Typical dinner time staple: salsa!

So we have moved into our casa bonita! It is just down from the grocery store and right in the middle of the bus route to either Quepos or the beach!
I do love it here, but I am a bit homesick.
We went to Salsipuedes to watch the two NFL games this past weekend, and while we were there, Justin came with a fresh snapper that he caught that day! We've been eating a lot of fresh snapper, shrimp, dorado, and tuna! The other night, we marinated the fish in fresh mango, pineapple, and garlic...it was yummers!!
Everyone else went back over to Turrialba and Puerto Viejo, but I am content to stay here and not be close to volcanoes, tropical floods, and mosquitoes with viruses. No gracias, I will stay here...plus we've already been over there. There will be more to update later, but for now, I'll leave you with this parting shot!

Throwin down some shrimp on the barbie.

Dude, This Post Is All Up In My Pura Vida...

Sunset in Manuel Antonio.

Danielle and I at the wedding.

Waterfalls on the Savegre.

Puerto Viejo!

So my computer worked for a brief moment this morning, and then, nothing… apparently if no one else is on their computers, it works, but as soon as other people come in on the network, I’m screwed. Ah well…I have figured out a way that I can type things in word, put them on a memory stick, and then transfer them to a computer at an internet café or something…this way it doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg.

So it has been awhile since my last post, and quite a lot has happened.

We left Turrialba and went over to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean side. This included 3 buses, and transfers in Siquerres (“Squirrels”) and Límon (“Lemon”). Puerto Viejo was beautiful. We stayed at Rockin’ J’s, where the bed choices were tents, hammocks, or cabinas…or a tree house. The ladies opted for a 3 bed cabina, and the boys slept in hammocks in these hammock dorms. Poor Zack apparently has trouble sleeping in hammocks, and subsequently bruised his heals rocking in his sleep.

In Puerto Viejo, we visited black sand beaches, white sand beaches, and saw the wave they call Salsa Brava. One day, we decided to rent bikes and bike out to a beach “not far” from where we were staying. Instead of renting through the hotel, we decided to support the local guy and rent bikes across the street…no bueno. My bike had a little niño seat on it that I kept bumping my knees on, Danielle’s chain fell off, Zack’s seat wouldn’t go up, so he was stuck squatting on his bike, and Scotty ended up with 2 flat tires, and had to take the bus home. It was 7.5 miles down to the other beach, and you had to follow the main road, which was full of potholes and speeding vehicles. Needless to say, it was quite the adventure. Half way down to the beach, when Scotty got his first flat, it just happened to be in front of the house of an ex-pat mechanic from New York, whose father and sister were allergic to bananas. Ahh, the ironies…this is what you get when traveling with Scotty.

After a few days in Puerto Viejo, we journeyed back to Turrialba just in time for the Turrialba Volcano to start erupting for the first time in 140 years. Scotty, of course, wanting to get a rise out of all of us, started saying that it was going to be terrible, like Pompeii, and that we were all going to die…and saying things like, “as long as we get across the Reventazón river, and we don’t get trampled by the 600,000 other people trying to leave that maybe we wouldn’t end up as gas bubbles in lava. Well, we got the hell out of dodge and headed over to Quepos and Manuel Antonio, which will be our base for the rest of our Costa Rican Adventures!

There have been several natural disasters since we got here, though we’ve had amazing luck at avoiding us. Just 2 days after we left Turrialba, one side of the volcano collapsed on itself, San Jose had an earthquake, and the whole Caribbean side flooded from a tropical storm. We’ve had a few clouds pass through, but not really any precipitation, and clouds can be a blessing here…they make the heat bearable.

The days here in the dirty Q have been pretty uneventful comparatively. We have been raftin’ it up on the country’s rivers. One of the best days was on the Savegre…

So I had been trying to arrange housing for all of us down here, and the day before our river trip, I had spent the entire day at the hostel, playing phone tag with a bunch of people. Therefore, Danielle kindly volunteered to stay behind and play more phone tag the next day. Christopher, Zack, Mary, Brad and I headed out, joined by 2 guests and 2 Tico guides, Oscar and Orlando…making the total of 7 guides for 2 guests…very safe. The Savegre is Class II-III+ during the dry season, making it accessible by raft or duckie. Zack, Orlando, and the 2 guests duckied, Oscar kayaked, and Brad, Mary, and I rafted. All in all a pretty chill day, minus a little car trouble. The car kept overheating, so we had to stop a bunch to add water. We were like a clown car, with a raft, four duckies, and a kayak strapped on top, three of us in the way back, the guests and Orlando in the middle, and then the other three crammed into the front seat…anyone watching us getting out of the car must have thought we were a traveling circus.

