15-22 August, 2002

Ahhhh..... BEACH!

For whatever reason, everyone woke up on Friday morning wanting some beach time. We tried to make plans for Puerto Viejo (east coast) but discovered that the roads there are thrashed from recent heavy rains (read: no bus access) and that there was an official "don't come unless you've gotta come" warning in place. Ok. No Puerto Viejo. So we shifted our focus to the west coast and ended up deciding on Tamarindo. A few more phone calls and we found out that the six and a half hour bus ride leaves San Jose at 3:30 PM.

So we got ready and left the house, running late (Steve's fault, as usual) at about 12:40. See, that's how things are when you haven't got a car, we are learning. We grabbed a cab, then a bus, then walked a few blocks to meet Vanessa and the Spaniards (Manolo, Christina, Pablo) for lunch. They ended up running pretty late, which was a bummer because we still needed to pick up some cash at the ATM before leaving and didn't really have time. No worries, thought we, we'll just get it in Tamarindo as the taxi driver assured us that there is an ATM there (and it is a huge tourist destination, and gringo community, so we felt pretty safe). All of us finally got to the bus station by about 3:25 and were dismayed to learn that all the seats on the bus were sold out- standing room only. Bb wasn't too thrilled at the idea of standing on a bus for 6.5 hours, but Steve managed to cajole her into going for it, unfairly abusing the knowledge that she was dying to go to the beach.

After about three or four hours of bus riding, Steve was starting to second-guess his approach a little bit. It was a pretty lousy ride. We ended up sitting in the aisle for much of it, too pooped to care. Oh, and we spent about an hour stopped because of an accident. All in all, we rolled into Tamarindo at about 11 PM, hot, tired and very ready to go to sleep. After walking around for not very long we found a room for two that was only $15. We took it and the other four continued along to dinner and to find lodging elsewhere.

In the morning we slept in then headed off in search of an ATM as we were pretty tight on funds. Well, we found our ATM but also discovered that it didn't actually give money. Grrrr. Since we also had to leave our first digs (they had a reservation) we were a little bit less than happy- as of 9 AM we didn't have enough colones to pay for a hotel, didn't have a hotel, and didn't know where our friends had ended up. After poking around to find a new hotel that accepted credit cards (thank goodness we still had that) we ended up at Hotel Tropicana where the rooms were nice enough, they have a huge pool, and most importantly, they accept Visa. All that for only $30/night, what a deal. Amazing the difference between the $15 hovel and the $30 Tropicana: the former was very clean, but built haphazardly and painted two-dozen colors, had a common bathroom and kitchen area; the latter had a huge pool, manicured grounds, private bathroom, comfy bed, soap and towels- though the art on the walls looked like something you could pick up at the nickel bin at Goodwill, at least there was art on the walls. The former was clearly the product of one or two people building a surfer's crashpad, the latter was a million-plus corporate development. Yet the price difference was a mere $15. Crazy country, this.

Once installed in our room and after a nice long splash in the pool to clean off the dust and sweat (by noon the temps were climbing into the high-80's with high 90's humidity) our rumbling bellies finally pushed us to find a visa-friendly restaurant. Not too hard to find one in this tourist-haven, we certainly paid more than usual for a small plate of fish, rice, beans and salad, but after not eating for nearly 22 hours, we weren't too terribly worried about an extra buck or two. Finally fed and feeling much better we set out to the beach. On the way we ran into Vane and the Spaniards and were glad to hear that they were well situated. Steve was feeling a little chagrin at admitting that we were spending more than they on lodging (since we had all expressed desire to travel on the cheap), but truth be told it was only 50% more and we had a pool and some much-needed privacy. It is notable also that the place they were staying was the one place in town that from the street we both looked at each other and said "nope, that's not what we want."

