unwiredben

I'm playing with Google Video for uploading clips after being disappointed with YouTube's quality level. Here's one of the Costa Rica clips of a somewhat friendly coati running around the snack bar area at the nature reserve in Monteverde.

I've getting videos from the Costa Rica trip uploaded to YouTube now and also playing with the post feature on the YouTube site. Here's the first one, a quick view of the waterfall that we walked to in the nature preserve.

Today at lunch, I noticed that one of the two fair-trade coffee's brewed at the TacoDeli at Gracy Farms was Cafe Monteverde.  Yes, that's the same Monteverde that I just visited in Costa Rica; I'm pretty sure we drove by some of the coffee fields on the way out of town.  It's kinda cool to be able to pick up something here in Austin that was produced a thousand miles away in a little village where you've got friends.

Annelies and I spent some time yesterday picking our favorite pictures from the trip, and we narrowed it down to a set of almost 50 shots. They're all online at Flickr in a big Costa Rica set. The picture with this entry is one of the Arenal Volcano from the bed & breakfast we stayed at in El Castillo. We've also got pictures of animals, flowers, and random tourist stuff. Enjoy!

When I last wrote about the trip, I was in an Internet cafe in La Fortuna making sure my total usage stayed under 30 minutes so I wouldn't be charged more than a dollar for using the net. Now, I'm back in a warm house in the USA and I've gotten several nights of rest in my own bed since returning.

The bus ride from La Fortuna to San Jose was a bit exhausting. It wasn't as nice of a bus as the one that took us to Monteverde. We got seats on the bus a bit forward of the rear wheel hump; the bus ticket was about $3.50 each. However, while the bus left the central park with some empty seats, those would soon be taken by the constant stream of pickups that the driver made on our trip. About every mile or so, there would be a little bus shelter, and often we'd gain a few passengers (or less often) lose a few. We also made a quick stop at a roadside stand where the driver bought a few bunches of bananas. After a couple of hours, we arrived at our first main stop, the bus station at San Carlos. We had a short break, then the bus took the long route to San Jose through mountainous terrain.

I must take an aside here and talk about the Costa Rican road system. The roads range from interstate-style divided highways (maybe one or two examples around the capitol) to common two-lane paved roads, to barely large enough for two vehicles to pass dirt tracks through the woods. While on this bus, we were mainly on the two better varieties of roads; however, I did discover that their highways have a non-integer fractal dimension -- they keep getting curvier and curvier the closer you get to them. This makes that seems like a two hour trip actually take much longer, as you don't take a straight line to get anywhere.

From the bus, we could see lots of cultivation areas: pineapples growing under a tent, coconuts ripening in trees, coffee beans growing on terraced hills, and lots of cattle grazing away on fields that once grew coffee. As we started down the mountain, we got a nice view of the San Jose metro area, part of the central valley region of the country. I commented to Annelies that this reminded me of the other San Jose I visit regularly in California -- both are dense metro areas, with mixed commercial and residential, lying between two mountain ranges.

On arriving at the San Jose bus terminal, Annelies used her Spanish to negotiate with a unlicensed cab driver to get us to our hotel (another $4!) He originally brought us to the Hotel Colonial Club casino, but after some clarifications and a cell phone call to confirm the location, delivered us to the right address, the Hotel Colonial. For $60, we had a nice double room with a great shower, a balcony view of the street, and cable television!

After unpacking, we went out walking to get some supplies. I got to buy generic Advil (ibuprofena) from a farmacia a few blocks from our hotel, and we also negotiated the aisles of the Mas X Menos grocery store where we found pineapple empanadas and bottled water. Dinner that evening was at La Esquina de Buenos Aires, an Argentinian restaurant that served a very nice spinach and Gorgonzola cheese-filled ravioli with sundried tomatoes.

