Costa Rica - Sunday – January 21, 2018

Well, when we arrived the previous night, the rain slacked off to a mist and we got us and our gear into the house without incident.  Almost as soon as we got in, the rain and wind resumed as it had been for the last 15 days!  Near hurricane winds and horizontal rain featured through the night and most of the day on Sunday. 

We would later learn from Stephen that this location was where all the Costa Rican weather would land and get stuck on the mountain tops. 

We had choices, we could brave the elements and head out and down the dirt roads to Quesada or we could chill.  We decided that we needed to catch up with ourselves and that R&R would be the order of the day.  John hadn't been feeling well and it was just what he needed.  Cheri initially resisted and then suddenly got it...this is what she had been longing for too.

 

We were sitting in the middle of an intense storm.  The small chalet we are in is mostly made up of windows and the wind has been howling at near hurricane speeds with horizontal rain as well as sun showers since we arrived at the top of this mountain.  I find comfort in the ever blowing wind, the rhythm of it, interspersed with rain pounding the roof.  The trees bowling over and releasing. 

For a while, Cheri watched drops of water slide down a wire.  The patterns are interesting and characteristic of life.  Sometimes lots of drops all together and then a lull with one or two drops and then no drops. Sometimes they blow onto the back of the wire so I don't see them and then come back."

It was intensely peaceful this full fury storm.  Just being with it made all the difference.  Surrender it said.  Take what comes and be in the Now.  

There was a covered porch on one side of the house and a veranda on the front. Both provided opportunities to shoot animals under cover depending on wind direction.  Believe it or not, hummingbirds would fly out to snack on the purple flowers on the side of our chalet. We got some great shots and John tried out is new doubler giving him 1200 mm of possibility.  

 

Breakfast arrived right on time.  By the time lunch rolled around, we decided to be brave and chance the storm.  The village of San Vincente was about 30 minutes away over the dirt roads.  It was raining cats and dogs, but we waited until there was a lull and jumped out of the car to go into the Soda.  This small establishment had a family cooking and serving food.  It was clearly the center of the town and many were there enjoying a Sunday afternoon.  We managed to order off the menu and even ask for the check properly.  Again, when we finished, we waited for a lull in the rain and ran to our 4x4. We saw some great birds on the way back and got some super pictures. It was one of the times it continued to rain, but the sun shone through.  

At sunset, the rain stopped, the clouds shifted and opened a hole in front of us.  Spectacular sunset!! And the stars....oh my!

There is no heat in the chalet.  Just a real wood fire place on offer and with hurricane winds the down drafts would force smoke back into our little slice of heaven.  We opted to go with out and snuggle instead. 

Costa Rica! Saturday- Sabados – January 20, 2018

The alarm went off at 2:30 AM EDT, or 1:30 AM Costa Rica time.  We trundled out of bed, grabbed showers and made our way to Albany airport for a 5:40 am flight.  All was on time and it was a glorious day for flying.  We landed in Baltimore and had a luscious breakfast at the Sliver diner in BWI before hopping the next jet to San Jose.  Cheri had bison huevos rancheros. John had scrambled eggs and bacon with a biscuit.  That set us up for the next leg of the journey.

 

 We arrived in San Jose about 25 minutes early.  Luckily we were exiting the plane with many others, because as we had been told, signage in Costa Rica is at a minimum.  No one was sure how to get from the plane to immigration.  After a trial and error, we found the down escalator and a sign!

We got into the customs line and it moved pretty quickly and we were out of the first part just about the time we would have landed.  As we exited the passport control, but before we left immigration, there were many helpful vendors including a SIM card provider (Kolbi).  Go with Kolbi/ICE – the government backed company.  There can be slightly cheaper plans and some say service is better from Claro but ICE held a monopoly for years and still much higher numbers of towers, stores, and market penetration.  If you’ll only be there for a few weeks use the big company unless you get advance information from your hotel or resort that one of the little guys works better in their area.  We got 2GB of data for $20 installed!  John got some local money and we were off. 

Exiting the airport, a man with our names on his sign was waiting to greet us so we could go and pick up our rental vehicle at Adobe. Thankfully, Anthony had told John we needed a vehicle with pickup!  John got the biggest 4x4 on offer, Hyundi Tuscon, which would be considered a small SUV in the US.  It came with wifi as well as a free local cell phone.

John hadn't slept much for the three previous nights, so he promptly handed the keys to his favorite Sicilian driver, Cheri!  Being Saturday, the roads were very crowded, so we just settled in and enjoyed the ride.  Of course the first stop was Wal-mart!  Pillows all around, water, fruit and toilet paper.  No sense being caught out in the woods without! 

Then it was onto the long drive.  Costa Rica doesn't have an abundance of addresses and therefore GPS Works in an entirely different way.  Type in the thing you want and pray it's In the database.  We'd learn a bit later in the day that Waze was much better than our $6/day GPS. 

So off we went through the beautiful scenery. One or the other of us remarking about how a scene reminded us of China, Bali, Ireland, or South Africa!  We didn't totally trust the GPS, so we also began using the iPhone maps.  Part way up, we texted our hosts and they decided we needed to drive all the way to the accommodation.  Remember what I said about GPS?  Ok, so John knew that in advance and had diligently looked at satellite maps as well as road maps and landmarks like rivers to be sure he knew how to get us in. 

So, we go spinning off the primary road onto a small concrete road which very shortly turned into a rock road which then turned into a cow path....a wet cow path. I was very thankful for our 4x4!  After a while we came upon a man, the angel David.  He didn't speak a lot of English and we not much Spanish, but his wife knew a bit more.  They finally said, you have to download Waze.  It's the only map to use!  Then they directed us how to get back to the principal road.  We struck off, on the cow path, found our way back to the principal road and just as we turned onto the concrete road again, a white SUV came up behind us.  It was David, the man we had met five minutes before.  He wanted to be sure we didn't miss the turn a second time around.  So he escorted us part of the way.

A double, huge rainbow appeared.   At the point he was to turn around, we got out of our vehicles and shook hands and took pictures with the rainbow.   

So now we knew we were headed in the right direction.  It would be another 40 minutes and much more cow path before we finally got to the top of the mountain and our lodging.  At one point Cheri remarked that she felt like she was in Romancing the Stone....where was the bus to Carteghena???? And can you imagine after driving for almost 4 hours that we had to pee....bad!!!!  Along the way there had been no, zip, nada signage.  We got to the final turn and there was a sign! 

We pulled up to the door of the main house and Juan Carlos was there asking what we wanted for dinner and when.  We told him we were beat and dinner would be lovey soon!  We made plans for a hike the next day.  Breakfast, traditional Tico, at seven thirty and then walking with his brother Stephen.

Darkness was falling and the mist was turning to rain. 

That's all for tonight!

Friday September 23 –Bozeman to Albany

Alas, the magic of the vacation was nearly done.  We arose and headed to the airport for our 12:14 PM flight.  A great breakfast at the airport and time for Dottie and Cheri to work on this account of the trip.

The trip was flawless to Chicago where we had a 3 hour layover.  Off to Frontera for dinner and drinks! 

The flight from Chicago to Albany was also flawless and then we were home again!  The Fab Four feeling so blessed and happy!