On Friday we went to Manuel Antonio. It´s a small, touristy beach town on the Northern Pacific side of Costa Rica. It´s famous for its surfing and beautiful landscapes.
Manuel Antonio
On the road between Quepos and Manuel Antonio there`s a bar called El Avion.
El Avion. It is a Fairchild C-123 that has been converted into a bar.
The bar
Trying to tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue. Need a bit more practice for this one...
end
On Wednesday and Thursday we made our way to La Fortuna y Monteverde. Costa Rica is very famous for its preservation of the wildlife and rain forests. La Fortuna and Monteverde are two of the most famous areas to visit both.
When we arrived in La Fortuna we were tired from traveling (and eating), decided to skip out on all of the hiking and other strenuous activities, and opted instead for visiting the Baldi Hot Springs.
Group shot at Baldi hot springs
The hot springs proved to be quite nice. There were about 25 pools of various temperatures and sizes, two wet bars, and 3 huge water slides. I thought the rain would have ruined it, but it actually ended up making it pretty nice…
We did pretty well at Baldi, Melissa and I got a special deal at the bar, we had a huge buffet dinner, and we then tore it up a bit on the waterslides.
As for the animales… although we didn´t get crazy with the nature tours, we did manage to see quite a few things. On Wednesday night in Monteverde we decided to go on a guided “night walk” through the jungle. We saw a tarantula, a huge rodent about the size of a small dog, many different kinds of insects, leafcutter ants, and a sloth. We were lucky enough to even see the sloth move. They sleep 20 hours a day… ridiculous.
On Thursday we took a guided tour through Monteverde´s “Cloud Forest”. Our guide David was excellent and really taught us quite a bit.
David going over a bit of the natural flora and fauna. That´s a scope next to Melissa´s head. He could show us bees on a tree at about 300ft away...
Hummingbirds. (Pablo photo credit)
Cloud Forest canopy (Pablo photo credit)
And we found these things roaming around on our hotel beds. Towels with eyes. Melissa was a big fan of these...
end
So my self prescribed exercise/health food regiment was completely derailed about 5 minutes after landing in Costa Rica. Though San Jose did not strike us as the most beautiful place to visit, it did start growing on us… This had almost everything to do with the fact that Hotel Aranjuez offers an all-you-can-eat mega breakfast every morning… gratis.
Breakfast (omelet station and multitude of other breakfast dishes not shown). $15/night... Needless to say, Hotel Aranjuez became our home base in Costa Rica... it´s not too hard to see why.
Pablo and I began to throw around the word “aprovechar” (to take advantage) quite a bit. And so this is what we did… and Pablo can eat… and we all know that I´m no slouch when it comes to facing a big meal either…
Before I left to Costa Rica, I`d have to say, my rigorous exercising and mi dieta de parasitos had treated me quite well… I was right on the verge of having a six pack (although this has been disputed by certain other parties). Unfortunately, dreams of a toned midsection have been postponed until further notice (or at least until I get back).
Aprovechando at Baldi Springs (all-you-can-eat buffet incluido)...
After 2.5 days wandering around San Jose alone, Melissa and our friend Pablo joined me from Cuba. They spent a week exploring Cuba and then have 8 days in Costa Rica.
Melissa and Pablo manning the hot pot...
Cooking hot pot allowed for a little Photo op time con mi señorita bella...
As you can tell, I am somewhat slow on the update process of the trip. Life organization has taken priority…
Having a little vacay time has given me a chance to do many of the necessary overdue blog updates.
Barroom Wisdom had been updated…
So I met up with Jen and David yesterday. We planned to meet eachother at their hotel around noon or so. Since they were running a bit late due to transit problems, I decided to wait in the restaurant for a bit and then made my way over to the bar. I hung out there for an hour or two, learned about guaro, and exchanged bartender war stories with the bartenders there. The bartender introduced me to their limonada de mente… which I totally need to reverse engineer and begin making. It’s lemonade, gingerale, and mint leaves (alcohol optional). Kind of like a mojito but not really. I also bought a drink made from ginger and fancy rum, but unfortunately this seems a bit too complicated to reverse engineer… lots of pre-drink-making preperation involved with this one.
We had lunch at a local Soda (as little diner/restaurants are called here) and then made our way back to the hotel. Not overly impressed with San Jose in general, we decided to hang out in the hotel instead. We made a bodega run and then watched “No Country for Old Men”.
Dinner at Grano de Oro... Try the coffee cake..
Before dinner I had called the hostel I had stayed in the night before only to find that they were completely full. Jen told me that it was no problem to request a cot in their room and just stay with them. She explained that they needed to wake up at 4:00 in the morning to catch an early cab to the airport, but if I didn’t mind this then I was more than welcome to stay in their room. This seemed like the best option.
The hotel was really nice by the way, it was a renovated victorian house that had been converted to a hotel.
So midway through dinner, David handed me a keycard and was like, “here you go, room 30″. Due to my lack of critical thinking skills at the moment, I thought he was just giving me an extra card to their room, however, unbeknownst to me, they had actually ended up getting me my own private room.
p.i.m.p... and it has two beds. People seriously need to come visit me down here, for some reason, wherever I go, I always have multiple beds in my room (which for the most part are usually unoccupied)... oh, and its good that they were doing minor construction in the room next to me this morning, otherwise I probably would have been a lazy bastard and slept all day... the bed was SO comfortable.
So anyways, a big thank you to Jen and David. Hope you guys had a great time down here. It was great to meet up with you, even if it was only for an afternoon…
The proyectos page has been (hastily) updated. It’ll at least give you an idea of a few of the things I’ve worked on here. A more formalized update will come at some point…
In order to regain my legal status in Guatemala, I had to leave the country for a few days. Being mojado isn’t as bad as it sounds, but the fine adds up after a while…
A big thanks to Myrna (Otto’s mom) who drove me to immigration to take care of my fine before flying out.
I just flew into San Jose Costa Rica this afternoon after a bit of a long flight. Due to weather conditions, the airport in San Jose was closed, so I had to temporarily land in Guanacaste to wait out the storm. The total flight time ended up being 5-6 hours as opposed to 1.5 -2. Oh well, what’re you gonna do…
So I meet up with my sister Jen and her husband David tomorrow. I am going to be hanging out with them here in San Jose until the 22nd. They will then fly back to the US.
The following day, Melissa and our friend Pablo will fly into San Jose from Cuba. We’ll be here until the 30th. We don’t really have anything planned out beyond our first day, but I’m not too worried about it, we’ll ask around and get the opinions/recommendations of the locals…
So Sifu (my Kung Fu teacher) had us hit the ol’ punching bag a few (hundred) times last week. Needless to say, my hands have been better… Bar construction hasn’t helped either. Over the past week and a half or so, I’ve been keeping track of the days by involuntarily adding a new mark to my hands at some point during the work day.
Manos Pisados
And I’m pretty sure that making a drink with manos pisados doesn’t really make people want to order a second one…
Fortunately, my hands are a bit better now. I’m excited to go on my trip to give them a bit of a break.
the crash is now fixed. uploads can proceed as usual…
thanks otto… for crashing my cab into higgins.