Costa Rica Honeymoon

I'm too lazy to write about the honeymoon trip twice, but feel it does warrant some space in my blog, so here's my ridiculously long excerpt from a letter to my Grandma.

Obviously I am back from my Costa Rica excursion; it’s tough to get back into the swing of things! I was very spoiled for the entire week and spent much time lounging, walking, eating, and generally doing whatever I wanted! It’s hard to have a schedule and have to do work!

Thursday when we were slated to fly out, we were also due to get 12-14 inches of snowfall in Denver and Boulder. James heard this, and immediately called his dad to head out for a day of snowboarding. I dreaded the long drive down to Denver for work at the school. Thurs morn I looked out the window and sure enough, there were several inches of snow sprinkling the ground. Took a shower and prepared for my day while watching newscasters send alarming cries about the weather, the predicted snow, and the traffic. After checking the school's website I realized it was cancelled for the day! I was immediately excited as this would leave me with time to pack, clean, and generally get ready for the trip (our flight left technically Friday morning at 12:20am, to me this is more Thurs night).

My excitement soon wore off as I realized we really were getting tons of snow, at least a foot had piled up on the deck before noon with no sign of it stopping. Also, the road between Denver and Boulder was closed off and on throughout the day so I began my nervous routine of checking the weather website, the CDOT website which tells you which roads are closed, and the RTD website to see if the bus would run to the airport. While frantically typing away on the computer, I also left the news on to see what they said about flights leaving the airport. Since I had so much nervous excitement, I shoveled a path through the deep snow from our apartment to the parking lot, took me quite a long time. Ventured out in the car to mail my therapy notes as they were due soon and I don’t get paid unless I turn them in. I sloshed along the road, taking twice as long as it should have but I was in no hurry and went very cautiously. It was not amazingly slick, but pretty deep and slushy and I was cautious not to stop in any dips in the road for fear of getting stuck.

Eventually James made it back from snowboarding, the highway was re-opened, the bus resumed its route, and we flew out on time at 12:20am on Friday morning. This meant a poor night of attempted sleep on the plane, with a 3 hour drive ahead of us to our desired destination in Costa Rica. James was a trooper and easily made the trip, partly because both of us were excited to get to La Fortuna, which is an inland Costa Rica town that boasts of Volcano Arenal. The roads were not bad, just a little windy but paved, and similar to Montana roads in that they didn’t have much of a shoulder. Traffic rules are relaxed in Costa and it was not unusual to see a truck stopped in the middle of the road.

La Fortuna is where we did the ziplining; had a great time flying down the cables from platform to platform in the lush jungle setting. We met a nice guy named Andy, in his 60s, and ended up taking him in our rental car to swim in a waterfall close by. Our hotel in La Fortuna was also very nice, more remote and less resort-ish. The first night we went wandering outside to hear an animal in the bushes, got a light to discover some type of armadillo or anteater guy. Cool to see up close, and he was not a bit afraid of us, just continued his search for an insect dinner.
After a few days wandering around La Fortuna, hiking slightly closer to the volcano (one of the top 10 most active volcanoes in the world) and hearing an explosion, eating lots of good food, James and I trekked towards the coast, to Samara beach with plans of lounging and surfing lessons for James.

We stayed at an amazing place in Samara, called Entre Dos Aguas, complete with a rock path, serene pool, beautiful landscaping, and hammocks in the shade. We wandered around and spent a morning at the beach but it was very hot. James took a surfing lesson, only to have the surf board come back and hit him in the face! When I saw poor James an hour later, his upper lip was still bleeding, but it was remedied with a trip to the pharmacia to buy a Neosporin-like substance and flesh colored tape to seal it up. James is an amazing cyclist and has very muscular legs, but he said his arms failed him during surfing. He is not a great swimmer, and the instructor kept telling James, “paddle, paddle, paddle faster!” James was thinking, “I WOULD paddle faster if I COULD, I am not intentionally going this slowly, this is as fast as it gets!” Despite a tentative start, James did well with surfing and was able to stand up on the board several times on his own.

The next morning we kayaked out to a small island and snorkeled, was so much fun! We saw lots of fish, my favorite were the bright electric blue ones. Our guide brought fresh pineapple and flung some of it up the hill towards the scattering iguanas. We also saw thousands of hermit crabs on the island.

After snorkeling, we got restless and headed down the coast to Manuel Antonio. Stopped at a hotel that our guidebook said was relaxing, but after an hour of trying to sleep without success due to close proximity to a major road and a nightclub, we headed downstairs to ask for a different room. The manager said there was no room that was any better, and that the music would be done at midnight or 1am. We did not like that, so opted out and drove down the road in pouring rain to a small but quiet and air-conditioned room; slept very well!

Manuel Antonio has a wildlife reserve that James and I thought would be interesting. From the minute we got near the beach, our car was crowded with people showing us where to park (in their lot, where it would cost us) and trying to sell us things. We were immediately unimpressed, but trekked to the park entrance, brushing off “guides” who would only charge $35 per person to show us around the reserve. We paid to enter the reserve and walked around, seeing 3 lizards and 5 animals that are Costa’s version of raccoons, a little redder in fur color with ringed tails that stick straight up. James and I were hot, tired, and frustrated with the lack of even the hair of a sloth anywhere in sight. We saw the 5 raccoon animals walking in a straight line probably 200 feet down into the jungle and wondered if they were on their own tour, thinking, “We are hot, tired, and I have paid all this money without seeing a trace of a human.” We walked back on the gravel road (seriously, we thought this would be more of a rugged nature hike) and waded through the vivacious sellers of random crap to catch of glimpse of the ocean. It was beautiful but at the time looked like the rest of the beaches we’d seen, so we paid a ridiculous amount of money for 2 cans of soda and got back in the car to seek refuge in Jaco, a slight backtrack that would leave us in closer proximity of the airport in preparation for our departure.

Jaco was slightly more developed than most places in Costa but the absence of people trying to sell us things automatically set us back to our previous good opinion of the country. We found a beautiful hotel on a hillside outside of town, run by a Canadian couple who knew everything about the area. The lady directed James and I to a nice restaurant for dinner and we headed out. The food was good, we were rested and happy. The next morning had a great breakfast at the hotel and the owner gave me some aloe for my sunburn, attained in La Fortuna when I was convinced that wandering around in a densely covered jungle did not warrant SPF 50- of course I was wrong.

Last stop in Costa Rica was back in San Jose, where we flew out. James and I heard from the Canadian couple that there was a nice place along the way for souvenirs and lunch, so we decided to make a pit stop. Unfortunately, the GPS machine routed us onto a very bumpy gravel road which soon intersected with a stream! James got excited because he had gotten us an SUV with four wheel drive for a reason, and now he was getting to use it to its full ability. We made it across the stream and to our destination, but I was a little nervous along the way.

We ended our adventure back in San Jose, where the airport is located. As our flight left Friday morning at 6:30am, James and I stayed Thursday night in a cute little villa close to the airport owned by an Italian family. We had some fabulous pizza and watched the geckos dart around the light fixtures, grabbing up tasty bugs. James was unconvinced that we really needed to be at the airport 2 hours prior to an international flight, so we arranged the airport shuttle for 5am, which put us at the airport at 5:15am because the driver was crazy! The airport was very busy but we paid our exit tax, got through the line and security and got directly into the line at the gate where our flight was boarding. I spent the flight reading Marley and Me and watching bad TV. After chowing down on Taco Bell at the Denver airport, boarding the bus, then spending 20 minutes searching for my car at the park ‘n ride lot, we were home at last! It’s been great to be back, but I do miss the slow rhythm of vacation.