Notes on Costa Rica, post-trip

Having now spent six weeks in Costa Rica, I have noticed many changes from our last visit ten years ago. Some surprising, some not so much.

1. The number of drivers who honk their horns has greatly decreased. It still happens once in a while, still more than in the States, but nothing like ten years ago. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, since there are more cars on the roads than ever. The only thing I can think of is the smart phone. Ten years ago, practically no one had a smart phone. Now everyone has one. And that means, just like in the States, everyone is on their phone in the car. You aren't as concerned with blowing the horn a second before the light turns green when you're checking messages.

2. Traffic is worse. More cars, more people on phones, and the roads are still designed inefficiently (bridges are often one lane on two-lane roads, and we experienced an oddity: one lane of creeping traffic flowed on to a 2-lane bridge, which bottlenecked back to one lane when the bridge ended. Wtf?) The typical Costa Rican habit of everyone trying to squeeze into another lane of traffic--using the emergency lane, the shoulder, the ditch, the space in between the lanes, etc.--but no one willingly letting them in, is alive and well.

3. Everything is more expensive. Is it on par with Switzerland or Denmark? No. But the days of your vacation dollar stretching far in CR seem to be over. It felt like US prices. You could still find a 2000 colon casado, but it was rare. 3000 was more the norm. And many restaurants that weren't super fancy, but better than little hole in the wall greasy spoons, had casados in the 4000 range. 4000 is $6.50. Still a decent price for a meal in the States, but for Costa Rica, it's another example of how the prices here have become more like the States.

4. The central valley is getting gentrified. There are some areas, like San Rafael where our last airbnb was, that used to be fields of sugar cane, and now they're gated communities with shopping malls filled with fitness centers and high end eateries. We saw almost every US chain here: Office Depot, PF Chang's, Subway, Starbucks, and of course Wal-Mart, which not only has stores called Wal-Mart, but also owns Pali, MaxiPali, and Mas x Menos. Even little Grecia has a mall now. An actual indoor mall, with a food court and cinema. Grecia. Just let that sink in.

5. The police presence is minimal at best. For a country with no military, you might expect a robust police force. Nah. In six weeks, I saw transit police doing checks maybe twice. Rarely saw anyone pulled over on the streets. If you ever see a cop, they're cruising along, or standing on the sidewalk chatting. It would have been nice to have more of a visible police presence at the beaches, where crime is so rampant. Maybe this isn't different from ten years ago, but it seemed like there were less police.

Heading Home

The plan for getting to the airport was this: Ramon and I would head to the airport at 7 with most of the luggage. He would drop me off at the airport with the luggage and then return his car. Cristina and the kids would get a ride to the airport from Carlos’s neighbor, who is an uber driver, for $15.

They all got to the airport right around 8 as planned. As we were checking our bags, I noticed some old friends from Gainesville, D.J. and Marybeth Head, a couple of counters down from us. What are the odds? We chatted with them for a while, especially since they were on the same place as us. They were in CR for 5 days shooting a video about turtles at Tortugeuro. Funny, we live in the same town as them, and yet we rarely see them. “It takes going to Costa Rica for us to hang out,” DJ joked.

Cristina spotted a nice wooden spoon rest in a gift shop. It was the kind fo thing we had been looking for in all the artisans markets. Even though it was slightly overpriced in the airport, we got it. Plus, I had 8000 colones I needed to get rid of. I paid the rest in dollars, which came to $3.40. She didn’t have any US coins, though, so she offered to give me the 60 cents in colones, or a pack of mints. I took the mints.

The plane left on time. On the plane, I got caught up on my blog (I had been about seven days behind). It was just as well that the TV in my seat didn’t work. Otherwise I might not have blogged.

So our six week post-graduation journey comes to an end. It had its highs and lows. We didn’t do adventurous touristy stuff every day, but we did more than we’d ever done before: zipline tour, horseback riding, coffee tour, white water rafting, multiple hot springs, multiple waterfalls, multiple hikes. We got a few practical souvenirs (beach towels, cutting boards, spoon rest, dish paste). And we came in under budget! Overall, I think (I hope) that Alex will have fond memories of this trip, unlike the trip to Europe where he felt like we were squeezed into a car all the time and didn’t do anything.

Now we have three years to plan Bella’s graduation trip!

One More Waterfall

Since we weren’t going to the 2-hour-away waterfall, we didn’t have to get up early. We slept in till about 9, and then I made pancakes. I made the mistake on not listening well to the plans and I thought we were still trying to get together with another one of Cristina’s cousins. So Sofia and I pissed Cristina off by getting snippy about our plans for the day. What can I say. It’s been a long six weeks.

We drove to the waterfall, and hiked down a short but steep path (which reminded me of the old path to the Fortuna waterfall, complete with electrical wire tied to trees for assistance). The waterfall was small but pretty. Even better, in my opinion, were the multiple pools down stream leading to a bridge. It was tempting to swim in one. Although, the temptation was removed when I stuck my feet in one pool and pulled them out covered with little worms (or maybe leeches?). That made me glad I hadn’t gotten in all the way.

We headed back to the town of Ciudad Colon, ate lunch at a soda, then got home and dropped the kids off. I checked the paperwork, and it turned out that the car was due at 5, not 4. We took the car to Lindora Momentum Enterprise, which we were a little late because of traffic, but it didn’t matter.

Back at home, packing commenced. I know Cristina can pack thru the night, and that’s often her routine, but it was nice to be finished by 11pm or so. Plus, I could help her with weighing the bags and such.

Last Minute Shopping

Lizzie flew out early, and then Elena after her. And then we were back to our original 6.

Today was our last full day with a car. We went back to the Central Market for last minute things, ate lunch at a soda in the market, which I don’t think we had ever done before, and then headed back to the house. Now that Elena’s bed was not in use, we started spreading out our stuff for packing.

There had been talk of meeting up with Eduardo for dinner, but it didn’t work out, so we picked up a rotisserie chicken from MaxiPali (as well as enough dish paste to last me a few years).

We watched Basic Instinct on TV, in Spanish. Spoiler alert: Sharon Stone is the killer.

Cristina wanted to do something in nature on our last full day, so she was looking up waterfalls. She found a nice one, but it was nearly 2 hours away, and we had to return the car at 4. We looked for something closer and found a little free waterfall in Ciudad Colon, about 20 minutes away.

Cedulas

Today’s priority was bureaucratic in nature. Ramon had an appointment with the US embassy to get a temporary replacement passport. And Elena and Sofia needed new cedulas. We left Alex, Bella, and Lizzie at home.

When we had gotten the cedulas at the start of our trip, it was on a Friday and the place was practically empty. We were in and out quickly. Today, however, the place was packed. We got our number: 662. They were only on 462. So 200 people in front of us.

The oddest thing that happened was when a man approached us and asked in Spanish for 1000 dollars. Cristina told him no, that she too needs 1000 dollars. He said he had a knife (mind you, this is in a crowded courthouse with hundreds of people around.) She said “I don’t care, I have a knife too!” He walked off, then returned with a patronizing “Desculpe.” I love my wife. So technically, we were threatened for $1000 by a guy with a knife. Just your typical experience getting a new cedula, right? I think the guy may have been homeless. He kinda had that look.

After we finally got called (it took about an hour and a half) we were processed quickly and then we had two hours to kill before the cedulas would be ready for pick up. We grabbed some lunch at a nearby sports bar called Chubbs. 3100 casado. Not bad.

I went and got the car while the others went to pick up the cedulas. Then we went to an artisans market for souvenir shopping. Ramon picked up the three kids from home and we met up at the market.

