Northern Europe

Well, as it turns out, traveling with a husband is lovely, but it does allow for far less time sitting around in internet cafes while thinking deep thoughts. For that reason, I have many photographs which will need to serve as a photojournal of our recent trip through the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Luxembourg and Belgium. However, I had few opportune moments in which to put fingers to keyboard; in a written format, all I have to show for my time is the following collection of thoughts. My apologies and best wishes!

• Driving on the German autobahn is like having a long conversation with a number of pleasant (and some not-so-pleasant) partners, all of whom share a common language, the language of the road. If one wants to pass, one does not slow down, but drives rapidly up to the rear bumper of the preceding vehicle until said vehicle pulls into the slow lane. If the faster vehicle is polite, it will hover about 6 feet to the rear until allowed to pass; if not-so-polite, it will stay about 2 feet from the preceding vehicle and may also repeatedly flash its headlights. Alternately, if a car is driving in the fast lane and another vehicle approaches, it will pull over to the slow lane, rather than assuming that because it is driving so fast, it is impossible that another driver may feel comfortable moving at an even faster pace. At this point, if desirous of passing, the following vehicle will put pedal to the floor to pass as quickly as possible; however, if the following vehicle desires to drive at the same speed and prefers to follow rather than lead, it will pull into the slow lane behind the preceding vehicle. The whole thing is so elegant and good natured. It is rare that a driver will prevent another vehicle from passing, and usually is due to heavy congestion in the slow lane which would require too great a drop in speed. I loved it!
• German roads are by far the best. They are beautiful roads, smooth and freshly maintained. I did not hit one single pothole in Germany. The autohofs (gas station complexes by the side of the road) and rasthofs (rest stops) were also fantastic. However, this comes at a price. Germany must spend a huge portion of its GDP on road maintenance. Every 100 miles or so, traffic would slow first to 120 kph, then to 100, then to 80, and thence to 50 kph as we all crept past the maintenance crews. Once past, a profligate expenditure of petrol would bring us all back up to cruising speed, and a short period of confusion would ensue as we all sorted out which of us comparatively belonged in the fast vs. the slow lane.
• The Danes really do seem to be a bit on the dour side. After the Netherlands, which is full of smiley, happy people, and Germany which was a very comforting country, Denmark seemed unfriendly and pretty edgy. There was more ethnic diversity and greater extremes in style.
• Amsterdam seems to be experiencing a population explosion. Small blonde children were everywhere, sometimes three to a bike.
• Netherlanders seem to have family bikes the way that Americans have family cars. I had no idea that you could pack an entire family of five onto one bicycle!
• Germany reminded me of my grandparents' house. There were rag rugs, beer steins, wooden carvings, clocks with familiar tones to count the quarter hours, and pastoral paintings. Even the smell reminded me of childhood afternoons with my grandmother. It was lovely.
• Cow manure smells different in different countries. This was a truly disturbing discovery - not that the odor differs, but that I had grown sufficiently accustomed to the smell that I could detect subtle differences!
• German country villages are very religious. In one small town, Gutenland, the entire village assembled in front of a small kirk for the Saturday evening service. There are also very strange crosses everywhere, containing farm implements.
• Europe is very small. We accidentally drove through Austria on our way to dinner one night. I wanted Mexican food and GPS alerted us to a restaurant called Sausalito's in Garmisch 27 kilometers from our gasthaus in Hohenschwangau. those 27k ended up taking about an hour and a half to drive and we were fortunate to discover a good restaurant with great music and a super fun vibe at the end of the trip. Afterward, we discovered that although the restaurant was in Germany, our road through the Alps had gone primarily through Austria. The road was so beautiful that we went back the next day to take photographs.
• German food was the best in our trip! Especially for vegetarian choices. Every German restaurant had a minimum of 4 vegetarian entrees, usually in a section clearly labeled vegetarian. When ordered, these entrees came as a full meal. In the States, an entree is one dish. If you want a meal, you must order and pay for 3-4 different dishes. In Germany, an entree comes will a starch and a salad, and German salads are amazing! At first, they look uninviting, with a white sauce that I assumed to be mayonnaise-based. However, this sauce is actually made from yoghurt and is tangy and light. In Gutenland, my Kasespatzle (German mac 'n' cheese with homemade noodles) came with a salad buffet with 3 different types of coldslaws one of which tasted just like my grandma's.
  
• France has toll roads! This came as an unpleasant surprise while driving through Lorraine and Alsace.
• Luxembourg must have lower gasoline taxes. Petrol there was around 1.10/liter versus 1.36ish everywhere else. Other than some nice gorges, I'd say that's the only recommendation for the country.
• Do not attempt to find breakfast in France, Luxembourg or Belgium. It is impossible outside of a major hotel which caters to foreigners. Thick coffee and a sweet roll is the standard and not even in McDonald's will you find an egg dish. Really, I was desperate enough to eat an egg mcmuffin only to find that I had the choice of a croissant or a cup of coffee.
• The Global Positioning System is the best invention since the telephone. Amazing! I can't believe how easy it was to get around Europe using the GPS. I'd love to program in a different voice (maybe Sean Connery), but otherwise it was perfection. A GPS in combination with a functioning mind is an unbeatable combination. However, one of those items alone is not enough. Without a GPS, there is no way that I could have found some of the things that I did, notably, two hotels and a number of castles; without a functioning brain, I would have driven onto a closed section of freeway and a harbor. We were only lost a couple of times, and each time, only had to wait a minute while our unit was "recalculating".
• Wartburg castle in Eisenach, Germany is a must-visit. It's an UNESCO world heritage site as a perfect example of a Medieval castle, and we happened to visit right on the weekend of the Lutherfest which was pretty much a Rennaisance Faire. There were hordes of costumed people wandering the castle adding to the revelries.
• People from other countries have some very odd thoughts about Americans. In Gutenland, our host asked us what Americans typically had for breakfast and was crestfallen to be told that we usually have cereal or occasionally some eggs. He had been in Pittsburg with the German military for some sort of training exercise and had apparently been taken to McDonald's for breakfast. He came away with the impression that Americans typically eat hamburgers for breakfast.
• I now understand why Scandinavians are usually blond - it's because the sun is so darn strong! It isn't even necessary that the temperature be above 21 or 23; if the sky is clear, the sun is a burning oppressive force that lightened my hair a shade over the course of a week. Just think of what a whole summer of that sun could do.
• August really is rainy season in Germany. Almost every day, we had short burst of rainfall, some of which were very intense. We preferred driving in the rain to driving in sunlight. There was little danger of hydroplaning since it had rained so often that there was no oil on the roads, and the sun made the car unbearably hot. In fact, I now understand the concept of a burnoose as I had to fashion one out of Greg's t-shirt on a number of occasions.
• Having a lumbar pillow on long drives makes a world of difference. Why do car makers make seats concave rather than convex? The spine should be straight or slightly arched; sitting hunched over the way that seats are designed is a recipe for a sore back. I don't get it at all.
  
• Paying for a cabin on an overnight ferry is a very wise investment. Sure, there are plenty of seats that you could doze off in, but the cabins are wonderful and taking a shower in the morning makes the whole day brighter.
  
• You simply must try mustard butter! - butter mixed with whole mustard seeds. It is amazing! Only slightly less delicious is mustard cheese.
  