We stopped at Rafiki Lodge to hit up the “world’s fastest water slide,” and then we put in just below Rafiki Rapid, because our guests were an older, yet active, couple from Ft. Lauderdale, FL…we couldn’t have asked for a better crew. We saw a Toucan!! We stopped a few rapids down and had a snack of coconut cookies, pineapple, tea, and water. The first two waterfalls were beautiful and tall, and the third one was small enough to jump off of and swim around. After the waterfall hikes, we got back out on the water. The scenery was awesome for the entire trip. Christopher was driving shuttle for us, and the car broke down on him near an earlier take out than what we were going to do, so we had to take out early and fix the car. Boo. Once the car was back up and working again, we piled the boats back on top and the people back inside, and we headed to El Silencio where we had Casados at a Soda in town. The day’s specials were rice, beans, meat (chicken, fish, or beef…I had the chicken, and it was AMAZING), fried yucca, a small side salad, and fresh juice. This was the only thing we had to pay for the whole day (it was included for paying guests), and it was a whopping 4 buck for all of that food!!

When we got back from the river, we met Danielle, who had gone to see the house, finally, and we all headed down to the beach! Only in Quepos/Manuel Antonio can you go hiking, rafting, and the beach in one day (and with very little car/bus time).

While we were down at Playitas, we were just chillin and a lady came by in a car and started taking flowers and leaves out and placing them around on the ground. Then she brought out a couple of big containers with ice and drinks. It was a wedding!! We watched her set up, and then a bunch of people showed up, followed by the bridal party…it was really pretty. The service was quick, and then, as the sun set, everyone had cocktails before heading back to wherever for the reception. It was a nice ending to a pretty fun day!

On kind of a sad note, we all went down to the beach for a cookout and such on the beach around sunset, and we brought Brad’s dogs down with us. While we were down there, Bongo, one of his dogs, went missing, and we looked for a bit, but never found him. The next day, we walked up and down the beach, but still no Bongo. We told the people at the few hotels down on the beach to keep a lookout, but the next day, a girl we know was walking by the lagoon by Playitas, where the crocodile lives, and found Bongo’s head…que triste!!! Brad’s pretty torn up, understandably.

I met a new friend from Seattle, and he and I are going to fire up El Charro…an awesome section of the Naranjo River that few companies run (right now, it’s just H20, but Quepoa Expeditions is going to start running it commercially soon)!! He’s working at H20, and is a guide over in the Pacific Northwest.

Today, I am taking a “day off” from the sun…it is pretty hot out, and I have plenty of time to be at the beach. I may head down to Quepos to the fruit market that they have on Fridays and Saturdays. They moved it this year down to the sea wall, instead of being sweltering in the center of town. It feels hotter than last year.

Hopefully I can get the computer figured out, and then I’ll be able to post up more pictures and update more often. It would be such a pain to have carried all of my computer stuff with me and not be able to use it.

Pura Vida for now!

-MWC

Back it up!

Happy New Year from Turrialba, CR!

