Author: Lynn

February 8

Good evening from Quepos. We spent one last morning at the beautiful resort in Jaco. Since checkout wasn’t until noon, we had time for one last dip in the pool and one more tasty Pina Colada. We figured that even though it was only 10:30am, we weren’t the first ones to the bar, so it was okay.

After walking around the town for a little while where we bought a few gifts and Peter got a new hat (have no idea where his old one is but Lynn was thrilled….it made him look like Peter Fonda in On Golden Pond), we headed south for Quepos. Again, not much of a town but we’re looking forward to visiting the beach at Manuel Antonio tomorrow. We hear it absolutely beautiful.

We checked into our new Airbnb apartment just outside of Quepos. It’s very small but has everything we need. It was in the low 90s today so by the time we got here the flat was hotter than hell. Luckily, the bedroom has air conditioning so it should be fine for sleeping tonight. The good news is that the internet connection is quite good, so we have pictures!

While not right in the jungle, the house is in quite a remote location (again) so we’re very glad we have a car.  There is a bus that runs from here to the beach but it’s much easier to get where we want to go on our own. Since we’re not big beach people, there are things other than the beach we want to do so having a car makes life much easier.

Once the sun went down, the monkeys came out. We think they’re white-faced monkeys and they’re much quieter than the howler monkeys we saw while kayaking on the river. Here’s a YouTube video. They’re in the bare tree and you can see them fairly clearly.

https://youtu.be/ZR-GLYKyTOk

After a week without TV (except for last night and he never turned it on) he finally has channels to surf so he’s a happy guy. Of course, all the channels are in Spanish but it’s still a TV with a clicker.

Talk with you soon. Love to all….us.

February 7

Let’s get caught up. Monday Stebano took us back into La Fortuna where we picked up our rental car. It’s so good to finally be mobile. We had a great lunch before heading to our afternoon kayak trip. We’ve been kayaking several times both in Dubrovnik Croatia and in Carlsbad California, but those trips were very tame compared with this one. We decided to kayak the river rather than Lake Arenal as we had seen some kayakers during our boat trip, and it looked pretty boring. Since we’d never kayaked a river before we thought it would be fun.

There were only 3 kayaks, and we were the first ones to push off. Our guide, Pedro, told us to paddle to the far side of the river and wait for the other two kayaks to push off. That sounded easy enough, but we didn’t count on the river current, which was quite swift. It totally took us downriver and no amount of paddling was going to get us to the side of the river. We did what we could to slow the thing down and eventually everyone else caught up with us.

The river was very beautiful, and we had a great time looking for wildlife. We saw quite a few birds but the only one we knew was the Blue Heron…beautiful. We also saw a 2-toed sloth and a 3-toed sloth. You might wonder what’s the difference, other than the number of toes. Well….the 2-toed sloth is grey in color and larger in size than the 3-toed which is brown and smaller. Actually, it could be the other way around but that’s the difference.

Lynn finally saw her monkeys. We saw quite a few howler monkeys; several of them swinging from limb to limb. Very cool. We also saw bats. Who knew there were bats in a jungle river? They were quite small and nestled under the limb of a tree. How Pedro saw them from across the river is a mystery but he’s very good at spotting the wildlife. Unfortunately, all the animals were too high in the tress to get pictures

We also saw 2 crocodiles. Well actually Lynn didn’t see the first one because as soon as Peter said, “look at the crocodile on the shore”, she started paddling as fast as humanly possible in the other direction. She did, though, see the second one. Not all of it; just the tail as it slipped into the river…. the same river we were paddling in the flimsy kayak. Actually, they were very sturdy but seriously…. can it go up against a crocodile??? Guess Lynn has seen Jaws too many times (“you’re going to need a bigger boat”) and was very glad that there were no close encounters with the large reptiles. Of course, after that she looked suspiciously at every log until she was sure it didn’t have teeth.

We stopped for a snack at a small farm before paddling the last 30 minutes. All together we kayaked 6 miles on 2 rivers. It was a ton of fun. But by the time we got back to the car the sun was setting which meant we had the one-hour drive back to la casa in the dark. The first half of the trip wasn’t too bad but all of a sudden, we lost the well-paved road and lane markers. The road was still paved but not in great condition. It was also very windy which made for a rather nail-biting trip back. Actually, the hardest part was the last 2km up the dirt, pothole filled road to Wolf and Heidy’s house. It is an understatement to say we were very glad to get home and decided that would be our last trip out after dark.

Then on Tuesday we decided to drive to Tilaran about 30 km away for lunch. We expected a touristy town like La Fortuna but there really wasn’t anything there. We walked around a little but headed back home after only about 20 minutes. We stopped at a great place along the way for lunch and a delicious Pina Colada, which is becoming our favorite adult beverage.