• Some famous expatriate (whose identity escapes me), when asked what he missed about his homeland, Germany, replied that he most missed the bread. I thought this answer was a little pathetic unless I ate German bread. Actually, all of the bread that we ate was wonderful! Here, we seem to add brown dye to white flour and call the result "whole wheat". In Europe, the rolls have flax, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds; have a mixture of grains; and are purchased fresh every day or two. They are amazing. In the Netherlands, we even bought a multigrain croissant! This is ordinary bread, to be found in any bakery, not a specialty item you need to go to Rainbow to find. Yum.
• The whole world needs to have a single currency. I know that it would eliminate some rich financial speculation markets and would strike at national identity but it really is great to be able to use the same currency in different places. On this trip, we had 3 currencies because neither Denmark nor Sweden have as yet switched over to the Euro, but we were able to use Euros in every other country. This made for less confusion, savings in currency conversion commissions and fewer coins left over at the end of the trip.
• The Alps are amazing. I've grown up with the Rocky Mountains and have traveled to some very mountainous areas, so I thought that I knew what to expect. Nope! The Alps are a whole 'nother class of mountain. They are just so big, so steep, so beautiful. They speak to me in a way that flat Holland never could. The Netherlands are lovely but the Alps are inspirational.
• I now understand why so many Dutch masters paint clouds. That's what the sky is really like! Because the land is so flat, the sky takes up most of one's vista and the sky is this pale eggshell blue that I haven't seen anywhere else. Scattered or spread about are huge puffy clouds of white and silver-gray. It is truly lovely. Even the thunderstorm our last night in Loosdrecht was lovely.
• Someday, Greg and I are going back to the Alpenrose hotel in Lermoos, Austria. It is amazing! It has a huge fantasy child's playground on the roof, including a pool, a bouncy castle and everything else a child could want. The restaurant was incredible. We just got a caprese salad, a mixed salad and a pasta with truffle sauce appetizer. This came with an amuse bouche and was incredible. I recently had a bad experience with pasta with truffles in NY and this dish reconfirmed my earlier assessment that Fig & Olive is overrated. This was amazing. Creamy and rich and complex and incredible.
• Bavaria is magical and the Romantic Road really is wonderfully romantic. There are castles and charming public squares everywhere you turn and the slower pace of life allows for real relaxation.
• I can not get used to the European habit of lingering for 1-3 hours over a meal. I like to eat, linger for max 5 minutes, then get the check and get out, preferably to go for a gentle stroll. Relaxing over a meal and then sitting at the table for another 1/2 hour is torture for me. That would be a huge cultural adjustment if I were to relocate.
• Neuschwanstein castle is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. So Ludwig the second bankrupted his entire family for 40 years to pay for it. As a result, he will be remembered long after his responsible uncle's name is lost to the wind. His insanity took a form that is beneficial to the entire world, or at least those fortunate enough to visit Schwangau or to go to Disneyland. (Neuschwanstein is the place that inspired Walt Disney's magic castle)
• There are an amazing variety of German sausages. Really. It almost made me want to eat meat, to try all the different types. No, not really.
• The Red Light District is pretty tame, really. It's full of tourists and has some pretty unattractive women sitting in the occasional red neon-lit window. It seems more a place to go to get some good ethnic food than a den of sin.
• Sweden is lovely but the people that we met seemed fairly resentful to be in the service industry. It was nothing compared to Russia, but one still got the impression that Southern Sweden could really do without the tourist industry, thank you very much. There was not an English menu to be found in the town of Trelleborg. Especially amusing was seeing the French family try to read the Swedish menu and then have a waiter act out the dishes in Frenglish.
• Cobblestones are wonderfully stimulating to walk on in the morning - they give great acupressure foot rubs. Then, after a day of walking around, they are torture in the afternoon.
  
• In Amsterdam, everyone rides single-speed bicycles. You would think that without any hills, one could cycle forever without getting tired. Let me tell you, after a day of riding around on a single speed with an unpadded seat, cycling can be pretty darn tiring.
• Note: if you find yourself awake and alert from jet lag at 5am, get up! it's a lot more fun to get an early start on the day than to lay in bed thinking unpleasant thoughts and dreading a day without sufficient sleep.
• Countries knows for their strong culinary traditions are the worst for vegetarians. I almost starved in Italy and I hate French restaurants. You're lucky to get one cheese-based dish or an offer of salad with meat in it while being charged the same price as those dishes which include foie gras or filet mignon. Also, no one understands that you don't want to drink wine. When you ask for water, you are immediately labeled cheap and unsophisticated. An allergy to sulfites is just no excuse!
• European hotels have a wonderful habit of offering his and her coverlets. Each double bed comes with two pillows and two blankets. These blankets are about 4 feet wide and are down with sheet-like covers. It completely eliminates the whole 'who's hogging the covers' controversy. I'm thinking about cutting our blankets in half and doing that at home!
• I can now definitely state that I am allergic to goose down. I suspected it in the past, but after sleeping in down every night for a week and dealing with stuffed up sinuses and full-body hives, I have a new level of certitude on the subject.
• Women in the Netherlands seem to wear no or very very little makeup. It's a very wholesome, natural look that I find very appealing. In Denmark, women are more stylish and seem to be wearing this odd asymmetrical blousy-style shirt that only flatters very thin women. In Germany, a popular look seems to be matching mother-daughter hair and makeup styles. Chunky hair streaks and salon sets are also popular. In France, everyone just looks groomed and put-together. It's very interesting to see so much variation in style in such a small geographical area.
  

Those seem to be my impressions of the trip. As you can see, they are mostly focused upon food, driving, the weather and castles. No real deep thoughts, just pleasure and every-day irritation. I really want to go back to Austria which was just beautiful and I'd love to see Northern Sweden and more of Germany. Luxembourg was a bit of a let-down - it's a modern, run-down city which looks pretty dirty after being in Germany. The food in France was so bad that it killed my joy in the beauties of Metz, and the same goes for the food in Belgium vs. the city of Liege. Lubeck was everything that I hoped it would be and I just love Amsterdam. It is one of the most home-like and relaxing large cities that I have ever seen.

I may add to these thoughts with a later post, but that's all for now, folks!

Surfing, baby!

After reading a number of blogs and travel reviews, I had reluctantly decided not to surf in Montezuma. After all, all of the cognizati agreed that Santa Teresa had much better surf and since we had decided to go to Montezuma instead of Santa Teresa, that meant no surfing, right? Wrong! Who cared if the surf was not as good, it was still surfing. Nicole and I booked a surf lesson through the guy at Luna Llena and arranged to be picked up at 7am by our instructor.

Come 7am, we were up and ready to go, excited to try riding the waves. Nicole had never surfed before and I had only tried once, when I was 15 years old, so we were both starting fresh. Our surf teacher met us at the hotel and then led us on a half an hour hike along the beach to a secluded bay that was completely deserted. There, he lives in a small enclave with other locals and rents out a couple of cabins to people interested in staying for a surf camp. We picked up our boards in his shed, covered ourselves in 50 spf sunscreen and headed out to the beach. There, we were met by Blue, another surf instructor, who would be my teacher for the morning. We were also joined by a couple who appeared to know our surf teachers. The woman wanted to brush up on her skills while her boyfriend surfed, so she joined our lesson.

I don't know how the average surf lesson starts, but for us, it started with surfboard shaped outlines in the sand. We three ladies were each assigned an outline and practiced paddling and then pushing up to our feet into the approved, wide legged, sideways stance with the weak foot forward. The initial movement from the prone position to the feet is just like a push-up and takes a lot of pectoral and abdominal strength - it's supposed to be one smooth movement: one second laying down on the board and the next, hanging ten.

After a short practice session, I strapped on my ankle cord and headed into the surf with Blue. He spoke good English and I pretended that my Spanish was worse than it actually is so that we could stick with English. I know, shame on me, but I had reached the point of needing a little break from speaking Spanish. Blue walked the board out to the proper spot, with me swimming along to the side, attached to the board. I was grateful not to have to paddle it out myself as that is one of the main things that I remembered from that long ago surf lesson, how hard it is to get a board past the breakers. We actually set up where any waves would already have broken before hitting me and then Blue told me to paddle and on 'go' to jump up to my feet.

Hmm. Surfing is harder than it looks. For my first five tries, I kept going to my knees instead of my feet. Yes, I knew that I was supposed to go to my feet; no, I couldn't seem to help getting to my knees first. Of course, that meant that I was unbalanced when I actually tried to stand from a kneeling position, and I had some interesting dismounts. One good thing, after the third wipeout, I lost a little of my fear of the board. One time, I just rode in on my knees to experience riding a wave. Blue was very patient and kept giving me good advice. When I responded that I really was trying to do those very things, he looked at me and said, "Try harder." :)

That actually seemed to do the trick. On my next try, I paddled paddled paddled, and then, on go, I jumped up to my feet! My position was bad and my balance precarious, but I was on my feet! About half a second later, that changed and I was breathing water, but now I had the motion and after a little trial and error with how far back I needed to be on the board, I actually rode a breaker all the way in. After that, Blue took me further out and had me surf some waves all the way in, from the swell. That was a little scarier. The board gets some speed when riding down a wave. I had one memorable wipout when I rolled myself in a ball under the water and tumbled with my hands over my head because I had no clue where the board was and preferred not to get bonked in the head.

I had one perfect ride, from sitting on the board, at peace and fully centered in the moment, to spotting a swell and asking Blue, "that one?" to riding it in all the way, perfectly balanced. It was amazing. I was so proud of myself and Blue had a huge smile, too. Of course, then he wanted me to repeat the ride and told me, one more wave, this is it, make it a good one, last wave, no pressure. Predictably, I wiped out. The other ladies were already on shore, and Blue said, OK, one more, the last one, this is it, just one more ride, make it a good one...and I wiped out again. Oh well, I would've liked to end the morning on a triumph, but I had that one perfect memory and was feeling euphoric from the sun and surf and great exercise.

