Thursday, December 29, 2011

Costa Rica Puerto Viejo Day 17

We beached at Punta Uva today - voted one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world.  We found a little spot sheltered by a coral reef so we could sit on the steep slope of the beach and let the water calmly wash over us.  The beach DJ played some chill reggae (reggae plays everywhere in Puerto Viejo) and we played in the sand for a few hours.

What interesting sand.  It is so soft and fluffy and it was golden brown.

We tried getting chips and salsa with our beers and fruity drinks but we ended up with yucca chips and some mayo dill dip but it was awesome.

We went to Nadia and Antonio's house for a visit, they are the owners of our villa.  The moved from Italy 5 years ago and say that life in Costa Rica has been a dream come true for them.  They built their house and 3 villas that they rent out.

I am inspired to learn Spanish.  I was sort of able to have a noun-only conversation with our taxi driver today.  It is very similar to French - I was on fire recognizing the words and coming up with some myself!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Costa Rica Puerto Viejo Day 16

We have had an exciting few days.

Christmas morning was very fun for the kids as Santa brought them a small sock full of goodies and a number of gifts they were thrilled with.

Our trip to Puerto Viejo took 10.5 hours.  Surprisingly, Jaida, Blake and I were totally fine, the kids not complaining once.  Michele got terribly car sick during the drive.  It got so bad she questionned travelling up to Arenal next week because it is another long, windy drive.

Puerto Viejo is a very special town.  To me, it is something out of a fairy tale.  The town isn't much larger than 16 blocks square and the beach is butt up against the main road without even a sidewalk in between.  There are tons of hippy cyclists (zero helmets) and the town has a very Jamaican feel but is much more touristy than I would have thought.

We have settled into our villa, a two bedroom home with a small kitchen and patio for eating.

The morning after we arrived we heard a deafening roar from the property next door.  The kids ran into our room terrified.  You would have sworn it was a wild boar fight or an air raid siren.  Nadia, the property owner, told is it was a howler monkey.  We now find out they are one of the loudest animals on earth.  I still cannot believe that this sound comes from a relatively small monkey.  Apparently they have a special bone that helps amplify their "roar".

Today was breakfast at Bread and Chocolate, an outstanding cafe with organic foods, a trip to the Chocolate Museum where we cracked cocoa beans and made chocolate, a swim at the Museum's pool, an afternoon lunch on the beach with a few beers and a game of foosball with a local boy about eight.

-- Christian

Christmas morning



Cacao plant


Kids

Friday, December 23, 2011

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 11

We've been totally chilling.  A little beach, a little pool, a little coffee, a little beer.  A nice balance.

The beach today was quite different from all the other days.  It was a hot sunny day (our first sunny day) and the beach was packed.  We went at high tide and there were some decent surfing and boogey boarding waves.  Pablo told us that my surf instructor Charlie saved a man and his son after they were pulled out by a rip tide earlier.  So we kept to the super shallow water but had a great time with the waves crashing in all directions.

Jaida and I went on a night jungle walk at Si Como No.  It was amazing.  I cannot believe how loud the jungle is at night time.  We can hear it at our hotel because we have jungle all around us, but when you are in the jungle without buildings and roads it is 10 times louder.

Unfortunately, I do not know how to use our camera very well.  I attempted to get pictures of red eyed tree frogs, a tarantula,  and some crazy big bugs including a walking stick bug but none of them really turned out.







Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 9

Jaida and I went on the "Kids Saving the Rainforest" tour today. It is an organization that was started by 2 tweens to raise money to be donated to land conservation projects and animal rescue and rehabilitation projects. We went to one of their animal rescue centers and saw many marmosets (1 pound monkeys that look just like gremlins), spider monkeys and racoons. The tour was led by the veteranarian - Maria Pia, who told us all about how they help the animals and the importance of not feeding monkeys and deer (like they do at our hotel!) Jaida was able to make a few postcards that will be sold at the store and proceeds help the cause.

Dr Pia also let us pick and eat quava, granadilla, limes from their organic gardens. We forgot to pick and eat the sugar cane.

Later we swam at the pool at sunset and saw a few bats flying above us.  While we were at the restaurant their awesome spaghetti dinner night, a mamoth grasshopper flew into my hair and then was jumping/flying around the kitchen for about 1/2 an hour.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 8

Costa Rica rocks!  It has rained everyday since our arrival, my hair keeps getting curlier and so does my smile.

