Family!

I was only home for two days before I caught the early bus to Liberia to greet my family at the airport for their long-awaited vacation!  

bustling airport...

they made it!

After a yummy lunch and getting lost while driving on miles of TERRIBLE roads, we finally made it to Rincon de la Vieja volcano, where we hiked to a waterfall before enjoying the relaxing hot springs.  Spent the night in Tamarindo, our base for a few days.  Friday morning, Caroline took an early flight from San Jose to the local airport, so we picked her up and then met our deep sea fishing crew for a long day of fishing (or so we thought).  We caught absolutely nothing for the first several hours, and ended up catching five fish, only one of which was edible.  Basically a $900 fish.  Which was a little bit of a problem because I had hired a husband and wife couple as our private chefs to cook all the fish we were planning on catching for dinner!  But luckily they were able to pick up some last minute fresh fish for our already-planned menu, and met us at Pedro’s house after our joyful reunion with Pedro and Norma, María José, and Daniel.  In addition to the delicious food, Mom especially loved that Juan and María Luisa were happy to answer all her questions and even teach us some of their culinary tricks.

this fish later became:

ceviche!

On Saturday morning we took Pedro’s family ziplining (it was their first time!), and then we were planning on swimming in the ocean until sunset, but we got stormed out…  Still met up with them for dinner though at the beachfront restaurant Nibbana, featuring “live” entertainment – this dude was singing and switching back and forth between like 10 musical instruments – or so we thought at first.  We began to grow suspicious when David and Dad saw him mess up and put his drum down too soon, yet magically the drumming noises continued, and as we observed more closely, we realized that he wasn’t actually doing ANYTHING other than pretending.  So we had fun laughing at that all meal, and additionally a mariachi band came over and asked if we had any requests.  Pedro always listens to music while driving, and there was one song in particular that I LOVED, a happy Colombian song (the chorus translates to “How beautiful is life!”) called Esta Vida by Jorge Celedon that I later found out Caroline had heard from her Spanish teacher Professor Jordan.  So the mariachi band gathered around our table and played that for us while we sang!  What a happy memory J  That song and another song by the awesome Costa Rican band Malpais will for the rest of my life remind me of our time in Costa Rica. 

I love when Pedro lifts his tequila on cue :)

that's a power strip he's "playing"

Sunday was church at St. Paul’s By the Sea!  A reverend from Texas was in town so she gave the sermon, and I was glad my family got to meet the Ottleys plus Stephanie and McKenzie.  The whole crowd migrated over to Longboard BBQ for lunch, then we said goodbye to Pedro and his family before boarding the Hibiscus, a 48 foot catamaran, for a sunset cruise.  Drinks in hand, we sailed north for an hour to a coral reef, where we snorkeled for a long time.  Compared to the snorkeling in Manzanillo, this was incredible – picture the community in Finding Nemo.  Everywhere you looked there were different kinds of fish swimming around, and even some starfish.  By the time we got back on the boat, they had yummy fajitas all ready for us, and more drinks as we headed back to Tamarindo.  Last night in Tamarindo L

On Monday we hit the road for the mountains and Monteverde.  Only about a hundred miles, but the drive takes close to four hours because of how bad some of the roads are.  First activity was horseback riding!  It was a little uncomfortable, but we saw some beautiful scenery, including mountains, farms, lots of hummingbirds, and a rainbow, and Caroline even got to participate in a horse show with the owner.  Unlike the other places we rode in Costa Rica, we all got to experience galloping, which was scary at first but so thrilling!

Tuesday was an early morning for most of us.  Mom and Dad and I went on what turned out to be a four hour private cloud forest tour with Rafael, who must be one of the best guides in the country.  Poor Caroline had to spend the whole day working.  We all met up for lunch, and then David and I went 4-wheeling while Mom went to a coffee and chocolate tour.  For dinner we got to treat Caroline’s Monteverde host family at a fancy restaurant.