This morning we left Wolf and Heidy’s guest house around 7:30, heading for the Pacific coast. Since our next Airbnb flat is also in the jungle, we decided to splurge on a night at the beach. So tonight, we’re at Croc’s Resort and Casino in Jaco, about an hour north of tomorrow’s destination of Quepos. We found the resort on booking.com and they upgraded us to a beautiful ocean view room. We got up here and broke all speed records getting in our bathing suits so we could hang by the pool. Seriously we were tearing through our bags to look for our beach stuff as if the pool was going to close and the bar would run out of Pina Coladas if we didn’t get out there within minutes. We headed first for the ocean, which was warmer than bath water. After playing in the surf for a while, we headed to the pool. We spent all afternoon playing in the pool, having a few drinks, enjoying lunch and taking a little siesta. We got here very early (11:30) so we had all afternoon to enjoy the amenities. It was quite the splurge but we’re so glad we came.

Tomorrow we’re off the Quepos where we’ll spend 5 nights. While our flat is in the jungle, we’re only 10 minutes from Manuel Antonio beach so we’re looking forward to it. Time to get dressed for dinner so we’ll chat again soon.

February 7 

We finally have a lightning-fast internet connection, so we thought we’d share some pictures of the first week of our Costa Rican Adventure. Thanks for your patience.

This was Lynn’s first Costa Rican meal in Liberia. Costadas, is a traditional Costa Rican dish, minus the refried beans. The drink is a pineapple soda…. delicious.

On Friday Estabo drove us to La Fortuna. Our first stop was Baldi Thermal Bath and Spa. Here’s a couple of pics from there.

After lunch we hiked down to the beautiful waterfall; then hiked back up!

The mountain was beautifully clear.

On our way home we stopped for a one-hour boat ride on the lake.

On Saturday we walked down the hill to town.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. We’ll get you caught up on the last couple of days in the next post.

February 4

We spent a quiet, but fun weekend in Nuevo Arenal. Yesterday (Saturday) we walked into town. It was mostly downhill so it wasn’t too bad; only about a half hour. Lynn wanted to go to the German Bakery for lunch so we had delicious sauerbraten and dumplings. The town is only about a block long but we wandered for a little while looking for a SIM card for Lynn’s phone. Everyplace we stopped the answer was “no” but they pointed us to another store down the street. Of course when we got there the answer was “no” and they pointed us to yet another store. After about 3 times we decided that no one has it but everyone wanted to be helpful so they directed us to someone else. We still don’t have a SIM card but we’re hoping for better luck tomorrow when we go back to La Fortuna.

We called the one number we had for a taxi to get a ride home but when there was no answer, we decided to walk back up the hill to home. We didn’t get very far before a couple from Wisconsin we met at the grocery store picked us up. So instead of a 30-minute walk we had a 5 minute drive. It was a good thing, too, as we were only home for about 15 minutes when it started to rain. It rains several times a day but this one was pretty hard so we would have gotten soaked. It wouldn’t have been much fun walking on the dirt road that was probably going to turn into a muddy mess.

After a simple pasta dinner, we entertained ourselves by playing rummy and Yahtzee all evening. Lynn had more fun then Peter as she kicked his butt in both games. He’s looking forward to a little payback tonight.

Later in the evening we finally met our hosts, Wolf and Heidi. They’ve been in Cuba for the last 10 days and just got back yesterday. Apparently they flew from Havana to Panama City and then drove home. Seems like it would have been easier to fly but what do we know. Obviously they were pretty tired so we didn’t visit for very long. They weren’t terribly impressed with Cuba and said 5 days would have been plenty.

Today we woke up to beautiful sunny skies. It was the best weather day since we arrived on Thursday; clear and sunny all day. Wolf drove us to the local park which is right on the lake. We only waded as the water was pretty cold but we stayed for several hours chatting with a couple from Wisconsin. They’re the 3rd couple we’ve met from Wisconsin; guess they’re doing the same thing we’re doing to escape the winter. These folks were just on vacation where as the people who brought us home yesterday live here full time. We spent an enjoyable few hours with them then walked back into town where we enjoyed a delicious pizza at the local Italian restaurant. Wolf had given us his phone number and told us to call when we were ready to come back, but we decided to walk off the pizza and beer with a stroll back up the hill to home. It’s about 1.2 miles and pretty much uphill all the way but we managed it on only 30 minutes. Now we’re enjoying the late afternoon on our beautiful deck overlooking the lake. We’re also enjoying a cold adult beverage.

Still no luck on uploading pictures. We discovered that the internet connection is better on the deck than in the house but it’s still not fast enough to upload pics. We’re afraid it will have to wait. Hopefully our next apartment in Manuel Antonio will have a better connection. This seems to be a problem everywhere not just here so thanks for your patience. Once we do have a good enough connection, we’ll upload a bunch of photos from our trip.

