Archive for December, 2009

wow, i didn’t type a single word here for over a week, and so much has happened!

the day that shulztman left was also the day that jessica and chris arrived from canada. it had started to rain and their bus was scheduled to arrive at the house between 7 and 9pm. we tidied up as we waited. kelli and tommy didn’t land from chicago until sunday and then took a monday morning bus, so we hit the beach and kept it pretty low key. the details are already getting fuzzy so i’ll try and be more diligent about jotting notes each day at least. jessica and chris went to the sloth sanctuary with dawn, we drove up to manzanillo and swam in the ocean while it rained, we tried a road that took us to the beach that we’ve named t-rex road since it looked like one had just walked by and was pretty crazy to maneuver through in our suv. the rain was a bit of a bummer for a few days but it definitely got sunny during the week.

on monday we had to meet up with kellie and tommy at rocking j’s which is the tent/hammock hostel that also has @t Es, the internet restaurant/bar up front. their van was supposed to drop them off there so I went down with jessica and chris to wait. they ate lunch while I worked on the D&D pinup calendar (go buy a few!). we had been waiting over an hour and a half when I told them to take the car back to the house and have dawn an paul come back for me so that they could at least go to the beach while i waited. once dawn and paul showed up we waited for another hour or so. i had been trying to call and email whoever i could to track them down. dawn’s iPhone was dead and wasn’t booting with just laptop power so I took it to the car and used the car charger for a few minutes. once it got enough power to boot up I let it sit another minute and got out of the car and immediately saw Tommy in the road heading into @Es! turns out their van dropped them off in town and they had walked all the way past our street and were on their way back when I saw them. the next few days were full of sloth tours, atv tours, zip lining, lots of frisbee on the beach, skip-bo, toss up, drinking, smoking, and just having a great time. i made breakfast every day and so far the big hit is my tiko toast which is very similar to french toast.

we got bikes right after shultzman left so that’s been a regular part of our days lately as well. it’s very flat around here so riding a bike is a perfect way to get around. we bought three bikes and plan to sell them before we leave, either to the guy that owns the house we’re renting or maybe to one of the many bike rental shops. they’re beach cruisers with a basket up front and mine is sporting a classic D&D lisence plate!

…I’ve been typing this over a few days when I get a chance and yesterday was yule. we made a tree out of some snake sticks, fishing line, yarn, paper chains, and some terrible paper snowflakes (how do you make those again?!?). we all shopped locally for each other but paul does chrsitmas and not yule, so dawn and I exchanged gifts and gave paul his, and he’ll give us ours on xmas. it’s weird being dar from family during the holidays but being in the jungle is a little more weird since the commercial idea of it all hardly exists out here. you see some lights and a tree now and then, but it’s not america that’s for sure!

dawn got me an awesome hammock. it’s huge and striped with red, yellow, green and black, and I’m laying in it right now as i type.

after the gift exchange, dawn went with our neighbor on a much needed laundry mission. not so much for washing but for drying. that seems to be the biggest struggle out here, dry clothes and linens. while she was gone I biked to playa cocles to watch surfers and met ray, a canadian who wants to open a hostel in nicaragua and also gave me a fat hash joint that I’m also enjoying as I type.

yesterday paul and i biked deeper into cocles and scoped out a possible fishing spot. we have some gear but need to get some tackle before we can try it out. I’m looking forward to catching some fish!

it’s tuesday morning now, the 22nd of december. tomorrow will be three weeks and we’ve already seen five guests come and go. we won’t see any more until after new years. I need to peel myself out of this hammock and go upload this update.

ciao for now…

dear blog, I’m writing this on Sunday morning, December 13th. its 7:30 and I’m the only one awake so far on this raining morning. jessica and chris showed up last night and shultzman left yesterday morning. kellie and tommy will be here tomorrow. a lot has happened since the last time I wrote, we had many more adventures with shultzman.

