12 April, 2001

The birding wasn't as spectacular as last night, perhaps because of the drizzle, but we saw many birds just the same. Spectacular meaning toucans and other super colorful birds, but we did see a Baltimore Oriole, and that was amazing. We stopped afterwards to enjoy a cup of hot coffee with Stig. It was really coming down by then and although it wasn't really cold, something about cloudy, rainy, wet weather makes you want to drink warm things.

Beebee also got a massage today:

I made my appointment yesterday, so Julia was expecting me. Behind the storefront was her home and where I was to spend the most pampered two hours of my life. She told me to get undressed and that meant everything. Since I'd had massages before, this wasn't unnerving for me. She literally slathered warm, warm oil with exfoliate in it all over my entire body and face. She then walked me over to a steam box. I sat down on a bench with a steam source underneath it and she covered me with a sheet, then closed up the box. Just my head stuck out. I rested it on the sheet she rolled up and put behind by neck, breathed in my favorite aroma -- peppermint and lavender -- and sweated. For about 30 minutes.

She came and got me out and led me to her massage table where she laid me down and left me for a few minutes to return normal tempurature. She came back and began smearing warm stuff all over me with a lovely, slightly rough cloth. I opened my eyes to see I was covered in beautiful, warm, rust-colored mud. She rubbed this wonderful stuff all over me: my face, ears, hair. I was in heaven. Then she turned me over. I think maybe the mud in my hair was my favorite part. After about 30 minutes of this, she helped me up and into the shower where I rinsed and rinsed and washed my hair. And the actual massaging hadn't even begun.

After my shower, she led me towards the back of the house to a foam pad covered in a sheet, on the floor. The massage was wonderful, fairly hard and lots of oil. She rubbed my stomach for the longest time. It felt mildly uncomfortable at first, but as I relaxed, it felt good. It was also incredibly intimate and soothing. She moved her hands in circles from just under my rib cage to just below my belly button, maybe 15 times.

Next she did my face, neck and head. She turned me over and I got a very wonderful back of the legs and back rub. She got up to my shoulders and the muscles in between my shoulder blades and was using the most incredible massage tool. I couldn't figure out quite what it was, so I peeked an eye open and holy cow! it was her feet! I was impressed. She was sitting with her back up against a wall for pressure and using her heels and the sides of her feet to work my shoulders, back, arms and neck. She sat me up not too long after that and worked some more on the knots at my shoulder blades, and then, after two and a half hours, I stumbled back to my hotel in my oily bliss.

Did I mention I paid only $30 U.S. for this?

After the massage, Beebee was more or less useless for the rest of the day, but we went out to grab a licuado and work on the website. While sitting at a roadside restaurant we had the pleasure of running into a dutch couple whose very cool Mercedes van we had seen in Antigua, Guatemala and also in Granada, Nicaragua. Harry and his wife sat and chatted with us for a while, then Steve checked out the van for a bit before they headed off to find a place to park for the night. As much as we love Sandy, Steve is definately impressed by the idea of being able to cook and sleep inside of the vehicle. It opens up a lot of opportunities for urban camping and would save some money on hotels.

Todd made it home from his river rafting trip around 4:30, cold but happy with the day and eventually we all headed off to have a nice dinner while it dumped rain. We managed to time our return to the hotel nicely with a brief break in the inundation.

             

We looked in vain around town for a place to stay and were put off by the high prices- generally $12/person got you a room that was inferior to the rooms we've grown accustomed to spending $12 on for the two of us. We finally found a nice little place, Hotel Pacandé, that has just recently opened, and the very friendly owners agreed on exchanging two nights of lodging for a write up of their facillities- a good deal for both of us and we sincerely enjoyed chatting with them about current events in Colombia (their native land) and sharing humor in some of the antics we've seen in Central America and Costa Rica. Oh, and they have great coffee.

In the afternoon we dropped Todd off at the airport for his trip home. Thanks for visiting Todd! Come back soon. Since nothing else was open, and because we try to have pizza on the 13th of any given month to commemorate the pizza we had on our wedding night, we walked down to Pizza Hut and got a really delicious pie. We ate in our room, drank some wine and had an incredible converstation about evolution and the environment. Amazing that we can still enjoy just talking to one another after six months of talking mostly only to each other.

