COSTA RICA BLOG #1

COSTA RICA BLOG #1, Saturday and Sunday – Tim After arriving mid day Saturday and taking the shuttle bus on a short trip from the airport we started exploring the grounds of the resort. Costa Rica has been so different from what I have ever seen before. Our hotel is surrounded by empty beaches and jungle in any direction! In our first days here we have seen wild iguanas lying in the sun everywhere that don’t seem to care too much about people, monkeys howling at us, the biggest vultures you could imagine, spiky puffer fish, long skinny fish with teeth like barracudas, and so many small crabs that they make the rocks look like they are moving. Hands down my favorite part of these first days though were exploring miles of deserted “secret beaches” and finding really cool tide pools deep enough to jump off the rocks into. Exploring Costa Rica so far has been one surprise after another. Can’t wait to see what the next adventures await. Monday and Tuesday – Andrea After spending two days traveling and exploring, I’ve been inclined to take it easy. I watched from the beach as Nikki, Tim and Brad paddle boarded and kayaked, but the majority of our time has been spent the last two days lounging and swimming leisurely. It’s rained so far every day at least once, but even that is nice in Costa Rica. I was chatting with some of the local venders that have set up shop on the beach right in front of our hotel, and one guy was pulling his table in a little bit. He said he thought it was going to rain, and sure enough – not two minutes had passed before the rain began to fall. But it cleared five minutes later and the pool and beach were once again enjoyed by the hotel patrons. Nikki, Tim and I enjoyed massages on the beach yesterday. Jennifer arrived just as we were finishing, safe and sound. Just like us, the travel had taken its toll on her. But the best about Costa Rica is that nobody has a schedule or agenda, including the locals. I predict that she’ll be rested and ready to explore with us in no time.

COSTA RICA BLOG #2

COSTA RICA BLOG #2 Best trp I’ve ever had. Ziplining has always been on my bucket list as well as Tims’. So naturally, when we signed up for our excursion with the entire group in tow, we were beyond thrilled to be able to mark ziplining in the jungle off of our “to do” lists. The ziplines were just the icing on the cake. We started our day off bright and early and took a bus ride to the first stop of the day. We were greeted by many helpful workers and escorted by our tour guides to horse corrals. After we were set up on our horses, each with a personality of their own, we headed up a rather steep and bumpy ride. To our surprise, after the first zip through the jungle in our harnesses, we were told that we had nine more lines to go! All of us assumed that we would do one, possibly two, zip lines through the canopy. Our guides laughed at this and explained that there were a total of ten. After zipping through various parts of the treetops, hanging all sorts of different directions, we landed at the bottom. With our hearts racing and adrenaline pumping, we excitedly changed and headed to the 400-meter waterslide. The waterslide was far from a lazy river, as water rushed through a hand operated canal and flooded the cement slide that we sat on. At some points in the huge slide I couldn’t believe that something like this was legal and we all agreed that it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen in the United States. It ended in a warm pool and we were greeted with dry towels and fresh oranges. We were thrilled at this half of our day and little did we know, there was still much more! We had ignorantly assumed that lunch would consist of packed sandwiches and bottles of water. We were taken as a group to a small restaurant above a swimming pool, in the jungle. The food was absolutely delicious, completely organic, and we all agreed that it was our best meal of the trip yet! After lunch, our group was guided to another part of the jungle where we received a mud scrub all over our faces and bodies. After these dried, we washed off in the cool river and walked up to a beautifully crafted cement swimming pool that had a natural hotspring flowing into it. Our group had perfect timing and we had the pool to ourselves for the majority of the time. After this relaxing part to our thrilling day, we dried off and changed, just in time for the summer rain to start pouring. The trip home was spent by almost all of us dozing in and out from our exhausting but amazing day. We all had dinner and turned in early for the night so that we could be up and ready around 5am to depart to Nicaragua the following day!