Tomorrow we’re back to La Fortuna where we’ll take a kayak trip down the river. We could have kayaked from here on the Lake but we thought the river would give us a better chance to see wildlife. Lynn still hasn’t seen a Macaw or monkey so she’s looking forward to it. We’re also picking up a car. When we priced out the expense for tours and shuttle, it was actually cheaper to rent a car. The roads have mostly been fine so as long as we don’t head off the beaten path too much we should be fine. This will give us the chance to do day-trips from the beach without having to go on a tour. The only problem is that we’ll be driving back from La Fortuna tomorrow in the dark. Peter isn’t too excited about that but there was no other choice as we don’t get finished with our kayak trip until 6pm, which is just about when the sun goes down. It will be dusky for a little while but full dark before we get home. Of course the worse part of the drive will be the 1.2 miles up the dirt road to the house but we’ll be fine.

Talk with you tomorrow. Love from us…..

February 2

After a restless night’s sleep worrying about being stranded in the middle of nowhere things got a little worse this morning. It was so cloudy that we couldn’t  even see Lake Arenal, which is practically in our backyard. It looked like it was going to rain all day. Then we got an email from the shuttle company telling us that even though they dropped us off in Neuvo Arenal yesterday they won’t pick us back up here to go to Manuel Antonio next week. So we either have to first get to La Fortuna, which is about an hour away, or spend $270 to have a private driver pick us up here. We figured out that it’s actually a little less expensive to have the private driver as we’d otherwise have to go to La Fortuna the night before we leave as we can’t get there in time for the 7:30am shuttle. Since we’ve already paid for this place we didn’t want to pay another $150 for a hotel, plus the cost of a cab to get to La Fortuna on top of the cost of the shuttle from there to Manuel Antonio. It was almost a non-issue though as we were seriously considering bailing on this place altogether and moving to La Fortuna on Sunday. We just couldn’t see spending an entire week sitting around with no place to go.

But, once again, Daniel came to our rescue. After breakfast he came knocking on our door and told us that he arranged for a driver to take us sightseeing to all the places we thought we would miss. While we could go any day, we jumped at the chance to go today. Our driver, Stebano, picked us up at 9:30 for our private tour and we headed for La Fortuna. Just outside of the town we stopped at the Baldi Resort and Spa. This place was incredible. It probably costs a fortune to stay at the hotel but they have a special rate for people who only want to enjoy the thermal baths. It wasn’t cheap but it was worth it. There are about 30 different “hot tubs” but they are nothing like we’d ever seen before.  The place was gigantic and was set up like a rain forest. All the pools were different temperatures but our favorite was the one with a swim-up bar….big surprise, right? We had very expensive, but delicious Mai Tais after which we continued to lounge in the hot water. It was a ton of fun but since we had other things to do we only stayed about 2 hours.

Then we drove into La Fortuna for lunch. The weather was much clearer today so we got a great view of the volcano, which is the highest peak in Costa Rica. There is actually a line of 4 volcanoes running through Costa Rica into Nicaragua,  which is just to the north. It was a beautiful view.

Our next stop was at the Arenal waterfall. Stebano told us that it was a “little walk” to get to the waterfall but since we’d just had lunch we thought a walk was a good idea. Well, it wasn’t a walk so much as it was 500 steps!! We walked down on the way to the waterfall, but as they say, what goes down must come up (that’s not really what they say but you know what we mean). The trip down wasn’t bad and the waterfall was beautiful. The trip back up, though, was slow but steady. We actually only had to stop and rest a couple of times. Peter commented that all those years of carrying 50 pounds of beer and ice up and down the stairs at Wrigley came in handy as he did very well. We huffed and puffed a bit but made it to the  top without too much difficulty.

By this time it was after 3pm and we were tired from the climb so we decided to head back to la casa. We hadn’t yet seen any cool wildlife but on the trip back we saw a sloth on the side of the road as well as about 12 coati. Lynn was very excited because she thought they were monkeys but even though they have long tails like monkeys they’re actually part of the raccoon family. Not as exciting as monkeys but it was still pretty cool.

We got about half way home when Stebano suddenly stopped the van. He had seen a tourist boat and thought we might enjoy a ride on the lake. We were tired but since sitting in the boat was going to require no effort on our part we decided to take advantage of the clear weather to get another look at the volcano. The boat owner said that the mountain hadn’t been this visable in 3 weeks so we decided to go for it. We’re so glad we did because the lake and mountain were beautiful. There were just a few clouds obscuring the very top but otherwise the mountain was totally  visible. It’s still an active volcano but hasn’t erupted since 1969 so we felt pretty safe. After an hour on the lake we got back into the van for the last 30 minutes of the drive home. We made one last stop at the market before getting home just in time for a beautiful sunset.

