We’ve given notice, and mid-February will see us setup a new base in Costa Rica. And where? Well, there’s Grecia—voted the cleanest city in Latin America three years in a row (how’s that for a change?), though perhaps too busy. Or there’s nearby Atenas, which National Geographic once recognized as having "the best climate in the world," or so the legend goes. I guess we’ll just have to see for ourselves, sooner than later.

And I’m not talking about futbol. From my personal, limited, and almost positively biased experience of Nicaragua (mostly small-town Jinotega) and now Costa Rica, I have some things to say:

Hmmm…so, why would someone like me choose to live in Nicaragua? Hmmm…good point…

(Also interesting to note, bus drivers in Costa Rica seemed to have a similar level of job satisfaction to Canada, whereas in Nicaragua I get the sense that being a bus driver is an honourable and enviable profession.)

Our second day in Monteverde, we walked a good portion of the cloud forest trail system of the Reserve Biologica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde. No comparison to the seemingly mostly second growth Niños trails.

I am amazed. So amazed. Elias again shows me the need for and benefits of patience. From crying at the length of our home block to walking without complaint around the world in two short years, all I needed to do was wait.

The attached hummingbird garden was a massive hit with us both, as many dozens of those sparkling little birds zipped past our ears.

And we didn’t stop there! We toured the Frog Pond…

…walked the trails to the butterfly houses…

…setup camp among the flowers to enjoy the fall of dusk, and toured the Frog Pond again in the more active time of night.

As we would begin our long bus return journey the following afternoon, I thought our adventures were over, but that morning on an impulse upon viewing the perfect shuttle service schedule to the Reserva Santa Elena, we were off again!

One of my highlights was climbing flight after flight of broken metal stairs up the rickety observation tower and right up a thin ladder to the hyper-exposed top platform in the buffeting mists of the heavens. Elias was laughing almost hysterically with nerves, and supporting us both in the final climb was a bit of a rush, to put it mildly. The experience highlighted how Elias, son of his father, Mr. Safety Junior, is really growing up.

Thus concludes our two week Daddy/Son adventure in all its glory. I pray that elements of our fantastic connection will persist into the complexities of family home life.

I was tempted to stay in La Fortuna and head home direct, but it turned out direct would be quite indirect, and Elias really, really wanted to ride the boat (to Monteverde, our original plan). So bidding our place of productive tourism adieu, we floated across Lago Arenal with Volcan Arenal fading into the past.

I’m sure I was the only one (besides Elias) who appreciated our careful driver who shuttled us by minivan into Monteverde, who ended up being passed by all the other shuttles, as we arrived safely and without any motion upset. I didn’t have any expectations, but thoroughly appreciated the pastoral approach (Monteverde was the destination of a Quaker exodus in 1951 as they sought dairy farming away from the US draft).

We’ve kept busy! The afternoon we arrived, we walked the multiple kilometres to the Bosque Eterno de los Niños (Children’s Eternal Forest.)

Finding that it closed in 30 minutes, we hyped up our disappointment to convince the employee to give us 1.5 hours, who strongly insisted we stick to a certain short route, then we walked the whole trail system despite the sharp geography around the continental divide (there was carrying and sweat involved—children’s forest, yeah right!).

We tried to hitch a ride back, and were amazed at the lack of helpfulness towards a guy and his young kid at sundown (I bet they were mostly tourists), and the fault of a pay-per-trip taxi system that saw mostly empty taxis pass us time and again. So we ended up walking all the way back, too!

Who knew that we’d be hiking through two more cloud forest reserves over the next two days, but let’s let that be another story.

On our second day (Jan. 15), we managed to fit it all in. First, a long walk in the rainforest over the hanging bridges, 45 metres into the canopy:

Being some distance from town, return taxis were expensive and seemed like a waste of gas for 1.5 people, so we solicited rides from people leaving the bridges. The first group of tourists declined, citing not enough room (not true). The second group citied not enough room in their taxi (somewhat true, but they obviously had not been to Nicaragua). Our third attempt was a Costa Rican couple, who gladly welcomed us, and refused my gas money offer on account of us being guests in their country. Please extrapolate this scenario to a general comment on cultures.

