The Nicoya Peninsula

I keep telling myself that I'll update my blog as soon as possible, but with each day, the amount of content I have to catch up on grows. To make this easier for both me, and those of you reading this, I'll take the past few days in nice, bite-sized pieces. I hope I don't leave anything out.

Last weekend (jeez - that was already a week ago), the entire family set off to take a trip around the Nicoya Peninsula. All eight of us packed into one car a little after mid day and drove off into the sunset, and what a sunset it was. We drove for a few hours before reaching puntarenas and our ferry. This is actually the same ferry we saw crossing the bay on our second night in Costa Rica. This time around, instead of watching the picturesque boat slide across the bay, we were the ones waving at those on the shore. At this time I was still getting over a bit of a stomach bug (see previous post), so the rocking of the boat wasn't the most pleasant experience, pero valió la pena (it was worth it).

We got off the ferry in a town called Cabuya where, in his youth, Ramses' dad had spent a lot of time working and fishing. We had a late dinner at a friends restaurant before taking the plunge and driving another hour or so through the Cabuya Forest to reach our Cabinas.

At first, it seemed to me that Ramses' father must have some solid connections around Costa Rica, since he seems to know almost everybody we meet, but really he's just good at making friends. This friendship making theme came up a lot during this trip, but more on that later.

The next day, after a morning swim and a walk on the beach, we continued on our way. The road we took, though not the most direct, took us along the beach, over the mountains, and through rivers. That's right, through rivers, not over. I swear, the surroundings in some areas looked like something straight out of Lord of the RIngs. Imagine the Shire but with a few palm trees thrown in. The drive was complete with unpaved roads to made our heads rattle, monkeys clinging to the trees that hung over the road, throwing up dust in our wake, Costa Rican history lessons, bachata music, pit stops to buy beers, and senseless banter. I couldn't really imagine a better way to spend a road trip, but that was before I saw our destination.

We met up with Ramses' cousin and her family just a few kilometers outside Punta Islita. Our caravan twisted its way on yet another dirt road to come to a large restaurant, which isn't in business these days. Luckily for us, it had been converted into a beach house get-away set into the hill, overlooking the ocean. Apparently in its youth, the restaurant had received guests like Mel Gibson, who has a house somewhere in Costa Rica, and other movie stars. Last week, however, it was complete with couches and banquet tables, and it welcomed two road-weary American College Students and their terrific Costa Rican family. The owners of this restaurant had met Ramses' family a few years back and quickly became good friends (again with this making friends business). After soaking in the view and the company, we hopped into the cajón (truck bed) and tumbled our way down to the beach.

These waves were so different from the waves in the Caribean. This Oregon girl was actually able to swim in an ocean that wasn't freezing cold. What a novel idea! Sure it's the same ocean as the one I'm used to back home, but this time it was warm. As I was frolicking in the waves with my buddies by my side, my dad #2 was on the beach making some buddies of his own. Kelsea and I got out of the water, dried off, and were told that we would be taking another trip up the mountain. Alexander's new friend happened to be a caretaker for a house on top of the hill and invited us, all 14 of us, to come take a swim. To call this place a house is an understatement. The view, phenomenal. The pool, spectacular. The company, wonderful. The bugs, of no importance. We. Were. In. Heaven. I had to keep pinching myself. If there is one thing I learned from this excursion, it's that I will never regret simply opening myself up for conversation. The people we've met so far have got to be some of the most openminded and gracious people to be found. Our late night swim eventually turned into an over night stay and I was fortunate enough to enjoy a peaceful morning the next day sipping coffee and admiring the view from my hammock.

After watching Argentina get its butt kicked by Germany, we set off for home. We powered through the rest of the bumpy road and arrived in San Jose later in the evening. Though the trip was not lengthy, it was full to the brim!

The view while leaving home

Two chicks on a ferry!

Three more chicks on a ferry!

One of the many rivers we had to cross. Don't believe me?

...

Road trippin'

Three chick in the back of the truck! No joke. We really did fit eight people into this car.

Our welcome party for the drive in

Our first stop on Saturday. What a view.

That's one hot view. 

Not bad.

 

Roma's diggin' the view.

The fam

Playa Punta Islita

The view from way up high. Same beach as before, just a different angle.

What better way to spend a morning, huh?

Oso Perezoso - the lazy bear

As I said in my last post, the adventure in Cahuita continued past the nature hike through the Cahuita National Park.

Our new found friends over at Willie's tours, set us up the next day with passes to the Santuario de Oso Perezosos (Sloth Sanctuary) just a few kilometers down the road from our cabinas. On Monday night, the owner Jorge agreed to give us a ride over to see some sloths.

