(with Sandy, Rich and Brian)
Drive | Thursday, August 28, 2014
So 40 minutes later we are deeply embedded in city traffic at rush hour, in the dark, in the rain. With bikers squeezing between what passes for traffic lanes in this city of thousands (all of them jay-walking with no fear in front of our car). Stop signs are purely ornamental here, I observe. And street signs are non-existent.
Brian volunteered to take the first driving shift in our rental car. The Alamo agents strongly suggested that we rent a GPS unit for the SUV, but Rich and Sandy immediately dismiss the idea. “That’s part of the ADVENTURE,” Rich says. “It’ll be fine” Rich says. Sandy agrees that finding our way around on our own armed with just the little map the rental agency provided will be “part of the fun.”
We know our hotel is….somewhere. We are using the clairvoyance system of navigation to try to locate it. Perhaps we should turn HERE? Maybe if we go up two more blocks and turn left there?
After Brian turns the wrong way down a one-way street we start to see the benefits of inviting GPS to the party. Sandy gets the map app going on her phone and we start to zero in on our target. But Google maps is only in Beta mode out here, and after being trapped behind a few city busses we decide to start to make some aggressive game changing moves. This leads to a left turn down a one-way street with barely enough room to navigate through, cars parked parallel along both sides of us. And this road dead ends into a pedestrian walkway.
We are trapped. Pedestrians are swarming in front, behind and along all sides of our vehicle and the options are to either gun it through the crowd and kill dozens or try a 3 point turn to return the way we came and sideswipe vehicles. And the crowd just keeps on coming. I slump down in my seat so that I won’t have to look directly into the faces of the people we are about to murder. I’m amazed that Brian hasn’t had a meltdown because I would have burst into tears by now if I’d been behind that wheel. I’m sure he will suffer PTSD later.
Suddenly a city traffic worker realizes that the 4 gringos in the giant SUV are in deep caca and don’t stand a hope in hell of getting out of there alive. So (bless his neon jacketed heart), the man starts guiding us BACKWARDS down the street, clearing pedestrians and keeping us straight. He also tells us the exact way to reach our hotel.
Hallelujah.
We arrive at the Gran Hotel Costa Rica and are met by our valet/bellboy/new best friend Jose, who recommends a local restaurant where we can taste authentic Costa Rican cuisine. So after pre-dinner wine in the hotel we are off to Nuestro Tierra to enjoy the specialties of the house, sangria, tres leches cake and the Best Coffee in the World. No, seriously. The restaurant manager guaranteed that it was. And he may just be right.
So now it’s nearing midnight and I’m in the John F Kennedy suite at the Gran Hotel Costa Rica, a set of rooms that has been frozen in time to when the US President came to visit the city of San Jose, charming the hotel owners and inspiring them to memorialize the visit by making a shrine of the suite he’d stayed in.
Sandy, Brian and Rich are with me here drinking the wonderful wine that we discovered earlier this evening. We are listening to Frank Sinatra. In a hotel suite that JFK once stayed in. In Costa Rica. I feel like if I blink and then slowly open my eyes I will find that we’ve been transported back in time, that Rich is wearing a smoking jacket, Brian is rocking a Panama hat and Sandy is a vision in pearls and a pretty floral frock.
We are falling in love with this place.
Nature Girl | Friday, August 29, 2014
San Gerardo de Dota
By the time my alarm went off Brian had been awake for hours. I think the Boy from Brooklyn is liking Central America! I went to join him for breakfast and when Sandy arrived she was bearing gifts – little souvenir whistles she had purchased from a street vendor while she was having her first cigi of the day out in front of the hotel. But then it was time to hit the road – we had a cloud forrest to get to!
So we packed up the car and bid farewell to our friend Bellman Jose. He told us that he really enjoyed meeting us and recommended that we come back for Christmas. He seemed quite genuine and I found myself getting a bit misty. So far every Costa Rican we have met has been warm and friendly to us. We can feel the L.A. cynicism melting away…..
And so we were off! Brian at the wheel again, with Rich navigating off of Sandy’s google maps. The fact that not many streets are clearly marked is a challenge, but today we will be hours on the same caretera, so it should go fairly smoothly. And it did – smoothly and spectacularly.