We finally dragged ourselves downstairs to eat and get some coffee. Caffeine addiction is real hassle, but Steve has pretty much decided that the coffee in Costa Rica is just too good to pass up, especially after the highly-variable brews we've gotten in Nicaragua and Honduras. Downstairs we enjoyed chatting with some other guests for a while, then we returned to the room to update the site and build the Pacandé page. Little did we know that we would spend the vast majority of the day working on the computer. A combination of having let the site slip way our of date and having taken a lot of pictures from which to choose made it a lot of work this time around. Steve mostly sat and read his book while Bb worked all day. Near 7 p.m., the pages ready, we dashed to an internet cafe to try to update before collecting Axel (this German name is pronounced like the car part, but with the "A" as "aux") at the airport at 8. Well, the internet cafe ended up being painfully slow so we didn't actually manage to get much done on the upload but had to leave anyway so as not to miss the plane's arrival. Axel got in just fine and we ended up back in our room at the hotel talking until midnight- forgetting to do the upload and even forgetting dinner. Amazing how much you can enjoy a really great conversation with someone, especially a good friend that you haven't seen in six or seven months.

Welcome to our trip, Axel! We are really glad you made it.

We finally stopped for lunch at a roadside soda (Costa Rica's name for a usually small and inexpensive place to grab some typical food) and had a great lunch. Bb had a chicken sandwich, Steve and Axel both got casados: rice, beans, plantains, cabbage salad, some meat and a great potato stew. We still miss Mexican roadside chicken, but Costa Rican casados are probably our second favorite.

After passing through Limón we headed south to Cahuita (Ka-whee-tah), a sleepy little town where Steve had spent a week or so six years ago. The town has really grown up and now has nearly twice as many small hotels, half as many small, authentic eateries, and many more touristy restaurants. They are even laying concrete pavers on the pockmarked dirt road on the way into town.

After looking around for just a few minutes we found the Surf Side hotel and got a decent room with a fan and secure parking for 5500 colones (about $17) for the three of us. This was the first hotel we came to, and while checking out the room, Axel said, "Okay" to the owner.

Beebee looked at him in amazement. "What? We're going to take this one? We haven't even checked out one other hotel yet."

Axel smiled, patted Bb on the head. "But this is just fine. Why would we look more?"

Bb decided that was a good question.

While unpacking we met up with Tom and Annette, a couple from LA who are vacationing in Cahuita as well. Turns out that they are active members in a Land Rover off road club in southern california and we enjoyed chatting about the relative merits and drawbacks of various 4x4s. It also turned out that they are avid travelers so we had even more fun chatting about some of the places that we or they have been.

We finished off the night by enjoying some dark beers (Bavaria oscura, a welcome relief from the ever-present pilseners of Central America) at the Hannia Bar then eating an entirely mediocre but not-inexpensive meal at the restaurant across the street, which didn't have half of the items they were advertising on the billboard out front…

Hunger led us to Miss Edith's, a well-known little eatery at the other end of town (about a three minute walk!) where we had some of the best gallo pinto (rice and beans mixed together with a little onion, cilantro and bell pepper) we've ever had. The ingredients differ from place to place (except the beans and rice!), and this place had added coconut milk, which was very good. The mango licuados (smoothies) were also amazing: like they took a mango, and somehow reduced it to icy pulp while simultaneously removing the stringy fibers. Very nice breakfast.

After breakfast we all decided that while Cahuita seemed like a good place to hang out, the weather just wasn't what we wanted for a beach side visit: the rain and clouds made sunbathing impossible while the swollen rivers and strong waves had stirred the water up enough to make snorkeling unattractive. So after trying unsuccessfully to upload the site in a little cafe (mental note, always check for a proxy first), we jumped back into Sandy and headed back towards the interior, to a small town called Turrialba.

The drive wasn't so bad, driving through the capital of San Jose is a bit of a drag in the rain when you don't know where you are going, but we made decent time overall and were in Turrialba in less then four hours. Once there we quickly found a nice little hotel called the Interamericano and settled in, happy to be out of the rain.

We had only intended to spend the one night in Turrialba, then get back onto the road towards Monteverde, but we all decided that it would be nice to spend another night instead of driving all day again. Steve spent most of the day working on the web site and fiddling with other computer-related things while Beebee and Axel spent the day doing handicrafts and chatting while the rain poured outside. After two very frustrating unsuccessful attempts to upload the site, Steve finally managed to get us a little bit less out of date.

We had good Peruvian food (a welcome change from the tipico that we've been eating) for dinner and planned to head on up to Monteverde tomorrow.