This market was one of those hard-sell markets, where every single booth vendor talks to you, inviting you in, trying to make the sale. Eventually, you get numb to it and I just ignored them. I did ask one of them if they had a salt container that I was looking for. I showed them my picture from Fortuna, and he directed me to a booth on the far side. She didn’t quite have what I wanted, but I found something that could work for salt (even though it’s technically a jewelry box).

After getting some decent deals, Ramon, Lizzie, and Elena left for a dinner date with cousin Carolina, and we headed to Alajuela to see some other family, the Molina-Sibaja family.

Marta and Jose Pablo are showing their age, but they seemed to be in relatively good health. Three of their five adult kids were there: Andrea, Jose Pablo, and Marta. They had enough English that we could converse well enough. They served a platano picadillo (which I got the recipe from Andrea). Also, I got a ceviche recipe from Jose Pablo. I’m going to up my CR food game.

On the way back to the Airbnb, we stopped at Wal Mart for some groceries both to eat in the next few days and to take home.

Fun Day with Vicki and Marcos

Vicki made arepas for breakfast, which were just big sweet pancakes. Marcos loves peyibeyes with mayo with his morning coffee. I don’t care for peyibeyes, but I haven’t tasted one in probably 20 years, so I had one to see if my tastes had changed. Still not really my thing, but I’m glad I checked.

Kat had flown out that morning, and towards the end of breakfast, Ramon, Elena, and Lizzie joined us. We caravanned to Bosque del Ninos, a cool recreational area with picnic areas, a soccer field, and hiking trails. Most of us hiked to a waterfall (Ramon and Lizzie stayed at the tables). The weather and the trees reminded me on northern California. We thought we were going to get rained on, but it stayed dry.

Back at the tables, we ate lunch of leftover arroz con pollo and salad. The kids and I played a little soccer. It was Alex, Chris, and me on one team, against Carlos, Dani, and Bella. We won the first game 3 to 2. Then I subbed myself out for Elena, and Carlos and the girls won the second game. It was fun. I really like V and M’s kids. They’re sweet and good-natured.

There’s a chance that V and M and kids might come to Florida over Christmas break. Of course we invited them to stay with us. Hopefully it will happen.

The park closed at 4, so we headed back down the mountain to Alice and William’s house. Monica was also there, as her main occupation right now is taking care of her parents and a jewelry/art business, which she works on from the house. We had a light dinner of sandwiches and tortillas with natilla.

Back at V and M’s, we packed the car up for the last time, said our goodbyes, and headed to the Airbnb in San Rafael.

Birthday in Grecia

Not a very ambitious plan for my birthday: pack up, drive to Sarchi for souvenirs, stop in Grecia for a quick lunch with Vicki and Marcos, then get to the new Airbnb and find some dinner.

The first part went off as planned. Sarchi had less shops than I remember. The big one that we used to go to was completely closed up. But we got a few things we wanted. I didn’t find the container for salt that I liked in Fortuna. Like everything else in CR, things were expensive in Sarchi.

Ramon and his crew went on ahead to get lunch and get settled at the Airbnb.

We found some flowers to bring to Vicki and Marcos, and made it to their place about an hour late. We had a nice lunch of arroz con pollo, tuna pasta, and salad. The best thing, other than reconnecting with Vicki and Marcos, was the kids connecting with Carlos, Chris, and Dani. The ages of the kids were similar enough, and Carlos and Chris spoke English very well (Dani could understand a lot, but isn’t yet confident enough to talk much). They also had two little dogs which were fun to play with.

In the car before we had arrived, the kids and I requested to keep the visit short. Visits to friends and family can stretch into hours and hours. Even our dinner with our Airbnb hosts lasted four hours. But the lunch went so well, and the kids were enjoying each other so much, that when V and M suggested we stay the night, it didn’t take much convincing. The only drawback was that we would have to pack the car up one more time, but it was worth it.

The boys gave up their bedroom, and with the addition of two air mattresses, we fit the five of us in one room. This would be the first (and only) night we were not staying in paid lodging! And it let the other crew have a bit more space on Kat’s last night in CR.

The Rodriguez-Fallas family has a favorite taco place, and they wanted to take us there. We were still a little full from the late lunch, but we wanted to experience these tacos, which were not your typical tacos. For example, the one I got was called Vampiro. It’s two tacos on a hamburger bun with a “cowboy patty” on top of the tacos. I think the cowboy patty was a hamburger, but it may have been made of something else. The Vampiro was big, sloppy, and delicious. I seriously used a napkin after every bite. It was that messy. Alex got the Poty (which we joked is probably what you have to do after you eat it, which turned into a joke about what if Taco Bell named their items after what it did to you digestively. “I’ll take two Watery Farts and a Skid Marks Grande.”) The Poty was three tacos on a bun with two salchichones (hot dogs). It took a bit of effort, but we both finished our “tacos.”

Back at the house, we chatted about plans for tomorrow and then showered and hit the sack.

Waterfalls can change

In 1994, Cristina, Ramon and I hiked down to the Fortuna waterfall while Wito and a 10-year-old Elena stayed up at the top and waited. I remember the road being a muddy, rocky unpaved road, and the trail a muddy, rocky rough trail that required using ropes at a few places. We may have seen a few people at the bottom of the falls, but I don't remember passing anyone else on the trail. It was primitive. It was desolate. It was free.

Man, how times have changed.

First of all, the road is paved. That's no surprise, with how much tourism has grown in Fortuna. We arrived at the waterfall area, which used to be pulling over to the side of the muddy road and hiking down a trail. Now we were greeted by a huge parking lot filled with cars and buses, and a massive entry building where you buy tickets. The tickets cost $18 for me, and the national price was $9. So for the five of us, we paid $54 to "hike" down to the Fortuna waterfall.

I put hike in quotes, because after you sign a waiver and get a wristband, you pass the gift shop, and the restrooms, and then the restaurant. You cross a little bridge, then you can look at the falls from a gleaming stainless steel-railed observation deck. You take your obligatory photo and/or selfie, and then you start down the 500 steps to the bottom of the falls. Yes, the entire hike down is a series of modern stairs, with clever handrails that are shaped like logs and branches. There are convenient break areas here and there, more for the climb back up. Despite the Disneyfication of Fortuna falls, you can still swim at the bottom...if it hasn't been raining. Because it had rained so much the day before, and was still sprinkling lightly off and on, no swimming today (and they don't give you any kind of reduced price when it's closed for swimming).

So we hiked down the stairs, took some pics of the falls, and then hiked back up the stairs.

It was not worth $54.

What a difference 25 years makes.

Supposedly, the money earned from admission goes towards social services in the town of Fortuna. At least that's better than, say, padding some rich gringo's pocket that bought the falls.

The new Fortuna waterfalls was really the perfect ending to our week in Fortuna. It was the cherry on top, solidifying the undeniable conclusion that Fortuna has become an overpriced tourist trap. We made the best of it, finding relatively inexpensive things to do during our week. And it would be a reach to proclaim that I'm never coming back to Fortuna. But I think it's safe to say that I never want to spend a whole week in Fortuna again. 3 days max. And even that might be one too many.

The best thing to happen at the waterfalls was this: we saw a dog that looked like the happy dog from in town yesterday. When we got closer to it, it was the same dog! How was it in town one day and then at the falls (about 8km away) the next day...at the same times we were at both. It was very mysterious, but made for a good memory.

After the waterfall, since we were already in bathing suits, we drove to Rio Tabacon, AKA Chollin, AKA the free hot springs. This is just past Tabacon, the resort. We found a place to pull over and I stayed with the car, but Cristina came back to let me know that a guard had told her that we could park at the place where people were parking for Tabacon. It’s public parking there. That way, the car would be safer.

