Gracias Por Todo, Costa Rica…

Well, I’m sitting on the airplane going home. The year long Costa Rican adventure is over. Where on earth did the time go?

With all of the preparations for leaving, and the preparations for life back in Canada lately, I’m afraid we’ve had precious little time to savour our last few weeks, or to reflect much on the past year. That being said, I know there are plenty of things I will miss dearly, and plenty of experiences I will remember forever.

With not working for a year, nor having much stress other than trying to help the kids with their homework which was all in Spanish, I’d like to think that I have gained some valuable insight into what makes me truly happy in life. Being inviting into the home of some Costa Rican’s to help in the making of the traditional Christmas Tamales gave me so much more of a charge than any flat-screen TV or granite counter top could ever hope to do. Why are we all so pre-occupied with that crap? However, lets talk after I’ve been on the old hamster wheel for six months or so. (Full disclosure: the house we are moving into is having the granite counter top installed as we speak… Please forgive me Costa Rica!)

Some other random, personal highlights:

• The bio-diversity - plant, animal and insect was a daily pleasure. Seeing monkeys, Toucans, Scarlet Macaws, hummingbirds, tarantulas, scorpions, snakes and lizards etc. (in the wild, not in a zoo) is something I’ll always remember.
• The private tour of an old fashioned, but still working sugar-cane processing “Trapiche” was awesome.
• Fun Fridays at the Gonzo’s.
• The school field trip with a bus load of grade one kids to the Monteverde cloud forest and having to have a tractor pull the bus up a muddy hill after several attempts to drive it.
• Teaching my kids how to ride a boogie board.
• The view from John and Patsy’s veranda.
• The zip-line canopy tour.
• Chicken on a stick.
• The “Bocas” menu at Guanacastes.
• The local coffee.
• The local beer.
• The price of the local beer.
• My favourite restaurant, “La Casita del Cafe”, and it’s view all the way to the ocean.
• The papusa stand at the Friday morning farmers market.
• Eating stuff like juicy mangos that grew just outside our door.
• Eating stuff that I’ve never heard of before (and don’t have any hope of spelling correctly), like jocotes, pejibayes, mamonchinos, flor de itabo etc.
• Flor de Cana, the Nicaraguan rum.
• And of course the many, many friends we made in Atenas. The Gonzos; the Zack-Asselains; Gary & Josanne and Gretel and Roberto at Poco Cielo; Jay and Melissa; Leticia; our gym buddy, Bruce (good luck with house!); Eduardo & Elena and family (Eduardo, tu estas el mejor guia del mundo!); Our Spanish tutors, miss Daisy and Luzmilda; Penny & Marshal and the kids, (good luck with the new restaurant!); the Maynards; the Hickoxs; Dana & Travis and kids; Tina at Su Espacio (and Sami & Matthew); Rob & Jenn and the kids; Pedro & Maria; etc. etc. etc.

There is oh so much more, but for now I’ll just say adios, Costa Rica, I will definitely miss thee.

Also, as I’m sure no one will be in the least bit interested in blog posts such as “It’s Monday – Remember to take the garbage out” and other such monotony, I guess that spells the end of this blog. To those of you who checked in from time to time, thanks for sharing our experiences. Doing the blog was fun, I hope you enjoyed it.

Adios…

Dengue Fever in Atenas

The rainy season seems to have brought a very unwanted visitor to our little town of Atenas. There is apparently a fairly serious outbreak of Dengue Fever here. This a tropical mosquito-borne disease (like malaria) and can be life-threatening. The symptoms include sudden onset fever and severe muscle and joint pain that gives it the nickname “break-bone fever”, or “bone-crusher disease”… Yikes!

So, when Nathan started getting sick and vomiting the other day, we were quite concerned. I took him to the clinic where there was a large line-up. We were really fortunate to meet up with Gretel who helped us through everything. She is a nurse at the clinic, but she also does extra work at our little resort of Poco Cielo, so we know her quite well.