Jorge is El Salvidorian but lives in Costa Rica now permanently. He gave us his card, and offered that if we ever want to spend 6 months in Costa Rica, we could come work for him. Something to think about... I noticed that his spanish sounded a bit different from the Tico spanish that I'm used to hearing. I don't know if he spoke more clearly for our benefit, but I was able to understand every word of spanish that he said. For such a small country, Costa Rica sure has a lot of different ways of speaking and a wide variety of accents thrown into the mix. Our tour guide from the nature hike the day before had used plenty of the informal "tú" form with us, while most other San Jose area Ticos will almost exclusively use the more formal "usted" form, or another form not taught in any of my past spanish classes called the "vos" form, all of which just mean "you". Confused yet? Don't worry, so am I. But I digress. On, Monday night we were pumped up to go see sloths the following day.

After a week or so of traveling in Costa Rica, I've picked up a few, very important life lessons. The first of which is: don't drink the tap water. Especially if:

1. It doesn't taste good.
2. It looks brownish in color
3. The rivers in the area are filled with mud and mysterious sludge.

I woke up the next morning to a very sick Kelsea. I will spare the details, because it was not a fun time. She recovered well enough to buy some much needed bottles of water before setting off to see some sloths. Around the time we left, about 5 hours later, I started feeling some rumblies in my stomach. It was my turn to get very sick, just a few hours behind Kelsea. Though the Sloth Sanctuary, a natural reserve with rivers and hundreds of types of wildlife, was amazing, it was accompanied by a few too many trips to the bathroom and plenty of discomfort.

I simply cannot stress enough. Bottled water is my new best friend, at least outside of San Jose. 

Though the trip was not ideal, I managed to pick up some cool new facts about sloths. Amazingly, many don't realize that though there are two types of sloth in Costa Rica, the two-toed sloth and the three-toed sloth, only one type of sloth has been researched at all. Most of the research on sloths has been done about two-toed sloths. These are lighter in color and have the face of a little bear. The three-toed sloth are the more widely recognized type of sloth, but hardly any research has been done on this species. So little in fact, that nobody is really sure how long their lifespan is. 

Most of the sloths at the sanctuary came into their care because of near death experiences. Many of the babies had been separated from their mothers at a young age. Other came as adults and spend a short amount of time in rehabilitation before being released back into the wild. 

Another fun fact is that sloths have their own ecosystem on their backs. Algae and moths and bugs live in their fur. The algae changes color with the season and helps the sloths camouflage. The moths spend their short lives in the sloths fur and reproduce every week when the sloth climbs down a tree to "do its business". And that's nature for ya. 

After a trip on a boat looking at sloths in their natural habitat, we took a tour through the rehabilitation units. We were shown some baby sloths that clutched to stuffed animals like they were their mothers, because apparently the baby sloths need to bond to something soft and warm, and a stuffed animal will suffice. These little guys are just looking for love, and they get plenty. Sloths form strong relationships at an early age with each other and with the workers at the Sanctuary.

I can't say my last day in Cahuta wasn't exciting. After slothing and a bit of R&R, we boarded a 4:30pm bus back to San Jose. 

Sorry Nick if you're reading this, the best brother in the world award for this month goes to Ramses, who was waiting at the bus stop for us, and who immediately made a cup of tea for me when we got home before I could even ask. We're in good hands here, to say the least. 

The Sloth Sanctuary

An adult three-toed sloth

A baby two-toed sloth

Yesterday, Ramses took us on a trip to a nearby town to visit a friend. The town, called Palmares, is home of the annual Festival of Palmares which takes place in January every year. This time of year, it's a sleepy suburb, but come January, every front yard is rented out for bands and bars, and the streets are filled with people. The horse parade takes place here too. What fun! Ramsés' friend Fabi is hosting an Oregonian Exchange student who is here with the same program I went with 3 years ago. She seems to be taking to Costa Rica nicely, and it was fun to share some of our experiences of getting used to the country.

This afternoon we are leaving, all 8 of us, for a family trip to Guanacaste. Hasta Lunes!

Some hot chicks in Palmares

A church in Palmares

El Caribe!

What a hell of a week. Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures to share, but I can try to describe, to the best of my ability, what my past week in Costa Rica looked like.

The 4th of July in Costa Rica, is not a very festive occasion, as I expected. Back in the states I would've been eating burgers and setting things on fire like a true American, but in Costa Rica, July fourth is a day like any other. Here, the the real holiday was July 5th - the day of the Costa Rican World Cup game against Germany. We (and by we I mean a gaggle of five youngsters) set out for the Caribbean Coast around mid day. As we drove from Ramsés house in Heredia toward San Jose, I saw countless Costa Rican flags hanging off of every car, house and shop. All of Costa Rica was pumped up for el partido de fútbol. With the streets, which are already crazy to drive on, filled with amped up Ticos, I was worried about getting to our bus without an incident. Fortunately, we boarded our bus easily by pushing to the front of a gringo filled line and got comfortable enough to endure the 5+ hour bus ride to the Caribbean Coast.