COSTA RICA BLOG #3

BLOG #3 Jennifer Today started very, very early. We departed our hotel at 5AM bound for Nicaragua! We stopped in Liberia for breakfast and coffee before we headed to the boarder. We were informed that there is an extensive inspection process at the border. We say a long line of trucks waiting and we were told they can wait for up to three days to cross! Luckily, it didn’t take quite so long for us. We spent 1.5 hours or so waiting for our passports to be inspected and the van to be searched for drugs. It was pouring rain most of this time but clear skies by the time we made our first real stop! Our guide, Gustavo, spent most of our 15 hour day regaling us with a wonderful account of the history, politics, economics and geology of Costa Rica and many parts of Latin America. I should note that while I like to think I inherited many wonderful qualities from my Grandfather – including a quick wit, keen intelligence, rugged good looks and the ability to hold my liquor – memory for names, dates and places was not one of them! I’m sure that Grandpa Bill will be able to share many details of what we learned today, but I’ll just share a few highlights. Costa Rica is a pretty remarkable country. They don’t have a military. The vast majority of the country has access to water, electricity, phone and internet services. They have compulsory education through the 9th grade. Their infant mortality rate is below 4 per 1000 births! According to our guide, the country is 20% upper class, 60% middle class, 10% lower class and 10% poor, although I’m not sure how those categories are defined. This is all compared to Nicaragua which is closer to 70% poor and 30% wealthy. Our first stop in Nicaragua was at beautiful Lake Nicaragua. The lake is humongous! It is large enough that it has high and low tides and at one time was home to a type of shark. We passed this lake throughout the day and each time I thought it must be the ocean because of how massive and distinct it looked from each location. We stopped in a town and did a little shopping before heading to see the Volcano Masaya. Entering the park we passed a sign informing us in Spanish that if the Volcano were to erupt, they were not responsible for any damage we suffered. We were also given helmets before exiting the car, but luckily this activity seemed much less dangerous than our helmeted activities from Wednesday. Brad really enjoyed exploring the edge of the volcano and we all attempted to take great pictures each time the steam cleared. Next we headed down for lunch in the beautiful and historic town for Granada. I was greeted upon arrival by a bird dropping his blessings on me from the sky. Lunch conversation oscillated between Brad’s passions (earthquakes) and Jen’s passions (railing against capitalism). At the end of lunch, each gentleman at the table was given a card with information on how to rate the restaurant on Trip Advisor and “like” them on facebook. Being the feminist of the group, I think my face showed my obvious displeasure with being deemed unworthy to review the establishment. Luckily Grandpa Bill slipped me the card he had received so I can voice my indignation! We continued with a driving tour of Grenada making stops at a church, a railroad station, the town’s first hospital, and finally a park where we could do some more browsing. While in the park, most of us were approached by young children asking for money and some in the group were very touched by this reminder of the privileged life we lead. I’m unsure the degree to which we may have encountered the same if we had toured a town in Costa Rica. Our guide gave us such a favorable impression of CR and made it seem that Nicaragua is much worse off in nearly every measure. I got the impression that while many in CR live modestly, it is not nearly to the same degree of poverty that we are used to seeing in Latin America. I’m curious to know what this country is like away from the resorts. After the park we started our 4 hour journey back to the hotel. Gustavo continued to share the history of Costa Rica since the 14th century! Unfortunately, the day caught up to us and several people fell asleep in the van. We stopped again for customs where once again it was raining. I’ve been led to the assumption that it simply always rains at the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border. We had a few snacks in the van and perked up immensely enjoying great conversation and catching up until we reached the hotel. It was a long day but a wonderful opportunity to learn about two distinct and fascinating countries. Everything we saw was beautiful and everyone had a great time! I should also mention that we learned that today is Mother’s Day in Costa Rica! So, Happy Mother’s Day to each of our moms and to Dottie! We wish you could be here with us! Jen

COSTA RICA BLOG #4

COSTA RICA BLOG #4 I just spent a week in Costa Rica with my family. Here’s the summary. Costa Rica is amazing. The country has an enlightened democratic government, nice people, and natural beauty. I am going to come back here. My family is awesome. One nice thing about getting to spend time with them is that I can learn more about myself from our similarities and differences. We ate dinner together each night and enjoyed great conversation. Our trip was a mix of active and passive vacationing. We rode zip lines and horses and swam in rivers, hot springs, the ocean, and swimming pools. We also just hung out and relaxed by reading, napping, enjoying meals, drinking Costa Rican coffee and beer, and socializing with other tourists. We spent one day in Nicaragua. I thought a lot about analogies with the current violence in Egypt while in Nicaragua. The poverty in Nicaragua shows that disregarding human life in foreign policy is bad. I thoroughly enjoy our family’s annual vacations.