We took the bus to Quepos today.  I asked Jaida if she thought the city was different from Vancouver and I think it wasn't until that question that she even noticed any difference.

Jaida and I made a sand snowman at the beach while Blake happily chased around the little soccer ball.  Christian caught a few good waves on the boogey board and was saying that he saw millions of tiny fish in the waves.  That creeped me out too much, I didn't feel like having a turn anymore!

We ate dinner with Pablo - the surfing instructor.  He teaches surfing for 6 months in Costa Rica and then for 6 months in San Diego.  He loves his job.

We've found a good little daily groove here.  Breakfast, coffees, beach/pool/dad works/outing, siesta, pool, dinner, games, bed (did you notice that siesta part?  the kids play quietly or watch a movie some days and parents get to read or Christian works).

We've also hung out with most of the other travelers here.  The family that just left had 3 kids that played with Jaida and Blake and helped them to overcome their fear of the dog.  A new family arrived today with a 10 year old girl and a 6 year old boy.  Jaida and Blake are pretty happy about that.  Everyone has been telling us that many more families will be arriving now for the holidays.

Each day brings it's share of whining and complaining and kids fighting but overall it is very awesome to be here.



Sunday, December 18, 2011

Christian's thoughts

Feels great to be here two weeks.  People have come and gone already and we have settled in with no feelings of having to leave yet.  Beach vendors are polite, not too annoying and we already know a number of locals and walk by saying "Hola Pablo".  Oscar, the guy who owns (actually, probably the manager) one of the restaurants calls us "La Familia".  We are one of the only tourist families in town (the only I can think of now) so stand out like an old couple in a kindergarten class but honestly, it doesn't bother us.  Everyone loves the kids and they have been very well behaved.

Christmas is very, very chill here.  Kids don't talk about it much at all, although they do know it is coming.  Certainly very nice to get away from the craziness back home.  We have two santa hats, a metal Christmas tree the size of a pepper grinder, and two ornaments.  Oh, and we do have a small string of lights hanging below the TV.

Blake is struggling a bit with the humidity (as am I) and can't walk very long before falling apart so we are careful at choosing outings that are an hour maximum.  Nice to have a cool room to come back to, with a huge family sized shower, and mini cool pool to dip in.  He misses home and Jaida misses friends and home too (and family obviously) but she is doing great.  Michele and her are spending so much quality time together.

I am loving evenings too.  After the kids hit the sack, Michele and I sit up, book in hand (we are both reading Game of Thrones - 800 pages so that is like four years of reading for me) and have a number of hours to chill out.  No sense of urgency to "do" anything.  No real work, housekeeping, cleaning, planning etc... just real relaxation.  And crawling into bed, with the kids right beside, and the rain forest noises only feet away, is pretty nice.  The trip has been more relaxing for me than I thought.

-- Christian --

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 7

We went to the butterfly garden today.  I'm wondering why such harmless beautiful creatures can be so scary!  They kept landing on us and Jaida, Blake and I would get super creeped out!

butterfly landed on Christian's hand

see the scary butterfly on my shoulder?


notice the butterfly on Blake's head?

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 6

There are some seriously chilled out people around here.  Hanging out with those surfing teachers today was inspiring. 

My surf lesson was OK but since I am a little ball of nerves, I called it quits after about 20 minutes.

Christian did well, he caught some good waves (and had a few funny crashes).






Friday, December 16, 2011

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 5

Christian is making friends with all the locals.  Every time I turn around he is doing knuckles with someone or in a "man hug" with someone else.  He's actually been pretty good with remembering their names too which is unusual for him.  And somehow out of all of this he has signed us up for surfing lessons tomorrow.  I'm doing and hour and then he is doing an hour.  After setting this up, we watched some other guy having his first lesson... we saw multiple huge bails and then he finished the lesson with obvious aches and pains and now we are both pretty scared and want to cancel the lesson but feel bad.

oh well, when in Costa Rica right?

Amber and Camille have been angels for us.  Tonight they took us to the farmers market in the town Quepos.  We lugged home a ton of fruits and vegetables and cheeses, some new stuff we've never had before.  They showed us around the town so we know where we want to go next time during the day when it isn't raining!

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 4


Manuel Antonio park.  We tried to get there first thing in the morning because that is when you will see the most wildlife.  We got there a bit late but still saw tons of stuff.  There weren't any other English people to join our group so we ended up with a private guide which was awesome.  These guides were able to see things that "normal people" would never notice.  They all carried telescopes and when they spotted something they'd quickly set up the telescope (at kid friendly heights which is pretty much on the floor for Blake) and we'd look through the telescope and see stuff.  I even had a quick check of the telescope and I didn't see any buttons to make a tucan or sloth or red eyed leaf frog or bat appear in the viewer because I certainly couldn't see these things with my eyes!  It was amazing.

