So, how do you make ze nachos without ze beans?
Costa Rica Part 2
I am now in Puerto Jimenez. I have already seen 2 crocs. Let’s catch up! We had to meet Susan at a dock at a cantina down the road at 7. We head down there and find no Susan, no water, and no boat. We did find plenty of swamp muck and mud. Susan shows up a couple minutes later, and we proceed to wade in swampy, mucky water to where she left the boat. It wasn’t bad, but it was slippery. Kinda fun. We get to the boat and push it a bit further out in the swamp, climb in, and take off. But wait! There’s more! The water was very rough. Big swells, (well, not really, but plenty of them) rocking the boat. Golfo de Dulce my ass! We were cruising along, hitting the waves, when this large rogue wave springs up and sends us airborne! Holy Crap! That was the only one like that, but for 30 minutes, it was a very rough ride. Susan did great, and it was fun. For the most part.
So, now I am at Dona Leta’s. Got here, and within 10 minutes we wondered to the biological reserve in the back and found us a couple of crocs. And a shitload of egrets. Noisy buggers!
Wandered into town, located the bank, had a papaya milkshake at Agua y Luna. Yummy.
There is a bridge (It’s not up to code! ;) ) right by it, and there are dozens of these cool fish with glowing eyes. Very weird, very cool! So, now we wait to hear about a tour, and I still need money. And food. Mucho hungry! This is a nice bungalow. Much more bug proof than Zancudo. Bed is comfy, and I think the fridge is broke. (wasn’t plugged in)
Did I mention that I’m sick of bug bites? :) I don’t know what happened, but the first few days in Zancudo I had very few problems. Then, they found me.
They found me through the netting while sleeping, too. Grr…. Oh well. I expected it.
It is a lot hotter and muggier here. I’m gonna die on these hikes.
We hooked up with Juan Carlos for a hike tomorrow. 6 hours or so. We leave at 5:30am. Ack! Should be cool. Lotsa pics.
So, we went back into town, went to the bank, got some dinner too. We went to the grocery: Food, fruit, and beer, a six pack for under a buck. Holy Crap!
It is a lot noisier and active here as opposed to Zancudo. Makes for a good transition to San José, and then Seattle. Got the big hike tomorrow, smaller one Wednesday or Thursday, and one day I want to just bum around. Thursday, maybe. Well, off to bed to prepare to die hiking! Yay! Gonna be very humid!
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 This is a 3-legged vulture. Can you see it? |
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 This is not paint splatters. It is natural markings. Weird, huh? |
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 The Road to Puerto Jimenez. |
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 Puerto Jimenez International Airport. |
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 I am the Lizard King! |
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Tuesday, 3:30pm
Just got back from a magnificent hike! A long 6˝ hike, but great and well worth it! 10 minutes into it, squirrel monkeys!!!!!! Yay! I hope my pics turn out. We saw so many cool things, monkeys, macaws, a toucan, trees and plants of shapes and types that I’ve only dreamed of! It was $61, and well worth it. The trail was very diverse. Started on this old road, then a foot trail, climbed up and down a bit, beaches every so often, caves, rivers, waterfalls, you name it. Bats! Tide pools with neat fish! Oh my god! :) I ate sugar cane! I saw bananas, guava, oranges, plantains, and others all growing wild! Wow! We hiked in a variety of areas, and all of it was enjoyable. But this one spot….
In the last third of the hike, we came to a waterfall. It wasn’t blowing full steam, so we climbed it. Yes, I climbed a waterfall. Oh my. The rock was great. It felt like sandstone, and everywhere you put your boot or hand, you got a grip. It was great!! I LOVED IT!!!!! At the top: VULTURES Yay! Great hike. Great hike!! But now I am tired. Tomorrow is lounge day, so I’ll try to write more about it. Jen’s gonna go kayaking. And I’m gonna check my mail.
(Check this page for pictures from the hike. There's too many to put on this main page.)
6:30pm
I have scored a coffee sock! I’ll live! Munched on some food type stuff, downed a few cervezas, feeling fine now. A little mad, (Mad! Maaaad!) But good. You should always feel a bit loony. Mmmmm….. mango nectar. Score!
We have laundry service! Yay! I’ll have clean clothes to go home in! If I wore what I wore hiking, everyone on the plane would die of asphyxiation! Hmmm…… not an entirely bad idea….
Tomorrow: lounging, email. Venture into town, get more mango nectar. And food. Yay Food!
