Category: 2018_001 Costa Rica Adventure

February 16

On our private jet for the last leg of our trip to Tampa. Well actually we’re the only thru passengers. Should be at the hotel in 2-3 hours. Talk with you soon.

February 15

After a day of roaming around San Jose we’re back in our room for our last night in Costa Rica. Yesterday was pretty low key. We drove the 3 hours to San Jose where we checked into the Doubletree before returning the rental car. It was an uneventful, but interesting trip. The scenery was beautiful as we drove through the mountains and Peter saw a very large group of crocs in a river bed. Lynn preferred to do some last minute shopping but the pictures are pretty impressive. Here’s a video he took of these guys.  https://youtu.be/-HDqgLBv86A

Once he got his fill of very large reptiles, he joined Lynn at the shop. He’s been looking at hammocks since we got here so we finally bought one. It’s a 2-person hammock with 3-foot pieces of wood at each end. The shop owner wrapped it up for us but we’re not exactly sure how we’re going to get it home. It won’t fit in the overhead and we’re not sure if it will make it in checked luggage as it is an easily “pilferable” item. Hopefully the SWA luggage guys are honest and we’ll see it again in Tampa. We’re also not sure where we’re going to hang it once we get home. We can buy a hammock stand but we’re thinking of putting up a pergola in the backyard so that would be a good place for it. We’ll come up with something.

The Doubletree is a very nice hotel and it’s great to sleep in a king size bed again after the full size one in Quepos. By the time we got settled and had lunch by the pool it was almost 3pm so we decided just to chill the rest of the day.

Today we went into San Jose for the day. There’s not too much there but we enjoyed a tour of the National Theater which was beautiful. It’s relatively small, only holding about 750 people, but it is filled with beautiful architecture, paintings and statues.

There is one ceiling paining in the meeting hall that is very cool. The woman in the picture almost seems alive as her head appears to turn to follow as you walk. Seriously, when we were standing on the right side of the painting, she was looking right at us. As we started slowly walking to the left her head appeared to turn and by the time we got to the other side of the room, she was looking at us full face. It was pretty amazing.

We also stopped in at the Cathedral and another smaller church. Compared to the churches in Europe these were very simple, but they were beautiful in their simplicity.

San Jose has every U.S. fast food place you can think of, but we decided to eat with the locals at a cafeteria style restaurant. Lynn didn’t care for the yellow dish (still not sure what it is) but everything else was delicious.

After lunch we wandered around some more, stumbling into Chinatown. It’s only about 2 blocks long and other than the arch and balloons left over from Chinese New Year, there wasn’t much there either.

It took about 30 minutes to walk back to the bus stop for the 30-minute ride back to the hotel. We plan to eat dinner at the hotel as there’s not much within walking distance and the shuttle only goes to the airport. So, it will be another quiet night but that’s okay as we have a long day tomorrow. We’re taking a shuttle at 6:30am for our 9am flight. We stop in Houston and again in Raleigh (but don’t change planes) before landing in Tampa at 8:45pm. Not sure why we booked a 2-stop flight probably less expensive. We’re sure it sounded like a good idea at the time but now we’re wishing we were getting to Tampa a little sooner as we’ve got 3 days of driving ahead of us.

We’ll touch base again when we’re back in Florida. Have a great night everyone.

February 15

We’ll get you caught up on what we’ve been doing later today but we wanted to let you know about a great deal we found that some of you may be interested in.

As most of you know, in 2016 we spent 8 weeks traveling in Italy and Croatia after which we came home on a repositioning cruise. It was a great way to relax after 8 weeks of almost constant traveling.

In the fall of 2019 we planned to go back to Italy for 6 weeks to visit the southern part the country along with Lynn’s old stomping grounds of Sicily. We were also thinking about taking another cruise and, long story short, we decided to push up our next Italy adventure to spring 2019 and take another repositioning cruise. This time on Royal Caribbean. In 2016 we took Celebrity but their repositioning cruises only went to Barcelona or Southhampton and we wanted one that ended in Rome. The good news is that with the cruise at the beginning of the trip, once it’s is over we can FedEx our dressy clothes home and not have to drag them around with us the way we did last time.