Driving to San Gerardo de Dota was a beautiful journey into thick jungle and forest. Every shade of green that you have ever seen and a few that you could only imagine. Deeper and deeper we went, watching the signs for Savegre Hotel Nature Reserve. I really didn’t care how long it took, I thoroughly enjoyed driving into the woods with the windows open and the cool, fresh breeze doing alarming things to my hair. I tried to breath in and out to a count of 5 and visualize my lungs getting cleaned out. Sweeet!
And the only thing to do after sitting for 2 hours in a car and then filling your bellies to maximum capacity is – Go Hiking Through the Rainforest to Look For Waterfalls. Maybe we should have listened to TLC and not gone chasing them so soon…..
Please understand: the trail we took from the hotel had us enjoying incredible beauty, the day was cool but not enough to require jackets, so we traveled relatively light and unencumbered. We climbed alongside a stream and took a gazillion pictures of the water that will all look alike and cannot possibly do justice to the actual beauty of the place. I am not very skilled at navigating rock paths, mud pools, exposed tree roots and fallen branches – especially after a two course meal with wine! But I am Of The Forest (preferably from the balcony of beautiful hotel) so I knew I had to take this opportunity to witness nature at its wildest and break in my fancy, new hiking sandals.
Tall Drink O’ Water Rich has legs that were born to jump over wide mud patches and slide down sloping trails and Sandy must be taking secret climbing courses in her spare time because she was speeding along through the forest at break-neck speed with no trips or falls. There she was! Half a mile ahead of us stopping to look back and smile at me hobbling at the very back of our chain gang!
We passed a local trout farm with half a dozen Olympic swimming pool- sized water enclosures for the baby trout. I’m guessing I might have eaten their grandparents for lunch? I begged to use their restroom (listening to a babbling stream when you are dying to use the lav is…um, distracting) and they were gracious and accommodating. Just another few hills, mud jumps and stumbles and we arrive at the Waterfall!!!!
And of course the waterfall was every bit as gorgeous as we had hoped it would be. There was a footbridge crossing it and we took our time enjoying the view in all directions. Sandy was having a celebratory smoke when one of us, I can’t remember who, wondered aloud if there wasn’t another waterfall close by. And about this huge black rock beside the footbridge: what is underneath it? A cave? A tunnel? A path to another waterfall? An even more incredible view perhaps?
You don’t put questions like that in Sandy’s head and expect her to not want ANSWERS, baby. I saw her scrambling down the muddy cement path down further and deeper, with Rich in tow. I didn’t even know what it was they are running into and the main questions in my mind were: would there be bats, or spiders? Would it be so small and dark that I would be overcome by my claustrophobia? Would I slip and kill myself on the way down? I looked at Brian and murmured “I can’t do that”. Brian looked at me and gently said “I wouldn’t want you to honey”.
I love this man I love this man I love his man I love this man I love this man!!!!!!
So we wait. And wait. But it’s getting a little bit darker. And are those rain drops I feel? We had to make a decision – should we stay or should we go back? We had no idea whether Rich and Sandy would return shortly…. or at all. So we decided to head back to where we started. Should be pretty straightforward.
Except when you happen to stray a bit from the path.
And suddenly we are somewhere much muddier than before – when I slipped into ankle deep water and felt the mud ooze between my toes I let out a shriek and my first instinct was to pray that I had no cuts on my feet that brain-eating jungle fevers could use as an entry to my bloodstream. When I mentioned this to Brian he remarked “oh, I thought you’d be concerned about leeches”. Up to this point I hadn’t been.
But we made it up and out of the forest back to our cabin, our sincerest wish being to someday see Rich and Sandy again, alive. I sat on the bed and felt the room start spinning and my body start getting the chills – but I revived once I laid down and drank the water that I should have taken with me during the hike.
And here appeared Rich and Sandy, Sandy flinging herself onto the ground in exhaustion. They told tales of another waterfall, of Sandy tripping during the climb down and cutting her leg, of falling head first into mud and having to wash it off in the water of the falls. Her leg was shredded and I felt relieved that I packed the antibiotic cream. I asked her to describe the tale for this blog, but she didn’t want to discuss it any further. When pressed, Rich just said “what happens in the rainforest stays in the rainforest…”
We conquered the jungle but it conquered us right the hell back! It was an early night for all.