She asked if I had his school health insurance number (no, I didn’t). No problem, she went behind the desk and found it herself. Then she took us directly back to see the doctor, bypassing all the people in line. The doctor prescribed a shot to help Nathan’s vomiting (which Gretel gave him immediately after the consult), and a blood test to see if he had Dengue. So, amazingly, Gretel walked us down to the lab, allowed us to jump to the head of THAT line as well. Then she tells us that we don’t have to wait for the results, that she will watch out for them and phone me later. Ha! This is like the best visit to a clinic I’ve ever had. (Then again I wasn’t the sick one. Sorry Nathan)

A couple of hours later she phones us and gives us the great news that Nathan does NOT have Dengue, but a stomach parasite, and a simple round of antibiotics should clear it up in no time. She says she has the antibiotics there at the clinic and I can come pick them up. (This just gets better all the time!) When I showed up at the clinic I find her quickly, she gives me the drugs and I ask her how much will it cost for the doctor’s visit, the lab tests and the drugs. The answer? Nothing. Not a penny. I can’t remember how much it cost for a year of mandatory school insurance, but I think it was around $80 - $100 Canadian for both kids!

We had heard that there were more than 300 cases of Dengue in Atenas, and more coming everyday. Just today the kids’ school sent a note home announcing an “emergency meeting” at the municipal building to discuss this “grave situation”.

We only know of a couple of people who have been diagnosed with it, and one is the kids’ Spanish tutor, Miss Daisy. She told me that her symptoms were very minor and was only sick for a couple of days. She is back with us tonight helping the kids prepare for their last exams here in Costa Rica next week.

So, hopefully we will be OK for the last 4 weeks or so. You can rest assured we will putting on the bug spray as we figure DEET is the lesser of the two evils.

Earthquake!

There are supposedly hundreds of earthquakes a year in Costa Rica, most of them minor. Costa Rica is a hot spot due to the plate tectonics in this part of the world. As an aside, Rachel’s Grade 4 Social Studies class has been working quite a lot on the seismic origins of Costa Rica, and she had to memorize the names of the various volcanic ranges, the epochs when they first appeared, and the names of the various plates, etc. (All in Spanish, of course.) I was quite happy to help her with this homework because I found it quite interesting as well.

Anyway, several “larger” sized earthquakes have occurred while we have been here, but I hadn’t felt any of them. We would run into people in the shops or at school and they would say “Did you feel that one last night?”, and I would always have to say “no.” That is, until 2 nights ago.

Rachel and I were in our cabin and had just laid down, I was reading and she was playing her DS game. All of a sudden, she bolts up and says “What was that!!!”. By coincidence, the fridge had just started going and I thought that was what she was referring to. I started to say, “It’s just the fridge…” when I started to feel my bed move. It was as if somebody was under it and was shaking the leg trying to scare me.

It was the first time in my life I had actually felt the physical effects of an earthquake and it was really quite cool - exciting and unsettling at the same time. Instead of doing everything I’ve heard you’re supposed to do when an earthquake hits, I basically just laid in bed and rode it out. There was never a thought of getting out of the house, or down on the ground or anything like that. I would like to believe that the people who live here are better prepared than we are, and it made me think (for the millionth time) that as a parent, I am woefully unprepared for things I should be more aware of.

The paper the next day said the earthquake occurred just offshore of the town of Quepos which is on the pacific coast, just south of Jaco, maybe an hour’s drive away from us. Of the 2 monitoring organizations here, one reported the magnitude at 5.0, while the other reported 6.2 on the Richter scale. (Why the large difference, I’ll never know… Welcome to Costa Rica). There were no reports at all of any property damage or injuries, so I guess this, too, was a minor incident.

So, once all is said and done, the only lasting effect I’ll have of this episode is some lingering parental guilt for not having better prepared my kids for “the big one” (but I’ll get right on that, I promise…).

Parque De Diversiones

This week was report card time for the kids (the first of 3 for the year. Remember that the Costa Rican school year goes from February to November). We were very happy with their marks, especially considering that all of the instruction is in Spanish. It’s not a Spanish immersion school, it’s just school, and I’m amazed at how well the kids have adapted to it all.