For our last morning, we headed out to the Museo de Jade, a small museum features lots of pre-Columbian jade and pottery artifacts from archaeological sites in the country. I took a lot of photos of various implements here, ranging from fertility icons to ceremonial necklaces. We hit one of the main plazas on the walk back, then stopped at an artists market to pick up some more souvenirs.

The flight back was easy, although we forgot to get our exit tax stamps when we first got in line to check our bags, so we had to exit, go pay our $26 each, then rejoin the lengthening line. I'm convinced that the tax is a way to prevent flight of Costa Rican currency, as it's so convenient for travelers to just use up the rest of their change at the tax desk, then pay the rest with American dollars. I saw some islands from the plain as we headed back over the Caribbean and on into Florida and Georgia, but I'm not really sure what they were -- it may have been Cuba, although it's also possibly part of the Grand Cayman Islands. From that height, it was hard to tell land from sea.

We started to go through and edit photos this morning, but we still have about 300 to go through. I'll be putting the best ones online on Flickr after we finish our set.

We woke up early this morning; Annelies and I thought it was about 9:30, but our body clocks were off by an hour and a half. After a leisurely breakfast, the four of us headed through the woods, taking a shortcut trail to the nature preserve. This is a park originally setup by the Quaker community here with several nice hiking trails. Michael went back after the woods hike, so we just had Beka as our guide.

We took two different trails. The first was a 1km hike out to a nice waterfall. We didn't see any animals on this part, but there were some wild orchids and a few scenic vistas. The falls were very nice; that's the first of several videos I shot today. We did need to stop at a rest bench both going in and out to give my foot time to rest, but the medicine did a good job of dulling the pain.

Beka and I had a small lunch at the snack bar, then we visited the gift shop. We got to watch a coati run around some of the benches, probing a tourists backpack for a moment. I got video of this raccoon-like animal and a few nice pictures.

We then started out on the second trail, an uphill-then-downhill walk to a suspended bridge named after the man you helped build the trails. This was a bit treacherous for me, as I had to pay a lot of attention to the steps to avoid putting too much pressure on my foot, but it was a fun journey. The bridge was nice, letting us get a better view of the rain forest's canopy.

On the walk back, we took a different, flatter path. This proved quite fortunate as we spotted a howler monkey in the canopy and were able to watch it leap from tree to tree. It even found another monkey in the tree and headed off to a group of monkeys in the distance. I got nice video of the first one jumping around.

After exiting the preserve, we went to the neighboring hummingbird center where they have many feeders setup. It was a prime location, as a number of birds of varying sizes and colors were hovering around, zooming back and forth. They were fascinating to watch, both for their beauty and for their aggressive behavior with each other. Many nice pictures there.

We walked back through the forest to Beka's house after that. My foot was starting to ache and Annelies was getting tired. Right now, she's off napping, I'm writing a blog entry, and then we'll pack everything up for the trip into town and dinner at the Lonely Planet-recommended vegetarian restaurant.

In the morning about 4:45AM when we woke up, the pain in my foot had dulled from a sharp pain with most movements to a duller, richer pain, mainly when putting weight on it or twisting it. It wasn't going to be a good day for walking. We got a cab from the hostel to the San Carlos bus terminal where a large VW passenger bus was waiting with the word "MONTEVERDE" across the top of the front window. The ride took us about two and a half hours up the main Central America highway, which is two lanes in most places. We passed many billboards, lots of sodas (roadside restaurants and rest stops), and acres of green vegetation. It wasn't too crowded, and despite making several stops to pick up more passengers, I was able to get my own pair of seats for a lot of the way, letting me stretch out and rest my foot. After a twenty minute stop at a restaurant for bathroom break and refreshments, we headed out again, this time turning on the long dirt road that winded around the mountains to get to Santa Helena, the main tourist town in Monteverde. The ride was an experience; we got tossed around pretty well on the bus, and made frequent stops to let trucks and other vehicles pass us on the narrow road. We hit a snag at one point, requiring several oncoming vehicles to back up to let the bus through. Still, around 11AM, we got to there, and Annelies's friend from college Beka was at the bus stop waiting for us.