What really sold us was the Itinerary and the price. Instead of 7 days of cruising across the Atlantic this time it’s only 5 days and we’re stopping at two additional ports in the Canary Islands. Right now they’re offering 30% off so we’re booking a balcony room (which we had last time and LOVED) for only $1100 each including port fees and taxes. That’s a 14 day cruise for only $2200!! We actually paid $200 more because we wanted a refundable deposit. Given that the deposit is $900 and the  sail date is more than a year away (4/27/19) we felt more comfortable knowing we could get a refund if something unexpected came up. We leave from San Juan Puerto Rico but we can get there on Southwest very reasonably so that was no big deal for us. Here’s a link to the website if you’re interested in checking out this, or any of the other deals. We only checked out the repositioning cruises but they may have deals on other itineraries as well. The special offer expires on 2/28 so if you’re interested you might want to move quickly. We’ve got a great travel agent who handled our last cruise and is helping us again with this one so let us know if you want his contact information.

Royal Caribbean

That’s all for now. We’ll post again later after our day of sightseeing in San Jose. Pura Vida.

February 13

Pura Vida (good life) everyone. We’ve had a couple of great days. Yesterday (Monday) we took a catamaran out into the ocean, stopping for some snorkeling. Compared to the snorkeling we did in Hawaii and Key West; this wasn’t really much. Actually, it was a bit comical as the tourists from 4 different boats (yours truly included) all headed for the one rock where we could see fish. It wasn’t a very big rock, so everyone kept crashing into each other trying to see the hand full of fish that were there. We saw some pretty ones, but we only stayed out there a few minutes before heading back to the boat. After that, we just played in the water for a while before going back on board to go down the slide into the water. Lynn did what Peter called the “baby slide” because she slowly inched her way down about half-way before finally letting go. But she did it twice so that should be equal to one big slide, right? After that we had a delicious lunch on board before heading back to the marina. All-in-all it was a very nice way to spend a morning. We were back to la casa by 1:30 and we both took a nap…. too much sun and open bar.

Then today we did something we’ve talked about doing since we arrived in Henderson Nevada the first of November….horseback riding.  We had opportunities in both Nevada and Arizona but never got around to it. So, we booked a Rainforest Horseback trip on Viator. It has been many, many, many years since either of us was on a horse but we thought it would be fun. It was, but Lynn had forgotten how bad her knees have gotten since the late 80s which was the last time, she rode a horse. After about 90 minutes of riding, we got to our destination, a beautiful waterfall in the rain forest. Getting off the horse was harder than getting on and it took several minutes before Lynn’s knees would work properly. Our cowboy, Gilberto, lengthened the stirrups so the return part of the trip was a little easier on her knees.

Peter’s horse was Diala, and Lynn’s was Guapa. Diala was much more behaved than Guapa, who always wanted to be in front and she didn’t care how she got there. A couple of times she crashed Lynn into tree limbs and other horses to get to be in the lead. She also broke into a trot at will but luckily, she would go back to a walk after a few seconds. Lynn’s phone ran out of juice before we got to the waterfall so no pictures of that, but we did get a couple of us during our ride.

Once we got back to the ranch we had a delicious lunch before riding back (in a van…thank goodness) to Quepos. It was a fun way to spend the morning but we can now cross horseback riding off our list of things to do. Once was certainly enough. Back at the house it was time for another little nap. We don’t feel too bad right now but are dreading trying to get out of bed in the morning.

Tonight we’re packing up the little house because we’re heading to San Jose tomorrow to drop off the car and sightsee around the capital before heading home (well actually Tampa) on Friday. We’ve got reservations at the Doubletree Hotel and it will be nice to be able to put the toilet paper in the toilet instead of a waste basket….it’s the little things.

Talk with you soon. Love…..us

February 11

We feel a little guilty talking about our weekend at the beach when we know most of our family and friends are buried under a foot of snow but…

We spent the weekend quietly, visiting the local beach both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we ran into our guide from the National Forest, and he hooked us up with someone who could get us chairs and an umbrella. It was a very good deal, a big umbrella, two chaise lounge chairs and a small table for only 6,000 colones for the day. That’s just over $10. We were only there for 3-4 hours each day, but it was much less expensive than it would be at any of the beaches in Chicago. He was looking for us today and got us another great spot, this time under a tree which was even shadier than yesterday.

The water was bath water warm, and the waves were much bigger here than at Manuel Antonio beach from Friday. There were quite a few surfers out on Saturday but not as many today. Peter rented a boogie board both days and had a ton of fun frolicking in the waves. He said he thought he did a little better today because he didn’t swallow near as much water as he did yesterday. It’s the small victories.