For example, like many kids their age, once they get home from school they jump on the computer in order to chat with the kids at school they just left (go figure). However, they do it in Spanish with their Spanish friends, and that includes the Spanish equivalents of abbreviations like OMG and LOL. (For example, I have learned from them that “XQ” means “porque”, or why? Also, BNO is the abreviation for “bueno”, or “good”)

Anyway, because they did well at school, we decided to treat them with a trip into San Jose to the amusement park called “Parque De Diversiones”. We picked them and their friend Gabbi up at noon (every Friday they’re done at noon,) and off we went.

Unbeknownst to us, there was a special on as well, with 2 for 1 Fridays, so the cost was only 3100 colones each, or just over $6 Canadian per kid for an all-you-can-ride pass. Great value.

It’s a pretty good amusement park, especially for that price. I would rank it higher than Calaway Park (back in Calgary), but a couple of notches lower than the Six Flags we went to in Cincinnati when we visited the cousins.

There is one adult-sized roller coaster (looked like fun,) but unfortunately it, and a couple of other rides, were down for maintenance.  (Welcome to Costa Rica). There was a good Kiddie Land, with a mini Drop Tower that the kids liked, a small roller coaster, and of course the Crazy Teacups ride that the kids insisted on going on twice in a row, and Nathan came off looking green.

They also have a “Pueblo Antiguo”, or “Old Town”, and at the back of that there are 2 good water rides where you sit in rafts and go down a big waterslide. (Glad we skipped the one as people looked like they were getting pretty soaked at the end.)

The two girls really like the “El Disco”, which was a big disk that went on a big pendulum and spun around. They went on that a few times, but Nathan was too small to get on. He liked the “Octopus” best, which was one of those classic rides that looks like an Octopus with a couple of cars at the end of each arm. (More Spinning…)

There were of course the classic bumper cars and a few rides we never got to, but all in all it was a good day, and the kids had a great time.

Pics:

Full Circle

Well, we are back where we started. We have moved out of our little house that served us so well in Barrio Mercedes and moved back in to Poco Cielo (the little resort whose name means “A little piece of heaven”). The owners, who are from Calgary, are back in Canada for 6 weeks, so we are watching the place for them. It’s awesome, and we love the place. Now that I am officially out of a job, I am wondering how to work “Innkeeper” into my resume and make it work for me.

It’s so hard to believe that we have been here for 9 months already, and that we have to return to life in Canada in only two short months. I need to look for a job, and be a responsible adult again. Sigh.

Coming to live in a completely different culture has been such a great experience for my family and I that it’s difficult to put into words what it has meant to us so far. Has it changed us in any profound ways? Do we look at people or things any differently than we used to? I guess I don’t really have the answers to those questions yet, and I think it will take me a long time to put all this in proper perspective.

I can say this. Taking a year off from the Rat-Race in order to look for a new perspective and enjoy a different lifestyle/culture has been immensely rewarding for me, and I recommend it to everyone.

For example, we moved to a small town in Costa Rica that simply does not have any traffic issues. I have not been stuck in big-city traffic for 9 months (except for our trips into San Jose.) There are rarely any line ups either (with the notable exception of the bank – but I welcome those line ups because the bank is air-conditioned and they always have the Discovery channel showing some cool show.) When I had to return to Canada for my Mom’s funeral, I was rushing around like crazy trying to deal with all the arrangements and I was thrust right back into traffic jams, line-ups, voicemail, etc. I was quite surprised at how stressed I got in such a short amount of time. Simply being away from all of that has just got to be good for your soul.

Another example that’s been positive for me is that the level of commercialism here is much lower than in North America. Take the holidays for example - in North America Halloween, Easter, Valentines Day, etc. are advertised to the hilt for weeks before, and there is pressure to buy, buy, buy - food, presents, costumes etc. Here, there is no such thing as Halloween, Valentines Day is almost non-existent and Easter is simply a religious holiday with virtually no commercial aspect to it at all. Holidays and celebrations here focus on gathering with family and friends to enjoy food and each other’s company – just the way it should be.