We asked to be dropped off near a zipline company. I wanted to ask if they could offer me a short form of the tour where I’d still be in view of Elias. After all, with the similarities to rock climbing (an old passion), the fact that the activity has become standard tourist fare in Costa Rica, and the romance and excitement of traveling through the rainforest canopy supported only by a harness and cable, I wanted to see what it was about.

They decided Elias was big enough to take the tour with a guide, but he repeated in his baby voice, “Only Daddy, not me.” So we kept brainstorming, and they kindly offered to have a guide take him from station to station, and he really wanted to see me do it, so we had a plan.

I enjoyed the novelty of the experience, and he had a ton of fun with the guide:

My only moment of nervousness was the tarzan swing, since I know what a miscalibration could mean at the bottom or one extreme of the swing, and especially after hearing the panic in the guides’ voices as they all shouted “bend your knees, bend your knees!” to the rotund Californian on his downward plummet, whose turn was just before me.

Honestly, though, what’s the point of speeding through the canopy? I’d much rather spend 90% of the time going hand over hand uphill and have a chance to enjoy the perspective.

We found it!

But before I get into that…

From San Jose (pop: >1mil), we headed straight to the outlying city of Heredia, ostensibly “worlds away from the grit and grime of the capital.” I like you, Lonely Planet, but oh how wrong you can be. Heredia showed me again how amazing Elias is at dodging cars. For at least a couple of months now, he quite vocally only ever wants to walk while holding hands (wise and cute little boy), and he can read my cues like an expert dancer. We get ready…rush into the tail end of one speeding car…and exit the street proper just before the nose of the next. Elias calmly tells me when, the timing being a little tighter than usual, “that car almost ran us over that time.” (Don’t worry, we do fine.)

We had to go to a suburb of a suburb of a suburb of the big city (from Heredia to San Rafael and then straight up into the mansioned hills as far as we felt comfortable) to find a little peace. We chose a side street that started with a road check, and when I asked if we could pass for a walk, the guard said yes and explained that they’re there to prevent the señors from getting [finger in shape of gun to the head and “pkloo” noise].

Having completed my tasks in the city early, lack of food (either you get the sort of plate that comes with fries, or you’re at a bakery/coffee shop—not Athens again!) combined with very unsafe nighttime walking and a half dozen other factors, I decided at midnight we were outta there come morning. So starting at 7:00am on the 13th, we hit the grocery store and bakery, settled our hotel account, ran to our bus to San Jose, taxied the short way to the San Carlos terminal, and caught our bus to La Fortuna five minutes before departure (I thanked the Lord they still had seats, since I had wanted to book in advance, or at least arrive 45 minutes early.)

It was a good ride (oh yes, besides our collision with that semi, but so it goes—seems it must happen frequently given the spare side mirror the driver conjured on the spot to the guffaws of all on board.) Our reserved hotel was a dive—no internet, water damage (mould?), stink, horrible beds, out of town, I could go on. What did I say about this in a previous post? So we dumped our bags, walked the town to find a room that’s only about 1000 times better (the Paraiso name seems to have a magical energy—Paraiso Tropical, this time), compensated the other manager, and we were good to go.

La Fortuna is the land of the volcano (Arenal, with actively flowing lava), but this particular cone has been unseasonally sopped in with cloud and rain for over a week. So what does one do near an active volcano when it’s raining? HOT SPRINGS, of course.

So I took Elias for our only admission-fee style activity so far, a special day at Tabacón. To state a positive in the context of a negative: I can say without reservation that this has been pretty much the only travel experience I’ve had since leaving Whitehorse that wasn’t tinged with some sort of disappointment. Or, in other words, it was awesome.

For a little factoid humour, let’s make a comparison to the Takhini Hot Springs in Whitehorse:

1. Takhini has 1 pool. Tabacón has at least 12 as the sculpted river branches and cascades and swells.
2. Takhini has a fence. Tabacón has a rainforest.
3. Takhini is rusty concrete. Tabacón is carved from stone or flows over natural crushed volcanic rock.
4. Takhini has a wall. Tabacón has waterfalls and a waterslide.
5. Takhini has fast-food (I assume). Tabacón has a wetbar (though I’d personally never pay the Vegas prices) and a gourmet restaurant (dishes that reach my “best food of my life” list, and are included with admission, and though Elias was admitted free—which was a big incentive of Tabacón over the substantial competition—he got to eat as much as he wanted!).
6. Takhini has snow and -30 (true, novelty there). Tabacón has…well, you know.