Then Wednesday after another amazing breakfast, it was time to say goodbye to Reina and Leo and Naci, our wonderful hosts, and head back to the Central Valley.  We went by way of Puntarenas to see the Gulf of Nicoya up close after viewing it from afar in Monteverde.  Got Caroline back in time for class, ate lunch at Doña Adela’s house with some of her friends and family, explored Heredia by foot, and then ate dinner at L’Antica Roma. 

David had to fly out Thursday, so we got up really early and drove up to Poás Volcano, which has the second widest crater in the world filled by one of the most acidic lakes in the world. Unfortunately, it was really foggy and cloudy.  However, it cleared up a couple times for a few seconds so we did get to see the crater!  On Friday we took a road trip.  First destination was EARTH University, a world-renowned sustainable agriculture school in the Caribbean province of Limón where Mom and David have spent some time on past mission trips.  A Kenyan student showed us many of the fascinating growing experiments, and we got to see the famous banana train in action!  Then we drove north to the Sarapiquí River, which we toured via boat and saw all kinds of sweet birds, lizards (we were lucky enough to see a Jesus Christ lizard run across the water!), and mammals!  We ate dinner with Caroline’s host family, followed by a game of Settlers of Catan.

My host mom hiding under a "poor man's umbrella" plant outside the volcano.

Banana train.

River cruise

Bare-throated tiger heron

dinner and games with Caroline's host family

Saturday we went to the evening church service.  Can't remember what else... Then bye bye Mom and Dad, thanks for coming!

SURPRISE!

One of my favorite weekends every year is the St. Paul’s annual retreat to Kanuga, an Episcopal camp and conference center in the mountains outside Hendersonville.  I’ve gone every year since I was 4 years old, and some of my favorite childhood memories are from those weekends when we (David and I, the Shores and Martins, among others) had freedom and independence and would spend all weekend playing baseball and just hanging out.  Recently, however, high school and college exams have meant that fewer of those friends have been able to make it to Kanuga.  So when I was Skyping with David a couple months ago and he told me that the whole core group (plus spouses!) was going this year, it was big news!  Those are my best friends, and I don’t get to see any of them often, much less everyone together plus families.  David ended the conversation reminding me that the only thing separating me (and/or Caroline, who has now made it to Kanuga all three years we’ve been dating) was a few hundred dollars.

Kanuga 2007

Kanuga 1994?

What a tough decision!  After all, a few hundred dollars, giving up one of our cherished weekends to travel in Costa Rica, and the carbon footprint of flying that far all adds up to a lot.  But on the other hand, I’d been hoping to get all these people back to Kanuga for years, and who knows if there will be a next time, plus we’d get to see both of our families, so I decided to see what Caroline thought about it.  We wanted to take our time with the decision, so after a week of letting it marinate, I again asked Caroline what she was thinking, and she said she thought we should do it!  So after she cleared it with her parents (who said it was about time she did something kinda crazy but if she did anything crazier not to tell them), we started looking for tickets.  They usually cost around $600, but amazingly we found some for $400 with a 20-hour overnight layover in Houston on the way home, which turned out to be perfect!  We remembered that Emily Frazelle (wife of David Frazelle, who is a priest at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill) is from Houston, so we had a wonderful adventure with her charming father touring Houston (Rice University, the de Menil art gallery, Hermann Park, the world’s largest medical complex accompanied by a detailed description of the history of each – Winston has the most encyclopedic mind I’ve ever come across, and I’m convinced he knows half the population of Houston)!  It’s hard to pick, but I’d have to say the highlight was eating Cajun food at the Episcopal cathedral downtown.  Winston gave us superb recommendations – the shrimp etoufee was amazing, and he sent us off with buttercake for the plane (it’s as rich as it sounds; I didn’t feel so great after eating a piece and a half…).  Airport was a little complicated, as someone had entered our terminal and shot himself half an hour before we arrived, so our flight was delayed since they had locked down everyone in the terminal, including our flight crew.  Good thing Mom and Dad still thought we were in Costa Rica!

Emily's awesome parents

Cajun food!