At the end of a short path, the river goes under some kind of old overpass. There are pools on both ends of the overpass, which essentially creates a concrete tunnel. The water was hot, but not uncomfortably hot. Of course, these pools are completely natural, or created by people moving rocks around. No pavement (except for the overpass tunnel thing) or tile, which meant that it could be rough on the feet. I definitely recommend some kind of water shoes. I only had my Merrells, so I went barefoot.

Cristina and Elena went farther up the river, where more people were (mostly locals). I didn’t want to negotiate the rocks with bare feet, so I stayed close to the overpass.

After spending some time in the river, we headed back into town, bought flowers to take to dinner, and got some pastries from Mus Manni (and some sweet breads to take to dinner.)

At home, we got cleaned up and showered (so much sand in the bathing suits!) and then walked up to our hosts house for dinner. Halfway up there, we realized Elena wasn’t with us. I went back for her. She was asleep in her bed. Deep. Took nearly shouting to wake her up.

Dinner was nice. They grilled beef, and made salad, beans, potatoes, grilled veggies, and platanos. I learned another way to make platanos, which is always handy. We chipped in where we could, helping prep the potatoes. They had also made an eggplant lasagna, on the grill, but the glass dish it was in cracked from the heat, so it was wasted.

We spent several hours with them, chatting about everything from school and college in CR (Carol is a primary school teacher) to running Airbnbs, to the ins and outs of touring Costa Rica. They had three lovely porch swings by the tables, which we all tried out at various times.

Back at the house, we thought about packing up, but decided to put it off till the morning. We did our last load of clothes, knowing that we would not have a washer and dryer again until we got home to Florida.

Rain Day

I woke up around 6am to the pleasing sounds of heavy rain. To me, there is no better sound when you're sleeping, or just having a lie-in, or a lazy day. The sound of heavy rain that doesn't seem to be letting up, however, is not a sound that bodes well for hiking to a waterfall. As long as it kept raining, I just stayed in bed, knowing that the hike was less and less of a possibility today. And this is vacation. If we just have to lie around all day, so be it. That's not a wasted day, in my opinion.

Sure enough, it rained all morning. When the rain let up, the sky was still a solid grey or white, so by noon, it looked like it might just rain all day. Tomorrow was intended to be packing/prepping day: wash clothes, go into town and do some souvenir shopping, have dinner with our hosts. So we opted to switch today for tomorrow (except for the host dinner). Tonight, I would make pesto chicken pasta for dinner.

Kat and Cristina did some research on desserts we could make without an oven, to take to dinner on Friday. We headed to Fortuna to shop.

First, we went to a giant souvenir place. The store had Sarchi in its name, so I resisted the temptation to purchase much, since we were planning a quick trip to the actual Sarchi in a few days. Good to scout out possible items we want to bring home and compare prices.

I'd like to get something like this for salt.

Hope to find one cheaper than $22 in Sarchi

We parked in town and walked around in the rain to various stores. I bought a casado for 2000 colones. That might be the cheapest one yet! It wasn't bad, either. Bella got gelato. Alex got some chips and gummy candies.

A really happy-looking dog (I swear he was smiling) followed us around town for a while. Against the better judgment of Alex and Sofia, I fed him some pieces of chicken from my casado. He had a blue tongue.

Alex found CR soccer jerseys for $13. He bought two. Who would have thought that anything would be cheapest in Fortuna? They're probably cheaper in San Jose now that the Gold Cup is over, but he may as well get them here.

Grabbed some pastries from Mus Manni, which has become Bella's favorite place.

We did the free tour at the Chocolate Museum. It was decent. We didn't tip the guy, but we did buy something. I was impressed with the number of samples they gave during the tour.

On the way home, we stopped at Rosvil to get dessert ingredients for the host dinner on Friday and dinner stuff for tonight. The dessert Kat and Cristina settled on was a no-bake oatmeal cookie type thing. The ingredients list had several things that we would not use up before the end of our trip, and pricey at that. So I decided we'd just get them flowers and some kind of store-bought dessert. While the produce guy wrapped up the cilantro, we asked him where to buy flowers and he suggested a florist in the center of town.

The pesto chicken pasta turned out pretty good.

Hiking our second volcano this summer

We got up and out of the house by 9am. Our mission: to enter Arenal Volcano National Park and do some hiking.

The park cost me $15 to get in, and Cristina and the kids were each 1000 colones ($1.50). The guy at the ticket booth doubted Sofia's Costa Rican citizenship until we pointed out that her passport was indeed Costa Rican. Because her CR passport was issued in Panama and it's handwritten, people don't think it's Costa Rican. Second time that's happened.

We parked and hit the trail. It was hot and humid. We saw two green snakes, a bunch of big lizards, and Elena saw a bat. Oh, on the way out of town, Alex saw a sloth from the car.

There were two hikes, one to an old lava flow, which had a nice view of the volcano and lake. The second trail took us to a giant 400-year old Ceiba tree, which was impressive. That's where we saw one of the snakes and the bat.

Lake Arenal behind us. We are all facing the volcano in this photo. It's as if the volcano took this photo.

Big old Ceiba

We grabbed some lunch in a little town called El Castillo. While we ate, some kids at the school across the street started playing soccer. First it was 2 on 2, but eventually the game grew to 4 on 4. We watched the game and cheered big whenever a goal was scored. You could tell the kids, probably 10-ish years old, were enjoying the attention.

The view of the game from our table

I drove my three kids and Lizzie back to the house and the others went to the remaining trail for another hike. We showered and watched some TV (and blogged).

When the others got home, we assessed the dinner options. About half of us had leftovers from lunch to eat for dinner. There wasn't enough food in the pantry to cook something for the rest, so we decided to try the Cuban soda that we pass every time he drive into Fortuna.

Since the Cuban soda is so tiny, we didn't figure they'd take cards, so I had just enough cash to get Alex and Bella something (Cristina, Sofia and I had leftovers).

The girls working the soda were indeed Cuban. Over the course of the 45 minutes or so that they fixed our food, we met the matriarch and her three daughters. A local owner of an ATV tour company stopped in. His English was very good, and we chatted with him a little. He clearly had an interest in the matriarch. My guess is that there was no father/husband in the picture, but I could be wrong. This soda had only been open for about five months. The daughter who fixed most of our food had only been here for a month.

Because it was kind of late, they only offered fried chicken and hamburgers. They didn't have a menu, or prices posted for anything. It was clear that they were a bit disorganized, but it was fun watching them prepare the food. We were sitting right at the bar of the kitchen, so they were making the food just in front of us. We asked if they made Cuban sandwiches, and they didn't seem very familiar with the concept. Must be a Miami/U.S. thing.

Back at the house, we ate, we watched a movie on Netflix, and hit the sack. Tomorrow we would hike the Arenal waterfall.

Chocolate Tour

The original plan was to hike Arenal Volcano today, but we got too late of a start, so we switched things around and did the Chocolate tour. Well, those who wanted to do the chocolate tour did it. That was Cristina, Elena, Lizzie, Sofia, and Bella.

I drove them to Rainforest Chocolate Tour at 3 and then came back and picked them up at 5. They had a great time. Apparently there was a chocolate river at one point in the tour that they were allowed to drink (eat) as much as they wanted from, and Elena and Cristina overdid it a little. When we went to dinner, they both were crashing from a chocolate high.

