We made it!

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Geo: 9.81165, -85.3099

Long travel day yesterday and the day before? Hard to know, as the days are really mixed together. Arrived at the airport at 4:35 pm (Christmas), checked Jim's fishing poles so he can surf fish here in Costa Rica on our beach (Playa San Miguel), proceeded to go to the security line to check in, this year we all applied and received our Nexus cards to get into the global entry lines, avoid taking shoes off, etc... Generally expedited entry into the US and through security at US airports... Well, my printed at home boarding pass didn't pass muster so I had to go through the whole rigmarole plus get a nice personal pat down from the TSA agent, lesson learned is to print off the boarding pass at the airport kiosk so it can be "read" by the machine at security. Barb/Paul's printed off just fine so they didn't have a problem. All the flights went well, we noticed lots of dogs in the Seattle airport, many people taking them somewhere. We met up with Dan/Kath at SeaTac for a couple of hours, had dinner at one of the only open restaurants in the airport, as everyone was closing down "early" since it was Christmas, I guess they wanted to enjoy the evening, go figure! ;-)

We eventually all met up again at the airport in Liberia, Costa Rica, had a bit of a problem with the higher math at the ATM machine trying to convert US dollars to colones, it's a .528 or so colones to $1 US, still not sure what we all did but we were all fairly confused by the end... I think I took out $10 US (5,0000 colone in one bill) and it cost me $5 ;-). Anyway.... When you pay here in US$ they give you colones back, we probably don't come out on the winning side of that one but I don't think I need to go back to the ATM.

You have to pay an exit tax to leave the country of $28 per person, it's fairly new and wasn't in place when we bought our airfare so they didn't have that fee included. We wanted to pay it before we left so we don't have to do this real early the morning we leave. Went to the airport bank to pay and they did NOT want to take our money, insisted we had already paid it, etc... We explained that we really had not and insisted we lose our money if need be but we do want to pay it now. They let us, we got our receipts and left, found the driver to the Vamos Rental agency and we were off, though not before the one holding the van door open until we tipped him finally closed the door, THEN we were off.

I guess there is a phrase called "tico time" this is not American "time" we literally spent 1.5 hours at the rental agency before we could finally drive. First, they were helping others, but time was just not an issue, you just wait your turn as they calmly and slowly help the person ahead of you. When it's your turn they take their time with you too, Paul wisely checked the oil and found that it barely reached the end of the dip stick and it was super thick and black, all the guys didn't think it had ever been changed! They insisted it be filled and that took a while too! We finally were able to leave, found a nice restaurant on the side of the road, had an excellent dinner, seemed authentically non-American to me, everyone seemed happy with their choices. Will try to upload a couple of photos.

After this Paul drove, Kathy navigated, we made our way to a place to buy local SIM cards for our old unlocked phones for emergency calls if need be. That took a while too, it only cost $2 for who knows how many minutes, they had to call to activate the cards and give our passport information to them also, a lot like in Italy, for some reason the govt wants to know who's making calls.

After this we made our way to Nicoya and a large grocery store with supposedly good prices, the grocery prices are expensive here, we found that in Panama also, I think they are even more expense here though. For a small grocery cart half full cost us $88 US, wanted to buy salad stuff but NO lettuce here.... Bought a head of cabbage, some red peppers, tomatoes, olive oil and vinegar and will make a salad out of that ;-). I then went across the street to a bakery and bought some sweet bread with caramel inside of it, yummy.

Onwards, it's now dark and we have to make our way to our vacation rental. We really wanted to drive it during the day but that was an impossibility with the above mentioned.... Used the gps, Kathy had downloaded to her phone and it worked very well. Roads were pretty good (that means they are paved and have lines down the middle) Not too far from Samara the road turns to gravel and that is when the driving and lack of specific instructions to our rental manager came in not too handy! It was a surprisingly long drive in the dark on an amazingly curvy narrow "road" that term is used very loosely, the bridges we encountered on this "road" are the width for one car only, suffice it to say we all made it just fine, I think the time on that was 45 - 60 minutes driving time. We were to go 1.5 kilometers after some little town and then we'd be at the manager's house, unfortunately, you really need to know where you're supposed to start that 1.5 km, who know who cares! We actually found the driveway to our house, but we were told to get the keys and meet the caretaker at the manager's house, so we turned around found a second set of instructions, the older out of date set, that actually worked better at finding her house. We got there talked to her, she said the caretaker was at the house with the keys.... Anyway! Communication now "cleared up" we made our way back to the driveway, this is actually a trail, we found our caretaker and he let us in, showed us around. It was a long day and drive and we were all more than ready and past ready for bed. The house was incredibly hot, so we turned the air conditioners on in the bedrooms immediately, hoping for some relief during the night. After all was said and done, I think Jim and I fell into bed at 10:30 pm. Slept really well, great mattress, room cooled off and everything looked better this morning after 7 hours of sleep.