we had a plan to swap out rental cars that wednesday, so shultzman and i spent some time at the internet cafe while we waited for the replacment. we thought we rented a bigger suv and then when he arrived with the same exact car we realized that was the largest one they offer. it can sit five so so, and this week there will be 7 of us! anyway we swapped cars and the new one only had a quarter tank and i just filled up the one he’s taking back, that means we have to head back out towards cahuita for gas. we decided that we’d check out the national park they have and get some more beach time in on the same trip. the beach was beautiful and we had to walk quite a ways to get to the safe swimming area, plus it was nice and sunny down that way. we spent a couple hours there and took off as it got dark.

the next day we decided to check out the ATV tour. dawn and i shared one and paul and shultzman had their own plus the guide. we took off on our quads and drove through puerto viejo, into cocles, and just passed our street where we make a left to the beach, we made a right and started the tour into the jungle. we took many back roads that led us through a couple of rivers before we parked and hiked down to the base of a beautiful waterfall. we spent about a half hour there swimming in the fresh water and under the powerful falling water.

after the waterfall we drove deeper into the jungle and into the town called bribi where about 20,000 native indians still live off the land. we stopped at a little shack where they sold hand carved and painted items as well as little balls of fresh chocolate that they make from scratch. the guide showed us a cacao fruit and we tasted it as he told us the pocess they use to create such delicious and strong flavored goodies. we bought a little baggie and headed out to finish the tour. the rest of the drive completed a huge circle and it started to downpour. we were all still wet from the swim so it was a bit exhilarating to be driving on some main roads up to 50kph while getting completely drenched. i loved every minute of it plus we shot an episode of D&Dtv while we were out. check it out…

we saw a bunch of animals while were out cruising around. we saw a few tucans, a sloth, a bunch of iguanas, a huge pig, a few cows, some tiny bright red dart frogs, and a parrot.

shultzman left on saturday morning and i had to drive him to a hotel to get picked up for his bus ride back to san jose. it’s always sad saying goodbye to friends but we’ll be seeing him again for sure. after i dropped him off I stopped off at the beach since it was so sunny and took some photos of some vultures I saw sunning their wings in the sun. a pretty surreal experience. i also took a pretty awesome panorama photo of playa cocles. it’s so beautiful out here.

i’m at an internet cafe now, to be continued…

dear blog, it’s tuesday now, tomorrow we’ll have been here a week. it’s harder than I thought it’d be to keep a daily journal, but here’s to trying.

the days start to blend together in my memories already, but this first week has been a nice change of pace, especially since I found out that it snowed pretty much right after we left wisconin. we’ve found a decent place for internet and good food called @Es. it’s a hostel that rents hammocks or tents or rooms or surfboards, anything you need. and the front is a bar and restaurant that offers wifi for 1500 colones for 7 days which is about $3. it’s not the fastest but it works. we’ve been stopping there maybe twice a day to get our fix.

we’re still trying to figure out if getting groceries is more economical then eating at some of the places nearby. the food out here is so good and the trip to the store was a bit pricey, but you need essentials, like coffee and beer!

we’ve been going to the beach every day. we found a path that’s very close by and if you have a decent pace to your stride, you can be in the ocean in about 5 minutes. I’ll have to time it one of these times.

the water is so amazing. it’s warm and the waves are perfect and sometimes a bit large. we’ve only been body surfing so far, but it’s not too difficult to find yourself in a picturesque tube of a carribean wave. just this morning paul and I heading down to the ocean at 5am to catch the sunrise and a few more tubes. what a great way to start the day.

our good friend shultzman arrived on sunday at around noon. we met him at the Internet cafe, had lunch, showed him the house and then the beach. mostly we’re all just relaxing a lot but yesterday we took a drive north to cahuita and stopped at the sloth sanctuary for the tour. we took a canoe ride down a jungle river spotting animals then got to meet a lot of the resident sloths. our tour guide was the same guy dawn interviewed for D&Dtv a while back. we became friends and gave him a ride back to puerto viejo. normally an hour long bus ride, we got him home in about 20 minutes.