At dinner, two or three dogs came up to beg for food, which is kinda normal. But one of the dogs was super cute, and I took pity on him. So I slipped him a few morsels from my fried chicken. By the end of the meal, I had Bella in on it and we tried to give him french fries (not interested) and some more chicken scraps (all night long).

After dinner, we went to the grocery store and then walked around town to burn off the chocolate and dinner.

Yeah, it was a pretty light day.

One more hot spring

Having finally found the inexpensive hot springs in the Arenal area, we decided to do one today. Termalitas del Arenal cost 4500 per person and was open till 10.

Before we left the house, the water went out again. The host said this was very unusual.

Each wardrobe in this house has a safe, and I had been keeping my cameras in ours, but I hadn't shut the door. There were no instructions on the safe like there had been in Uvita, but I figured it worked the same way. On a whim, I closed the door, thinking that you would need to enter a code to lock it, like at Uvita. But it was already locked. But tried 1234 as a code; it didn't unlock. I tried every configuration of the key button, the code I had entered, and the enter key. Nothing.

Cristina messaged our host and he sent his daughter down with a key to open it up. After she opened it, she explained (in Spanish) how to program a code, and then how to lock and unlock. I totally thought I'd gotten it, and she set off for her house. I followed the directions she had given, creating a code of my own, and...I couldn't get it to open. Again, I tried every configuration, in case I had misunderstood her. Nada. I should have tried it while she was still there, because now we had to message again and she had to come again and open it up. This time, we asked her to show us the procedure instead of just telling us. Thankfully for my pride, when she did exactly what I had done, it didn't open. She did it again, and then it worked. She was very sweet about it all, but I'm just not going to use the safe!

We set out for Termalitas. It was surprisingly big and developed, more resort-y type pools than rustic ponds. The temps were advertised to range from 30 to 60 C, which seemed excessive, considering our experience with Bosque and the unusable 48 degree pond there. It turned out that the temps posted weren't very accurate. There were pools that were cooler than labeled, and hotter than labeled. Many of them were on the hot side of comfort, but they had enough cool and in-between to strike a balance.

One of the pools had two slides that were pleasantly comfortable and fun. At one point during the day, we were all having fun on the slides. Going down head first on your back turned out to be my favorite way to slide.

The clouds cleared on the top of the volcano just as we were taking these photos

Another nice thing about Termalitas was that they had 3 sodas within the park. Reasonably-priced for an inside-the-park soda. So when we got hungry, we could just go get some food. Also, Termalitas has a ton of covered tables set among well-manicured foliage that provided shade. It seemed like all the cabinas had lights and an outlet, too.

The beachgoers returned to the house around 4 and confirmed that the water was still out. So with no shower to go home to, or ability to easily cook, we just waited it out at the thermal waters. After 7 pm, the water was finally back on, so we rinsed off the mineral waters, got into dry clothes and headed out.

We stopped at a grocery store. At home, we showered and made a late dinner of leftovers and soup.

Planning day, Laundry Day

Ramon, Kat, and Lizzie headed off to the beach, and the rest of us spent a leisurely day at the house. We did laundry, we looked up things to do in La Fortuna.

One of the bathrooms needed toilet paper, so our hosts, Arnaldo and Carol, brought some. We invited them in and chatted for over an hour about things to do in the area, as well as hearing about the time they've spent in the U.S. They're good people.

The water went out around lunch time. We filled up the salad bowl with rainwater for washing hands. It seemed like a good reason to go into town for lunch.

We took a restaurant suggestion from a guy that Cristina had met at Bosque. He takes students on trips to La Fortuna, so he knew the cheaper restaurants. We found La Parada. It was still on the pricey side, but for La Fortuna I guess it was a better deal.

The kids ordered french fries to share, and Elena and Bella were tapping the salt shaker over the fries when the cap came off and dumped a mountain of salt. They were willing to just shake the salt off, but the waiter made them a new order of fries.

We got a few groceries and then headed back to the house. The water was back on.

We binge-watched a Netflix series called Blown Away, a competitive glassblowing thing. It was great, but we were all disappointed in the final winner. Shoulda been Janusz.

I went to bed around 10. When Cristina came to bed around midnight, she said the power had gone out. It came back on in the middle of the night. I knew because I woke up and the bathroom light was on and the AC was working.

Finally Fortuna

Not much happened today.

We had to check out by noon, and we couldn't check-in to our next place till 3. So we had to kill some time. We took our time getting up and making breakfast, but we were still packed up and ready to go by 11:30.

We drove the long route to La Fortuna, stopping for lunch. The new version of Overboard was playing, and we pretty much caught the whole thing, so I guess we were there for about an hour and a half. Then we picked up some veggies for a dinner salad.

We made it to our new place at exactly 3pm. Our hosts met us and chatted with us while the maid finished last minute cleaning from the previous guests.

We finally had a washer and dryer for the first time since our very first Airbnb, so we spent the evening watching movies on Netflix and washing clothes.

And catching up on my blog.

Bio Thermales

Our obligatory day at Bosque complete, it was time to try a new place. We knew we would forever compare thermal waters places to Bosque, but it's good to see what else is out there.

There are several other local-priced thermal waters places, and we chose one called Bio Thermales. We had looked into possibly staying at this one when Bosque's lodging was out of our price range. Bio was also out of our price range, but a day pass to the pools was only 4000 colones.

They don't have lights at their pools like Bosque, so the pools closed at 6pm. We got there around 11, so plenty of time.

From the get-go, we could tell that Bio catered more towards families. Many of the pools were full of young kids and parents. More crowded than we were hoping for, but one advantage is that they have lots of little covered table areas, some with power outlets. I was a good 7 or 8 days behind on my blog, so I brought my laptop. So while the others hit the pools, I worked on my blog. I got four days or so done. A worker even walked by, saw me working, and told me their wi-fi password. So I could actually post the blogs instead of just write them offline.

We walked down to the main office for lunch, ordered from the little soda. The portions were large and yummy. While we waited for the food, Cristina and I played checkers on a big wood checkers board. She won.

I finally wrapped up blog work at 4 and got in the pools with the family. There was a cluster of 3 pools: one hot, one medium, one cool. It was the perfect place to spend a couple of hours.

We drove back home and made pasta, sausage, and finished off the rotisserie chicken.

Termales del Bosque

Termales del Bosque holds a place of fondness in our hearts. As a thermal waters place, it's wonderful for a variety of reasons: it's in the forest, it's more natural, it's shady (no sunscreen required), there is a variety of temperature pools plus a cold creek, and there is food and drinks at reasonable costs. It was more of a local spot, not too touristy. And ten years ago, a sloth came down from the trees and we got video of Bella standing right beside it. Position as favorite cemented.

But that was ten years ago.

As we headed to Termales del Bosque, we were concerned that maybe it had gotten run down over the past 10 years. That would be disappointing. But on the opposite side of the spectrum, maybe it was super touristy now, and super expensive, like many things in Costa Rica have gotten.

That's why it was so heartening to arrive at Bosque and discover that it is only 6000 colones per person ($10). I could almost swear that's cheaper than it was ten years ago, but I could be wrong. (I'll have to check my blog.)

As we hiked down to the waters, we were also happy to see that it seems exactly like we remembered it.

Alex, Sofia, and Cristina purchased massage packages (massage, mud mask, and reflexology). So other than those appointments to keep track of, we had the whole day to sit in the relaxing waters, switching from pool to pool or from pool to creek.

At one point, a bunch of monkeys appeared int eh trees above, eating fruit. There were several babies. So cute. It was one of those moments that you reflect on how cool the present moment is: relaxing in hot volcanic mineral waters, staring up into the green trees, watching monkey families hang by their tails to eat fruit. Perfect.