Yet another area that I think helped to reduce stress in our lives was a little surprising to me. We were completely without television for the first 6 months we were here, and even when we did get it, we couldn’t watch the news because we couldn’t understand it. So, NOT watching the news meant we were not constantly bombarded with negative stuff. Hmmmm. For example, I was vaguely aware of the H1N1 story in Canada from the internet, but here I heard absolutely zero. So, while Canada was stressing out for weeks over what seemed to be arguably a non-event, I hardly gave it a second thought. I think I win. Now I’m definitely not saying that we should avoid all bad news in our lives, I’m just suggesting that I think the news channels need and use drama to “sell” their wares. How much of it is puffed up a little?

I guess the whole point is that we have been able to live our lives with a whole lot LESS stress than we were used to in Canada, and it has been great. I can’t imagine how anybody would not benefit by living (if only temporarily) a more stress-free life, and that’s why I recommend it. Figure out what your Costa Rica is, and do it! And do it sooner rather than later. How many of us know young, healthy, hard working, responsible people who have come down with cancer or some other illness that would prevent them from ever doing something like this. Or, how many people do you know of who denied themselves a lot of life’s little pleasures so they could save up for retirement, only to to get sick or frail, or even die just after retirement age hits.

Of course I know that we were very fortunate that if was feasible for us to do this at this point and time, but I think many people might be surprised what THEY could do if they really put their mind to it. But it also comes down to priorities and how tolerant people are of breaking out of their regular life routine, so it’s obviously not for everyone. I can only say that if you’ve ever considered changing it up a little or going on a little adventure, then don’t put it off - there’s no time like the present!

Our First Mango!

Mango season is once again upon us and we have been very excited to see that several of the trees on our property are producing vast numbers of mangos. And as we walk down our little country road, we are amazed to see mango trees everywhere just covered in the fruit.

Just the other day, our gardener pointed out that there were a couple on our one tree that were ready to be picked. Of course we don’t have a long extension ladder or one of the fancy mango-picking devices that the locals use, so we improvised and used Nathan instead.

We couldn’t wait to try our first home-grown mango and we certainly weren’t disappointed. It was so fresh and sweet! When we first came here, neither Wayne nor I were big mango fans but now, we can’t get enough of them. We are definitely going to miss them when we return to Calgary.

 

You can see the difference in colour between the ripe and non-ripe mangos

 

Success!

The Show Must Go On…

The title this time has 2 meanings. First, it’s been a long time since we have blogged, and that is because we had to go back to Canada due to the unexpected passing of my mother. I’m still struggling with that, but I’ve decided that the blog is not really the place to go into it. I miss her every day, but she would be the first one to tell me to go on with my life.

And life does go on. The title’s second meaning refers to Rachel’s dance class. They have been practicing a routine for weeks now, getting ready for their first public performance at the “Expo Feria Del Clima”, or the “Climate Fair” being held in the central park here in Atenas. Well, unfortunately, we had 2 days of early, hard rain here, and the girls learned that “The show must go on” anyway. They did their routine in a cool, light rain, with mostly just parents watching them. They all did a great job, danced with a smile on, and looked great in their custom made “Wonder Woman” costumes. These were made by Silvia, a local Tica who also has a younger girl in one of the dance classes, and she whipped these costumes out in a short time and only charged us $20 apiece for them. Thanks Silvia!

As with a lot of things here in Costa Rica, the Climate Fair sort of just appeared, and we didn’t have much notice for it, nor did we really know what to expect from it. However, we were pleasantly surprised.

Sunday was another typically sunny day, and it started with a parade of the famous “Boyero” carts. These beautiful, hand painted, ox-driven carts represent the traditional method of transportation here before modernization. Our little town of Atenas is on the old road from San Jose to Punterenas, which coffee producers used to use to transport big sacks of coffee from the interior to the boats in Punterenas. It was a gruelling trip taking many days, and they would have to make the trip many times per year.