When we eventually made it, Caroline’s family picked us up at the airport and took us to a nice Mexican restaurant mmmmm, then we all stayed up late talking at her house.  I got sick that night and Friday morning L  In the morning we had fun talking to Mrs. Williams, who was the only one home, then we drove to Winston to surprise Mom and Dad.  We knew from David that we were gonna get home about the same time as Dad, so to make sure we got to surprise him too, Caroline and I pulled over into a church at the entrance to my neighborhood to watch for Dad, but a car pulled in right next to us and turns out it was Dad!!!  Haha he later told us he had recognized Caroline’s car and, assuming it was her parents, followed them to surprise them, but he was the one who got surprised!  His reaction was good, but we all knew Mom’s would be the best, so we got him in on it and after we snuck in the house with him, he called Mom downstairs into the room where we were waiting for her, and her face was priceless.  She just stared at us open-mouthed for a few seconds while we watched the gears turning - video below :)  Then it was time for Kanuga!  Walking into dinner was really fun too; we surprised and confused a lot of people.  Lots of hugs and smiles!

kickball

Kanuga itself was just as great as we were hoping – we played kickball, hiked, worked on puzzles, played fishbowl by the fire, listened to Lynn Parsley’s talk, had our lakeside church service, walked up to the outdoor chapel at night, and most importantly of course got to spend lots of time with so many loved ones!!  To top it all off, after getting back to Chapel Hill on Sunday, we had another night with Caroline’s family and a late-night visit with David and Emily Frazelle J  Easily one of the best weekends of my life.  Due to a storm Monday morning, we thought for a while we were going to miss our connecting flight to Costa Rica, but we prayed about it and sure enough, after running through the Newark airport, we made it (another familiar theme – answered prayers, that is, not running through the Newark airport)!  The long flight back to Costa Rica was enhanced by our decision to splurge on movies; we watched The Life of Pi (fine), Argo (thrilling), and part of Parental Guidance (I thought it was hilarious).

playing fishbowl :)

most of my favorite people in the whole world!

Southern Pacific

NatureAir has groovy-lookin planes

A couple weeks ago it hit me that I really don’t have much time left in Costa Rica, and there are still so many places I’d like to travel to!  One of them is the famous Corcovado National Park on the southern Pacific Osa Peninsula, which National Geographic called “the most biologically intense place on Earth!”  I realized that if I was going to make it there this trip, it had to be that week.  So after a couple busy days of planning, I had an admission permit and airplane ticket reserved so I set off!  I flew on NatureAir, one of the domestic airlines with beautiful airplanes and a relaxed feel (they don’t even have metal detectors) from San José to Drake Bay, a remote town of 1000 on the western tip of the Osa Peninsula.  Like Tortuguero, Drake Bay is so remote that the best way to get there from San José is to go seven hours by bus and then take an hour and a half boat ride, which is why I flew, which took one hour.  And what a pretty hour it was!  A teeny tiny plane with about eight people total, and we flew mostly along the coastline, so I got an aerial view of the whale’s tail sand formation that juts out into the Pacific at Ballena Marino National Park, our destination later that weekend.

 

part of the Osa Peninsula

the sprawling Drake Bay airport.

Drake Bay

Some background information on Corcovado National Park and the Osa Peninsula: it is the largest Pacific rainforest left in the Americas, and home to the largest population in the world of several endangered animals: the scarlet macaw (Scarlet macs we call em down here), the Baird’s tapir (related to the elephant), squirrel monkeys, and all six of the wild cats found in the Americas (jaguar, puma, ocelot, margay, jaguarondi, and tigrillo).

Well it didn’t take long to start seeing scarlet macs: upon returning to my hostel after lunch, there were three in the tree right outside my tent room, and I continued seeing more all day while exploring.  One of the interesting things about scarlet macaws is that they mate with only one partner for life; if their partner dies, they remain single for the rest of their lives.  They are so loud, though, squawking all over the place!

scarlet macs

Anyways, the next day I signed up for a day tour of the national park, so we left in a boat at 6AM for Sirena Ranger Station in the heart of Corcovado, seeing dolphins on the way!  Our small group hiked with a guide for a few hours before lunch, and then after they left in the boat, I hiked until sunset, when I was very grateful I had paid extra to reserve dinner from the kitchen.  Here’s what I saw in the park: tapirs, toucans, great currasows, all four species of monkeys, peccaries (wild pigs), coatis (like raccoons), agoutis (rodents), manta rays, and some crazy-lookin bugs.