We opened up a tab at the bar, and the kids could get drinks and food as they pleased. We just settled up at the end of the night. We spent about eight hours there. Ramon, Lizzie, and Kat left earlier than us. They wanted to get dry and fix some dinner. But the rest of us stayed longer, even when it started to rain. There was one bolt of lightning that was super close, but other than that, the rain didn't bother us. If you're already wet in a pool of hot water, what's a little cool water from above?

When we finally left, Elena crawled into the back-back and we stopped at MaxiPali to get some more rice and chicken to add to dinner. The thunderstorm was fierce, and a big bolt of lightning made the power go out in the grocery store just as we approached the check-out. But it came back on quickly.

At the house, we rigged a clothes line in the pavilion so that our towels and bathing suits could dry a little before our next day of hot springs.

Off to San Carlos

I slept for 10 hours. I dreamed that Cristina commandeered a runaway bus (which was more like a UPS truck) and got it fixed by some Nicaraguan mechanics for 23 colones. Bad wiring.

We packed up everything for the ninth time, loaded the cars, and hit the road. Goodbye to Turrialba. We wish we had booked a week there, but sometimes that's the way it goes.

It was about a three hour drive to San Carlos. Uneventful. We stopped for pipa fria for Cristina, but it was tiny, like the size of a baseball, and still 500 colones. She still bought it though. Eyeroll.

We stopped for lunch at a tiny soda that had 2500 colon casados advertised. And they came with a drink, though it was way too sweet.

We got to the house after the final kilometer or so being, you guessed it, a rocky dirt road with a sketchy bridge. The house was large and the AC in the kitchen and dining room worked. Since there was no AC in the bedrooms, we had to turn on the AC and let it slowly cool the bedrooms. Which kinda worked, but kinda didn't. The ceiling fan in our room didn't work either. But overall, it was a solid house.

The house had two pools (maybe the small one was supposed to be a jacuzzi, but it was the same temp as the big one). Also, there was a covered pavilion thing with an outdoor kitchen and grill. We had access to all of it. Not sure that we would use the pools or pavilion, but they were there.

We made a light dinner of pasta, rice, leftovers.

Rafting the River Pacuare

We got up, ate a big healthy breakfast, and drove to the rafting meeting place. The way it worked was this: we left the cars at the main headquarters, then we got on a 30-passenger bus and they drove to a hotel in town to pick up the rest of today's party, three families from England. So in total we had 26 people, not including the guides.

Next, we bused for about an hour to the entry point on the river. We applied sunscreen, brought only things that could go in the raft's dry bucket, and got our instructions.

We had to learn the commands, such as forward, backward, down, and up. We were taught how to paddle, and what to do if we fell out of the raft. Nothing too complicated, but given that I've only rafted once before, it was good to get all the details. Cristina and I had rafted once before, Alex a few times, and Bella and Sofia none.

I brought the head strap for the GoPro, but some of the helmets already had GoPro mounts. But I hadn't brought a mount, just the strap. Eduardo, the first aid kayak guy, showed me how to attach my head strap to the helmet in a way so I wouldn't lose the camera. So I was set.

According to Michael, our guide, Pacuare River is #5 for the best rafting rivers in the world (beat out by two rivers in Africa, the Colorado River, and a river in Chile). This ranking, I believe, was from National Geographic. And it's one of the best rivers that can be done in one day. We would be rafting 27 km over 4 hours, with a break in the middle for lunch.

The river had rapids from Class I to Class IV. We were in capable hands with Michael, who had a great sense of humor. He was from Turrialba and had been a rafting guide for 16 years. At one point, he told me to record with the GoPro because he was going to do a backflip off the raft, in the rapids. And he did. I recorded it. He's crazy.

There weren't that many Class IV rapids. Just enough to keep it legit, but not enough to make the trip too dangerous. There were plenty of times to stop paddling and enjoy the scenery. Alex kinda scoffed at Class III, but he's just mister tough guy who's rafted a bunch.

We stopped at a rocky beach for lunch. The guides turned one of the rafts upside down to make  makeshift table and prepared a lunch: burrito bar and fruit. It was amazing.

The second half of the trip felt shorter. No one ever fell out of the boat. Unintentionally, that is. We went through a narrow canyon that had no rapids but very deep water and it was the perfect time to jump in and enjoy the cool river.

Another highlight was all three kids getting to "ride the bull." Alex was first. Basically, when instructed by Michael, he sat on the front tip of the boat, held the rope with one hand and held the other hand up in the air as we went down rapids. Bella did it second, and then Sofia.

Afterwards, we got into dry clothes and bused back to the hotel to drop off the Brits, then back to the headquarters where we were parked.

We went home and showered, then grabbed dinner from an Argentine steakhouse in La Suiza. I got something off the menu that I had no idea what it was, and I didn't even ask because I wanted to be surprised. It was called chifrijo in the menu, a Costa Rican specialty. I asked the waiter what was better between that and another option, and he did not hesitate to recommend the chifrijo. And it was delicious. So travel advice: once in a while, order something off the menu that you have no idea what it is and be surprised.

By the way, it was a bowl of rice, beans (but not black beans, I think they were pinto), onions, pico de gallo, and little fried nuggets of pork, topped with slices of avocado with a side of homemade tortilla chips. The traditional recipe calls for chicharrones (fried pork skins) but this was definitely more like fried pork. The word chifrijo is a portmanteau of chicharrones and frijoles.

Chifrijo

Horseback Riding through Aquiares Coffee Farm

When we made the decision to come to Costa Rica for Alex’s graduation trip, Alex specifically said he wanted to do stuff. Activities. Outdoors stuff. There are lots of outdoors things that we don’t usually do in Costa Rica because of the expense. So we decided early on that we would budget to do some of those things. The ziplining in Perez Zeledon was the first of these kind of things. There were two others, completing the trifecta. We were doing them today and tomorrow: Horseback riding through a coffee farm, and the next day whitewater rafting the Pacuare River.

These activities were pricey, but not out of the question. We had budgeted $75 a day for activities, and so far, we hadn’t used very much of this. In fact, our budget had a good-sized surplus, so splurged for the horseback riding and the rafting.

The Aquiares coffee farm offers 4-hour horseback riding tours for around 25,000 colones per person ($42). They didn't have enough horses for all 9 of us, so we broke it up into two shifts. My five went in the morning, and the other four went in the afternoon. For the second time all vacation, I had to set an alarm to wake up.

We got to Aquiares a bit early, around 8:30, and met our guide, Denice. A table was set up with coffee, juice, and fresh fruit. Quite the spread. Denice hadn't had breakfast yet, so she ate some bread with us while we drank coffee and ate fruit. Then it was time to meet our horses. Mine's name was Pinto, and as the heaviest in our party, I quietly apologized to him as I climbed on.

All the horses were very gentle, although we had two things that were noteworthy. First, Sofia's horse did not like horses getting close behind it. She kicked Bella's horse once, and she kicked Cristina's horse once. We all kept our distance after that. The other thing was that Alex's horse was pregnant, and he didn't realize that he was bumping her ribs with his ankles. So he was trying to get her to slow down or stop, but his ankles were telling her to speed up. As a result, she was often in the front of everyone, and he was trying to get her to stay back. Sometimes she would do a side-stepping, prancing kind of thing, like you see the fancy horses do. Once he figured out his ankles were giving her mixed signals, he kept his feet out and she was completely manageable.

The horses carried us through shady coffee plantations. Very relaxing and fun. Denice and a cowboy were also on horses, and then another cowboy rode a motorcycle. So we had three guides total, though only Denice spoke English.