We arrived later that night to our little Cabinas (like a cabin or Hostel) in a town called Manzanillo. The closest moderately sized town was called Puerto Viejo. Las Cabinas Se Uá, as it was called, was basically set right into the edge of the jungle. We could hear chirping and humming of who knows what kinds of bugs coming out of what looked like a wall of green. Pretty neat, to say the least. We got settled in with yet another delicious plate of typical Tico food (seriously, how are rice and beans here so much better than the ones I make back home?).

Around 4 or 5am the next morning, the howler monkeys outside our room decided it was wake up time and proceeded to shout at us from the aforementioned jungle. If I hadn't been on the other side of our locked door, I might have been worried for my own safety. Those noises coming from the forest were not the sounds of friendly neighbors.

Manzanillo, though a tiny little town, had a lot to offer as far as beaches and nature. The whole Caribbean Coast has a completely different feel from San Jose. There is far more English spoken from person to person because, from what I saw, a lot of tourists frequent the Caribbean beaches. Overall, Puerto Viejo is very laid back and easy going. We were warned before by Ramsés' family, that the Caribbean can be dangerous for two american girls wandering around. In a town as small as Puerto Viejo, and with as much tourist traffic as there was, we didn't find much trouble.

The game was playing on every screen in every bar or restaurant we passed that day. Usually, I don't care about Soccer, like at all, but I couldn't help but get excited when I was surrounded by so many passionate fans. Though Costa Rica put up a good fight over two overtimes and penalty kicks, Holland took the win in the final minutes. Ticos, however sad they were, acted amiably towards the Holland fans in the audience. The Tico sprit wasn't broken, that's for sure. Apparently, this is the first time Costa Rica has ever gotten this far in the World Cup, and they succeeded in making a name for themselves.

But enough about soccer, we spent a great two days in Puerto Viejo. The nature reserve in Manzanillo has an awesome viewpoint of the Caribbean coast (pictures to follow).

After our short stint in the southern coast, Kelsea and I bid goodbye to our Tico travel buddies and set off on our own. We hopped on a bus headed north and got off in a town called Cahuita. We arrived just in time for the tail end of the Calypso Music Festival. There is a large Reggae influence in the Caribbean and a lot of that shows up in the music and also... the food! A typical Tico dish, arroz con frijoles, gets an extra twist in the Caribbean with a dish called "rice and beans". Which is really just the typical dish but instead made with coconut milk. It's muy rico!

We spent our first day getting settled in our cabinas, named Cabina Caribe Luna, which was set just outside of town and was complete with a warm shower and a hammock! The town of Cahuita is pretty itty bitty with a large attention on tourist needs and accommodations. I was surprised to see so many gringos walking around town, listening to the music, sitting at restaurants, etc.

The intention for coming to Cahuita was to check out the beaches and the national park. We poked around the mainstreet long enough to find ourselves in the hand of a tour company called Willie's tours, who provided a long list of activities that Cahuita has to offer. I embraced my inner tourist as I flipped through the brochure of nature walks, ancient indigenous civilization tours, and snorkeling to name a few. I finally decided on hiking through the Cahuita Natural park, and I have to say, I made a good choice.

Our guide showed us the monos (monkeys) far up in the trees that most hikers wouldn't think to look for. We saw an oso perezoso (a sloth - or literally translated - lazy bear) waaaay up in the trees. We saw pájaros (birds). We saw serpientes (snakes). We saw cangrejos (crabs), and we saw a ton of hormigas (ants) of every kind. In some areas of the hike, if I didn't keep my feet moving at all times, I would have tiny leaf cutter hormigas crawling over my feet to make sure they were keeping their highly efficient assembly line. On the side of the trail, out of the corner of my eye, something was always moving, whether it was a doofy looking crab with its body halfway out of a crab hole, or a tiny bird beeboppin' around looking for some ants to eat, which, did I mention, are everywhere? We hiked for 8 km through the forest, with a stop at the breathtaking Punta Cahuita halfway point. The original inhabitants of Cahuita actually started out at this point that juts out into the sea. The original tribe used plants in the forest for all sorts of remedies and stimulants. The town of Cahuita is named after one of these plants, the Cawa tree, which grew at the almost peninsula-like point, or in Spanish, punta. Over time the two words Cawa and punta blended together to form the word Cahuita. Not only was our hike an exposure to the surrounding nature, it was also a history lesson.

I have to apologize in advance for not taking nearly enough pictures of this forest, but there's really only so much a iPhone camera can do. Kelsea, however, brought her camera along and has a bunch of really awesome shots that she's put on her blog. Go ahead. Check it out. Don't be shy:

http://readaboutkelsea.blogspot.com/

We finished up our tour in Cahuita with a bit more adventure. But that post is yet to come. Stay tuned!