Set the alarm for 5:15 am this morning since we had to meet the fishing guide at 7:45 in Samara and the nature tour guide at 8 there also. Gave ourselves 1.5 hours to do the drive but it turned out during the day only need an hour to get here. So all that proceeded myself sitting in this great little restaurant overlooking the Pacific with a wonderful breeze cooling me off. Feeling very blessed and fortunate to get to experience this in God's beautiful creation. Some of you may want to know that this morning when we woke up, we could hear roosters from the caretaker's cabin next door, some sort of birds, and howler monkeys. The monkeys sounded rather scary, didn't actually see them but will keep an eye out from behind the glass for them.

Will try to upload some photos for you!
Pura Vida,
Wendy

p.s. Will see if Barb can contribute here so you can get another perspective of our trip!!
p.p.s I was the first person to see an actual monkey, it was small, in the entry area of the Locanda, also saw something with a striped tail run away on the drive here...
p.p.s.s. The photo is the Christmas tree at Locanda

UPDATE From Barb:

Wendy did such a good job of covering yesterday, and I don't really want to do that day again 😊, but we are SO thankful for this wonderful opportunity, and so thankful to be here, after quite a day of travel. So I'll tell briefly what Paul, Kathy and I did while Wendy commandeered this table at this beautiful beach restaurant. We had scheduled an educational tour through the jungle, and we got it! In about 3 1/2 hours, our tour guide, Hansel, hiked us through beautiful places, pointing out bats, an owl, butterflies, spiders, birds and howler monkeys. Not only that, but he gave us interesting information about the trees and bushes we were seeing. Although we aren't in the Season to see many blooms (it's sort of like Fall here, trees that lose their leaves are losing them), the variety of trees and bushes was interesting, and our guide was very good. Parts of the hike were strenuous, but we were up for it, even though we were the most senior of all 7 of us on the tour. Yay for the elders! Except for the extremely sweaty situation, we were no worse for the wear. Kathy will hopefully fill you in some more on some details, and some pictures. So now, while we wait for Jim and Dan to get done with their fishing adventure, we have had a great meal (pizza for Kathy, grilled fish and a delicious coconut lemonade smoothy for me, burrito with mole‘ for Paul, and salad for Wendy). Jim and Dan should be back soon - we're anxious to see if they got a bunch! And Kathy and Wendy are going to do a bit of shopping while we wait. Since we got in late last night and had to leave early this morning, I really look forward to, not the drive on lots of dirt road, but being back at our house, and having lots of relaxing beach time over the next several days.
Missing our loved ones at home, but loving being here!
Pura Vida!
Love,
Barb

This is Kathy now...are you confused? I think Barb and Wendy did a great job of the details of the day. Dan and I came through Houston after we all met in Seattle, and we were very thankful that our flights both got to Costa Rica on schedule, within 30 minutes of each other, especially since tornados and snowstorms came into Dallas Saturday night and caused hundreds of flights to be canceled or delayed. Thanking God for His protection so far!
I really enjoyed the guided hike, although the heat and humidity made it a little more challenging. Loved the knowledge and enthusiasm of our guide, and it was interesting to see some of the diversity of this place. Besides the bigger animals, we have seen more butterflies and hummingbirds than we did in Panama, it's just harder to get pictures of them. We are looking forward to many more unique sights in the coming days, and very thankful to be here, even though we are missing family!
Kathy

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Photos

Where I'm typing this blog! Fun
Locanda Inn/Restaurant, they're being very nice to let me stay here for so long, just ordered a mixed fruit smoothly after having breakfast an hour ago, I'll just keep ordering stuff! ;-)

Jim and the Christmas tree here.
Locanda Inn/Resaurant

Dan
Dan catching up on some needed sleep before the epic fishing trip!

Breakfast at Locanda
Scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, pineapple jelly (very good)

First dinner in Costa Rica
Chicken Gallo

Passed a local festival/rodeo?
I think we just made it through before the parade started!

Comments

[Laurie]

How adventurous you all are! I'm curious about the musical maze. I can picture Wendy typing away while others fish and hike! Thanks for getting this blog started, Wendy! But at least it was a beautiful place to type! I hope Paul got a
ll over his cold and didn't pass it on to anyone! Love and prayers, Laurie

[Karen Hull]

That looks amazing!!!!!