We rinsed ourselves and our boards off in a hose, returned the boards and hiked back into town. Nicole and I both had a fabulous time and only regretted that we would not be able to surf without a wetsuit at home in San Francisco. I have a feeling that we might want to try this again. Anyway, we gave our teachers generous tips and then said goodbye and went off to the organic restaurant for a huge, well-earned breakfast. If you are ever in Montezuma, you have to try the french toast with papaya, mango and banana. It is a religious experience.

Back at the hotel, it was already checkout time, and we still needed to shower and pack our bags. We hurried as much as we could but still ended up checking out about 2 hours late. Oh well, we'd checked in late, too. Our flight from Tambor to San Jose was at 3:45pm and we ordered a taxi for 2, just to be sure not to miss the flight. Our return flight home from San Jose was the next morning at 6am and if we missed this little short flight, we were looking at a frantic trip over land and sea that would take about 8 hours and which might not even be possible. We really needed to make our flight. Funny thing, we had asked the hotel to book us a cab the day before, but they were having problems finding someone. We mentioned that to our two surf gurus and they offered to drive us to Tambor. Well, we ended up having 2 cars ready to take us to the airport, and after a brief consult with our hotel receptionist over who it would be ruder to stand up, we took off for Tambor with our two friends from the morning.

The trip to the airport was made exciting by our use of a 'short-cut' which involved a road filled with ruts that were 3 feet deep. It was off in the middle of nowhere and if we had broke down, it was extremely unlikely that anyone else would have driven by to rescue us. It would have been us hiking down the road carrying our packs. Anyway, we made it to Tambor by 2:30 and discovered that the small airport was a seriously small airport. It was an open airfield with what looked like a covered bus stop outside the chain link fence. We shared the 2 small benches under the awning with 10 other people, one of whom was Cote de Pablo, the actress who plays Ziva David on the TV show NCIS. Cool, huh? She sat right behind me on the plane. The funny thing was, I noticed her when we got to the airfield. She was with a male companion and they were both really well dressed. I thought, 'hmm, she's pretty... I wonder if they're on their honeymoon?' It wasn't until the plane arrived and a group of Americans deplaned that the family patriarch took one look at her and said, "NCIS, right? You're that Mossad agent!" She was really gracious about it and didn't deny who she was. None of our group said anything to her, but it was a nice confirmation that even TV stars think that the Nicoya peninsula is a pretty good place to be.

We rode in a great little 12 seater plane to San Jose and then were shuttled back to where we started at Hostel Pangea. Funny story, we missed the shuttle to begin with, or the shuttle missed us. We stopped at one of the many cab drivers all of whom were yelling, "Taxi! Taxi! Necesita taxi?!" and Nicole explained that we were supposed to have a shuttle. That's when the amazing thing happened. Instead of just taking the fare, the cabbie actually whipped out his cell phone and called the hostel to ask about our shuttle. Then, when the shuttle drove right past us, he told us to stay where we were, jumped in his cab, and chased down the shuttle driver to tell him where we were waiting. I swear, the people in Costa Rica actually are the nicest people in the world. They actually seem to enjoy having tourists visit their country. In most places, the people like having the money from tourism, but hate the tourists. Here, most people seem to enjoy interacting with foreigners. Odd.

At the hostel, Nicole and I checked in, went out to buy some food for the plane and then had dinner and went to bed by 8pm. Our roommates were three girls from Finland who had been working at a meatpacking plant in Iceland for 6 months to earn money to travel. It was so sad, they took this disgusting job because it pays so well and then Iceland's economy crashed right near the end of their stay and their savings were worth about half of what they had been. Iceland does not have the euro, they have the krona and it devalued rapidly during the September/October financial crisis. These poor girls worked cleaning out cow and horse stomachs for six months and then saw their big money turn into nothing, meaning that they now only get to travel for three to six months instead of the year that they had planned.

That was our last night in Costa Rica. It is a beautiful country and we had a wonderful time but I was ready to go home and see my sweetie. Also, I'd picked up about 30 mosquito bites during my last 48 hours in the country and I was happy to be going back to an area without biting insects. I swear, my next trip is going to be to a country without mosquitos!

The morning went smoothly. We were up at 3:25 for our 3:40am shuttle and rode to the airport with one other guy who was on the first leg of our flights - from San Jose to San Salvador. We paid our departure tax, dropped off our change in a box collecting for ecological preservation and bought hashbrowns and coffee at Burger King. Isn't that funny? I actually went to a Burger King. I wanted to get the BK Pinto, a rice and beans breakfast special, just because it was funny, but resisted and stuck with an order of hashbrowns.

The first flight to El Salvador was fine. After a short layover, we continued on to LAX. That flight was a bit longer and pretty boring. Then, after going through customs, Nicole and I split up, she to stay overnight in LA and I to continue on to home. Another quick taxi ride and I was home! Another wonderful trip. I have now visited 26 countries. Each time I go somewhere, it just makes me want to travel more. It really is never enough. There are so many amazing places, people, buildings, art, national parks. There isn't time enough for all of the places that I want to see and all of the things that I want to do, but I'll keep going and seeing and doing as much as possible. I'm stuck stateside for the next year or so, but will be back on the road eventually. Hasta luego.

Waterfalls and Rope Swings

On our third to last day in Costa Rica, Nicole and I took turns waking up, looking at each and deciding that the other person was still asleep. This went on for a couple of hours until our host knocked on the door at 7:30am to let us know that he would really like to have his cafe back. It turned out that Nicole had not slept well at all and that she was itching to hit the trail and transfer over to Luna Llena, our reserved hotel for that night. We repacked our bags and were out the door by 8 and then had breakfast at one of the restaurants before making the short walk to our hotel.

Luna Llena (full moon) is owned and run by a Dutch woman and her American boyfriend. It is a wonderful collection of small cabinas set in the rain forest up on a hill off of the main road, within a five minute walk of Montezuma. There is a whole family of capuchin monkeys living in the trees and there are banana trees growing wild on the property. The main cabin, highest up the staircase from the road, contains the office, the lounge, the deck - with a rattan hanging chair, couches, and a book exchange, and the kitchen - with a pot of coffee always available and a fridge full of cold drinks for sale. The people there are fantastic and it is so peaceful and beautiful that we collapsed into a heap on the deck, enjoying the slight ocean breeze. However, the day was young and we were in Costa Rica. It was time to do some cliff diving!

The main reason that I zeroed in on Montezuma when searching for a beach location was the proximity of a series of waterfalls which offer great cliff diving. I thought that this would be the best end of our adventure in CR. Sun, sand, and waterfalls; Montezuma has it all! We had planned to go to the beach in the morning and the falls in the afternoon, but after talking to the proprietor of Hotel Luna Llena, we learned the the sun was strong and harsh on the beach in the morning and so we (being fair-skinned, light-eyed, reddish blonde haired women) decided to reverse the order of our day and hit the falls first. Interesting side note, all throughout the trip, a minimum of three times/day, Nicole and I were asked if we were sisters. I've never thought about it before, but our coloring is very similar, and especially to people who don't see people with our coloring very often, that would definitely make us look related. The really funny thing is that my actual sister has brown hair and eyes and darker skin. Genetics is a tricky business.

The Montezuma falls are reached by following a "trail" along a stream, jumping from rock to rock and climbing up tree roots for about half an hour. The first fall is about 25 meters high and tumbles into a gorgeous swimming hole. We continued past this fall, climbing up a sheer bluff by gripping and stepping on exposed tree roots. At the top, we followed the trail, took the wrong turn, ended up on a ridge line and then were redirected back to the trail. After crossing a stream and climbing down a section of trail that was traversed with the aid of a rope, we arrived at the next two waterfalls. To the right was a 3 meter fall into a beautiful deep pool, straight ahead was a rope swing in the same pool, to the left was the drop-off of a 10 meter fall into a pool that looked impossibly far away. There was a causeway of rocks dividing the first pool from the drop-off, with the fall emergining only in a small area at the end of the pool. Looking out from the cliff, the 25 meter fall that we had hiked past originated from the pool directly beneath us. It was definitely a movie moment. Surrounded by groups of happy locals and some tourists it was still easy to image oneself the only one to discover this amazing natural playground.