An abandoned oil well full of water and natural gas. The water was naturally warmer than air temperature, and a rock thrown into the well would float! 

Lil' Kelsea

Some sneaky hermit crabs

This river isn't dirty, it's naturally red because the trees that grow along the banks give it this color.

The Caribbean Sea!

Costa Rica, por fin!

Hemos llegado, por fin!

We made it! It has taken just about this long – about 2 and a half days, as I write this entry – for the realization that I’m actually here to set in.

A little background for all of you who aren’t my immediate family and who might just be bopping in to see what I’m up to.

First of all, thank you for reading! My roommate (and soul mate) Kelsea decided to take a summer trip abroad a few months ago after hosting for a second time, my “Costa Rican Brother,” Ramses. He had asked that I come visit him for so long, I simply couldn’t let this opportunity pass by again! We are so incredibly lucky to have such a gracious friend who so readily welcomed us into his home. I can’t really say enough that would express how thankful I am to him and his family. Having a connection here has already helped so much, as the journey in was not easy.

We started our journey on Monday night at 10pm and pretty much haven’t stopped moving until now. We faced many obstacles such as a bit of flight sickness, sleepless red-eye flights, and the dreaded North Carolina Sales Tax, but we made it in one piece.

Ramses picked us up from the airport and we spent the first few hours getting accustomed to the Costa Rican air and environment. We arrived at the house around midday after taking a driving tour around the neighborhood. After a brief lunch (we were so hungry. The airline didn’t even provide us with a snack. What is happening to this world?), we set out again to see the rest of Barva, which is the town where Ramses lives. He took us to a park in central Barva and a huge church with awesome stained glass windows – pictures to follow. One of Ramses’ Neighbors came with us. It turns out this same neighbor has grandparents with a house in Guanacaste. They’ve given us permission to stay at that house while we visit Guanacaste in a few weeks, which is so cool. Guanacaste was my absolute favorite place that I visited last time I came to Costa Rica.

For those of you that aren’t aware, I spent two months as an exchange student in Costa Rica during the summer after my junior year of High School. That trip, though I had a lot of fun and learned a lot about being a conscientious traveler, has already proven to be very different than this one, where I am pretty much free to travel the country as Kelsea and I decide. There’s much more freedom this way. This time around I have a much better grasp on the language, though it is still a struggle, and a much better idea of what to expect, though I’m sure plenty of surprises will come my way.

Speaking of surprises, I had no idea exactly how fast-paced I would be going these first few days. Well, in reality, I had no idea how these first few days would turn out anyway. After returning from our little tour of Barva central, we sat down to get ready for a good, much needed nights sleep. After a bit of chatting with Ramses’ parents Alexander and Mayrene (who are so cool, and so hospitable), they informed us that we would be leaving that night to go to the finca (the family farm). Surprise surprise! I slept most of the way there, so in not way did I know where I was, but that might have been what added to the appeal. I felt totally set apart from society. There were butterflies flying all around, hammocks to snooze in, a little pool to offset the heat, fruit just growing right there on the trees, delicious food, good company, and the silence. Ah, the silence. What more could a girl ask for? Kelsea and I got to spent a good amount of time getting to know Ramses’ sisters, Alexa and Aleyra, as well as his parents, since Ramses had to study and didn’t join us at la finca. His sisters are two of the sweetest little girls on earth. Since I’ve always wanted a little sister, I think I’ll just steal his.

After leaving the finca yesterday, we spend the rest of today right next to the Gulfo de Nicoya, swimming in a pool and chatting about whatever my Spanish vocabulary allowed. I got a pretty nasty sunburn, but I would’ve been surprised if I had made it through the first week without some degree of sunburn.

I couldn’t help but take a moment today as we were leaving the beach and all the colorfully painted houses and signs advertising cold Churchill’s* flew by, that I am actually here. This is real. I almost can’t believe it.

No complaints so far for you negative Nancys out there, and I doubt I’ll find anything to complain about while I’m here, apart from the crazy driving. Why is it that every road outside of Oregon seems like a war zone?

Pues, hemos sobrevivido los primeros días. Y ahorita cenamos. Arroz y frijoles! Hasta pronto!

*Churchills are a delicious cold snack made of crushed ice and syrup (like a snow cone) with leche condensada, leche polvo, and helado (ice cream). It's a crime that we don't have them in the US. 

We found a comfy spot in the Charlotte Airport

La vista desde la casa Ramses (the view from Ramses' house)

La Iglesia en Barva Centro

More of the Church in Barva Central

The view from the top of Barva Hill

La finca

Some poolside snoozin'