December 31-January 1, 2009-10
Our Costa Rican Adventure 2009, I suppose, is only half the battle…the other half was getting here from DC. On New Years Eve, we woke up at 5:30 am to sleet, snow, and freezing rain. Knowing this would make our trip to Dulles even longer, we set out at around 6:00 to catch the metro, which was a half mile away. A half mile is not so long normally, but suited up in jeans, a down jacket, and flip flops, with sleet coming down, and a huge bag on your shoulders, and a half mile might as well be a marathon. We slipped and slid our way through the streets of DC to the Metro, where we traveled 30 minutes by train, only to miss our stop by two (you couldn’t hear the woman over the intercom), turn around, and run up the escalator just in time to “hurry up and wait” for the 5A-West bus to Dulles. After about 25 minutes of standing in the cold and trying to figure out exact change for the bus, the 5A shows up…with little to no room for our mammoth bags…so the bag got the seat and I stood. We bumped along for awhile, before reaching Dulles, where they drop you off at baggage claim, and, bent over with our luggage, we made the final ascent up the escalator to the TACA counter. For those of you who have never flown TACA…I highly recommend it: no baggage fees, warm meals included, open bar…what more could five rafters from West Virginia want? Well…an accurate departure time would have been nice. We got there with about an hour and a half to spare…or so we thought… We found a bagel shop and sat around for awhile until we got a frantic call from Mary, who was sitting on the plane…40 minutes before our 10:08 departure time…and they were making a final boarding call. I never got my cup of Starbucks…which was really sad, since Virginia had given me that Starbucks gift card for Christmas.
We did make it onto our plane…then we de-iced…the reason behind our early departure demystified!
The flight to San Salvador, El Salvador was pretty smooth: a couple drinks, finally a cup of coffee, and a hot meal of Mushroom Pasta, rolls, cheese, and Brownies (apparently they’re not so into salad).
Our landing…was rough.
But it was hot…finally!!
We grabbed a few waters at the airport and then rushed onto our next plane to San José (and yes, we know the way)!
At the airport, there was little difficulty getting through customs, but we weren’t staying in San José, so at 6:00 pm, 12 hours after we began our trip in DC, we set off in Mario’s TURISMO van to Turrialba, home to many of the country’s best whitewater! We made a few stops to get gas, water, snacks, and cervesas, and we climbed up past several volcanoes, into the Telemanca range, where Turrialba sits at about 643 meters…give or take a few. Mario took us straight to the hotel, where he had been so kind as to make us a reservation, which put us in the last 3 rooms in the whole place.
We are now, as of 8:30 pm on New Years Eve, residents of the Hotel Interamericano (www.hotelinteramericano.com). Exhausted, we still needed to eat dinner, so we head out to the streets of Turrialba. Of course, being all Pura Vida and what not, Costa Ricans spend the time leading to the new year with their families. Most everything was closed until midnight, when the clubs open and people party until dawn…I did not make it that far. The five of us wandered around, led by Scotty, who is somewhat of a celebrity around here, until we met up with Omar and his wife, outside of their bar. They invited us in after Scotty convinced them that Mary, Danielle, and I were ladies, not hookers, and that Zack was an upstanding young man. They served up some of the most delicious food I’ve had down here…stewed meat and potatoes, rice and garbanzo beans with pickled onions, and a Pilsen…just what we needed…another drink... and guaro shots for those who had never tried it (thankfully, I already have that check in my book, and probably won’t repeat…at least in shot form…it’s enough to put some hair on your chest. We chatted for awhile, even after they had closed the bar…some of the sweetest people. Apparently they had taken care of Scotty for years during his winter trips down here. At this point, those of us who wanted to head home did…it was Mary and me…party of two dorks who wanted to sleep rather than party after traveling so much!! We are sharing room 11 at the Hotel Interamericano. I read for a bit and watched a few of the fireworks (which actually started on our drive up here from San José) before turning in. Of course, since the party doesn’t start until midnight, we got in bed just in time for the noises to begin.
I have no idea when 2009 ended and 2010 began, but I do know that at one point things got really loud. Since there is no AC in many of the places we stay (keeps the cost of rooms down), a lot of it is just screened in, so you can hear everything. There were fireworks and explosions of all sorts, screaming, singing, and a drum circle right outside of the hotel. Danielle and Zack came in shortly after the New Year began, and Scotty, who has called Turrialba his winter home for many years, crawled in like a local around 5 am.
I got some decent sleep, but I am still fighting off a cold…and a wicked case of swimmers ear…which clogged up during our flight and makes everything sound like I’m stuck underwater. We woke up around 7:30 and found a nearby Mussmani (bakery…mmmm), and brought some bread and coffee home…just in time to find out that Scotty had been called to work on the river. Ah, yes, just like home. Scotty found an extra boat, and Mary, Zack, and Danielle decided to paddle behind Scotty and his Spaniard customers… I opted out, since A) I have swimmers ear and B) none of them had seen the river, so we’d basically be turkey boating and guaranteed swimming. The last thing I need is to get sick or have an infection in my swimmers ear.
So here I am…sitting in the common room of the hotel, where I am reading and helping out Patricia when I can. (New Years Day is a holiday as well, so she is alone working here today with her baby who is just over a year).
On a side note, I picked up a copy of Greg Mortenson’s new book, Stones into Schools…which, in my opinion, is actually better than his first book, Three Cups of Tea. Within the first few pages, I have already marked-up several pages worth of great quotes that take me back to Merrie Woode…one of them is an African proverb: “if you teach a boy, you educate an individual; but if you teach a girl, you educate a community.” Another quote that struck a chord was one relating to a young woman whose goal of going to a maternal health care program to help decrease the infant and mother mortality rates was denied by her own stepmother and elders of her community. It took her a decade of picking up sticks and poop to burn for fuel, three births of her own children, and two miscarriages before she was finally allowed to start her school program. Mortenson says, “as for her “lost years,” Nasreen harbors no bitterness whatsoever, mainly because she is convinced that her experiences imparted some essential insights.” After years of (ironically) trying to get out of school, I can say, too, that the extra years I took have given me invaluable experiences, including the one I am living today. Who knows if I would have ever ventured here if it hadn’t been for the worst professor in the world and the idle hand of big university politics?