To continue the humour, as another person so undiplomatically put it, more or less, you should know that the main type of animal you’ll be seeing is the kind that is draped in gold and has four hours of waterlogging in the wrinkly aged flesh.

Elias was in heaven. He played through the light, through the cloud, through the rain, and through the dark. Here’s our lucky, happy boy (notice how he all of a sudden has learned the smile pose?):

(Photographer’s note: before our first photo of the day, we discovered our LCD backlight needs replacing, and without a viewfinder, composition was mostly guesswork.)

READER DISCRETION ADVISED

It’s not every day that one has a truly disgusting story to tell (though parents with currently sick children might feel like it is), so why miss the opportunity?

It’s a 5 hour bus ride from Playa Samara to San Jose (the big city). In the otherwise flat peninsula, the road between Samara on the coast and Nicoya inland winds through the hills. Elias was particularly cranky this morning, and cried inconsolably about various things for the first 20 minutes of the ride. Then, he started complaining about his tummy.

Now, I came prepared with a plastic cup for #1 or #2, and got that handy. Shortly after, at a stop to pickup passengers, Elias asked for a hug. He crawled into my lap, we hugged, and five seconds later he vomited expansively all over both of us—our pants, my shirt and his bare chest, his sock, the floor, you get the idea. I caught the significant remainder in the cup, and soon discovered it was too small for the task.

So, with a cup brimming with you-know-what and a slimy child under one arm, I made a dripping exit from the bus (so much for my rule of keeping my bags always at hand). The bus instantly started rolling away, and I shouted to the bus driver to give us a moment, and asked where the bathroom was in the terminal. He rolled his eyes and gave a disgusted sigh (not at the mess, but at the delay), and angrily motioned to the bathroom. I had to fish some coins from my wallet for entry, trying to minimize contamination. I didn’t know if the driver would wait, and guessed (probably quite accurately), that if we were more than a moment, the bus with all of our very important belongings would be gone. With half formed visions of trying to arrange transport and track down our bags, if that would even be possible, while covered in puke, I quickly cleaned Elias’ face, splashed some water on our clothes, and ran out. After a bit of panic, we found the bus (thank you, Lord).

The scene was just as we had left it, but with a greatly increased general smell throughout the bus and many groans from the other passengers. As the driver drove on, the mash oozed backwards at a quicker rate—the inhabitants of the seat to the rear had their legs tucked up on their seats, looks of horror on their faces. I swiped it all up, and invited Elias to sit on my lap. And only 4 more hours to go.

Round 2 involved long retching and a half full cup, and offers amounting to 4 spare bags. At the next stop, I disposed of all foul materials apart from our clothes. Elias was eventually able to sleep and all was mostly well.

A couple hours later, at the only rest stop (15 minutes), everybody got off as I tried to access clean clothes. The bus driver told me to hurry a few times, and I explained what I was doing. He then left and locked us in. At this point I labelled him with a few names that continue to stick when I think of him. After 5 minutes of precious change and pee time wasted, I hit the emergency release and we escaped. This man had the gall to criticize me for opening the door. So the whole world can know him for his actions, he was the driver of the Empresas Alfaro from Samara to San Jose departing at 8:30am on January 11th, 2010.

We changed, essentially in public, Elias was feeling much better, and we made our destination without further incident.

There you have it. And worse roads are yet to come. Oh man.

From Liberia, we ventured all the way down the Peninsula de Nicoyo to Playa Samara, which I had read was more family oriented than the other party beaches.

I don’t like to reserve hotels beforehand. For one thing, proper research takes as long as finding a place on foot, if not longer. For another thing, it’s next to impossible to communicate in Spanish over poor phone connections to make a reservation (and many places don’t take reservations). Forget e-mail—if an address is listed, the e-mail usually bounces, and if it doesn’t, it usually gets ignored. For yet another thing, you still don’t know what you’re getting until you can see it in person—how the sleepery is situated given the layout of the town, how clean and secure it is, how it compares to the others, …

Though I freely admit this approach has serious, serious drawbacks. One risks being left shelterless (remember Siena, Italy, Asheya?), or having to pay 2-3 times the going rate, though making sure to arrive long before dusk mitigates this risk. But still, wandering a hot town with a heavyish backpack and a tired child kinda sucks.