Even with sunscreen Lynn got a bit burned. Not sure how that happened as she was only out in the water for 10-15 minutes at a time and then it was back under the umbrella, but it doesn’t take long down here.

Here’s a bit of the beach. It was a beautiful weekend.  https://youtu.be/AzNsw-DQnkE

After we left the beach on Saturday, we walked for about 20 minutes back up the hill until we found a nice place for lunch. It had a beautiful view of the ocean and great food. Today we ate lunch on the beach from one of the beach vendors…. BBQ chicken on a stick. It was delicious.

We had several close encounters of the wildlife kind this weekend. Yesterday we saw a 2-foot lizard at the restaurant then in the evening we saw about 6 macaws. We’d been hearing them in the early evening but yesterday was the first time we had seen them. There are quite beautiful. Here’s a video Peter took. https://youtu.be/02fyWlLii2E

Then today we had some visitors at the guest house. About 5 squirrel monkeys came out of the trees and moved up the telephone wires right up to the house. Not sure what the incidence of squirrel monkey attacks on humans is but they just stared at us for a while then scampered back away.

Not much else to report; it really was a pretty quiet weekend. Tomorrow we’re heading to the marina for a half-day sailboat ride. Since we’re both a bit burned, we’ll have to be careful of the sun but we’re looking forward to it. Take care everyone…. stay warm.

February 10

Good morning, everyone. It’s Saturday and we’re seeing CNN reports of a massive snowstorm in Chicago. It’s 90 and sunny here. In fact, we were complaining yesterday how hot the house was when we got back from our day of site seeing. It looks like after two mild winters; we picked a good one to miss.

Yesterday, we drove to Manuel Antonio National Park, hired a guide and walked about an hour through the jungle. We’re so glad we had a guide because it would have been very difficult to see the wildlife without (a) the guide’s incredible ability to spot the animals and (b) his scope that brought everything up close and personal. It’s amazing how they can spot tiny bats under a broken leaf. On our walk we saw a really cool stick bird. It’s green and looks exactly like a thin green stick. We also saw several 3-toed sloths and another 2-toe sloth. Turns out the 3-toed are the grey ones. We saw it very well through the scope; with its grey spiny fur it looked more like a bird’s nest than an animal. Apparently, they sleep 18 hours a day and only come out of the trees once a week to poop and pee. Then they go back up to the tree for another week. The mom sloths are also not very protective of their babies. If a baby falls out of the tree…oh well. Mom’s a bit too lazy to go down to get it.

We also saw several different kinds of lizards, a beautiful crab, the bats, hummingbird (they can eat up to 500 mosquitoes an hour) and, of course, monkeys and raccoons. Those guys aren’t the least bit shy. There was a raccoon family of 4 that was strolling the beach looking for things to steal. Everyone kept their belongings either tied up or in backpacks so the raccoons wouldn’t drag things away. We saw them try a couple of times, but someone usually shooed them away.

The monkeys were everywhere, on the beach, walking the pathway and even in the parking lot. We mostly saw white faced monkeys, but we also caught some squirrel monkeys and one howler monkey. The howler monkey has a face like a gorilla…not very pretty actually. They hang out in the top of trees so they’re difficult to see and almost impossible to take a picture of unless you have an expensive camera with a great zoom. Since we’re using our phones, we don’t get many good pictures of them. The squirrel monkeys don’t really look like squirrels except they have a stripe of orange fur running down their backs. They hang out on the lower branches but move so quickly it was tough to get a picture of them as well.

Speaking of wildlife, did we mention our close encounter with a poisonous snake? It was on our walk to town from our guest house in Nuevo Arenal last weekend. It was dead but creepy just the same. Remember the old rhyme…. red on yellow kill a fellow; red on black venom lack…look at this guy.

After swimming at Playa Manuel Antonio for a while we hiked back to our car, stopped for a nice lunch then headed home to do laundry. Lynn had flashbacks to Venice where it took 3 days to dry clothes. Hopefully it won’t take that long this time, but the laundry didn’t dry before the sun when down. It’s now 8:40am and they’re still not dry. Hopefully now that the sun is out, they’ll dry before we leave for the beach. Today we’re just going to hang out at the large beach about 3km from here. They have chaise lounges and umbrellas we can rent. Since there’s no shade, it’s the only way Lynn can hang at the beach for any length of time. Instead of trying to find a place to park we’re just going to take the bus which stops about 50 meters from the house. Very convenient.

Have a great day everyone…. stay warm.

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…..