Costa Rica and Peru .::. Summer 2005

The drive from Mal Pais back to San Ramon can be summed up in a few words: 4 wheel drive, pouring rain, 8 hours. We began the trip in the muddy dirt roads near the coast. Our SUV got covered with orange mud and we bounced around so much that we felt like the dukes of hazzard hitting bump after bump. We finally reached some pavement and our nerves settled.

The views on the Nicoya Peninsula are breathtaking. On one side you have steep, cloud covered mountains and on the other side you have the most beautiful beaches. The people who live in this part of the country have truly found paradise. They have fantastic views, all the tropical fruits they could ever want, and endless beaches to swim in.

We reached a brand new bridge that the Taiwanese government built as a gift for the people of Costa Rica. The bridge and surrounding roads were all paved to perfection and our drive through the mangroves was straight and relaxing. After we crossed the bridge, the rain began to fall more rapidly. It quickly felt like we were driving in a car wash. We still had 3 hours of driving to go!

Finally we made it back to San Ramon ... just after the sun had set. We parked the car outside our Tico family´s house and happily went inside for some warm cafe. We stayed up late and told the family about our adventures. Eventually we went to sleep. If you have never slept in a home in Costa Rica, let me explain the design of the rooms. Many Costa Rican homes have tin roofs. This helps to amplify any sound made inside the house. Also, none of the rooms have ceilings! Not even the bathroom. No matter where you are in the house, you hear the tiniest whisper from any room. So, as we lay in bed we all took turns telling jokes and laughing at each other. Don Filimon is hilarious and he had us all laughing uncontrollably. The great thing is that this happens every night when we sleep at the house. The beautiful thing about this Tico family is that they always go to sleep with a smile.

Today we played soccer with the kids. And tonight we are going to watch the Costa Rica vs. US soccer match. This is our last night in Costa Rica ...

Since our last blog entry so much has happened. First, we took a drive north of San Ramon to La Paz, a very remote place at the end of a windy dirt road. La Paz has a beautiful stream full of fish and is surrounded by cloud covered mountains. The views during the drive were amazing. We also saw two vivid quetzals, a very rare and hard to find bird.

On Friday morning we left the cool mountains to drive to the coastal town of Puntarenas, where we caught a ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula. We waited for about 2 hours to drive our car onto the ferry. The ferry ride was 1 hour long and as we arrived in Paquera we saw a beautiful sunset over the green hillside. From Paquera, we drove 45 km south to the beach town of Montezuma. We ended up driving the entire way in the dark on windy dirt roads dotted with pot holes. When we got to Montezuma we were happy to have the drive behind us. We parked the car and got a room at a small hotel in the center of town. Montezuma is definitely a party town. Outside of our balcony you could hear drums, laughing and of course many cerveza bottles being opened.

We went to bed early and woke up at sunrise for a walk on the beach. The beaches at Montezuma are spectacular. There are very few people and the water is 75 degrees. We hiked a few miles with a stray dog by our side and had cafe con leche on a shady part of a beach. After a swim in the water, we hiked back to Montezuma and hit the road south to Mal Pais.

We drove to the last town on the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, the road ends at the Pacific Ocean. The 10 km drive was on a very rough dirt road. The drive was worth it though. We found a jungle cabina tucked into the lush hillside. The cabina resembled a lavish tree house and we felt like we were part of swiss family robinson. We were in the canopy of the rainforest and we could see the howler monkeys swinging around the trees. We spent the past few days hiking and swimming on the beaches of Mal Pais. We also went to Santa Teresta, which is a well known surfing area. That beach really reminded us of San Diego because there were so many surfers. We went for a brief dip in the water next to some boogie boarders and didn´t notice that the tide was getting pretty high. When we got back to our stuff, Rich found one of Michelle´s shoes floating in the ocean and the other was no where to be found. Needless to say, Michelle was hopping back to the car on one foot.

We had some really good pizza for dinner and a couple of Imperials and when we got back to our jungle bungalow, we realized that we weren´t alone, there were dozens of half foot-long grasshoppers, lizards, one large mean looking cockroach and a scorpion-spider thing that had pinchers and long antennae. We tried to exterminate the best that we could but there were too many that we couldn´t reach on the ceiling. Before we put the mosquito net up, a fat brown worm landed on Rich! When we finally got the net up, it started to thunder and lightning. It rained buckets of water, the hardest we have ever experienced. We laid in bed, covered by our mosquito net, with rain pouring on the tin roof, tree branches landing on our roof and watched the lighting out of our window. What a night, it wasn´t for the faint-hearted.

Today we are heading back toward San Ramon to stay with our Tico family for a few nights. Instead of riding the ferry, we are planning to drive across a new bridge which is further up the Nicoya Peninsula. If we have time we will go to Arenal to swim in the thermal waters. Tomorrow is the Costa Rica/U.S. Copa de Oro soccer match so we´ll be watching that game and sipping on some cervezas.

After getting two hours of sleep the night before, we thought that we could sleep on the plane to CR...boy were we wrong! On our flight to Guatemala, there were three little hyper girls seated next to us. We spent the entire 5 hours monkeying around with them. They wouldn't let us sleep! Then on our second flight to San Jose, during the landing, our heads felt like they were going to explode from the pressure. It was a little scary. When we arrived in San Jose, we waited for our 60 pound box of donations for Peru to arrive but it never did. They told us that for some strange reason, our box is still in NY and will arrive in CR within 6 days. At least we didn´t have to lug it around yesterday. We're just hoping that it makes it here before we leave for Peru.

After that ordeal, we picked up our rental car. It's a white 4-wheel drive SUV with some pretty good pickup. We took the Pan American highway west to the gorgeous town of San Ramon. We could not wait to see the family! We beeped the horn as we drove up their dirt road and they came running out of the house and hugged us. Dona Ana served her famous chorreadas (corn pancakes), which were delicious. We gave them the clothes and gifts we brought and played cards and giggled all night. We had a blast with them.

This morning we woke up early and went for a long walk around their neighborhood with Felix, Karlita and some of their cousins. When we finished our hike, we had a huge breakfast - gallo pinto (rice and black beans), eggs, pineapple, coffee and juice. Then it was off to the Tico shower, which was incredibly ice cold. The warm shower machine they got when Michelle lived with them broke so they didn't replace it since they don't like warm showers anyway. We eventually got numb to it! This afternoon we went to visit our friends at the Habitat office and also ran errands in el centro (downtown San Ramon). Tonight we´re going to watch the CR, Canada soccer match with the Habitat crew at a restaurant.

Early tomorrow, we are heading to Monteverde to do some hiking in the cloud forest. We're not looking forward to the drive as it is notorious for jacuzzi-sized potholes! Let's see how the 4-wheel drive works.