I like this place. Costa Rica. Who’d a thunk it!? Not me! Not a year ago. I have completely enjoyed myself here, and I still have 2 full days in Puerto Jimenez, one day in San José, and then home, I guess. NOT looking forward to work. Now, read a bit, then nappy time. Bye!
10am Wednesday, 6/16
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The tide is out, so there is plenty of beach to comb. Done. I need to go out and get some pictures of this area.
I found a large tooth on the beach. Molar type tooth. I dunno where it came from. Cow, maybe?
I’m gonna check my email in a little bit. I’m hungry too. I’ve got stuff, cereal, munchies, fruit. But I want a meal. Maybe I’ll venture into town for lunch later. Maybe I’ll see what the bar here has. Mebbe not.
Crabs keep wandering in here. We’ve shooed out, I dunno, 5 or 6 crabs. I don’t mind them, but I don’t want to step on them either or find them in my bed when I wake up. Jen is upstairs, so she doesn’t have that problem Crabs don’t climb stairs well. :)
I now have 38,530 colones. Rico Gringo, mucho dinero. Christophe at Sol y Mar used Coco and Coca to keep track of our tabs. I’m Coco. As in nut. He did so because we stayed at Cabina los Cocos. So it sorta made sense. ‘Paul’ & ‘Jen’ would have worked too...
The hike yesterday brought us out to the point. There is a cave right there that has suffered a bit of a landslide. While we sat there taking a break, rocks kept falling from the ground above the cave. Interesting, to say the least. I climbed a waterfall….. Oh, my….. It is soo…. Outdoorsy!
The airport is right behind Dona Leta’s, so getting there is easy. Airport is not correct. Airstrip. Ground, planes, maybe a shed. That’s it. Golfito did not even have the shed!
My bug bites are going away. I only have a few that itch, the rest are mostly flat red splotches. I hope the are gone by the time I leave Costa Rica. Wouldn’t want to wear shorts back home with legs like this! The look diseased! Like I’ll actually be able to wear shorts in Seattle. Ha! But I’m not complaining. Ok, maybe a bit. Next time I’m here I’m coming during the regular season. Sure, it’ll cost more, but eh. Next time, I’ll know Spanish as well
I have peeled very little from my burn. Just my shoulders. Good. Maybe what little tan I have will stick around!
1:45pm Wednesday
It just now clouded over. It’s been sunny, humid and hot, which I think I am just about tired of. Which, for me is pretty good, considering how much I dislike hot muggy weather. I’m a temperate person.
Sitting here reading, eating a bowl of pineapple chunks and mango chunks with some mixed nuts. And corn flakes. And cheese. And a beer.
4pm? Sounds good.
Wet clouds finally rolled in. I’m sitting here at the bar outside, and I’m still sweating. It is much more humid over here. I have not felt ‘dry’ since Seattle. What do you expect! It’s the tropics, dummy! :)
8pm
Finished most of my food, and I’m not gonna bother getting more. I’ll just eat out. Er, In a restaurant. Er! Eat food in a restaurant! Yeah! I also just finished reading ‘Neverwhere’ by Neil Gaimen. Odd book. Good. Would make a decent movie, I think.
It is now raining. Surprise! :)
Cooled it off a bit. Now I just have to mind bugs and not let them in. The wall by the door is plastered with the corpses of ants that died horribly in a rainstorm of 100% Deet. Heh heh.
I might go on a hike tomorrow. Mebbe not. I don’t care. I’m happy just to sit around.
11am, Thursday
I have done nothing today, spare some minor beach combing, crab torture, and organization of the stuff I gotta pack. When my laundry is done, I’ll do more.
Tomorrow, I leave the area. Sigh…. I planned to do more hiking over here, but I guess I got used to relaxing in Zancudo. Oh well. The hike on Tuesday was quite good, both in sights and exertion. I’ve seen just about everything I wanted to see here, except for a sloth. Oh well. I did see a poison dart frog!
I have 5 or 6 ziplocks full of shells and stuff from the beaches.
Did I mention the tide pools on the beach during the hike? There is rock that has been eroded away, and it forms holes that come in all sizes that creates pools when the water recedes. They are clear, and they hold crabs, mollusks, urchins, and fish. Cool fish. Cool brown and gold striped fish, little things that look like plecos or mudskippers, and these tiny little bright blue fish with orange or yellow undersides. Very cool! I took pictures of everything. I hope they turn out.
I also saw bats! Yay bats! There were crab parts on the ridge. Weird.