First, we tried the rope swing. Nicole grabbed on and was off, making a great splash and having fun. I was next. Hmm. I really have a horrible grip. I grabbed hold of the rope above two of the knots, pushed off, lifted my legs, and next thing I knew, had a nose full of water. I decided to try again. This time, I made sure that my grip was strong, I visualized my successful swing, I took a breath and pushed off...the only thing about the resulting swing that differed from my first attempt was my seriously sprained right middle finger which turned purple, swelled up like a sausage and started throbbing. Ouch.

I accepted that rope swings just are not my forte and decided to try the small cliff jump. The first jump off of the small fall was actually a little bit scary. It wasn't that high up, but was high enough to feel that little frisson of danger and the what if moment...as in, what if I hit a submerged rock? What if I slip while jumping and tumble down the rock face? What if my bathing suit falls off when I hit the water? etc? etc? Still, this is what we were here for and I had brought my underwater camera to record the moment. Wheeee! I came, I jumped, I giggled. It was fantastic.

After a few jumps from the small cliff, we swam over to take a look at the large cliff. We edged close to the drop-off and the oddest thing happened: I felt no urge to jump. Normally, when presented with a dangerous or pseudo-dangerous pastime, I feel giddy, my adrenaline pumps, I get light-headed and slightly queasy. All of this is what adds up to "fun" for me. It's the feeling that lets me know that I will regret NOT doing something and that inspires me to push my boundaries. However, sitting on top of that cliff, looking at the pool far far below, I just felt blah. It was a combination of a lack of the physical fear reaction and the realization that I really could get hurt - several people die each year making that jump. I was 99.999% sure that I'd be just fine, but that .001% chance of injury when weighed against the blah feeling of not even being excited by the idea meant that I just didn't want to jump. Very strange.

Since I was staying on dry land for this adventure, I was the designated camerawoman for Nicole as she prepared to jump. I took a couple of photos of her as she hesitated on the edge and then, just as I started to switch my camera to video - without even a 1, 2, 3 - she jumped! I had not caught it on video! So, like any reasonable person would, she had to jump again. ;) You can really tell how long that fall is by the drawn out scream fading off into the distance, only to be cut off by a muffled splash. She had a great time.

While Nicole was climbing back up the cliff, I headed upstream to explore more of the river. There were more pools higher up but I only found very short falls. After a 15 minute mini-hike, I headed back and jumped off the short fall for one last bit of fun. While I was off exploring, Nicole had also climbed up a tree, out on a branch and had jumped off, managing to injury both her upper chest and shins. The bruise on her shin was very impressive! So, between us, we had bruises, sprains and that was all. Not bad for a morning spent cliff diving! We hiked back down to the first fall and spent a little time cooling off in the large pool. I was able to climb up behind the waterfall, with the help of a nice man from San Jose, and loved looking out at the world from a blanket of mist and foam. The roar of the fall was matched by the sound of about 200 people playing and having fun in and around the water.

Next, I decided that I really must jump off of one more rock and managed to climb up the face of the cliff with the death-defying help of two teenage boys. The only problem: I was wearing my Keen water shoes to protect my feet. They'd done a great job for hiking and swimming, but were a bit of an impediment in rock climbing. I was traversing cracks in the rock that were about 3" wide, plenty of space for a bare foot, but my Keen's are about 4" wide and don't bend. Honestly, there was a point when I was frozen on the rock face, unable to go forward or backward without the risk of falling about 6 feet onto the rocks. It turned out that I did have some adrenaline left after all. I made the climb and the jump and felt very proud of my accomplishment and grateful to the two boys. While I was stuck on the rock, they actually tried to get me to grab their arms and risk taking them down with me. I didn't take them up on it, but it was sweet of them to offer! Nicole followed me up barefoot and had no trouble at all. Then we both dove off of one last rock and reluctantly started the hike back out to the main road.

Montezuma is a bit of a hippy town, lots of marijuana and handmade jewelry. There is also one of the best vegetarian restaurants that I have ever been to. We had a yummy lunch, consisting of a lentil and rice salad (Nicole) and a Thai veggie burger (Christine). Everything was wonderful and perfect after blowing so many calories on our morning hike. After lunch, it was already around 4pm. We stopped off at the internet cafe and then headed back to Luna Llena to check into our cabin. That morning, we were too early to check in and so we had left our packs in the storage closet and our passports in the safe. Now, we were ready to check in and then go for a swim at the beach.

Back down at the beach, we ran into Gabriel, Sara & Jill. Small world. They said that they had not been served dinner until 10:45pm and that our waitress ended up quitting that night because she was so frustrated with the whole evening - not just our table, but everything. Nicole settled in for a chat with our new friends and I went for a swim. The water is amazing in Costa Rica. The Pacific feels like a completely different ocean in Central America than it is in North America. In San Francisco, you really need to wear a wetsuit to be in the water for anything more than a footbath. Even in the LA area, where I grew up, the water is brisk and takes some serious getting used to. Here, it was like walking into a fountain. The water was warm and bouyant and the waves were churning. I positioned myself to lay on my back floating up and down over the waves, looking back at the shore. There was rainforest and volcanic rock and flocks of birds all shown in the ruddy colors of the setting sun. Perfection. I ended up swimming a bit with a young Brazilian girl, using the international language of facial expressions and gestures. We both tried body surfing and came up half-drowned and laughing. It was one of those perfect moments. Also, with two of us side-by-side, any sharf swimming by would have a choice of targets, reducing my risk of being eaten by 50%. No, I'm not proud of trying to throw a preadolescent to the sharks, but I do have that pesky phobia.

After the sun had definitely set, we headed back for showers and then out to a restaurant for dinner. We picked a restaurant looking over the beach, at the end of the main street. It was also a hotel and a bar, and was the first place that we'd tried to get a room when we arrived in Montezuma. First things first, we ordered cocktails! Nicole had a bitter lemon cocktail and I had a Cocoloco banana rum drink which was a little odd. Then we split a complimentary shot of cacique - the local liquor. Ugh! It is stronger than vodka and tastes slightly rotten. I can't say that I wanted to rush to the duty free and buy a bottle to take home.

After cocktails we stuffed ourselves on salads and entrees, going all out since this was our last night in Montezuma. I had another heart of palm salad which was a bit disappointing, but still yummy and some gorganzola pasta (just a gigantic heaping pile - really it was barely more than 3000 calories). Nicole had a salad and a seafood clay pot dish that looked great. After dinner, we looked for an internet cafe and briefly went online. The place that we went had some old photos up from the 1930s. Today, Montezuma has about 400 permanent residents, plus a steady stream of visitors and a number of service workers who bus in from other towns; back in the '30s, it was a population of about 20. There was a family from Germany who had come out and bought land and farmed there, and the photos were of the family and the area. It was fascinating to be able to see how the area has changed and I was interested to learn that Costa Rica has attracted expatriots for such a long time.

After dinner, we were meandering down the street when we stopped, shocked to hear...ABBA! One of the restaurants had pulled down a movie screen and was showing Mamma Mia! Seriously, they were showing Mamma Mia with Spanish subtitles. We just had to stop. We got a prime table right in the center front and settled in with some decaf coffee to enjoy the show. There was only about a half hour left of the movie, but it was just as fun as I remember. Colors, singing, gorgeous scenery, silly plotline - all this adds up to a just-plain fun experience.

Now, we continued our wanderings, by chance picking up Gabriel, Sara and Jill again and we all headed out to the beach. I'd worn my bathing suit as a just in case, and was ready for anything. There were a number of bonfires on the beach, and I spied a likely one to approach. When asked, the 2 Costa Rican men and 2 Austrian women were happy to share their fire. We all sat or stood around talking about life for at least 30 minutes when suddenly, Gabriel stepped on a sea turtle. While we were all absorbed in human affairs and while our eyes were accustomed to the light of the fire, a giant sea turtle had crept up behind us and dug herself into the sand. Sea turtles always return to the beach on which they were born when they are ready to lay their eggs. While this turtle was quietly contemplating the parturition process, Gabriel accidentally stepped on her. We were in an uproar, shining our flashlights, snapping photos, surrounding her. She flapped her feet frantically, throwing sand three feet in the air in all directions and then accepted retreat as the better part of valour and headed back to the sea with the 8 of us (one of the CR guys was off buying beer) trailing her and filming her the whole way. After it was over, we castigated ourselves for keeping her from laying her eggs, but I have to say, if you were there, I bet that you'd have done the same thing. It was just so unexpected and exciting. How many of you have ever been ambushed by a four foot long sea turtle???

