Blogs from Heredia, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 20

Yep, we're here. It's been just over a week and we are still pinching ourselves -- and just figuring out where we are. Streets are generally not named here, or if they have a name, no one uses them, so much of our attention has gone to learning how to get around in the neighborhood of our hotel -- find groceries, a playground for the guys, some twine, miscellaneous stuff like that. The hotel is at the top of a hill from which there are spectacular views of green, lush mountains, usually with clouds over their peaks like pillows sitting on a plush couch. They are green because the rainy season is just ending. In fact, it has rained every afternoon since we arrived, except yesterday, which has actually been kind of nice as a built-in ... read more

We started our Sunday by going up to the Poas Volcano and hiking around, since we couldn’t see the crater due to dense fog that had rolled in we hiked their trails. The hike was amazing; the paths take you through these amazing habitats where you feel like you are walking through fairy tale woods. After we left Poas, we went to meet one of our contractors who wanted to take us on a tour of a local coffee plantation. We have other plantation tours near our house, but they give you a somewhat glorified view of what coffee plantations can be- they are coffees that don’t get exported and are not the best quality place. This place on the other hand is a REAL coffee plantation, owned by a 3rd generation coffee farmer. It was ... read more

Rachel and her mother made it down on the 23rd, and for the next week there were three of us living in the house that will be the hotel as soon as we can get my renters out of our house! In many ways Costa Rica was not a surprise to my mother in law, she has been to Caribbean islands in the past and while not an island, Costa Rica has much the same feel as one. Things went relatively smoothly, from the pickup at the airport to accommodations in our house. The only problem that we had was explaining that certain things simply aren’t available here. It took almost a week, but my the end of her visit, rather than saying we would look at another store for an item that likely wasn’t available ... read more

Just when you’d thought we’d given up on the blog… (key suspenseful theme music, crash of thunder… but no ear-piercing shreiks, please.) First of all, Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Costa Rica, except by ex-pats and a handful of gringo-ized Ticos (Tico is the affectionate term for Costa Rican). We are going to have Thanksgiving dinner at a Tico friend's house -- the lady that Dara works with at the Inbioparque. She did her graduate school in the US and has kept the Thanksgiving tradition since. Although she was going to serve chicken (stuffed, of course) her daughter told her she had to have turkey. Turkey is not common here, but if you look hard enough, you can find it -- I even heard one store was importing Butterballs. Dara is making sweet ... read more

I leave the US to return to Costa Rica on Wednesday. I have tried to make the most out of the past month, and a huge part of that was my attempt to find where my future lies with regard to my progress toward my PhD (see my first post for the beginning of this crisis...). I am about the last student in my program studying wildlife conservation. The fact that I am the lone student is not a testment to a lack of interest... It's that my school has slowly lost all of its conservationist, and before I took my leave of absence I was about the final conservationist-holdout. When we decided to open our inn, I was really unsure whether I would finish my PhD, and even less sure if I could continue at ... read more