In the afternoon, when we got hungry again we found a supermarket that took credit and bought a bunch of food. We went a little crazy, actually- don't ever shop when you haven't eaten for a day or so, it really skews your judgment (of course we can eat that much bread in three days…). We also found out that there is a Banco Costa Rica with a functioning ATM about a half-hour cab ride away in the town of Flamingo.

The next two days merged into a pleasantly lazy beach-swim-eat-go-out-for-one-meal-per-day-think-about-going-to-Flamingo-to-get-cash-from-the-bank experience. Some highlights were discovering that the hotel had free coffee in the morning (huge bonus!!), the unbearable heat of late afternoon is usually broken up for a few hours of crazy tropical showers (drops the size of small pets), that Tamarindo has some of the best sunsets we've seen, and meeting up with a gringo named John at the bookstore. After a brief chat we found out that John is living in Flamingo and was happy to give us a ride up there. Yippee!

On the drive up we discovered that John is a really cool guy. So our ride to Flamingo turned into a tour of Flamingo, a quick trip to Playa Conchal, and a drive up to a friend's hotel for a drink and hello. Since it had gotten dark, John refused to let us hitch back to Tamarindo as planned, and drove all the way back to drop us off. Of course, that lead to dinner, then the three of us ended up swimming in the waves until about 2 AM, then the pool till about 3, then we offered John the extra bed in our room. Fun night- felt like we had all known each other for years.

Morning came hot and humid- perfect weather for changing the flat tire that his car had picked up. Of course, the car is a huge beast of thing, 70's era faux-wood panel station wagon and the jack that came with it is a little 1-ton scissor jack. Ugly. Just plain ugly. At least the spare held air. After an hour of sweating and cursing (and having to jack the car up no less than six times) we finally sent John on his way with promises of somehow hooking up again later- despite neither of us having a phone and that we were planning on moving to a different hotel.

Atenas-San Jose bus	Nameless hotel where we first slept in Tamarindo	Hotel Tropicana, loved the pool!	Out with the old, in with the new.

On Tuesday we moved into a slightly cheaper ($20) hotel called Villas Amarillas. Mostly we just wanted to save some money, but VA had the advantage of also having a kitchen we could use, a great balcony to sit on, and was right on the beach instead of having to walk a block and a half. There were also more people there and we were just plain interested in trying another hotel. It turned out to be a great choice as the room was big, the other guests were friendly, and we had a great time. There was even a howler monkey named Jimmy that came to visit most afternoons for a bit of banana and a scratch.

We stayed there until Thursday, mixing in beach time, balcony time and walking around town trying to get to know the locals a little and learn about potential work opportunities at local B&B's. Didn't find anything yet, but a few people seemed interested in contacting us in the future and we learned a bit about the general area in terms of what people think will be the next area to burst into full tourist flower.

We also looked at a few cars for sale. We are still debating between selling Sandy and buying a cruiser here or paying to import Sandy. In the mean time, we are now thinking we'll just buy a little suzuki or something to get us around in the next six weeks. Even if we lose a few hundred bucks in buying and selling the suzuki, it'll cost us less than renting a car for two weeks. The perceived need to buy a car and a free ride from some other hotel guests finally convinced us to bail on Tamarindo (for now) and head back to Atenas. Fortunately, right before we left we ran into John again and made plans to meet up later either in Flamingo or San Jose. Looking forward to it.

24 August, 2002

In memory of Edna Broyles-Gularte June 24, 1909 to August 18, 2002.

Steve's grandmother passed quietly on Sunday morning. We were having fun in Tamarindo, and suspect that she would not have had it otherwise. We'll miss her terribly, but are glad for her that she is no longer suffering. More than any relative, she was probably the one whose nature-conservation influenced Steve. He can't remember a conversation with her in which she wasn't complaining about the evils of suburban encroachment on the golden hills of California that she loved so much. The last time we talked with her she told us a great story about Steve's dad as a child, and about how much fun she had in Alaska with her husband, and how much she wished she could head down to Costa Rica with us to see how beautiful it is firsthand. We wish she could have come down too, she would like it here. Bye Grandma. Sleep well, you've earned it.