We stopped midway at a waterfall and hung out there for a half hour or so.

Chatting with Denice

Back on the trail, we made our way to the coffee mill and, leaving our horses, donned hairnets and hardhats and got the full walk-thru of a coffee factory. I have a much better appreciation for how much work goes into processing coffee beans. It's complex! For example, there are three ways to process beans: fully washed, honey, and natural. The expense is greater for each method (fully washed being the least expensive, natural being the most expensive).

Lastly, we toured the little church in the village, which was built by early founders of the coffee plantation.

Back at the house, the other four were waiting. We joined them for their coffee spread, and then after the horses had enough of a rest and snack, they set off on their tour. We went to the giftshop. Bella got a t-shirt, I got some ground coffee (honey processed) and a cool chorreador made out of a coffee branch.

We had leftover chicken from the barbecue, so we made a a big dinner of leftovers, beets, salad, etc. We set the big  dining room table for the first time. By the time the others returned from their tour, dinner was ready.

The horseback riding was tiring, and we were all a little saddle-sore. Knowing that we had to get up early for whitewater rafting, we went to bed fairly early.

Barbecue at Quinto Atirro

Today was sort of a chill day, although preparing for the barbecue took a bit of time. I had looked up Spanish names for different cuts of meat, so when I went to MaxiPali to buy the pork and chicken, I thought I could figure out what I wanted. But none of the names of pork shoulder that I had looked up (hombro de cerdo being the frontrunner) were listed on the pork. Based on my experience buying pork in the States, I had an idea of which pork I wanted, but when I asked the girl if it was hombro, while gesturing to my own shoulder, she said no. I bought it anyway. I don’t trust that girl.

The other weird thing is that I asked for muslo de pollo, expecting it to be chicken thighs, and she gave me filleted leg quarters. No one in Gainesville fillets leg quarters!

Alex, grillmaster

I prepped the meat, cutting it into thin strips and marinating it in achiote, garlic, salt, and lemon juice. Alex took on the main barbecuing duties. He lit the charcoal, he cooked the meat, adding barbecue sauce in the final stage. I was proud of him. And it was delicious. We also made homemade pico de gallo and shredded cabbage. Basically, we copied Marguerita’s pork taco dinner. To up the ante, all three kids and I made homemade tortillas.

The U.S. women won the World Cup, though we missed it because we had the times wrong. We watched a bit of Brasil win the America’s Cup, and then we watched the U.S. lose the Gold Cup to Mexico.

New Road to Guayabo

Turrialba is home to a volcano, some of the best coffee in the world, famous cheese (called Queso Turrialba), and a world-famous rafting river, Rio Pacuare. It also has a nearby archaeological site called Guayabo. We went there in 2006 with the Sheridans (friends from Arizona who moved to Costa Rica) and we thought we’d go again now that the kids were older.

Cristina pointed out how nice the road is now to Guayabo. In 2006, the final few kilometers were a bumpy rocky unpaved road, like so many others we’ve traveled on this trip. But now it’s all paved, all the way to the park entrance. Honestly, I didn’t remember the road from 2006.

The kids and I weren’t totally feeling the ruins, but we enjoyed ourselves, even if it included making jokes about the ruins. For example, part of the ruins is a big, flat rectangular area, which they believe was the central market area. We joked that it was the soccer field, and the reason the chief’s hut was built so close to it was so he had the best views of the games. And he played goalie. For both sides. Cristina was much more serious about it. We joked that she was getting her Bachelor of Cultural Anthropology on.

We did the whole trail around the ruins. It was a nice day, maybe a bit hot. In 2006, we had hired a guide, and there were still guides with some groups, but we did it on our own this time.

I heard an animal that had a distinctive call or cry. The same critter had woken me up that morning at the house. Bella and I recorded the sound so we could ask someone what it was. I hoped it was a monkey. When we got back to the entrance, we asked the ranger and played the sound for him. He said it was a bird (darn, no monkey) called a Montezuma Oropendola. One of the guides corroborated and even showed us a write-up about the bird in a book. 

Montezuma Oropendola

We stopped at a restaurant just down the hill from Guayabo. Cristina and I shared a big platter with a variety of meats and veggies. The menu had listed tortillas and platanos, but we hadn’t gotten those, so she asked for them. The bowl of platanos they brought were like nothing we’d ever seen before. Not platanos maduros, not patacones. This was a bowl of bite-sized, boiled chunks of platano. Alex tasted one and spit it out. It was flavorless, chalky. We didn’t eat them.

Ramon headed to Alajuela from there, because he was spending the night at his cousin’s house, much closer to the airport. Early in the morning, Elena was arriving, then Ramon’s friend Kat, then his daughter Lizzie. Three separate flights. We decided to make a big dinner for when they arrived.

We stopped at MaxiPali again on the way back to the house and got charcoal for tomorrow’s barbecue (the veranda has a big built-in grill).

We arrive at the best house so far: Quinto Atirro

This staying one or two nights thing is for the birds. Such a hassle to unpack and then pack up the next morning. But Aserri was unusual in that, except for the hotel change in Golfito, this was the only time we were only staying one night somewhere.

Ramon needed to make an appointment for a replacement passport, and since he wasn’t getting a human on the phone, he decided to go to the Embassy. We would meet him at the next Airbnb in Atirro, near Turrialba.

We left Aserri and drove through the southern part of San Jose. The trip back in time continued, as we drove towards Curridabat, even down the same street as our first Airbnb, and turned around at the Fresh Market shopping center.

When we rented the Rush at the start of the trip, our Enterprise guy, Bryan, had offered for us to trade it in halfway for a new car, at no extra charge. Just so they could make sure we had a well-maintained car, since 6 weeks on Costa Rican roads can be so hard on cars. This pass through San Jose was the perfect time to trade the car, so we met Bryan at the same Enterprise. Now that we didn't have Anna, we could use a 5-seater with more power than the Rush, so he got us a Suzuki Grand Vitara, stick shift. It was a little tighter to get all our stuff in the back, but the increased power was immediately noticeable when we hit the road. And the 4-wheel drive could come in handy.

We bought some overpriced mamonchinos from a roadside vendor. Lesson to other Gringo tourists: don’t buy roadside fruit unless they have a sign with their price posted, because they will inflate the price when they realize you’re a foreigner. 3000 per kilo for not-great looking mamonchinos. Highway robbery.

We passed through Cartago and the basilica. We stopped for lunch in Paraiso, at a lovely place with lots of parking (that’s kind of a big deal here) and a great view of the coffee growing on the hillsides.

At some point on the way to Atirro, we passed Ramon and he eventually caught up with us. We drove over a dam on the way to Atirro.

We arrived at Casa Quinto Atirro, and for the first time, the pictures on the Airbnb listing did not do the place justice. This place was gigantic! It was big even by U.S. standards. A bit old, maybe built in the 70’s, but the gardens were immaculately landscaped, the veranda was gorgeous, it had a massive pool (not filled with water). We passed a sugar mill on the road to the house, so we assumed that this house was once owned by the owner or manager of a sugar plantation. The house was even ducted for AC, though it no longer worked. Most of the windows had screens, and our room had a big fan, so the temp was going to be manageable. And hot showers. We would be in this house for 5 days.

We went to MaxiPali for groceries and found beach towels with images of Costa Rican money (which, unlike U.S. money, is colorful and pretty). They were a little pricey (5800 colones each) but we needed some thin towels that would dry fast, and these would be useful souvenirs. I do prefer useful souvenirs and not tchotchkes that will just add clutter. We picked out four. When we got home, we realized the cashier had only rang up two of them. So they turned out to be a much more reasonable 2900 colones each!