Clearly that was the highlight of the night. After a few lingering conversations, we left the original four people to their bonfire and headed home. The sky was filled with visible stars, planes, satellites & meteorites. The Milky Way was as clear as I've ever seen it. The air was balmy and my muscles were pleasantly sore. Other than my throbbing sprained finger and the absence of my husband, I was in paradise. Back at the cabina, we fell asleep to the sound of monkeys and insects enjoying life.

Cloud Forest, Ferries & Coffee Shops

Nicole and I were both up at 7am to pursue our separate morning activities. It was an interesting example of how two reasonable, intelligent people can look at the same set of facts and come up with different conclusions. The night before, we had each, independently of each other, stated, "Well, since this could be the only time that I am ever here..." For Nicole, the logical conclusion was to pack in activities by going to a coffee tour at the Don Juan plantation, and then by trying out the ziplines. From the time when I began researching things to do in Costa Rica and then all through San Jose, La Fortuna and Santa Elena, we had been hearing conflicting reports. One group of people swore that the best place to zipline was La Fortuna. The other swore that the only place that any discerning tourist would want to zipline was at Monteverde. Both groups swore that their respective picks had the longest and/or highest lines. Some people said that one or the other was faster. Everyone agreed that Monteverde's lines were the oldest. Now, Nicole would be able to give a discriminating report on which set of lines were indeed the best.

For me, I took the perspective that whichever canopy tour was technically 'the best', I had a fantabulous time on the lines at La Fortuna. I tried all of the crazy tricks that I wanted to do, and I had great photos and video of the event. Therefore, I wanted to use the time in Santa Elena to see as much of the surrounding countryside as possible. In the morning, I asked the nice man at the hostel if I would be able to go horseback riding. He made some calls and set me up for a trail ride leaving at 9:30am. This gave me an hour to go attempt to use an ATM, no good, and to walk around the town a little. I discovered the local frog, butterfly, and insect displays, but decided that I could survive the disappointment of not actually forking over $10 to see the same creatures that were surrounding me all of the time. I actually would have liked to enter the frog house, but was content having seen the green and black dart frog in person.

At 9:30, I was picked up in a rattly old jeep by Carlos, a man in his early 40s who looked to be in his early 60s. He spoke no English, but was nice enough to try to understand and not wince at my bad Spanish. We drove over a crazy rutted road, which prompted a quick Spanish lesson to learn the word for muddy ruts, barros. Along the way, Carlos told me about his land, and Costa Rica and his life. It was actually a good chat, forcing me to use my Spanish. We arrived at his family's farm, Las Brisas, and I climbed out to be greeted by Carlos' wife, brother, sister-in-law, son, mother and father. The abuela (grandmother) just loved me. She grabbed hold of my hand, kissed my cheek and rattled away in Spanish far beyond my limited level of comprehension. I smiled, nodded, and deeply enjoyed the experience. After signing a waiver and putting on a bike helmet, I climbed up on my pinto horse and we were off! Carlos led the way and two boys, Jose and Ruel, who apparently work on the farm, came along.

We rode out along a trail through a number of post and wire fences, which Carlos was able to open while on horseback and either Ruel or Jose would jump down to close. After half an hour of a fast walk and occasional trot, we emerged onto a hill looking out over the Nicoya Gulf and what seemed like half of Costa Rica. It was absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't believe that this family was able to just come out to such a gorgeous spot whenever they liked and that they actually owned that view. Wow. Carlos' father had bought that land 41 years ago and they had put in cows, horses, coffee, bananas, beans, and everything else they needed to survive and thrive. We continued riding through a patch of forest, where I learned that the tree with the spiky trunk was the limoncillo tree which produces the amazing citrus that looks like a lime on the outside and an orange on the inside and tastes like a strong lime with a jasmine accent. Yum.

We rode to the coffee field and the banana trees. I tried a coffee fruit, upon Carlos' enthusiastic encouragement. Hmm, maybe the mata de cafe is sweet to someone unaccustomed to process sugar, but it was a flavor that I would not rush to experience again. I was surprised to learn that there are three coffee beans in each fruit rather than two, as I had assumed. I also saw a gorgeous new mata de banana just starting to sprout bananas from flower. Amazing.

We continued riding through brooks and up and down hills. Every so often we came out upon a point with a view so beautiful that it made my heart hurt. The two boys were lots of fun and Carlos was a wonderful guide. My pinto was one of the best trail horses that I have ever ridden. She was sweet tempered, never once tried to scrape me off on a tree and I was actually able to drop rein and ride with both hands free to take photos or video whenever I liked. The day was clear and sprinkling at the same time. It was very odd. The sky was wide and blue overhead with just a flew scattered cirrus clouds that looked far too wispy to carry water, yet there was an almost constant spray of tiny misty droplets. There was also a strong wind that frequently gusted over the mountain. From December through February, this wind blows almost constantly. This was difficult weather to dress for. I alternated between freezing and boiling with occasional lulls into comfort. After a 3 hour ride, I had to go back to the house, because I wanted to arrive back in Santa Elena by 1:30 at the latest, to be sure that I didn't miss our 2pm shuttle to Montezuma. I hated to end the ride, but was just so glad to have seen as much as I did. Horseback really does allow one to see more than hiking does and it's just plain fun. I love imagining myself as ye olden Pony Express rider or frontier woman - definitely too many novels at an impressionable age.

After dismounting, I was escorted into the office for a lovely treat of two homemade cheese empanadas. These are made with a thick corn dough folded pastry style over some yummy cheese. It was the perfect thing after a 3 hour ride in the fresh air. I felt that I had definitely earned some cheese, and I am always excited, as a vegetarian, when I actually get the opportunity to eat local food. Not to mention, it was just so sweet of them to go to the trouble. I also had some refreshing hand squeezed lemonade poured from a clay pot. Accompanying the delicious snack was some great conversation about the mountains and the family and their history. This was one of the highlights of my trip.

Back at the hostel, I met up with Nicole who had a great time on the coffee tour, actually meeting Don Juan of the Don Juan coffee plantation. Unfortunately, we are still unsure which ziplines were the best, because Nicole's summation of the difference between La Fortuna and Monteverde was, "they're both good". :) I guess that we'll have to go with the advice that when in Costa Rica, go ziplining, enjoy the experience, and don't care too much about which set of ziplines you ride. The experience is going to be amazing wherever you are.

We had scheduled a shuttle service to transfer us from Monteverde, across the Gulf of Nicoya and over to Montezuma on the peninsula. Our shuttle was late which was fortunate for us since we were running a little behind ourselves. We were amused to climb onboard and discover two of our jeep-boat-jeep companions from the previous day and our Irish friend, Caroline, from La Fortuna. Every country in the world has a tourist circuit and so backpackers do tend to continuously run into each other at World Heritage Sites, and famous scenic towns, but it's still fun and surprising to keep running into the same people. Everyone agreed that New Year's in Monteverde had not been ideal, but the Canadian couple from the jeep-boat-jeep ride had apparently suffered the worst blow. The previous day, they were sipping on their flask, having a ball, arranging to meet up with everyone at the local hot spot, eagerly planning their ziplining adventure for the next day. When we met them again, Nicole and I asked, "So, how was your New Years?" Silence. Heavy Silence. "It SUCKED!" That was our cue to change the subject. Then it turned out that they hadn't even gone ziplining because they didn't want to go in the rain. They had come all the way out from Liberia just to go ziplining and then they didn't go. There was some serious tension in the air between them.

Along the dirt road from Santa Elena out to the highway, we stopped a couple of times (at my request) to take photos of the plentiful Monteverde rainbows, arco iris. There are rainbows everywhere you look up in the cloud forest; full rainbows, painting their way across half of the sky. Amazingly, the rainbows actually touch down! Right across the road, a house or a garden plot will have a rainbow glow and then you have to fight the urge to dig for leprachaun gold. The clear skies and misty rain make abundant rainbows a given in the cloud forest, and it was magical to see.

Once we hit the highway, we split up the group: the two couples, including the grumpy Canadians, went off in a new, Northbound shuttle; Caroline split off in a Southbound shuttle to Manuel Antonio national park; Nicole & I continued in the same shuttle with a Costa Rican girl, Cristina, who was going to visit her boyfriend in Santa Teresa, also on the peninsula. We had to drive like maniacs to make it to the ferry before it disembarked, but we made it with 5 minutes to spare. Luckily, we had Cristina with us, because she had taken the ferry dozens of times, and knew just what to do to get our ferry tickets from the local bakery. Odd.