Lunch was in one of the restaurants in Santa Helena, a nice place that served up a tasty plate of casado vegetarinos; red beans, white rice, avocado, green beans, and plantain. Beka and her boyfriend did some grocery shopping at the supermercado, then we hailed a taxi for the 6km ride to Monteverde proper (the town, rather than the region). They had a beautiful house on the side of the mountain with an amazing view of the hills. On a clear day, you can see all the way to the Bay of Nicoya, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. They have lemon and orange trees in their yard, and they're a short, but muddy, hike away from the nature preserve.

I spent the afternoon taking in the scenery, reading, and napping on their couch while Annelies went with them on a walk to the local coffee shop and to see the school where Beka teaches. Later, we had a little party here, inviting one of Beka's fellow teachers over to enjoy a meal of pasta and vegetables, and then play "Celebrity". It was a very pleasant evening, with good company and lots of stories.

This morning, my foot looks pretty black and blue, but it's more walkable than yesterday, so I've taken some Aleve and we're going to head to the preserve to take the slow trail, see lots of animals, and take more pictures. Tonight, a hotel room in Santa Helena with good showers and a visit to the local vegetarian restaurant.

This morning, Annelies and I set off from my sister's place in Atlanta very early to catch the flight down to Costa Rica. We were already off an hour from being in the Eastern time zone, so the 7AM alarm was a bit early. She dropped us off at a MARTA station, and after an uneventful train ride and a mental test involving automated passport readers, we had our boarding pass.

The first problem was that our plane's departure was delayed a bit. There were three issues: the original plane came in late, they were waiting on 60 passengers connecting from Washington D.C., and there was a flash rain storm, that shut down operations at the airport for about 15 minutes. This all combined to mean we landed about 90 minutes later than originally expected, which meant we missed the last shuttle to Monteverde.

Luckily, we're seasoned travellers and we had a fallback plan -- head into San Jose, find a place to stay, and catch the public bus early in the morning. How early? 6:30AM to be exact, which means we need to get to the terminal around 5:45 to ensure getting tickets.

The bus ride into town was interesting. There was lots of billboard advertising, mostly for cars and appliances, but we passed by a number of bus stops, where the ads concerned things like SIDA prevention and the illegality of child sex. We got to the city core, Annelies flagged down a taxi, and we made it to a nice hostel called Tranquillo Backpackers where we got a couple of dorm beds.

The next adventure was finding a phone so we could get in touch with our host in Monteverde. A fellow hostel vistor lent us a phone card, and we trekked out in search of phones, finding one in front of the Jade Museum of Art. We also found a pleasant garden, lots of loud birds, another park, lots of tourists, and we eventually found our way back to the hostel.

We went out to dinner where problem #2 happened. Taking the hostel girl with us, we headed to a restaurant called Avenue 2 that was recommended. We were having a nice conversation when I found myself much closer to the ground and in pain! I took a misstep on an uneven sidewalk stone, fell on the ground, and slightly twisted my ankle. Not fun! I hobbled the rest of the way, had a nice heart of palm salad and part of a bowl of vegetarian soup that just happened to have chicken in it :(, and then we made our way back, stopping so I could rest my foot and so we could watch some fireworks.

Comments from Annelies:

Just to clarify, it was more of a giant gaping hole in the sidewalk than an uneven paving stone.  Also, to give the "vegetarian soup" its proper due, the waiter did comp it from our bill... and My traditional Costa Rican "Casado" was WONDERFUL.

Off to Monteverde manana...

Just a quick note -- I'm heading off to Costa Rica in a few hours for the next week. kazanya has a friend teaching in the cloud forests of Monteverde that we're going to visit, along with watching wildlife and observing a active volcano. I'll take lots of pictures. Email contact will be spotty, and I won't have a working cell phone or laptop while on the trip. I'm back on the evening of the 10th. See y'all then!