So here’s how this day’s search went: find an internet cafe and print a list of options I quickly put together the previous night, find a town map at the closest hotel and check prices while there, way above average, wander a couple blocks to another place I heard of, no answer to the bell, stop by an elegant place nearby, too upscale as predicted but made note in case we found nothing better, wander back up the road we came in to a nice place I previously saw online, no vacancy, wander back into town to check out a place that the last place recommended, vacancy but odd layout with a shared bathroom and a mediocre price, kept that one in mind, stop by the adjacent one, great price but smelled like pee, as Elias was very clear to point out to everyone, wander to another place I saw online, being sold, at this point start stopping at every place we passed, first smelled like pee, second had no vacancy, and the third had a beautiful room which happened to be at the lowest price yet (besides the first pee room)—SOLD.

That bed could fit my whole family! Well, almost.

A breakfast of baguette fresh from the oven, mango,
mandarinas, avocado, bananas, yogurt, and granola
(Jinotega sadly doesn’t have mangos and avocados—
the cost of living in poor-ville)

Our noisy co-guest; you must see the video (later) I took
of this guy leaping to a higher roof like a cat, no joke!

This search was not fun for me, not fun for Elias, but sometimes it goes like that. However, I decided that for the rest of this trip, I’m going to reserve ahead despite the tradeoffs, mostly on account of Elias.

Oh yes, and our place runs a natural juice bar and a fantastic pizzeria out of the premises:

Elias, we’re not in Nicaragua North any more.

The beach is killer in the good way, with a long curve and trademarked palms, and we found Elias a mini beach tool set perfect for travel:

I also finally got to surf. With numerous accumulated wave-hours body boarding the Oregon coast and Hawaii as a child (thanks Mom & Dad), surfing was easy and far too long overdue. Best $4 I’ve spent on this trip (second place goes to the first and only piña colada I could find that was made with fresh pineapple and coconut—novel idea, huh, and how much of Central America did I have to travel to find it?) .

To compensate for the long travels, I dropped some destinations off of our itinerary to put in an extra day (1 partial, 2 full), and when, on a whim and in unusual fashion, I tried to book our exit bus 48 hours in advance, no free seats means we’ll be staying yet another day. At least we can now celebrate Elias’ birthday on his true birthday, with no travels—a senora is making his piñata as I write.

Three more buses took Elias and I through the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border and into Liberia, a major transportation hub in Costa Rica.

Securing his hat-trick, Elias made sure to meltdown again at the border. At one point, the Nicaraguan exit line is a funnel with lots of pushing to get into the line proper. Every time we moved ourselves forward, Elias shouted and thrashed himself around (“When the people push me, I have to push them and hit them,” he told me later), which certainly did help us get in faster.

We had at least three passport checks en route, highlighting two facts: 1) that Costa Rica does not want permanent guests, and 2) the police don’t seem to talk to each other about who’s done what passport check.

After more walking than either of us would like, we were blessed to find the Hospedaje Casa Vieja, a clean, modern, and natural space.

Before bed, we explored a few restaurants (Elias fully occupied himself with the toothpicks at each, and, as always, the ketchup packets), and in the central park at dusk we again enjoyed the thick noise of birds returning to roost.

As a side note, there’s a fortuitous bakery here, much better than the others I’ve experienced, but with the same incredible prices. I can’t help but give you an example purchase:

• 6 Italian breads
• 1 huge sugar bread
• 5 butter cookies
• 4 coconut cookies
• 2 almond cookies
• 2 other cookies
• 1 small doughnut

So we were prepared for the next full day of travel into Costa Rica for the equivalent of just $3 US. The only odd thing about this bakery is their order system: you tell one woman what you want, she writes it down and gives you the paper, you take it one step to your right and give it to the cashier, who punches in your list, gives you an itemized printout, and accepts your money, and then you give this printout back to the first person, who assembles your treats. Whaaah?