Apparently these guides study for 2 years to have that job.  They described so many things to us, from the smells of the howler monkeys to the eggs of the tree frogs to the medicinal benefits of many of the plants we saw. I was in heaven.

But after about 40 minutes, Blake fell apart so Christian took him home and Jaida and I stayed for an extra hour.  She was such a trooper.  She was hot and tired but she saw how much I was loving it so she kept me company with minimal complaining.

A list of things we saw:
- red eyed leaf frog (it was sleeping and looked like a flat little leaf)
- bats
- sleeping plants
- poisonous trees and plants
- iguanas
- black lizards
- jesus christ lizards
- toucans
- ghost crabs
- howler monkeys
- white faced capuchin monkeys
- three-toed sloth
- two-toed sloth
- pelicans

The sounds of the jungle are very cool.  On top of the constant sound of crickets there are some very beautiful bird sounds, and some occasional monkey sounds (both the stereotypical ooh ooh hee haw haw haw and the very distinct screech of a howler monkey).

Our villa backs onto the national park so we can listen to all of these things while we sleep.  I don't understand why our room has a noise maker in it.  I turned on the "rainforest" setting and said "Hey kids watch this" and I turned if off and we could still hear the exact sound that came out of the noise maker.

After our hike, we had a swim in the pool and then went to meet Amber and Camille at the beach.  Camille said they would be at the very end of the beach.  I thought that wasn't too far so we started our walk along the beach with our boogey board, sand toys, snacks, towels, hats, water and two tired kids.  I learned how deceiving a beach can be - I'm not sure if the distance is deceiving or if the sand slows you down so much that it takes forever to get anywhere.  The kids gave up and so I ran ahead to meet them but I didn't quite go ALL the way to the end so I missed them.  But they came to our hotel later for a visit, and they brought us some knives for our kitchen - YAY!





Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 3

I am in my happy place.

Today Jaida, Blake and I went to the pool for a few hours while Christian worked sipping his coffee.  As we were playing at the pool, we heard some rustling in the trees and sure enough there were monkeys - one after the next climbing the same branches in a line.  Each one stopped in the same spot, we waved and said hi and they sort of nodded and moved along.  There must have been 20 of these little guys, we were so pleased.

When Christian was finished working, we all headed to the beach.  We ate lunch at some new local spot and tried the chicken cosado - "authentic tico food".

The beach was awesome.  It was perfectly warm - not hot.  It started to rain so we all got ready in our bathing suits and played in the waves and sand for a few hours.  Jaida really got into jumping waves and wasn't bothered by being knocked down, she was laughing the whole time.  Blake was cautious around the water, he mostly just picked up big chunks of sand and waited for a wave to come to throw the sand at and then run away.

After a great play we decided to head home and the rain came down harder, it was pouring for our walk home.  I carried Blake because he had sand in his eyes and was hysterical and Christian carried Jaida because Blake was being carried.

Our hotel made us a fresh pepperoni pizza for dinner and we watched Cars 2 before bed.

Pura Vida :)


check out the jungle view from our window, that is Manuel Antonio National Park 

white faced capuchins seen from the hotel restaurant

the sweet little guard dog - Blake is terrified of this little guy




view from our villa door

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Costa Rica Manuel Antonio Day 2


We have arrived at our home for the next 2 weeks.  It was actually quite an enjoyable 4 hour journey, Our driver was very friendly and helpful, the kids were great and the scenery was exactly what I hoped for.

We made a few stops along the way, espresso, crocodiles and lunch in an old airplane that crashed on the side of a mountain and now has a restaurant built in and around it.  Blake entertained most of the restaurant singing "Santa Claus is coming to Costa Rica".

Our villa is good, the space is great but the kitchen is not equipped at all.  We are cutting apples with a butter knife and drinking milk out of a mug.  Our trip to the grocery store was dissapointing - the produce was moldy except for the apples from Washington, the cereals were a dentists nightmare (except for good old cheerios) and the brand name for their bread says it all "Bimbo".






Gerardo (our driver) and his daughter Nicole show us the crocodiles under the bridge

crocodiles

this plane crashed on the mountain and has been made into a restaurant

view of Manuel Antonio from the Avion restaurant

path to the beach