Hot tip if you visit Turrialba: you can access hotmail/yahoo mail for free for 15 minutes at the peach-colored government building on the corner of the main square. There is nowhere to connect a laptop, but for just checking email it is a pretty great thing.

A sea of banana trees on our way out of Cahuita.	Turrialba, rainy day	The cutest little froggy- about the size of the tip of Bb's thumb.	A typical valley view on the road near Turrialba

While we were there, we made plans to go out to Isla San Jose, one of the Bat Islands. That meant Axel would miss two extra days of work, about which he felt pretty guilty, but not enough to stop him from going. Realistically, this was a once in a lifetime chance. The islands are part of a reserve and you can only go by invitation or for work. The diving and snorkeling are good, and heck, it's a nearly-deserted island in the Pacific Ocean!

After Frank's house, we went out for dinner and by luck and chance chose the restaurant where all of the students were eating. We all had pizza and wine and somehow none of the three of us paid for anything. I asked around later, and no one seemed to think we owed them money (restaurant included). Well, okay, that's fine with us! After dinner we all went out dancing. Steve and Beebee felt a little old and a little out of it, but it was fun anyway. Switching out of knee-high rubber rain boots helped. We left around 10 p.m. but found out later that the students closed the place down.

Beebee dwarfed next to a huge fig tree.	Another shot of this amazingly old and big tree.	Does it seem possible that ferns can get this big (over a meter)?	Hiking amidst what must be one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Roots	Waterfall	Spider web	Cool looking snail

We hurried off to Frank's to store all our gear except for what we wanted to take to the island. It was great to get so much stuff out of Sandy. We scarfed down some sandwiches and again hurried off, this time to the station to meet up with Frank and the students for a lecture on fig trees. We parked the car and were getting out when this guy walks up and says, "Hey! You can't park that thing here!" We looked at him, and Steve and Bb both said later that we though, "Wow he looks really familiar." And in that split second we realized it was our cousin Ben, Travis' (the cousin in the program) brother! Ben had been traveling in Costa Rica and Panama and had just arrived. What luck!

We hiked a steep, steep hill, across a small stream by a waterfall and pool, to the roots of a giant strangler fig. Then we climbed up the roots. For any of you climbers out there, it was probably about a 5.5 or a 5.6 climb. For you non-climbers, most beginners (and some not-so-beginner climbers) would not feel comfortable on a 5.6 climb on rock without protection (ropes, harnesses, bolts, etc.) You literally had to climb straight up the roots of this tree. Very fun, but a bit scary for Bb and at least one other girl in the group. Travis and Steve were both excited at the prospect of coming back to the tree with climbing gear sometime and climbing the whole thing, maybe even rappeling from the top (over 150 feet down to the ground).

The lecture took place at the base of the fig, or rather where the base of the now-dead tree that the fig strangled would have been. After the lecture many students climbed up inside the tree- the fig had a large hollow space where it's host tree had once lived. Bb opted out of this one. The climb back down was about as hard as going up, but what a great place to give a lecture. The kids on this program are truly lucky. Tropical ecology is even more fascinating when you are sitting in the middle of it.

After the lecture we hurried off for the third time in the day, this time to drive down to Liberia, where we were to grocery shop for the island trip and meet up with Frank and the others. The drive was long and boring and done partially in the dark (we had a great sunset), but we stopped and had a very delicious roadside dinner of the usual -- meat, beans, rice, small salad, soda.

Grocery shopping for nine meals for nine adults, six of whom you don't know, with only a cooler for refrigeration isn't all that easy. We made it in and out in 45 minutes and for about $135 for everyone to eat for the whole weekend.

While waiting for Frank, we met Lee who is also a former student, and Lori (a traveler that Lee had met along the way) and chatted with them for a while. Turns out Lee taught Steve how to rock climb, several years back in Joshua Tree National Park (in California) when they were both students at UC San Diego. Small, small world.

We all were pretty beat and happy to know that as soon as Frank showed up we could scoot over to the house we were staying in for the night, in Liberia. Oops. Turns out we had misunderstood the situation. Turned out we weren't staying in Liberia at all, but in Cuajiniquil. Ugh. Lee and a Spanish cinematographer named Simón, piled their stuff and themselves into our now very full cruiser and Steve, bless his heart, drove all five of us another hour, in the dark, out to the coast. What a long, long day. Axel slept in the house with the others and we slept in our roof-top tent. Having a little bit of our own space wherever we go is such a wonderful luxury, especially after six months of never quite having more than a little bit of our own space.