We made a simple dinner of salad and fruit (and a little soup) and called it a day.

We try to avoid a different kind of death on Cerro de la Muerto

We packed up and headed back down to San Isidro, and then up the highway towards San Jose. I had 4 bars of gas on the digital gas meter, a little less than half a tank, so I opted to not get gas before heading up the mountain. I remembered there being some gas stations up on the mountain, so I wasn’t worried.

Heading back on this route was like traveling back in time, the timespan of our trip anyway. We passed the turn for the treehouse, and eventually the trout farm where Alex lost his knife. That seemed like so long ago. We passed the turn for the cabin as well. But before all that, there was some moments of anxiety climbing the Cerro de la Muerto. Namely, my supply of gas.

I had 4 bars when we left San Isidro and started climbing the mountain. It quickly dropped to 2. And before too long, it was down to 1. That’s when you notice a) how there aren’t any gas stations, and b) this f-ing mountain just goes up and up to infinity. It never stops! When you’re low on gas anyway. It never felt like that before when I had a comfortable amount of gas. You only notice the incessant climbing when you’re about to run out. “I’d sell my soul for a bit of downhill.” I’m not sure if I said that out loud, but I was thinking it. We let Ramon’s car know the deal, so they wouldn’t have to wonder why I wasn’t passing any trucks or going faster than 60 kmph. I thought for sure Chesperitos, the truck stop at the summit of the mountain, would have a gas station. We finally made it there, and no gas. We finally saw a sign for gas…in 40 km. The drive was a white-knuckler with my eyes going from the single remaining bar on the gas meter to the speedometer, to the curvy mountain road. I was already formulating a plan if we ran out: Ramon’s car would have to drive until they reached a gas station, then either buy a gas can or borrow one to bring a little gas back to my car. That ordeal would easily cost us two additional hours, plus the price of a gas can, which we would not be taking home as a souvenir.

Finally, the road started descending the mountain, and I had the luxury of knowing that a) I wasn’t burning nearly as much gas to drive, and b) even if I ran out, I could coast a long ways. We still had over 25 km before the gas station, so there was still doubt whether we’d make it. The other annoying this about the Toyota Rush is that when you are going downhill, the engoine revs up. In a stickshift, you can put it in neutral and let your foot off the gas and the engine does practically no work. But in the Rush, even when you’re going down a hill and take your foot off the gas, the car shifts to a lower gear and the engine revs to 3500 rpm. Some kind of built-in engine braking, I guess. Not great for saving precious last drops of gas!

But we made it. The gas station was in a little town just north of the cabin we had stayed at. From that point forward, the trip was comfortable. Lesson learned: fill up the tank before climbing the Mountain of Death!

Our next Airbnb was in Aserri. After the shower debacle of the beach and Hotel Teffany, I messaged the host and asked if her house had hot water in the showers. She said it did not! What the?! At least we were only there one night.

The ride to Aserri was beautiful. The town of Aserri was nothing special, but the house was up a steep hill and had an amazing large grassy yard and an incredible view of the central valley. The beds seemed comfortable, the kitchen was new and decently-equipped.

We got settled, then headed to Escazu for the American Colony 4th of July Celebration. Years ago, this party was held at the U.S. Ambassador’s house, only available to US citizens. Then, after likely outgrowing that, they moved the party to a big fairground at a beer brewery/bottling plant. That was nice too. But for the past few years, they’ve had the party at Avenida Escazu, which I didn’t know what to expect. Was it a street that they blocked off for a block party type experience? We were about to find out.

It turns out Avenida Escazu is the name of a ritzy shopping mall in Escazu, which is the wealthy suburb of San Jose where a lot of ex-pats live. Escazu has many of the creature comforts of the U.S., not that that appeals to us. I really don’t need a mall with a Cinnabon when I come to Costa Rica. Or a P.F. Chang’s. Both of which were at Avenida Escazu.

The “party” was nestled into one little module of the mall (which is an outdoor mall, in case you’re picturing a typical American indoor mall). A small bandstand was arranged, and tables and chairs as a type of audience section, and then food vendors surrounding that. Overpriced hotdogs. Overpriced Cinnabon. It’s worth mentioning that at the previous parties we’d attended, all the food and drinks were free. So from the get-go, this party felt different. Much more commercial and, since it was open to everyone, not quite as special or exclusive.

The Air Force band was there, and they played some jazz tunes. They were great. They had a singer who did a nice job on some American standards, as well as some Latin favorites (in Spanish). The Ambassador spoke briefly. We were not impressed. She seemed like a ditzy Housewives of Orange County type, complete with big sunglasses and little lap dog. A quick Google search showed that she was an insurance agent in South Florida, working in various capacities for the RNC, until landing this gig. Ugg. I joked that Trump probably appointed her because “she had a nice rack.” The sad part is that could be true.

As tempting as it was to quickly leave, we had driven 45 minutes to get there, and the girls wanted to hear the bands, so we stuck it out. Alex found a “gourmet grocery” up an escalator, so he got some snacks to tide him over before we went to dinner.

We left before the fireworks, but nobody cared enough about that to postpone dinner even longer. We looked for a place to eat the whole way back to our house, and finally chose a big chicharronera. It was multi-level, and we were escorted to an upstairs table on a veranda overlooking the city. It was pretty, but cold. I was not dressed properly, so my memories of that meal were being cold. The food was decent, if a little overpriced.

We had no eggs for breakfast, and there were no grocery stores in this part of the city, so when I spotted a little bakery that was open, I stopped. It’s not uncommon for bakeries to sell eggs. I went in by myself, and had an interesting exchange with my limited Spanish, that went like this:

Me: (seeing an empty egg crate on the counter) Tienes huevos? (Do you have eggs?)
Girl behind counter: Si! (Yes)
Me: Quiero uno kilo, por favor. (I want one kilo, please). (I should have said un instead of uno, but whatever.)
Girl: Uno? (slight look of confusion)
Me: Si!

Then she busied herself behind the counter while I waited, feeling happy with my incredible mastery of Spanish. Finally, she held out a plastic bag…with one egg in it.

Me: Oh, uno kilo!
Girl: (finally realizing) Ahhhh! Okay!

In retrospect, I don’t think using uno instead of un was the sole issue here. She just didn’t hear the word kilo, and probably figured that I was a weird gringo who is used to buying single eggs. But it worked out.

Back at the house, exactly zero of us took cold showers before going to bed.

Chill Day? Nope. Austrian Hiker Day

I was about 6 days behind on my blog, and with nonstop activities, I needed a chill day to get caught up. In past visits, where we stayed with Wito, we had lots of time doing nothing. Hanging around the house. Cooking, eating, napping. But this trip is different, so I have to carve out time.

The plan was solid: Cristina wanted to spend some time at the botanical gardens just a kilometer up the road. Since I'm the only registered driver for our rental, I would run her up there and drop her off, then come back and get her in a hour or two. That way she gets to have some alone time with the plants, and I get to blog. And the kids can either go with her or veg out with the wifi.

But plans rarely go as planned with this family, especially in this country.

First, all three kids wanted to come. We got way up the road, which was small and steep and curvy. We got to the little town that I had researched when I thought Alex and I were going to hike to the summit of Chirripo. This town, San Gerardo de Rivas, is the town closest to the trail head to Chirripo, the tallest peak in Costa Rica. So lots of hikers pass through this town, either coming or going. We passed through the town, continued up the road, and eventually passed the trail head. Cristina had asked some girls what was up ahead, and they had mentioned some kind of Sky Bridge. We kept seeing signs for that, and Cristina kept wanting to go farther. The road got more narrow, more steep, more rustic. We finally turned around and headed back down when it seemed like Sky Bridge was going to be a bit expensive and too remote for my liking. Plus, time was burning. This was supposed to be a quick drop off and it was turning into an hour-long mountain road tour.