7:45am Friday, 6/18
Who? Whut? What happened? Yesterday? Ok. No hike, so we sat at the bar, starting about 3. Had some beer, watched cute dogs playing, watched the water and basically did nothing. The bar/restaurant is in management flux, they are leasing it out to someone else to manage, so they have no cook, no food, and actually no beer, so they got some for us.
At some point, I decided that I was tired of beer, so I asked the guy they brought in to bartend for whiskey. Jack Daniels! The bottle was a bit more than ˝ full, so I kept it. I drank all of it, spare a smidgen that Jen took. I did get some real food, finally. Dominique made some marvelous fried rice and they shared. Free food! I sat and drank 3 beers and half a bottle of Jack until about midnight. Came back here and passed out.
I gotta finish packing up now. We leave here in just 3 hours or so. Sigh….. Been nice here and Zancudo. But this afternoon is San José, and the DON CARLOS GIFT SHOP!!!! Yay Shopping!!
Next entry: San José
12:50pm
I lied. I write this in a small plan on the way to San José. Back to a city, the segue to normal life. Ugh.
Jen is ill. Quite. Not from beer, but from the lingering parts of the shrimp that were in the rice. She wasn’t kidding about the reaction to seafood. J I feel very bad for her, and wish I could help! Get better! :)
When we get to the hotel, I’m scarfing down large quantities of food. And I’m gonna watch TV. And then there was something else….. GIFT SHOP! I need to see how much I have. I still need coffee.
3pm
At the Don Carlos now. Got my room, turned on the tube, and I find cartoons! The Tex Avery one with the little mean bear and the big stupid bear. They get jobs as dog catchers. You know the one! In Spanish!
5:30pm
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE GIFT SHOP! THE GIFT SHOP! I just blew $300 and walked out with 5 bags packed with goodies. How the hell am I getting this stuff home??? Must…..buy…more!!! I’m going back for coffee, then I gotta eat. I’ll write more then.
9:45pm
Ok, I’m done now. No more gift shop. No more room! So, I spent, uh…. $385 on critical must-haves and $105 on 20 pounds of coffee. I’m all packed up, and now I have to spend all day tomorrow making sure everything doesn’t break. This hotel is wonderful. I love it. So much character! Stone sculptures, paintings to die for, oh my. I can’t describe it. You just have to see it.
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And their Pina Coladas are the best! Anyway, I’m gonna watch the news and go to bed. Bye!
7:45pm Saturday, over…… Wyoming?
Why is it that I have had more trouble with these flights than any others ever?? We get to the counter to check in at San José and we are told that a) our flight is delayed 1.5 hours, and b), it is over booked. But, for $700 we could volunteer "for the Miami flight". So we do that, and are told to go to Gate 1 and when they board at 9:15 to tell them we volunteer to get bumped and so on. We still got confirmed for the Dallas flight, though. But that was the end of the info. We sat there for hours with no clue as to what was going on. We had to change gates. Finally we boarded. Yeah, Boarded a bus to go to the plane. (3 hours later) It wasn’t even at the gate. Weird. Also, the 8:15 flight out of Dallas, the only one we could get on because the original flight was screwed up, was cancelled. So, we managed to get a flight at 6:46 instead. While we were waiting to board in San José, I glanced at the boarding pass for that flight. Seats 5E and 5F. Premium. Uh…. Uh…. That is first class!! Yup! I’m sitting here in first class. First class! Score! Free booze, great food, comfy chairs, legroom, pampering. Hell yeah, I could get used to this. The nuts were WARM! The containers and dishes were all glass, not plastic or paper! Table clothes! Ice cream sundaes! Wow! You know, it’s kinda nice to be pampered a bit after ‘roughing it’ for 2 weeks.
A great ending to a wonderful trip. I hope Jen had as much fun as I did, if not more. Well, except for the barfing. J Now, I get to go home, unpack, take care of my fish, and attend to some personal matters.
Gonna land in a bit. I’ll make one more entry when I get home.
11:45pm. Seattle. Home.
I’m home now. Jen and I took different shuttles. My fish are all OK, but my plants have grown exponentially. I have a huge pile of mail, mostly crap. All my toys made it back in one piece. Yay! My roommate Christian moved out, back to California. Bizarre! Sheila called and yelled at me to call her, so I think I’m gonna do so and wake her ass up. Careful whatcha ask for...
Vacation over. Back to reality. Dammit.
6/19/99 Paul Gagliano
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