Bienvenido a Costa Rica

"Flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price"

Amelia Earhart.

"Please be there, please be there" I just needed the driver to be there. My eyelids were scratching over my eyeballs, it was o'dark thirty and I had no idea what time zone this was let alone what the actual clock said.

Popping out into the real world beyond the airport bubble I searched longingly in the sparse crowd for a sign with a name. I wonder if anyone ever pretends to be the name on a limo board just to get an easy ride? I was about ready to steal someone's identity when I spotted Doug with a hug…well a HUGLIN actually. I didn't want to sigh too heavily in relief as it had been quite some time since I'd cleaned my teeth.

Wheeling our huge luggage trolley and trailing the tip hungry porter, we stampeded out into the parking lot. The dryness of the heat sucked what was left of my orbital moisture. Doug was an ex-cop who had worked the gang scene in America for 2 decades, no wonder he was optimistic about getting our herd of wheelie suitcases into a small minivan. With 4 cases and two boards strapped down on the roof we hummed through the parking garage and out into the arid air of San Jose. I was by now delirious with sleep and my scattered brain smiled inwardly at the look we presented in the black windows of the city streets. It was straight out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, hopefully the boards wouldn't really start flapping. There were Jeremy and Jemima already asleep in the back, although calling me Truly Scrumptious at this point was just plain ludicrous. I was more akin to the Wicked Witch of the West, slightly green and psychotic. Greg settled into a long chat about the state of the world and I finally put some of my EMT training to good use and started to construct myself a neck brace out of a couple of airplane blowup cushions. Once I was rigged straight, I wedged a back pack in between me and the door so I became an upright pinnacle ready for a vertical sleep pattern. I estimated 1 Benedryl should cover me for the next 5 hours. Finally my days of tour guiding were paying off. All those long boring coach journeys when I would sleep soundly next to the driver wearing sunglasses while pretending to be awake. Apart from hearing some low voiced politics from the front, a few sections of road ridge vibrations and the odd "gadonk" of a pothole, I felt nothing and hours later woke up in Playa Negra. Turning into the final dirt track, I sensed our arrival and squinting in the dawn light I accusingly looked at Greg when we stopped in front of what I thought would be chez nous.

Luckily I was staring out of the wrong window. Ventanas Condos on the opposite side of the street would be our home for the next few days until Casa Fuego became vacant. After we threw our bags inside, our new neighbor, a kindly Canadian lady, drove us over to the local hotel for breakfast. We sat around shellshocked by the heat and ordered Americano breakfasts as an early morning comfort.

"A woman is as old as she looks before breakfast."

Edgar Watson Howe

Conquering the first meal ordered in Spanish from an Austrian run establishment put us all in a positive frame of mind for a 20 minute walk home in the dust. Not that I mind walking, its just so unAmerican to walk in the street when there is still oil on the planet. Although it was still early, the realization of how hot it actually got here started trickling down my back. The condo pool and hammocks were weighing heavily on my eyelids.

We spent the next couple of days in a sort of semi unpacked, homeschool holding pattern. Alternating between thrashing the annals of learning with splashing in the pool.

When a fish truck delivers shrimp you know you are in a prime place. I didn't feel too deprived from my Bahamian lobster fest with the jumbo shrimp to feed my iodine cravings. Josh insisted he could only eat dorado not swordfish so, as only an evil mother can, I served him sword because they were out of dorado. I carefully told Josh I had asked the fish man for dorado and that was his piece on the plate in front of him. Technically I didn't lie right? Anyway, its like crab versus fake crab, its all from the ocean right? Between the deliveries and the local market, we managed to eat drink and be merry. However, it wasn't long before Greg's old friend Bob tracked us down with an offer to use his car. Bob's kind heart and welcoming demeanor was wonderful. A Montecito boy with stories of horse riding through the old neighborhoods, Bob has now carved out his own patch of paradise here in Playa Negra. Soon Bob told me his wife makes bikinis and I could barely concentrate on anything else he told me.

Weaving around on the dusty backroads, Bob showed us all the local spots and we even managed a little zoological study. I've really got to quit seeing everything as a possible 5th grade project.

"What an unusual car"

Truly Scrumptious.

Once we had dropped Bob off, it took us approximately 2 minutes to get lost. At least there was no traffic to contend with, just the odd loose horse or dog chewing on the tyres. We thought it smart to use the field of teak trees as a marker to get our bearings.

Unfortunately it seems every other field in this part of Costa Rica has teak trees.

"Well, when I was lost, I suppose it's good advice to stay where you are until someone finds you. But who'd ever think to look for me here?"

Alice in Wonderland.

The restaurants here are wonderful as the views. Iguanazul Hotel had a quaint set menu with soup and fish courses. There was even time for a game of chess and little reading while we hung out waiting for the food.