25-26 August, 2002

Instead of going to the beach with Vanessa and the Spaniards on Friday, we set out looking to purchase a Suzuki Samurai- we figured it would be easy to fix, good on gas, cheap to buy, and would get us where we needed to go. We had seen one in Tamarindo and it looked acceptable. The guy was asking a million colones (about $2,800) and we reluctantly decided that it would be our new vehicle. He lives in San Jose and goes to Tamarindo once a week, so he said he could swing through Atenas on his way home from Tamarindo on Monday morning. Monday morning came and went and he was no closer to Atenas. After a dozen phone calls we were very frustrated. FINALLY we decided that we would just rent a car here in San Jose and drive ourselves out to Tamarindo to buy his car as we were sick of waiting around for him to show up here. So by Monday at about 5 PM we finally had wheels of our own and were ready to head out to Tamarindo on Tuesday.

On the way home from the car rental place we decided to stop off at some of the local car dealerships which are clustered about the airport as we had seen some samurais there. We imagined the prices would be higher but at least it would give us a good reference point.

We got to one dealer as they were putting their cars away for the night and Bb excitedly grabbed Steve's arm and said, "Do you see what I see?"

There in the back, in the shadows, was a yellow Landcruiser FJ40, just patiently waiting for someone like to Bb to come along. Steve casually asked the salesman, "how much for that Landcruiser back there" and to Bb's great delight he said "un million, cien mil" (c1,100,000 = $3,000) - almost exactly what we were willing to pay for a suzuki. Steve and the samurais never stood a chance. Bb would have whipped out the credit card right there and bought it- if the dealership accepted credit cards and if we could have test-driven it. But it was dark and drizzling and they didn't accept credit cards, so she merely crawled all over it not quite hiding her enthusiasm.

In the rental car on the way home Steve tried a few last feeble attempts at diverting Bb: "But the sammy gets better mileage." "But the sammy is 15 years newer." "But the sammy will be a better rental vehicle someday." "But it isn't even diesel!"… all to absolutely deaf ears. Bb has wanted an FJ40 since before we left San Diego. There was to be no denying her.

27 August, 2002

We headed down to the dealership at 7:30 AM. We had a clear plan- check out the 40 in the daylight, test drive it to make sure everything works ok, then head to the bank to grab the money and back to the dealer to close the sale. What could be simpler? An unexpected bonus: as it had rained (hard) the night before, the lot's parking lot turned out to be a good mud-pit for testing the four-wheel drive.

At 3:30 PM, while sitting at the bank waiting for some chuckle-head to approve our $3,000 money request. ("But this is a very large amount to be requesting a cash-advance!") We were finally at the point where we could laugh at ourselves for having assumed that the process could possibly be simple. The preceding hour or so was not nearly so pretty. It is amazing through how many hoops we jumped just to get pull a few thousand bucks out of our US bank account via our debit card. The whole process was, of course, greatly complicated by the facts that A) none of the bank tellers had phones with which they could simply call VISA to confirm that the withdrawal was approved, and B) most of the times that we tried to call our bank via the "call us collect" number on the back of the card- the international operator would say "sorry, that number doesn't accept collect calls". Not all of the times, just most of the times. We are fairly confident that the number itself didn't change much one way or the other and have no idea why the operators were under the impression that it doesn't accept collect calls as when the calls were put through it always came up with a clear recording (in English, granted, but these are international operators) saying "if this is a collect call, we accept the charges".

Oh... the frustration was palpable. We pity the poor old lady who had the nerve to give Bb a dirty look when we took too long on the payphone, Bb's scorching return glare could well have melted glass. It is critical to remember that in between each phone call to the US bank (there were several, each time the bank assured us "your funds are available, there is no hold on them, we have marked the account with an approval for any transaction from Costa Rica up to $3,000") we had to go back into the Banco de Costa Rica, wait in line for 45 minutes to get to the teller, then try again. The blank, uncaring look on the face of the teller when he told us (for the third time) that there was "some error" was enough to set our stomachs churning and our blood boiling.