We also heard of an interesting twist on being “on the wagon”, as we know it in Canada. The saying in Costa Rica is “Montese en la Carreta” which means get on the wagon, however, it refers back to when the ox-cart drivers would stop in a little town along the way (such as Atenas), and get so drunk that they couldn’t walk, so they would have to “get on the wagon” so they could continue. So, if you are “on the wagon” here, it means you are definitely NOT on the wagon.

And for some reason this fair seemed to be larger in scale, and better attended than others we’ve seen. There were a lot of arts & crafts vendors, some artists (Rachel and Gabbi got a caricature done, for example) and some tour companies. There were plenty of exhibitions, such as our girls dance routine, clowns, the local high school cheerleader squad, etc. And, of course, plenty of awesome food stands. There was our staple favourite, chicken/pork-on-a-stick, plus we had some amazing “burritos gordos”, done by Tomas, the local baker who sets up at the farmers market each week, ice cream stands, granizados, etc. etc.

We enjoyed it a lot. Don’t forget that you can click to enlarge the pics below:

Here’s Linda Carter, early in her career.

The rain-dancers

 

Un Boyero Grande

Un Boyero pequeno

Granizados (Costa Rican sno-cones)

You wouldn’t believe how good this smelled!

Rachel shopping

Rachel & Gabbi’s caricature

Here’s Nathan working out with the high school cheer squad.

We’ve been Adopted!

We have heard from many people that here in Costa Rica it’s more likely that an animal will adopt you rather than the other way around. Our neighbours, for example, had a dog come with their house when they bought it. Other friends of ours had a dog come along with the house they rented.

We, however, have only had the occasional stray wander in for a bit and wander off again. That is until last night.

I heard a little moaning outside the window and when I went to investigate I saw this cute (and obviously very hungry) little puppy.

Where it came from I’ll never know, but it doesn’t seem to have any intention of leaving.

Now because we are due to return to Canada in 4 months or so, we simply cannot keep the puppy for that time only to abandon it when we leave. So what are we to do? There is an animal rescue society here in Atenas that we are going to talk to, and if they cannot help, there is a shelter in Heredia we have heard of, so we will have to take her there. However, unlike back home, they charge you to bring in a stray – approximately $60. What the eventual fate of her will be, we just don’t know.

In the mean time, we will feed and water her and hope for the best. Stay tuned!

Manuel Antonio National Park

One of the last adventures we went on with the in-laws while the kids were still out on the Costa Rican version of summer holidays (Nov 28 to Feb 7th) was to Manuel Antonio National Park. After Arenal Volcano, this is probably Costa Rica’s next biggest tourist attraction, and for good reason. It’s both a land and marine protected area harbouring a large variety of plant and animal life.

Out of all the places we’ve been to in Costa Rica (including Arenal), this one struck us as the most “touristy”. Still, it’s a far cry from Cancun, say. And really beautiful.

However, touristy places usually have some interesting restaurants, and this was no exception. Two of the most interesting ones we’ve been to were here. El Avion is a must see for anybody going to Manuel Antonio. Click the link above to get the whole story, but basically they took an old cargo plane used in the Iran-Contra / Sandinista scandals of the 80’s and made it into a restaurant. Really cool, and the food was excellent.

The next night we went to “Ronny’s Place” which is situated on a hill top where you can see the sun set on the Pacific Ocean. We got there too late to see the sun go down, but did see a great lightning show way off shore that gave us just a hint of how cool the sunsets must be. Also, the food was excellent as well. I had a Mahi-Mahi dish that was my best meal in Costa Rica so far.

Here are some pics. (Click to enlarge):

The intrepid hiking party.

A Capuchin seen along the way.

Crappy quality picture, but that blob is a sloth… Honest!

La Playa I

La Playa II

La Playa III

The bar at El Avion.

The cargo door of the plane opens out into the main part of the restaurant.