We quickly dropped into a morning pattern of surf check at o'dark thirty, banana pancakes for breakfast and homeschool. The kids managed to finish the brain strain by the time the heat of the day blazed upon us. We spent the afternoons hanging by the pool (literally in hammocks). Swimming was only interrupted for frenzied bouts of grasshopper hunting and frog catching. A little boy, Diego, became our new best friend and he taught the kids how to catch the frogs and throw them into the pool. Then he told them how his friend's dog licked one and died. I must Google these frogs and find out if could use them in a blow dart or if the dog was merely old? Darn the internet being down again, I suppose I'll have to be old-fashioned and just hope for the best! I'm sure the sprinklers will wash away the poison?

Costa Rica is one of the greenest countries on the planet. With Nicaragua to the North and Panama to the South, I had imagined jungles with torrential rainfall. However, this is the dry season and we are surrounded by trees and thick undergrowth but the dust swirls around the roads obscuring the dense undergrowth. Yet it seems so fertile, almost anything will grow. There are living fences - if the farmer plants a fence post in the rainy season the wood will sprout roots and shoots and become a tree again. So with all this vegetation around there are lots of bugs. Big bugs, small bugs, big bugs that eat the small bugs. Luckily there are not too many mosquitos because of that silky warm wind.

"We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics." Bill Vaughan

Towards the end of our stay at the condo, Greg went off in search of surf and surfer company over at Playa Negra. I alternated between grinding the kids through school and filling suitcases. As the day wore on I assumed my dear hubby was little late in coming back from morning surf because he had got caught up shooting photos of the beautiful waves. We didn't have much of a timeframe but after 4 hours I did start to explore the possibilities of his demise. The first couple of hours started off with me thinking how weird it was that I actually had to consider that if the car got flooded at the river crossing a crocodile, does really live there? I figured Greg was a bit leathery for a croc snack, but when as the time ticked on I started to consider the possibilities of a drowning in the ocean and what search and rescue could mean here? Finally as the time dragged into the later afternoon my imagination had him locked up in some stinking rat infested jail cell because some minor traffic infringement which had escalated into a serious misunderstanding. As I was mulling over the logistics of how to fly a dead body back to US, he turned up with that "waddaya fretting about and what time is it anyway" look?

I realized I really had to get out more so the next day we headed out to Tamarindo. Now my knowledge of world surf spots is motivated more by Surfing Monopoly than the actual ability to catch waves anywhere. As we were so close, it seemed right to go and at least visit. The heat of the day, the dirt roads and windows that didn't roll up made for a dusty journey. At least the washboard ridges made the car vibrate so loudly I couldn't hear the kids complain.

It was nice to see that my evening steak was already headed over to Playa Negra.

"My favorite animal is steak." Fran Lebowitz.

Tamarindo is a place where the full gambit of surf tourism is about to explode, although the economic meltdown has probably saved it from a fate worse than highrises. Pulling into town, we found the inevitable ATM air conditioned box and stepped inside to play our own version of roulette. After a bank card hokey cokey...you know you put your wife's card in you pull your wife's card out in out in out...pay for each draw out. You put your own card in, it spits it out, in out in out...if it swallows it I will shout.... After a few breath holding Vegas moments we were feeling flush with Greenbacks and were ready to have breakfast at the Italian deli.

After breakfast we wandered the shops and found an amazing potter who offered to give the kids lessons. Sounded like the perfect Spanish/art combo that would give me time to shop every week.

Josh bought a little pottery birdwhistle from a street vendor. He probably got ripped off but these days I look on it as a math and a life lesson. Watching him negotiate I realized there are stages to the street purchases and different ways that each person handles the transaction:

1. Innocence in purchasing, where the buyer assumes the price is static and legitimate and has no qualms on paying over the required amount, purchaser concludes the transaction happy to have acquired the goods.

2. The more savvy tourist realizes the price is negotiable and moves through the process of bartering more aggressively and may become angry if accidental overpayment occurs.

3. The worldly wise traveler accepts overpayment and uses the opportunity to interact and chat with the seller on a range of subjects, views the interaction as street theatre and enjoys the moment.

Needless to say our family covers the full range of purchasing states.

Time for an injection of Gringo at the large Super Mercado. After being in the Bahamas, this range of choice was somewhat overwhelming. Rather like the vast variety of tours that were on offer in the Travel Bureau next door, it would seem that in the spirit of Tour Operator one-upsmanship it was possible to take a horseride tour which included lunch, zip lines, white water tubing, thermal springs and a mud spa.

Rolling out of the airconditioned haven, I was soon heaving my "one or two items" into the car. After such a huge injection of consumerism I needed to head back to the tranquility of the beach and our new lodgings.

"Home, nowadays, is a place where part of the family waits till the rest of the family brings the car back." Earl Wilson