On the ferry, we had an hour and a half to chat with our new friend and just chill, enjoying the water, the birds, and the peace. I love ferries. There's just such a feeling of peace in knowing that there is nothing that can be done. It's a zen time in which to relax and to be fully in the moment, knowing that that moment will never be recaptured and to appreciate the blessings of being alive. In a way, I suppose that ferries are my church, or at least, the place in which I am most likely to feel spiritual.

It turned out that Cristina's family was part-owners of the SkyTrek hanging walkway and zipline extravaganza, one of the first ziplines in Costa Rica. She lives in San Jose, in an apartment with a roommate, and is currently going to school. She plans to open a business relating to customized high-end tourism when she graduates, and with her smarts and her family connections, I'm positive that she'll succeed. She had been visiting family in Monteverde and was taking the chance to spend the night with her boyfriend before going back to San Jose in the morning. Fun fact: Cristina is 22, her American boyfriend is 44. He's a chiropractor who moved to Costa Rica from New Jersey to live the pura vida, and never looked back. There are loads of American expats in CR, all of whom seem happy and successful.

When we docked, we were met by a second minivan which drove us out to Montezuma. Cristina was met in Cobano by her boyfriend, who drove her the rest of the way to his house in Santa Teresa, and Nicole and I were off to Montezuma. The only problem: it was New Year's Day and we had no place to stay. When we were making the final plans for this leg of the trip, we put it off and kept thinking that we might end up going down to Manuel Antonio or to a different beach, and so we waited too long to get a reservation. I admit, I thought that we'd be able to find something once we were there. Well, in Costa Rica, the whole country really celebrates Christmas. The week between Christmas and New Year's is a holiday week with festivals and parades and loads of people from San Jose all fleeing to the beaches, including Montezuma. So, not only were there the tourists taking advantage of holiday time and school breaks, there were also the locals visiting the beach. When we arrived, there was not a room to be had. We actually had the bad luck of arriving 2 minutes too late to get the last available room at a really ratty, run-down, scary-looking hotel called El Capitan. Sad to say, we would have been happy to stay there, but a couple had beat us to it and then had the gall to actually try to bargain down the price of the last available hotel room in the entire area. We heard later that some people had actually taken taxis all the way back to Tambor before being able to get a room.

Luckily, at the third hotel that we checked, the proprietor took pity on us and offered to let us sleep on a mattress in his hotel coffee shop. Seriously. We took him up on it. The other option, which I would actually have enjoyed, was to sleep on the beach with the people camping there. However, a large number of Costa Ricans had told us that this was a very bad idea and that there were lots of foreigners hanging out in Montezuma who would rob, rape and/or kill us if we slept on the beach. I'd be fine with the rapine and murder, but like a true capitalist, I couldn't risk having my property stolen! It was very sweet of this man to let us stay in his nice safe cafe which was currently closed for renovations. However, there was one rule, we had to be back at the hotel by 10pm. It was 8pm when we were talking to him, and all we needed to do was eat dinner. After all, there would be other nights to party. All we really needed was a place to sleep, so we gratefully agreed to be back at 10 o'clock, dropped off our packs and headed out to dinner.

Now, most of you will know that I am prone to serious hypoglycemic events when I get too hungry. I was hungry. I was very hungry. Unfortunately, when I'm hungry, I get picky and so, we actually passed the first few restaurants on the main street of Montezuma, heading back to one particular location that we'd run across in our search for a room. There, we found that the restaurant was fully booked, and we ran into Gabriel from La Fortuna. I told you, it's the tourist trail. Now, as soon as we saw Gabriel, I thought, "oh crap". Gabriel was with two American girls who were both doing volunteer work in Costa Rica. They were lovely girls and I really was happy to see Gabriel again, but we were now a party of five. This was one of the busiest nights of the year for this town and most restaurants only have seating for less than 20 people total, with the average table size being most convenient for a party of two. Remember, I was hungry, it was after 8pm, we needed to be back at the hotel by 10pm, and in Costa Rica, it can take over a half hour to be given a menu at a restaurant. Time was getting tight.

Anyway, off we all went to a restaurant that Gabriel, Sara, and Jill had been to the night before, a cute Italian place that smelled fabulous. Well, they were full. However, all the restaurants in the town were full and we decided that we might as well just pick one and wait. We were seated by 8:30 and had ordered by 8:45. I verified at this time that there would be no problem in getting our food in time for us to be back at the hotel by 10pm. Sure. At 9:00, the waitress told us that it'd just be another 10 minutes, at 9:30, we were offered free beers, at 9:40pm, we left Gabriel, Sara and Jill still waiting for their food and headed off to the supermarket. By that point, I had edged beyond hungry and irritable into a state of fascinated disbelief. We really were unable to sit down in a restaurant and eat dinner in less than two hours. I ended up buying a bag of tortillas and some sliced cheese and wished that I had just done that to begin with instead of putting myself through the agonizing and fruitless wait for food.

We made it back to the inn by 9:50pm and were tucked in with the lights off by 10:15pm. The cafe was open to an internal courtyard and was covered with plaster dust and sheeting for the renovations. The nice man had pulled in a thin double mattress and covered it with a clean sheet. We had a sink (part of the cafe kitchen) and the courtyard for an emergency toilet. The small patch of sky that we could see was covered in stars. It was beautiful and amazing, and I felt quite adventurous camping out in the middle of a hotel. After covering myself in Deet, I nodded off like a baby and enjoyed wonderful dreams.

Jeep Boat Jeep

Bright and early, we arose to pick up laundry, make final travel arrangements and check on my camera, for this was our final day in La Fortuna....and about time! Arenal is gorgeous; the hikes are fantastic; the food is great; the people are pleasant; the hot springs are amazing...all that said, it was definitely time to move on. Four nights anywhere is really too much when you only have a short vacay.

After a quick breakfast, we reserved our jeep-boat-jeep trip to Monteverde and made hostel reservations. This process was fairly amusing. By this point in time, Yselia hated us. Between my camera and Nicole monopolizing the phone line to make calls to hostels looking for reservations, Yselia was eager to see the back of us. As soon as Nicole got on the phone to reserve our room in Montezuma, Yselia turned to music up full blast. Passive aggression truly does transcend culture.

While Nicole went off to pick up the laundry, I trudged along to the Gray Line office where I would either recover my precious or would have the last dregs of hope squeezed from my heart. Alas, it was to be the latter. No camera. Our shuttle between San Jose and La Fortuna had both a driver and a ride-along driver, which is very rare. Lucky me. Both drivers were claiming that the other had my camera and the company had no way to discern which of the two was lying, though they hinted that Albarro was most likely innocent. Offers of a reward were to no avail. That was that. Finite. In a way, it was a relief to finally be able to stop hoping. Actually, when I first realized that I didn't have my camera, I knew that it was gone forever. It was only the absurd reassurances offered by the staff at the hostel that led me to believe that actually, I was sure to get it back. I really wish that they had not tried to cushion the blow by offering false hope. They delayed the inevitable grieving process and waiting for a final answer was agonizing. Not to mention that we would have left a day earlier if not for wanting to stick around for final word from the Gray Line office.

That was that. I went back to the hostel to check out, have a swim in the pool and to lounge in the hammock until our 2:30pm pickup for the jeep-boat-jeep ride out to Monteverde. By taking this trip, we shaved 3 hours off the public bus route that goes around the man-made Lake Arenal, created in the late '70s as part of a large hydroelectric project. We were actually fairly excited about it until we saw our "jeep" which was actually a minivan. Oh well, the boat was actually a boat and we had some amazing views crossing the lake. On the other side, we were picked up by another minivan for an hour and a half journey through the mountains up to Santa Elena, which is a town right next to Monteverde and in which one may find the Monteverde Backpackers hostel rather than the Santa Elena Backpackers. Odd.

Now, for those following the timeline of this blog, you might have noticed that we arrived in Monteverde (or Santa Elena) on New Year's Eve. The entire shuttle full of people was talking about it and making plans to meet up at the biggest party to be had in Santa Elena. I was actually less than enthused because I don't usually celebrate New Year's and I had consumed more alcohol in the last week than I normally do in three months. However, I was planning on at least making an appearance. Then, we arrived in Santa Elena. It was raining. It was raining and was about 50 degrees out. NOOOOOOO! We had dinner - yummy pizza and more heart of palm salad - and went back to the hostel. In the end, Nicole decided that she wanted to get up early the next day to go on a coffee plantation tour and then to try the ziplines there in Monteverde (where ziplining was created as an adventure sport) and I decided to turn in early to get up and have a hike and whatever else the whim moved me to do.