tapir

tapir chillin in the mud

great currasows have crests on their head just like Reggie Bullock

squirrel monkey

peccaries

Was thinking about taking my family to Corcovado when they come to visit, and my first day made me think that would be wonderful.  Until bedtime.  The accommodations are rudimentary dorm rooms with bunkbeds and no fan, which is rough on the Pacific coast, where it’s usually hotter than 90 degrees during the day.  Additionally, I had failed to bring a mosquito net for my bed, so I had bugs crawling all over me all night (thankfully not biting bugs).  That experience kinda ended my serious thinking about taking my family there.  It was neat though being in the absolute middle of nowhere, with nothing to do after dinner except go to bed (around 8PM) and where everyone got up early (around 4AM) to start hiking again.

Sirena Station

the Sirena landing strip.  Only two pilots are brave enough to land here.

Despite not sleeping very well, I felt great the next day, and after breakfast made the 20 kilometer hike out of the park to the small town of Carate, where there were even more scarlet macaws than in Drake Bay!  The only way from Carate to the nearest real town is a two-hour ride in the bed of a cargo truck with no seat belts on some of the bumpiest and dustiest roads I’ve ever been on, but we eventually made it safely to Puerto Jiménez, where I spent the night for $8 in a room on the second floor of the house of some lady named Fanny Lu!  And thanks to a cold shower and a fan, I slept great despite the heat.

part of my hike along the coast

Then Friday I rented a car and drove a beautiful four hours up the Pacific coast to meet Caroline in the port city of Quepos, where after eating we hiked in Manuel Antonio National Park, which is known for its monkeys, but we think it should be known for being a tourist trap.  Anyways then back south an hour to Uvita, a tiny Pacific beach town which is famous as one of the best places in the Americas to see migrating whales during the right time of the year.  And what a sense of humor God has: right there on the beach is a sand and rock formation exactly resembling a whale’s tail at low tide!  The first night we had an entire Spanish restaurant to ourselves, where we had paella for the first time and continued our vacation splurges on drinks, this time on sangria!

the whale's tail doesn't look quite as good at high tide...

seafood paella (with crab, shrimp, oysters, clams, kalamari, and fish)

Uvita is also home to one of the coolest hostels in the country, called Flutterby House, which is where we stayed!  I won’t bore you with all the details, but it has almost everything you could possibly want, including TREEHOUSES!  Unfortunately the only treehouse still available when we booked only had one bed, so we each spent one night sleeping in the hammock on the porch, but we loved it :)  Saturday was the chillest day ever.  Many of our weekend trips have definitely not included as much downtime as some people might like, so this was a change.  When we woke up, our stomachs felt a little funny (somehow we didn’t realize it might be connected to the local water.  Although in our defense we had had zero problems with the tap water anywhere else in Costa Rica.), so we skipped breakfast and walked along the beach to the whale’s tail before settling in at a friendly hole in the wall restaurant for brunch.  Because we hadn’t been sure if we were going to get in the ocean or not during our hike, I had only brought $10, so we had fun milking the menu for the maximum amount of food we could get for that much.  Aw man it was so heavenly sitting there outside but in the shade, just relaxing and talking, that we stayed there two hours.  Then returned just a couple hours later for lunch (with a lot more money), which again lasted two hours as we enjoyed talking and met some of the staff.  Oh yeah and the fact that when we ordered brownies and ice cream (what can I say, we are good at vacation), which they said yes of course they had, the dude hopped in his car to go buy ice cream for us from the grocery store haha oh Costa Rica.  Enjoyed surfing at sunset, but by then after a whole day of drinking the tap water, we were feeling a little sick, and didn’t sleep so well, but thank God (literally because I had been praying all night), at 5:30AM when it was time to get up to drive back to Heredia for church, we both felt almost good as normal!  Nothing like being sick to make you appreciate feeling good, a trend which would continue the next weekend… Church was great as usual and we eventually got Caroline home to get started on her homework!

our treehouse!