It was a long 8-hour day but a ton of fun. After the stressful day we had yesterday this was exactly what we needed, especially Lynn who was feeling rather guilty for not researching the area better before booking the house.

We decided to stay put and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. We’ll see Stebano again on Monday when he takes us back to La Fortuna. We’re going to explore the town a little more and go kayaking on the river. Not sure yet what we’re doing over the weekend but we’ll figure something out. Still no luck uploading pictures but maybe our hosts will have an idea. They get back tomorrow and we look forward to meeting them. We’re so grateful for Daniel though; he was our hero today.

Talk with you soon.

February 1

The Costa Rican adventure continues. Today was Peter’s birthday and while he didn’t get his free birthday breakfast at Denny’s, he got one at the hotel, so he was okay with that. At the advice of a friend who lived in Costa Rica for several years, we didn’t rent a car but plan to take a shuttle to the two places we plan to visit…Neuvo Arenal and Quepos. The ride to Neuvo was very nice as we got to see quite a bit of the countryside. After the first hour we understood why Allison advised against the car as the road got pretty rough the further, we went into the hills. After about 3 hours and a rest stop, we were dropped off at a hotel from which we would have to make our own way to our Airbnb house. Our host is in Cuba until the 3rd, so he arranged for someone to pick us up. That part went fine, and the house is on a beautiful piece of property with a gorgeous view of Lake Arenal. The problem is that we are in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE with no way to get around. The town appears to be about a block long with a couple of markets and clothing stores but not much else. We thought we might be able to walk to town, but the house is about a ten-minute drive up a long, steep hill so walking is a non-starter. Daniel was a gigantic help getting a taxi for us to get to town to buy groceries. He only has a motorcycle, so he asked one of the workers at the market to take us home. Daniel doesn’t speak any English, but Peter speaks a little Spanish, so they were able to communicate fairly well. He showed us around the grounds; there’s a ton of land and several buildings. We have access to a tiny pool that’s right outside our door, a hot tub, and a sauna.

The house itself is decent size with 2 bedrooms and a bath. It has a kitchen, but it took almost an hour to heat up a pot of water to cook pasta.  There are only a couple of small lamps in the house so once the sun goes down it’s pretty dark. The other problem is that while the house has WIFI, the connection is so bad we can’t actually get anything to pull up on the tablets. The phone is a little better so that’s how we’re writing this post. Uploading pictures is absolutely not going to happen unless we can find a restaurant with good WIFI.

With all that said, the view is stunning, and we have a huge deck to sit and watch the sunset over the lake. It was quite a stressful afternoon, so we enjoyed sitting out there with a drink while the sun went down.

We’re not sure how we’re going to do any of the tourist things we want to do, and we’ll probably spend a fortune in taxis for the week we’re here but that’s a problem for tomorrow.

January 31

Hola from Liberia Costa Rica. After two uneventful flights, we landed in Liberia mid-afternoon. The first adventure, or should we say misadventure, came when Lynn missed the last stair on the way down to the immigration area. In her defense, all the stairs were white tile except for the last one which was black tile….the exact same color as the floor. Thinking it was the floor, she was totally unprepared for another step. She landed ON HER KNEES (ouch) in a perfect kneeling position. It was actually quite graceful. The good news is that while her knees are a bit sore, there doesn’t appear to be any serious damage….not even a little limp.

The next adventure was figuring out the money. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve had to deal with anything other than Euro, which is pretty simple, so it took about several minutes with a calculator to figure out the conversion. Turns out it’s very similar to the conversion Lynn dealt with when she lived in Italy before the Euro. The Italian Lira, or mil, as they called it had bills in the thousands. That’s also the case with the Colon. We got about $175 from the ATM and got 20,000 colon. We finally figured out there are about 600 colon per dollar. It will take some getting used to but we should be fine in a day or so.

Our third adventure today was taking the bus into Liberia. We’re staying at the Hilton Garden Inn at the airport and the only way to get “downtown” was either the city bus for $1.60 for the two of us or a $20 cab ride. Obviously we choose the bus. It was actually very easy and we didn’t have any difficulty at all. There’s really not much in Liberia so we walked around for a little while then had some dinner…our first authentic Costa Rican dinner. Peter had what amounted to a tomato and lettuce sandwich on toast with a thin slice of chicken in there someplace. Lynn’s dinner was way more interesting a piece of chicken in a delicious broth, rice and some cold pasta. It was quite good.

After taking the bus back to the hotel we stopped for happy hour at the hotel bar before heading up to the beautiful, upgraded one bedroom suite. Lynn has diamond status at Hilton so we usually score some good upgrades.

Since we were up at 3:30am (eastern) it will probably be an early night. Tomorrow we’re taking a shuttle to Neuvo Arenal where we’ll spend a week. Talk with you from the mountains.

Love us….

January 31

Heading to Liberia. Talk with you soon.