, if you will, no Best Buy, no Home Depot, no PetCo, no Old Navy, no Barnes & Noble, no Bed Bath & Beyond. And lo and behold, your life runs perfectly well without them. Living here is uncomplicated, and generally low-stress. However, basic things take a lot of energy. Taking care of the kids here is a lot harder, because it takes both parents to get them out of the house. We don’t have a child care option yet, and no parenting staples like playgrounds and children’s museums. Stocking the refrigerator is a challenge, since we can only carry the equivalent of a single grocery bag in the bicycle basket. We go the various small grocery suppliers almost daily. By the time I have biked home with a full basket, I just want to drink a cold beer and go to sleep!

Bug Update

We’re adapting. Graham’s legs have downgraded from “Fangoria” to “merely bad.” To paraphrase Forrest Gump’s momma, the jungle is like a box of chocolates… We are constantly astonished by the variety and unpredictability of our insect situation. Case in point: two nights ago at dusk the entire house was enveloped in a swarm of moth-like creatures with slender black wings. We hid out for a while under our mosquito nets. It felt like an episode of “Tales from the Crypt.” Within about an hour, they were gone, and the spider camped out above our staircase was exhausted. We’re learning to live side-by-side with our six-legged friends. They are a fact of life here. On the other hand, when one of them flew straight into my right ear at dinner, all the way to my eardrum, I almost lost my mind.

Man’s Place in Nature

The first thing you think when you see this country is “OMG, it’s so beautiful.” After a few days, this evolves to “I am a stranger here, and Nature wants to eat me.” Now that we’re four weeks in, I can feel another transition. “Holy crap, I am an animal too! I really do belong here; growing up in a manmade world made me forget how.” I am becoming attuned to the natural world in subtle ways. For example, we had two straight days of rain this week. This morning, I knew the rain was finished because the cicadas were making a racket, which they never do while it’s wet. We don’t have any clocks. Honestly, we tell the time by looking at the sky.

In our time here in Puerto Viejo, I’ve noticed something interesting about the energy parents put into keeping their kids safe. Kids here seem to have a lot more freedom than children the same age in the States. You see little kids riding adult bikes by themselves, or playing in the street together (the quiet side streets — they’re not dodging traffic or anything), or walking through town. You also see a lot of parents biking with their kids perched any which way on the handlebars. I saw a mom riding down the main street one day with a small boy standing behind her holding on with one hand. He looked blissfully confident. I’ve seen one baby carried in a carseat bucket, and that was a tourist family. Overall, I don’t think carseats are widely used here, though I haven’t researched it. The playground in town has really overgrown grass (snakes!), broken swings, rusted ladder rungs, etc.

I’m enjoying this in certain small ways. I love that on the property here Graham can be out of my sight and I feel comfortable that he’s safe as long as I know where he is. He’s not a huge risk taker, so he always comes back into my line off vision shortly. Even Dean can wander way more freely here than at home. The couple of times we’ve had a ride into town with the kids, there was no question that we’d bring the carseats. We did have them strapped in on the way from San Jose — my heart would never have been able to take the lane changes otherwise! — but they’re currently gathering dust upstairs.

Certain things are different here that make these safety things palatable. The drives have been short and slow. It’s a TINY town (I see the same people all the time) and people know each other and their kids. Cars are very accustomed to sharing the road with bikes and pedestrians and are generally very courteous. But it definitely puts an interesting perspective on things. I spent hours researching car seats when it was time to switch Graham into something bigger. I wouldn’t dream of leaving Dean unsupervised in our front yard in Texas. Yet maybe when we get back I’ll a slightly less paranoid mama? Who knows…

In an interesting twist, apparently Americans are much more cavalier about babysitters than the Ticos. I thought it would be easy to find some part-time babysitting here, but the idea was met with… well, not horror by our hostess, but no recommendations either. “I don’t know who I could trust — I mean, it’s your children!” were her exact words, if I recall correctly. Pretty different from the “Hey, that kid down the street looks old enough to dial 9-1-1,” approach to hiring sitters that a lot of Americans have. (For the record, our sitters in TX have all come from trusted recommendations or with references, but I haven’t been running their prints or anything.)  The only lead on a babysitter I’ve been able to get down here was from a woman who looked suspiciously like a “lady of the evening” who solicited me as I biked through town with Dean one day. Hmmm.

Happy Father’s Day! 

My parents arrived in the jungle two days ago and are surviving — nay, thriving — amongst the bugs and humidity. I am very impressed! My mom’s favorite plants, bromeliads, thrive here, and they are having some enviable wildlife sightings. 

To celebrate Father’s Day, we took a family trip to the Finca la Isla Botanical Garden. It’s right next store to us, and is a real treasure for the neighborhood. We’ll be going again many times. 

Photos from the visit:

At the end of the visit, we sampled bananas, star fruits, chocolate, and juice, all of which were made on site. It was an awesome adventure!