Turrialba...day 3

So of course I lug my computer here and it won´t work...so I will have to use my jump drive to get pictures from it and such.
I wrote a really good post yesterday, and saved it to Word, so that will come soon, but for now, I guess it´s day 3 of our Adventure.
I won´t write about the other days, but today was wildly amusing.
We woke up around 6 to some great merengue music coming from our neighbor´s house. So why not wake up with the locals!? We walked down to Mussmani to get bread and orange juice, and then decided on a coffee toure, which, in my years of traveling down here, I have never done...and I LOVE coffee!!
We decided on the "Golden Bean Coffee Tour," and set up a tour time of 10:30, and she told us how to get to the bus station and what town the tour was in.
Of course, I stepped up to the plate and told the bus driver where we wanted to go, and paid the 250 colones (40 cents) and off we went. Mary and Danielle were with me, and at a hotel, the man said (in Spanish), "Here is Altirro," which was our stop...so we thought. The hotel was a super beautiful resort listed in the guide book, so we walked the half mile up the drive to it. When we inquired at the desk where the Coffee Plantation Tours were, the lady told us to walk back down the drive way, and go almost 2 miles along the dirt road until you got to some bamboo...take a left and walk up the hill to the Plantation...um...fabulous. At this point, it was 10:30, so we walked around the grounds of the Casa Turire (www.hotelcasaturire.com), which had beautiful views and gardens, and a working farm where a lot of the hotel´s veggies and such came from. There was a water buffalo, which Danielle pet.
Then we started our walk...hike...
After about 15 minutes of walking, Mary, who was up front, screamed, and we looked down to see a Coral Snake...luckily it was headless and no longer moving. We took pictures. After that we were much more aware of where we were stepping. We finally made it to the Golden Bean (www.goldenbean.net). The tour was almost over, but the guide was really nice and understanding, and he told us that we could do the last part first and then he would take us on a private tour!! His name was Jerome. We got to sample coffee first, which was nice, since we had skipped it earlier.
The first step was harvesting the beans. They plant banana plants nearby because they act as an aquaduct during the dry season, watering the plants when they don´t get much rain. They use the banana leaves for shade and to build little mini greenhouses for the seedlings. Then the beans are put into the Depulpers (coffee beans have four skins) and the sorters...and they are sorted into three tiers of quality. Then they go into a Fermenting vat, followed by a wash and a dry in several different driers...all feuled by the wood from the old coffee plants. The skins from the depulping is used to feed livestock and make compost which goes in the fields to grow the plants...nothing goes to waste!! Pretty cool. They had several methods of drying the beans, from machines to leaving them in the sun. The beans are roasted with varying temperatures for different roasts, and bagged by these sweet ladies in the mill. Each batch is tested for several factors...boldness, flavor, color, and so on, and we got to ¨slurp¨some coffee to taste the differences in the three levels of quality. It was great coffee...then we ended back in the cafe and gift shop, where the three of us combined to buy three bags of coffee (every bag you get takes money off, so we saved a few bucks that way). We finished around 2:30, and walked probably 500 meters to the normal bus stop, and the bus ride back was much less eventful. We made it back to town by 3, and now I think I need a nap before I do anything else.
It was an adventure, but it was well worth it!
Now if I could only get my computer working, it would be fabulous!