We stopped for lunch.

After lunch, and yet another call to the US (only took eight tries to connect this time) we went to a different bank, stood in a different line for 45 minutes and were told "sure, you can get cash from Visa here, you just have to go to that room back there, take a number, and wait in that line". AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHH!!!!! We thought. Or screamed. Can't really remember if we screamed it… but since nobody in the bank freaked out we must have just thought it.

Change scenes to "the room" where there is a TV blaring some children's cartoon, a group of mercifully comfortable chairs, way too much air conditioning and a little take-a-number deal like at the butcher's counter. With shaking hands we took our number and looked up at the little red numbers on the wall. 58 is said. We were 60. Steve jokingly said to Bb "hey! only 2 people ahead of us, this shouldn't take more than half an hour." He was kidding. Making light. Intentionally exaggerating for comical effect. It took 34 minutes.

But once we finally got to see the muchacha at the desk she was fairly efficient and called someone who told her to get every possible personal datum from us except for perhaps our shoe size (Steve was ready and willing to provide that if it would get us our darn money) then she called Mr. Big back and said to Steve "ok, should only be a little while now". Not sure what Mr. Big did, but about 10 minutes later Steve got on the phone with him and he connected Steve to someone at Visa who asked a few questions and then gave approval, presumably to Mr. Big who then asked to talk to the muchacha at the desk and presumably gave her approval as she then told Steve that it would take "just a minute" and left.

Not too much later (less than 10 minutes) she came back with the money. Yay!!! The whole affair took less than three hours. If you think reading this account has been exhausting- just think of how much fun we had.

Completely beaten, we returned to the car guy and halfheartedly bargained him down a few hundred bucks based on the fact that the tires were absolutely useless, paid him, and we were on our way! Yippee! We have a car. No, scratch that, a CRUISER!

First stop was new tires (which was an entirely not-painless procedure). We wanted aggressive AT tires, they only had one (a fact discovered after they had already removed our dead tires from the rims) so the salesman there gave us a big discount on 31x10.50 MT tires (by Hancook) - mounted and balanced, with tax it came out to about $108/tire. By 6:15 we were on our way home, happy.

28-30 August, 2002

After spending the entire day buying a car, it was great to have Vane's house to ourselves -- she stays in San Jose on Tuesdays due to a late yoga class. Wednesday morning saw us lazily getting ready to drive westward and after a mid-morning start, we arrived in Liberia in time to do some quick internet and get a locksmith to check out our driver's side and rear doors. He fixed both for us, to point of working fairly well, to the tune of about six bucks! At Bb's urging, we hurried out of town to make it to Tamarindo by sunset, which we almost did. After a short cruise around Tamarindo, first checking out our fave little hotel, Villas Amarillas and finding it full, and then looking for Cocktoaston (John's nickname is a long story, but for you Fletch fans out there suffice it to say we couldn't remember his last name and took to calling him Cocktoaston) we headed back towards Flamingo to track him down -- we were bored! He wasn't home when we pulled up, but the nice caretaker sent us on down the road to Protrero to find him. We pretty much had to run him down in the street -- of course he wasn't exactly looking for us in a cuiser! Turns out most of the students (that's only about eight!) from his language school were coming over for dinner, so we joined up with them. And boy, Cocktoaston can cook! He made us an excellent Asian-fusion fish dinner, followed up by french toast in the morning. Lucky us!

The next day found us swimming in the ocean at about 8:15am, then into the pool for a bit, then mostly just lounging around until John had to go to class. We drove him there so Beebee could check out the possibility of attending 20 or so hours per week at the language school there in Flamingo. The idea sounds great to her, but the committment . . . doesn't. So she's still sitting on the idea. Watching John pine for the waves as he sat and did his homework didn't help any!