They had another small plane standing up on it’s tail that they had converted into a working dumbwaiter. How cool is that?

One of the last nights for the grandparents & grandkids to spend together. Both enjoyed it.

The girls.

One of the hazards / joys of mixing enormous bio-diversity and open-air restaurants.

The Caribbean Side…

I usually try to blog one of our adventures as soon as possible, but with the in-laws here and school starting up again, I’m way behind. Oh well.

On the last day of January the four of us and the in-laws headed off across the country to Caribbean side to check out that area. Probably the most challenging part was trying to navigate through the capital city of San Jose itself. Once that was done we went through Cartago (the old capital before it was moved to San Jose), past Volcan Turrialba and then out towards Limon.

Along the way we saw some of the huge banana plantations where they grow them for export. There was row after row of them and they seemed to go on for ever. Very cool.

Having heard that there really wasn’t much to stick around for in Limon, we zoomed straight through and turned south along the coast to Cahuita. The first night we stayed right at the entrance to the Cahuita National Park.

While our hike through the park was a definite highlight for me, we also discovered that it has an interesting history. The original town of Cahuita was actually situated inside the park as it stands today. They moved everybody out back in the 50’s and stopped all of the logging that had been going on there. Then, once the park boundaries had been set up, they started to reforest the area. What I was looking at was a second-growth forest only 50 to 60 years old. To see the tangled jungle and massive canopy in the area today really impressed me.

Megan and I got to go on a late day hike into the park without kids for a change (thanks grandma & grandpa!!!). We saw a lot of howler and white-faced capuchin monkeys quite close to the trail which is always great.

But my favourite part was when we came to a waterway that was spilling out of the dense jungle across the beach into the Caribbean Sea. We could walk upstream a bit and look into the thick Mangroves on each side, but I didn’t want to go very far. To see a huge croc or snake come shooting out of the underbrush would not have surprised me at all!!! It reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of the Amazon. It was really great.

The next couple of nights we moved over to Playa Negra just on the north end of Cahuita. A few weeks before there had been an unusually long rain which brought a lot of driftwood down the rivers which made its way onto the beach. It was too bad because the beach looked great (other than that). The good thing was we were at a great little resort (also called Playa Negra) with a pool and the most playful German Sheppard guard dog named Dolly. Both kept the kids occupied for hours.

Being on the Caribbean coast, this side of Costa Rica has a lot more of a Jamaican-like flavour to it - the residents are much darker-skinned than the rest of Costa Rica, and there is much more English being spoken. One night (again thanks to the in-laws), Megan and I got to go out to “Coco’s Bar”, where they had a  guy singing along to Reggae tunes in both English and Spanish. It was kind of fun to people watch the locals and tourists alike and just kick back and enjoy.

Another night we were eating at a good local restaurant when the waitress said that the kids might want to go and see the “perezoso”… Huh?, what’s that? So out we go and we realize that it means “sloth”. How cool is that. This is the first one we’ve seen so far.

From there it was down to almost the Panama border at Punta Uva for the last 2 nights. Here we had a great resort on Playa Chiquita right on the beach. Unfortunately, it was this beautiful location where Grandpa, Nathan and I all finally came down with the stomach bug that Megan had previously. I stayed in bed for 24 hours more or less and read a whole novel. Nathan was much quicker recovering. I did get out once for 20 minutes or so to take some pics of the kids at the beach, and we were all better after a short time.

Megan, Grandma and the kids did get the chance to go to a great little zoo / animal rescue center without me and I was jealous. They had a great time playing with the monkeys, holding baby sloths, etc. (See the pics below.)

We were all very happy that we got to see that side of the country.

 

Coco’s Bar in Cahuita

Stuff found in and around the park.

Jungle meets Ocean meets Megan.

Howler in the trees. No, those aren’t his eyes.

The sloth at the restaurant.

 

 

Some views from our spot at Punta Uva (Playa Chiquita)

 

The animal reserve…

This one screams for a punch line but I’m drawing a blank.