Blogs from Ciudad Colon, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean

Behind bars with Lobo, Daisy and BusterRight now am just completing house sitting in a gated community on the outskirts of Ciudad Colon, a small town about 20 km west of San Jose. (found on the internet). House sitting offers accomodation in exchange for minding property and pets, whilst the owners are away on buisness, vacation ets. For me its an excellent way to just stop for a while, settle down, catch up with washing, blogs etc.Ok, so here I am, beautiful house set just back from a deep canyon with swift river winding at the base, surrounded by flowering exotic trees and bushes.Last night at dusk a small toucan settled quite close, AND I had camera to hand , thrilling to see one in the free.The housing complex, probably about 30 private dwellings individually designed, ... read more

Yesterday I was a bit uncomfortable. We stayed up late drinking wine (damn Henry and his DJing), and everyone was sluggish when we woke up. Food was running low, so Robert gave us some money to go purchase produce at the farmer's market that was going on in town. We all went, and the walk doubled as a last goodbye for Alex. We got to the market, and Alex said that he had to carry on to the bus station. The girls cried, the guys hugged, and off he went. He has more work lined up down in Panama, but plans to party on Costa Rica's Caribbean side first. I wish I could go. Anyways, the girls were pretty upset, so they got beer and cigarettes and we literally sat around the park for a few ... read more

My first real stop on my Central America adventure was in Ciudad Colon, situated about 40 minutes outside of San Jose, in the country side bordering the jungle. I heard about WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) from a friend and thought it would be a neat experience to stop at some of these organic farms along my travels and volunteer in exchange for room and board. Not only would I experience and learn new things that I couldn't otherwise as just a backpacker, but it would also help to offset some of the travel costs. Some are free and will provide you with the basic foods, while others might charge you a small fee per night to help with the cost of food. Robert Roman is a retired American, who has been involved with ... read more

For those of you who have been enjoying our blog these past 11 months, our apologies for being so delinquent in writing anything new recently. We are still here in Costa Rica (in case you thought our lack of updates meant we had gone home early and hadn't told anyone). But we are now in our final month of our year-long sabbatical. We will be returning to Minnesota the first week of September, almost 1 year to the day from when we got here. It will be a bittersweet departure, to be sure. Anyway, without further ado, here is a recap of our adventures from the past few months. You might want to get a refill on your beverage before continuing - it's a bit long. Visitors: Nancy's family (mother, father, sister, niece and nephew) were ... read more

Beyond our travels to the various parts of the country, lots of other stuff has been happening in our lives. School: The boys continue to enjoy Pinewoods. They did quite well on their first trimester midterms (yes, they have midterms and finals in 7 different subjects every trimester!!). Their finals are coming up next week, so there will be lots of studying at our house. The school put on skits and songs for the celebration of the Battle of Rivas, where Costa Rica turned back a mercenary army led by an American named William Walker back around 1850. The dramatic point in the battle involves a young boy (Juan Santamaria) setting fire to the fort where Walker and his buddies were but then being shot and killed as he ran off. He is such a beloved ... read more