I stayed up blogging 'til 11ish and then went outside to watch some fireworks, but I just couldn't make it to midnight. Oh well. After all, midnight here is only 10pm at home, so which midnight should I celebrate? The birth of the new year in San Francisco is surely more significant to my life and I definitely would not be up 'til 2am. Also, I've been weaning myself from the Western compartamentalization of time for quite some time and wouldn't want to backslide by accidentally celebrating the beginning of another artificial unit of measurement. :)

Feliz año nuevo para todos!

Day of the Cameras

As you may recall, Nicole and I had both gone to bed on Monday night sans camera. I was scheduled to see the guy about the thing at 10am, so I slept in. Nicole actually got up at 7am to go ask the receptionist to call the zipline company to ask about her camera. When Yselia told Nicole that 'oh, so sorry, you must have left it somewhere else, Nicole took a cab out to the tour office to look around herself. When she didn't see her camera, she told the receptionist that the driver of the shuttle van must have her camera and then somehow guilted the driver into confessing that he did indeed have the camera, and then, she went with him out to his home to retrieve her camera from the driver's wife. All of this before I even woke up.


When I heard this story, I was thrilled for Nicole, and for myself, since at least I can have copies of her photos, but I was even more upset about my camera. Why couldn't I have gotten my camera back? I decided to head over to the Gray Line office in town and talk to someone myself rather than continue to rely upon the dubious reliability of hostel workers. The guy in the office was very helpful and started calling drivers and looking into the whole story. He told me to return that afternoon and to check back with him.


Feeling better now that I had finally taken action, Nicole and I jumped into a taxi out to the trailhead for a grueling hike up the inactive Cerro Chato volcano. At first, we were very disappointed. The "trail" was actually a road, with barbed wire to the sides and cows grazing in pastures. After about 1/2 an hour, we realized why this hike was so highly recommended. It was amazing! We entered the rain forest and started climbing straight up the volcano. The footing was treacherous, muddy with many exposed root systems. The heat was intense and I was dripping sweat within minutes. We continued for another hour (hah! we summitted in 1.5 hours, not in 2 like everyone else) and then the torrential downpour began. When the sky opened up above us, we were just at the lip of the crater and still needed to hike down to the crater lake. That was exciting - pretty much straight down, clinging to tree roots to keep from falling. We took some photos posed on a tree branch that extended out over the lake and then climbed back out of the crater.


It was a little sad, one of the highlights of this hike is the opportunity to enjoy some fantastic views across the crater, but in the rain, we just saw lots of grey and white. The hike back also took 1.5 hours, because it rained pretty much the whole time. The trail turned into a stream and the footing was even more treacherous. Of course, we felt pretty good about the whole thing when we passed a guy hiking this trail barefoot! He seemed OK when we passed him and his lady friend on our way up the mountain, but when we lapped him, in the rain, on our way down, he was a-slipping and a-sliding down the hill. Oh, I almost forgot the best part...on our way up the hill, at the start of the hike, we were picked up by a canine guide. He hiked with us, leading the way and then stopping to wait for the slow humans, for about 1/2 an hour, then we ran into Carlos, our guide from the Rio Celeste hike, who was leading a private hike. Carlos stole our dog. Seriously, he lured that dog from us with nothing but his extreme cuteness. Oh well.


Down the mountain in one piece, or actually, in two distinct human-shaped pieces, we phoned for a taxi and rode back into town with a lovely Australian couple who were in Costa Rica doing a house swap. Nice. The cab dropped us at the Gray Line office and I rushed in with baited breath hoping that my camera would be waiting for me. Or, I actually rushed to the doorway, since Nicole and I were both absolutely covered in mud and the floors in the office were too clean to desecrate. No camera. He said that the driver was not answering his cell phone and that I should come back in the morning. He also said that there was only a 10% chance that I would ever see that camera again. I actually appreciated his honesty, but I felt, like Quagmire from Family Guy, when told that a woman will only sleep with him if he's the last man on earth, "so there's a chance then?"


Disheartened, we returned to the hostel, where a long shower went a ways to cheering me up and then a trip to the Chinese restaurant across the road, did the rest of the trick. It was amazing, probably the best meal that I've had in Costa Rica, and this has been a wonderful trip for food. Carlos had pointed out a particular palm tree to us on our hike and told us that it was the palm that yields the most delicious heart of palm in the world. Now, I have had heart of palm. It's pretty much cellulose and water, with no discernable flavor, but Carlos insisted that this stuff was so delicious that Costa Rica doesn't even export it, since they just eat it all themselves. Intrigued by this description, I decided to order a heart of palm salad, and oh my goodness, wow, wow, fresh heart of palm in the rainforest is a completely different thing from the canned stuff that I have eaten in the past. It has this amazing mineral-rich flavor and a wonderful texture. I loved it! That plus some Szechuan tofu with vegetables was a perfect meal.

After dinner, we decided that we really should wash our clothes and try to salvage our filthy hiking shoes. We dropped everything off at the laundromat for wash and fold and toddled off to the internet cafe for some blogging and photo downloading. After that, we concurred that we were both exhausted and would love to turn in for an early night. That hike was really intense and we were beat!

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks??? It is the disco ball and we were helpless in its thrall. Walking down the main road, we ran into about 10 people from the hostel, including our new dormmates, all headed off to the disco. We wavered, and then fell victim to peer pressure. After a minute spent sprucing up, we went off to the disco with Chris (US Navy) and Pat (Aussie). We each had one drink and danced for less than an hour. Most of our time was spent watching our extremely drunk female dormmate be chased around the dance floor by the shirtless, drunk, and amorous, Ed the Autralian, who could be excused only by virtue of his possession of a mere 18 years of experience on planet earth. Otherwise, one would consider him extremely obnoxious.

After the thick smoke and groping men managed to overcome the scant pleasure we derived from the frankly odd mixes of the DJ, Nicole and I said goodbye to our gentlemen admirers, including one of the zipline guides, and went home, escorted through the dangerous streets of La Fortuna by Chris and Pat. Nighty night!

Just what we've all been waiting for...ZIPLINES!!!

The day was finally here, the one that was to be the apex of this journey...(drumroll please)...ziplines! The zipline was actually invented in Costa Rica and for those of you not familiar with this adventure sport, it involves climbing into a harness, attaching said harness to a pulley that is then attached to a galvanized or stainless steel cable, and then falling from a height to a lower location while being zipped along the cable. Wheeee! Once the excitement of falling at 40 mph begins to wane, that's when you may want to introduce a trick or two. There is: swinging one's legs, letting go of the approved hand locations, leaning backward into a prone position, bending further back in an attempt to touch one's toes, spinning in circles, going two at a time to gain speed, flipping upside down, facing backwards, doing the splits while upside down, etc. etc. etc. For those interested in installing a zipline in their own backyard, please see http://www.outdoorfunstore.com/zipline.asp. Would it be too crazy to use a zipline as my means of egress from my 2nd story apartment down to the street?

The day began at 6:30am when the alarm went off. We had decided to attempt to deplete all of our stored adrenaline in one day and had booked a 7:20 canyoning trip and a 1:30 canopy tour. The first thing that I did was, of course, remind the person at the desk to look out for my camera. Then I was free to eat a quick breakfast and head off for a morning spent rappelling down waterfalls. Seriously, we rappelled down waterfalls. This excursion was second only to ziplining on my list of must-do things in Costa Rica. The van drove us a short way down the road to meet up with a jeep which drove us out to the canyoning site. DeLisa, Nicole and I got onto the last jeep in the line and thus were the group that turned back for two late arrivals, but they were nice guys, so we weren't too hard on them. Also, turning back gave us the opportunity to see 3 fabulous mental postcard moments: 1) a 3-4 year old boy trudging barefoot up a hill with a few long pieces of wood held over his shoulder. The tot just seemed to be feeling so terribly sorry for himself, and I can't say that I blame him; 2) a group of 3 cows, one laying on the ground, with the other two standing protectively over the cow on the ground - it was a poignant moment; 3) what had to be the world's fattest turkey - this thing was absolutely huge - HUGE, even I, a vegetarian for 15 years, wondered what it would taste like.