On the way back down, we stopped at a hotel near the Chirripo trail head. Cristina wanted to ask the guy there a question. I don't even remember what. Cristina asking a question in Costa Rica generally turns into a 30 minute conversation. I mean, it's her super power, but it doesn't help blogs get written.

While talking to the hotel guy, she met a hiker who was having some kind of trouble with his pass to hike to the summit. He had arrived late due to protests (we feel you, bro). So he needed to get back down to the office where you check-in with your permit to hike. He asked us if we would be so kind as to drive him down, which was a kilometer down the hill or so. He had a big heavy pack, but he left it at the hotel since he would be back up here to start the hike. Since we didn't have luggage in the back, we told him we could do it, but he'd have to sit int the back-back.

Worth mentioning the general procedure for hiking Chirripo, so this isn't as confusing. Many months ahead of time, you purchase a permit for the day you want to hike. You have to check in at the office in the town (San Gerardo de Rivas) the afternoon before you start your hike. Then you have a specific time you have to begin the hike the next day. If you don't start early enough, you're out of luck. You hike the 14 km or so to the base camp, called Crestones. There you can get a meal, have a cold shower if you really want, and rest. You can spend the night there and set out for the summit the next day, which is about 4 miles from Crestones. (Sorry to mix km and miles. Google it.) Or you can get up at 2am and hike the last bit in the dark so that you can watch the sun rise at the summit. Then you spend that day hiking back, and you're done. So, it's a multi-day thing.

Our hiker's name was Clemens, from Austria. He was 21 years old. He worked as a personal trainer in Austria. We got him to the office, and Cristina went in with him to help with the Spanish.

An hour later, they come out to explain that the woman in charge was in a meeting, so it took forever, but basically he now needed to go back up the road to a different office and do something with something. Permit, money, bureaucracy. Whatever.

All this time, Clemens was willing to just walk up the road, but now we were kind of vested. It was much easier for us to drive him back up. So we went back up the road to the little town, to the place where you check in the day before the hike. I could be wrong on these details, as I just sat in the car with the kids.

Half an hour later, they came out and said that he would not be allowed to start the hike today, due to the date on this permit blah blah blah. Long story short, he could set off on the hike close to midnight, and he'd be at Crestones on the proper day that he was permitted for. That sounds contrary to everything the supposedly strict procedures outlined, but... Costa Rica.

So he needed his backpack from the hotel, and then he needed to kill about 8 hours before starting his hike. So we offered to go get some food, and then bring him to our house, let him take a nap and freshen up, and then we'd drive him back up to the trail head around 11pm. I know, it sounds kinda crazy, but we were already tight with Clemens by now. The kids dug the adventure of it. In a way, we were climbing Chirripo vicariously through Clemens. We needed him to succeed!

After he retrieved his backpack, we drove down to a little restaurant at the botanical gardens. The original botanical gardens that I had planned on dropping Cristina off at. We got drinks and empanadas and had a relaxing chat with Clemens.

Then we went down to the house and showed off the House of Crafts. Alex's room had a bed that hadn't been slept in yet, so Clemens took that one for his nap. First he showered in the stone shower.

While Clemens napped, I worked on my blog (finally.) Cristina and the kids and Ramon went down to a nearby "gastropub" for some dinner. I was still full from the empanadas (I finished off some of the kids), plus we had gallo pinto to finish from the previous night.

Around 9, we woke Clemens up. We asked Andrey to come by and go over any last minute recommendations for hiking Chirripo while I served Clemens some gallo pinto and coffee. So, with a meal and coffee and several hours of rest, he was ready to tackle the trail. As an added bonus, Andrey offered him his second house (the Ramon house) for the following night for $15, so he could have a safe place to leave his backpack and a bed to rest in after his hike.

We drove Clemens up the dark mountain road through Rivas to the trail head. Along the way, we blasted Eye of the Tiger to set the mood. When that song ended we switched the ACDC's Thunderstruck. As we approached the trail, we saw another hiker situating his backpack, ready to start the hike. We pulled up beside him, rolled the window down (ACDC still blasting) and asked him if he wanted a hiking partner. He said sure. We squeezed him (I think his name was Adrian) into the back of the Rush with Clemens and headed up. The trail was just 20 feet more up the road, to it was comical that we put him in our car when the trail was so close. But we didn't know we were that close (though Alex suspected).

We took a picture of them, wished them good luck, and they began their hike.

Clemens is the one crouching, the new kid is on the right

We drove back to the House of Crafts and went to bed.

We head to Rivas

Outside the window of our room, we watched an iguana climbing around on a bush, munching hibiscus flowers. Then we spotted a bigger one, heading up a tree. And then an even bigger one came into view at the top of the chain link fence. We joked that the next one was going to be the size of a dinosaur, climbing down off the roof. We had our own nature show out the window.

Five people's bags plus groceries

After breakfast, we packed up our car, turned in the room key, met Ramon in Rio Claro, and headed back to San Isidro. Got stuck at one more bridge closing just for good measure, in Palmar. We got lucky, though. They said they were closing the bridge for 2 hours, and we were about 5 minutes away from the end of the two-hours. While we waited, we bought a homemade ice cream from a little girl. "Good to support the local economy," said Bella.

We went back a different route, through Buenos Aires, pineapple country. There were plenty of pineapple fields as far as the eye could see, but not a single fruit vendor on the side of the road selling pineapples. We had planned to buy some, and were shocked that there were none. I threatened to pull over and pluck one out of a field.

We got to San Isidro and thought we were stuck in another protest, but it turned out to be a motorcycle accident. They were picking the dude up off the pavement just as we passed, and they weren't using a spinal board or anything. Just picking him up and putting him on the stretcher. Hope he's okay. It was a sign that all the crazy things motorcycles do in this country (driving in between lanes of cars, zigzagging thru traffic) sometimes catches up to you.

We wanted to stop at La Feria for some produce and a quick dinner at the soda "food court," but it was closed. Then we decided to eat at Antojitos de Maiz, the corn place from Cristina's birthday. It was closed. So we found a little soda and ate a decent meal.

Andrey's Dad carved this mermaid

We got to the Airbnb, dubbed the House of Crafts, and met our new host, Andrey. This house was amazing, and hard to explain in words. Rustic, all wood, with eclectic decorations made by Andrey and his dad. It had two hot showers (praise be), one of which was downstairs, cut into the side of the hill so that one wall of the shower was stone. I immediately knew that was where I would take my showers.

For the first time this summer, we were at a house that requested us to separate our trash for recycling. So someone in CR recycles.

Andrey was young (23) and very nice. Even as rustic as the house was, it had a TV with cable and decent wifi. Not enough outlets, but most of the houses have had that issue. Because the cabin was very open, there were lots of bugs, so we used the plug-in bug things at night.

The house slept 6, but Andrey has another house that he rents out, and Wito booked that one when he thought he and Mariela were coming. Since Wito didn't cancel it, we were able to spread out and use two houses. Good thing too, because our refrigerator completely died and we had to move all our stuff to the other fridge in Ramon's house. He was asleep already too, so we had to call his name from his window and wake him up so he could let us in. While putting stuff in his fridge, we noticed his kitchen was flooded. Leaky pipe under the sink. We let Andrey know.

Weird flying praying mantis thing