After dropping John off, we took the cruiser to a local gas station and had the dude change all the fluids, which took about two hours. Ugh. Then off we went to a mechanic to find out why the water pump was leaking. Turns out it's the original pump, so needless to say, we need a new one. So get this: the mechanic could rebuild our old one for about 60 bucks, or we could wait a day and get a new one, installed for about 75. So our new pump goes in tomorrow morning as it is currently on the bus from San Jose.

Around the time we were done with that it was time to pick John up from school. The boys went on to go food shopping while Bb stayed home and took a nap. It was a pretty quiet evening. We had Bb's Killer Shrimp, talked for a while, showed John the website -- boy it was fun for us to look back at some of the old pics and John seemed to enjoy the show.

Today's been rainy and humid and pretty boring. We got some work done on the truck -- Steve installed a much-needed oscillating fan and Bb started to wire up the light for the shifter knob (oh yeah, you betcha it lights up), but got stymied by rain, Steve and wiring woes. A job for another day. . .

31 August - 1 September, 2002

Turns out, we hung out at Cocktoaston's pad for the rest of the weekend! Saturday, Bb awoke not feeling great, so Steve took the cruiser to the mechanic to replace the water pump -- boy howdy, thanks Steve! -- when Bb finally got up and moving, she and Cocktoaston headed out to gather Steve up and cruise some beaches outside of Tamarindo. Of course Steve wasn't finished at the mechanic's, so Cocktoaston and Bb took off, planning to meet up with Steve later at Playa Grande. Unfortunately, the waves were less then stellar (never seen Cocktoaston look so sad) so Cocktoaston and Bb cruised around looking at lots and properties and just killing time 'till we ran into Steve. Not much was going on down Playa Grande way so we all headed back to Flamingo to the party house.

"The Party House?," you say? "What's that?" Guess we haven't described the place where we are staying with Cocktoaston! And boy, pictures are worth a thousand words and all that, but good lord, let's describe the heck out of this place anyway!

Bb gets the feeling that when the owner is in town (he's reputed to be Swiss and loaded) the place is full of gorgeous women, lots of drugs and a bunch of people who don't know each other well, but are scantily clad and would like to know each other better. The downstairs house-ish room is overwhelmed by 6-foot, wall/ceiling-mounted speakers, hooked up to an elaborate stereo system, replete with little Mayan fertility statues and flanked by overtly sexual 10-foot art. This room is home to not less than four automatically controlled roll-up doors which open onto a deck that sits on top of the sand and enjoys the sound of the waves crashing about 50 feet away. The deck wraps around to a huge teak table, glass-block encased pool with fountain and now defunct slide (and of course more Mayan fertility gods that at one point spouted water…) and a grassy area with lounge chairs. Behind all this is the dungeon -- Cocktoaston sleeps there next to the commercial kitchen which is covered in dust and has never been used. There are three other bedrooms with different crazy-painted themes and then there's the Spa Suite. Steve and Bb slept there, of course! It's actually the prettiest room in the house with lots of light and a door that opens onto a concrete patio with a great view. And oh, yes, lets not forget the cane-covered, thatch-roofed lover's room (on top of the Spa Suite) with only a bed, a mosquito net, a candle and best ocean view in the house.

Outside the Spa Room	The Spa Room	View from the deck	cruisin the beach south of Flamingo
Cookin'	Dinner and wine	$4 worth of Red Snapper!	Playing cards

Other than sit around the house, swim in the ocean or pool a few times per day, make food or work on our new cruiser, we also took a few trips around the area to look at potential properties (there are some beautiful ones) or just to get to know the place. There was one hilltop spot that Steve particularly likes, but the huge condo development going in next door is a bit of a bummer.

Playa Langosta, just south of Tamarindo	Great Mexican food in Tamarindo	Drivin' around on a rainy day