we made it back to the house in time for a quick dip in the waves and then played some cards with paul and shultzman while drinking quite a bit of jack daniels.

the dogs have been surprisingly good. they seem to really enjoy the warmth and humidity. they’re flooded by other dogs and cats that come and go and have made a new friend named tootie, who is a little black dog from next door who has decided to just hang out at our place from now on, especially when it’s feeding time.

we’ve recorded a couple of podcasts so far and my intention is to link them up right here when I get back online with my laptop (I’m posting this on my iPhone)
D&D 901

D&D 902

so there you go mr blog, another update from beautiful playa cocles in costs rica. I’ll get working on the next one…

pura vida!

dear blog, I’m writing this from costa rica. I’m laying in bed with dogs surrounding my body and jungle noises filling my ears, and using my notes app to type this for my next trip to the Internet cafe. the shutters are open and the mosquito net is covering the bed. this is our second night and we’re still getting used to the crazy change in evironment.

i was anticipating a nightmare travel experience due to the fact that we brought 4 minpins along with us, but they proved us all wrong. after 7 hours in the air and an 11 hour layover in a newark new jersey hotel, they hardly made a fuss and even the people on the planes that sat around us couldn’t believe they were sitting next to 4 dogs. they made us proud.

once we landed and went through customs, i saw our rental car guy who was waiting for us with a sign along with about 100 other guys waiting to pick people up. we finally get all of our bags and dogs to the car and find out they don’t have the size that we rented. they swap it out for another car the exact same size. they tell us they can bring the correct car where we’re staying and we cram the car full our stuff and take off on a 4 hour drive east to the other side of the country.

driving in san jose is pretty crazy if you don’t know where you’re going. you rarely see a street sign, and it’s easy to get lost but people are friendly. I had to stop twice to get help to find the road I just drove on back in january. but we found it and left the city. you drive through the mountains and the cloud forest then out through banana fields and finally to the other side and you see the ocean. The moon was huge and reflecting off the water. we head south at limon and continue on to cocles. only 45 minutes to go.

it got dark as we drove and it started to rain, so the drive was definitly an adventure. we contacted the caretaker and after a quick stop at the store we made it to our final destination.

the next morning we took the dogs on a walk to find the beach. we went left and ended up walking further then we meant to and went to the same beach spot in front of cariblue where we stayed in january. the ocean was amazing, with nice waves and it is so warm. we took the dogs in one at a time to get them wet and they seemed to sort of like it. we’ll see.

we drove to puerto viejo which is about 3 kilometers north to get some groceries and when we got back we left the dogs at the house and went back to the beach, but found the much closer path. we met a nice retired canadien on the way and he showed us the way to the water. without the dogs this time, we could all enjoy ourselves in the surf. it felt great and this was just our first day.

you have to walk about 100 yards to get to the main road from our house. to the left another 100 yards is a little store and to the right about 200 yards is an Internet cafe. on the way down to the main road, about halfway, we all start getting these sharp pains in our feet as we must have walked right through a fireant highway. it was ridiculous! in the dark, feet stinging and we’re still another 50 yards to the nearest light. we didn’t know what was going on at first so as I shined my flashlight on dawn’s feet she had just started to lean up and she smashed her right temple into the top of my head. we we’re able to get out of there quick, if not we’d keep getting bit. after a few minutes of making sure we were all ok we continued to the cafe.

since the house we’re in is stil on the waiting list to get internet service, having the cafe so close is nice. we went for a little while last night and sent out some updates, posted some photos, sent some emails. I had a nice coffee while paul got some whiskey and then dawn got a salad and we all nibbled on it. the internet is like $3 an hour or I can pay $40 for a month of access…

…i had dozed off while writing earlier and I’m now at a place that charged me $3 for 7 days of Internet access. much better deal! so I’m posting this update now and will continue my journal offline.