Finally, we were at the spot and were ready to go. The group of 20 or so were all kitted out with harnesses, identical blue jackets, and blue hard hats. Somehow, DeLisa ended up with a white hard hat which came in handy later on. Oh, by the by, I've never been a huge fan of the Meyer-Briggs personality test, which purports to classify people and assist them in forming career and life aspirations by determining if any individual is an: Extrovert/Introvert; Intuitive/Sensitive; Thinker/Feeler; Judge/Perceptive. I sincerely doubt the validity of this personality assessment but all the night before, during dinner, I kept finding myself thinking, "Goodness, I love how DeLisa thinks; this woman is just so clearheaded and rational." Well, as you might have guessed from the lead up, it turns out that we are both ENTJs. Interesting. It was very refreshing to talk to someone who sees the world in a very similar way to how I view it.

Well, all of us lined up at the first rappelling site and prepared to descend a cliff. The order of the tour was a little screwy and so the longest drop was the first one. I guess that it was good to practice on, but it would have been fun to try it after we had done a few other cliffs first. I hadn't rappelled since I was a teenager at Hume Lake summer camp and I worked up quite a case of nerves while waiting my turn to jump off of the cliff. Finally, I was over. Left hand above me, right hand below me, and JUMP! Hmm, this was a bit trickier on jutting rocks than I remember it being on concrete. I made it down in 4 jumps and landed feeling exhiliarated and shaky, always a good time. Next was the trip down a waterfall, right through the water. Unfortunately, the guides waited until we were already trying to rappell to tell us that we should just try to jump straight down. I tried in vain to find something to push off of and ended up ignonomously sliding down the rope. ¡Qué lastima! There were three more sites, all of which were fun, but I really wanted to go back and redo the first two now that I knew what to expect. Instead, we went off for a wonderful lunch and coffee and chance to purchase a CD of photos. Remember that I said that DeLisa's white hat would come in handy? You can pick her out of the photos, unlike the rest of us. There are about 10 photos that I think might be of me, but it's hard to be sure. Maybe when I see them on a bigger screen...

We were bused back to the hostel for a short period of downtime in which to shower, dry off and change clothes for the zipline trip. By 1:30pm, we were back on the road again, this time to hit the canopy with Aventura Mundo. We had to sit throught the obligatory demonstration, but were in a converted school bus being pulled by a tractor (seriously) in a very short time and then were hiking up to the top of the mountain to begin our descent. The first line was fabulous, fast and through a narrow break in the canopy over the rain forest. It was a good chance to get back in the groove for ziplining and I mostly held the recommended position with my knees drawn partly up and my feet crossed, with my left hand in a glove holding onto the rope and two safety ropes attaching my harness to the pulley and my right hand in a thick leather and wood glove-type device behind the pulley on the cable. This device is the brake and allows me to slow down or come to a stop, though some people apparently brake a bit to frequently and get stuck partway along the cable without reaching the next platform. When this happens, you get to pull yourself along the cable, hand over hand. The guide on the platform might come out to help you, but he might not. Oh, just as an aside, other than Noelia, our nature hike guide the first night, every guide I have seen in Costa Rica has been male.

The second line, I rode upside down with my legs split. This was so much fun that on the 3rd line I rode upside down trying to touch my toes in an arched position. This was a not-so great idea because when I came up out of the bend, I was disoriented and was facing backward. I almost put my hand on the cable in front of the pulley , which can be a bad idea when you are going that fast, and only barely turned myself around before reaching the next platform. Whew! That was actually a little scarier than I would like. Geoffrey, the lead guide with whom I had been speaking during the hike up (practicing my Spanish) told me not to do that again, and I had to own up that I deserved the scolding. For the next two lines, I was very sedate, and then, the adrenaline took over my body again. The 6th line is the longest and goes over La Fortuna waterfall. It was stunning, absolutely beautiful, and I'm afraid that it made me do the splits! The next line went back over the waterfall and right through the canopy and I rode that one with Geoffrey so that I could go backward and film the fall. It was awesome. Next, I went upside down with my feet on the pulley, then with my hands off and feet out. My foot actually touched a clump of leaves. Then, it was the 10th line and that was it. I rode it in sedately, but with Andy (one of the guides) shaking the line to add some pizzazz. At the bottom, I was just one of the happiest people in the world. I swear, it was a religious experience for me.


All over the world, tour guides are some of the most sexually active people on earth. First you take a tourist out of their native environment, you introduce him or her to some sort of quasi-dangerous activity, and as the Dutton and Aron bridge study in 1974 showed (http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Misattribution_of_Arousal_Paradigm), many of these tourists will believe themselves to be aroused rather than merely under the influence of adrenaline. That said, these guides are also typically young, fit, adventurous, English speaking, and guaranteed to have no strings attached. Therefore, I was not surprised when one of the guides, Andy, invited Nicole and me out for drinks that night. I was noncommittal and had no intention of meeting the guides. After all, I'm pretty sure that I know what they would be thinking and I had no desire to mislead anyone. However, Nicole thought that it might be fun and said yes, and then we were committed. After all, just because they would expect one thing, it doesn't follow that we are required to oblige.



After setting up our date, we continued on to a faux Maleku village, which has been built on the site to introduce visitors to Maleku culture, and to sell off their handicrafts. The Maleku actually live a few miles on the other side of town, but this is where they do business. We all said "kapi kapi" to each other and made knocking gestures (this means hello) then we sat on logs arranged around a very smoky firepit while the gentleman in the leather skirt spoke to us in Spanish, which is not his native language, and Geoffrey translated into English. It was pretty boring, mostly because it was painfully obviously that this was just a prelude to sell us the handicrafts which covered every available flat surface in the lodge. The crafts, especially the carved coconuts and balsa masks were actually really nice, but they were just covered in mites, spiders and assorted other bugs. This is not something that I really want to put in my pack.

After the shopping trip, we all mounted up to ride horses back to the main office. At first, this was a bit of a dud, since my horse didn't even seem to want to move, much less pick up the pace, but Geoffrey came through and slapped my horse on the butt with a switch and we were off. We galloped down the road in a 3 person race (one of the other tourists was also running with us), and I was just finding my seat and feeling comfortable when we arrived back at the barn. Qué lastima. Geoffrey then tried to incite me to dismount by grapping hold of a beam overhead and swinging off over my horse´s rump, but I resisted the temptation and dismounted like a sedate adult.

Nicole and I again gave in to the sales pitch and bought the CD of photos. We then jumped on the shuttle back to the hostel and prepared for dinner and our hot date. This is when the curse of the camera struck again. Nicole couldn't find her camera. She was certain that she'd left it either in the bathroom at the zipline office or in the shuttle. We asked the new guy behind the desk at the hostel to please call the office of El Mundo Aventura to ask after it. He called and no one answered. Since this guy seemed a little more together than either Yselia or Alonso, I decided to ask about my camera, too. Now, the story changed. This guy told me that there was a problem, that since I was not the last tourist off of the bus, the driver would claim that another tourist must have stolen the camera and I would not get it back. What he suggested was that Nicole come back down at 7:30am to try to recover her camera before too much time had passed. For me, through the incompetence and platitudes of Alonso and Yselia, he was fairly certain that my camera had already been given away as a Christmas gift to the driver's family, but he did say that I should come down closer to 10am and that he would then call the Gray Line owner and we'd try one last time.

With only my underwater camera left to tell the tale of our adventures, Nicole and I headed out for a subdued dinner with Pietr. We visited a new ATM for cash and then stopped at a Soda Shop/24 hour pizza place that was excellent and very cheap. Then, it was time to go back to Chela's to meet our dates. We did convince Pietr to come with us as our bodyguard by offering to buy him piña coladas. Like a true gentleman, he agreed to come and to protect our virtue. When we had gone to Chela's on Saturday night, the place was about half-filled, with nice music and a chill vibe. We were expecting more of the same. Instead...we got...karaoke night! I regret to inform you that I am no longer a karaoke virgin. I gave in to Nicole's intense peer pressure and belted out I Will Survive. We tried to convince Pietr to join us, but apparently, this song is well known in Holland as a drag queen anthem, and he was worried about his masculinity. Instead, he winced and watched in fascinated horror while we mangled the song.

After we had been at the bar for half an hour, it became apparent that we had been stood up! Can you believe it?? Sure, the evening would have ended in disappointment for Geoffrey and Andy, but they didn't know that! I can' t believe that they stood us up. We stayed for about 2 hours and the highlight of the night was watching an elderly American couple jitterbugging on the dancefloor. Everyone had lots of fun, and since it was Pietr's last night in La Fortuna, we were happy to stay out a little late and chat with him.

We went off to bed with visions of lost cameras and defecting guides dancing in our heads.