On the Road Again...

So I just got to DC, where I lumped along with my giant duffle to Eastern Market. Now I am sitting in Ben Evers townhouse with Scotty Scaggs, Mary, and Danielle, watching TV-Mexico...as if we're not going to get enough spanish in the next few months.
I can't wait to be warm!!!!! We're all hunkered down here in the warm house for now...it is supposed to sleet tonight and tomorrow morning. We need to get up and out by 6:30...lame...so it's going to be cold, sleeting, early, and dark...but hey...at the end of our trip it will be warm, sunny, light, and dry...so I can't complain.
We will be spending New Years with Mario in Turrialba. Then it's off to the Caribbean side for a bit before settling in Quepos again! I can't wait to get back to the dirty Q!!!
Well, it's off to bed!!!

Pura Vida...for the last time...for now...

So I am sitting at the San Jose airport.  Karyn and I said our goodbyes to most people last night, and to Christopher this morning.  I am muy triste!  Karyn makes fun of me, but leaving here is like leaving family and home.  I have been crying on and off since we pulled out this morning from Quepos at 6am.  Some of the hardest goodbyes ever!

The surf off the twin islands.

The last week has been AMAZING!!  We went to the beach several times, kayaked out to the islands about a half mile off shore, and chillaxed with the fam here at the Mansion.

Looking back at the beach!

Though everything didn't always go as planned, and we never made it to La Fortuna...long story...it was the most amazing trip of my life, and I am already trying to figure out how I am going to come back!

Monkeys on the back porch of the Mansion!

I hope I see everyone again!  Especially Chris, Scotty, Curtis, Eileen, and Pietro!  They're my fam now!!  Well...the plane is here, and we're going to start boarding soon!  Gotta go spend my last few colones on a bottle of water to have on the plane.  

Pura Vida!

Eileen ridin the waves!

Karyn atop a huge wave.

Peter y yo waitin at the airport!!

Oh la ti da and fiddle de de!!

Eileen and I at Cafe Milagro!!

Hello once again from sunny and HOT Costa Rica!  I know it has been a while since my last post, but I moved once more...into a tree house in the dirty Q (Quepos), and we don't have internet.  I am not at TEFL anymore, either, so it's a lot more difficult to update!!  Craziness!!

I am so so excited, because Karyn came to visit me!!!  Eileen's friend, Mary is also visiting!  We've already had a couple adventures that included 2 Collectivo bus rides to San Jose and back to pick Karyn and Mary up...my butt hasn't hurt that bad in a while!!!  

Sunset in Quepos!!!

We went to the beach, and we've been hangin out with all sorts down here!  I have a bit of a head cold, but I brought some allergy meds with me!  We had our first real rain since I've been down here!  The only other time it rained, it was five minutes, and only our shoulders got wet...it evaporated before it hit the ground!

Our cat, Gat...we couldn't decide between Gato and Cat...so Gat it was!!

I think these last 4 days are going to be fun, and jam packed!!  Today, we're takin a day away from the sun.  We're at Cafe Milagro...our fav. hangout...and then we're going to watch some soccer and head over to Barba Roja for sunset!  It's got one of the best views by far!!

Tomorrow, I think we're going to go snorkeling and sea kayaking out to the islands!!  We moved our National Park trip to later in the week, and at some point, we're going to check out the private beach!!

Two thumbs way way up for coconut-macademia nut encrusted chicken and fish!!  Mmmm...the papas fritas were a little disappointing!

The food the last few days has been delicious!!  We've been cookin at the house a lot!  The other day we made vegitarian marsala!!!  Mmmm!!!

It's baby monkey season in our yard!

So i guess it's peac out for now!!  Hopefully I'll get to update soon and have a fun story to tell!

Peace out!

MC