On the Road Again| Saturday, August 30, 2014
Puerto Viejo
On our way to the beach!!! But first we need to spend over 5 hours maneuvering Costa Rican traffic to get there!
And as it happens, there are half a dozen towns in between where we are and where we are going, and they are each holding festivals today! Apparently all the nations’ trucks have been ordered to hit the roads in celebration. Or that is the way it seems. There are hundreds of them on the two lane roads and the opportunities for overtaking them are infrequent and risky. But Brian is a patient driver and does the job, taking us through the various towns along the way, stopping when we are lost/confused/frustrated to allow me to ask friendly locals for directions. We don’t get impatient though – that is an emotion that we intended to leave behind in Los Angeles!
So much green everywhere we look. Gorgeous plants and flowers, even the simplest green leaf is like a little work of art. We see a nice little cafe in the middle of nowhere and we stop to enjoy some java. It is amazing to me that this place is located on a fairly isolated stretch of road, but it looks quite upscale inside with its white tablecloths and elegantly dressed barista. They even had a selection of 5 different types of coffee brewers for sale, from French presses to chemex brewers, and patiently explained the best ways to use each one.
This stop sort of sets the tone for our pit stops – Sandy searches for “coke light” (it is surprisingly not as ubiquitous as its American cousin Diet Coke, but Sandy requires this fluid the way the rest of us need blood plasma, so she’s on a mission to find it every time we stop) and then takes a cigarette break, off on her own by the side of the road, looking seductive and pensive (she can do them both at once).
While Sandy takes a smoke break, I window shop. I have to. I can’t help it.
As much as Sandy loves her ciggies/diet coke and I love shopping Brian and Rich are equally fond of Costa Rica coffee, with Rich now requesting it with “crema” and Brian asking for it “negro”. Brian is starting to develop a strange accent when saying Spanish words – it’s not that he pronounces them incorrectly, it is almost the exact opposite. He enunciates each syllable with a glee that is cute, joyous and just a little bit scary (he can do them all at once). Like Ricardo Montalban meets Dracula. His current favorite Spanish word is delicioso. Yep, he loves saying “Del-EE-SEE-OH-SO!!!!!” It’s adorable.
Later on we take a break from the drive to stop at a little roadside bar for a drink. It’s so wild how these local bars and restaurants are built with open walls that let the outside breezes blow through and allow you to watch the rain pounding outside. No way to lock them up completely at night. I cannot imagine this form of commercial structure ever surviving back home. Everything would be tagged, vandalized or stolen overnight. Sandy and I grab a couple of brews for the road (passengers can carry open containers here) and the four of us get back on our mission.
After hours on the road we finally make it to Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean coast. We have two places booked – a gorgeous open air room at the Banana Azul resort (which only had one room available) and a little cottage, Casa del Mar, on the beach in Playa Cocles, about 15 minutes away. First stop was Banana Azul – we check out our room, which boasted a clear view of the ocean and we checked out a fellow houseguest, whose tiny lace-up blue speedo boasted a clear view of his own azul banana!
After dinner we head back to enjoy some time at the Casa, which has a wonderful patio. We break out the iPod, bust open the vino, set up prone positions on the hammock, rockers and sofa and relax in a way that I’m guessing you can only relax on the Caribbean. What could be better? I know! A midnight swim in the ocean!!!!!
If you suspect that it wasn’t my idea, you would be correct. I cannot swim. Brian was tired from all the driving and just wanted to chill, but Sandy and Rich were breathless to dive into the dark sea. I had packed a little flashlight and I grabbed it as the 4 of us took the twenty or so steps out to the beach.
And there I stood, like the Statue of Liberty, holding the torch up as I watched Sandy and Rich go further and further out in the water. I could see their fair hair glowing, but not much else. There was no moon. There was no horizon. No lights except for the twinkly distant stars. Every once in a while I lost sight of them. So much darkness.
At one point I lost sight of them and I shouted at Brian, “WHERE ARE THEY??!!!!” I knew that even if they were drowning there would be nothing I could do to help them. It was the one of the most scary feelings I’ve ever experienced. I blinked the flashlight on and off, like morse code, but I didn’t think they could see it. They were having far too much fun. A few moments later they came splashing back to the beach, happy and excited. We decided to all stay together at the Casita and let go of the amazing room at Banana Azul. This cottage already felt like home, and it was finally time to crash for the night.