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Hi,

We were driving again to the Arenal Volcano to actually get as close to the actual volcano as we could in the national park when we came across a pack of coati:

As you enter Arenal National Park, there are a number of signs warning you that you enter at your own risk:

A number of the signs give official evacuation routes, warnings to follow the instructions of the rangers and even if caught in an eruption, to wet an article of clothing and breath through it to keep the dust out of your lungs.  Arenal erupted something like three hundred years ago and then went dormant.  Then in 1968, it erupted spewing rock and lava all over.  It was again quiet until 1992 when it again erupted and this time just spewed rock (no lava).  Here are a couple of pictures of lava rock spewn around the highest elevation you are permitted:

Tucked away among all this lava rock are some pretty hardy plants like these orchids:

Here’s a picture of Arenal from in the park.  You can actually see steam escaping from inside the volcano along the slopes going up to its peak.  And as you are standing there, one vent stops spewing and another starts.  Some vents are kind of wispy, some are more intense.

Also, down at the lower elevations where there’s some halfway decent flora there’s this HUGE tree, the only one of its size we saw:

For scale, look at the guy in the blue in the picture above and Dave in the picture below:

There’s also one of the many trees with their roots above ground that pretty much looks like a giraffe:

And then at the parking lot, there was this flock of blue birds flying around:

Today, we went up to Monteverde, it may be the highlight of our trip.  The orchid garden was AMAZING (as was the tour guide), we went to a frog park and zip lined!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  🙂  Tomorrow’s post may be entirely pictures of the amazing orchids.

One of my blog followers (and past guest) told me New Jersey got eight inches of snow Sunday.  I’m really lovin this down here.  J

ed

Hi,

Sunday was our host’s last day, so we hung out a bit to enjoy their company and meet some resident friends of Leigh’s as well.  I can’t think of anytime anyone has made me feel as welcome as Leigh has.  I think she’s in the wrong profession, she should be an Innkeeper.  🙂

Speaking of hospitality, I saw the other side the night before last at a locally famous restaurant, the Gingerbread House.  The chef/owner/proprietor is known for being colorful and quite skilled with food.  We made a reservation and arrived, they don’t have a “menu” per say.  The daily offering is listed on a chalk board as you enter.  $13 for salads & appetizers and $27 for entrees are pretty pricey by Costa Rican standards.  On the other side, the hostess/waitress suggested we only order two each and share.  And that turned out fine.  Since arriving in Costa Rica, I have had very little Internet access, so generally I get my pictures organized in the morning and draft my blog post in Word then as well.  When we stop for dinner, I copy and paste the Word document into my blog, post the pictures, edit the wording and post it.  I had my computer out on the end of the table attempting to do this when the chef/owner/proprietor came to our table and greeted us.  He looked at me and said that he doesn’t approve of computer use in his restaurant.  I explained my dilemma and he left.  I don’t want to be on the computer when I’m trying to eat dinner anyway and I always try and get my post done before the food arrives.  The chef/owner/proprietor comes back out on the patio and announces “I guess he doesn’t believe me that I will not serve food while a computer is on.   In this restaurant, food is #1”.  Feeling singled out, I turned my computer off, waited for dinner to be served and then finished my post.  We were given smaller plates to be used as we shared our appetizers and salads and they were replaced with dinner sized plates for sharing the entrees.  The two desserts we were served came with only extra spoons, no sharing plates.  I love my traveling companions and can attest to their general health.  But they are friends, not family.  When we requested plates, the hostess/waitress looked at us incredulously and said “But its dessert”.  We said “Yes, and we prefer side plates”.  She was obviously, not overly comfortable with our request.   As we were leaving, the hostess/waitress asked how everything was and I told her that other than feeling unwelcome and singled out, the experience was OK.  She asked how the food was and I said fine and she responded “I’m glad you enjoyed the food”.  You know, before you even have a mouthful of your meal, your dining experience has been evolving.  Was the restaurant doors clean when you entered?  Was the staff appropriately clothed and friendly?  Were the tables and appointments appropriate?  Was the aroma coming from the kitchen enticing?  Are the bathrooms clean?  I have seen perfectly prepared food served in an establishment that was lacking in some of my above questions and the food experience was compromised.  I don’t blame the chef/owner/proprietor for setting standards, as I do at my Inn, but when dealing with the public (particularly international travelers), you need to know when to bend. I wasn’t on Facebook.

I had spoken earlier about the Costa Rican use of live plants as fence posts.  They plant anything in a row, from reedy arealias to regular trees and any combination thereof.  Here’s one example of a live fence:

Yesterday, we went to the little town Fortuna right below the active Arenal Volcano.  The main purpose of going there was to see the Fortuna Rio Catarata (which is around 220 feet-about a twenty story building):

Here’s a picture of the waterfall that is carved out of andesitic rock.  (Andesitic is volcano created rock as opposed to rock formed in the earth.  Volcanic rock is extruded and doesn’t have the time to form crystals and although they look like their cousins (in this case granite), their structure is different (I’m traveling with a geologist as well as a horticulturalist).  Here’s a picture of exposed andesitic rock next to the waterfall:

And here’s a picture of vines, etc that are thriving in the mist and humidity under the waterfall:

After leaving the waterfall, we went to the small town of Fortuna to see “the most photographed church in Costa Rica”.  San Juan Bosco is named after the first person from the Americas canonized (I believe he was the first).  The description in the tour book was of a squat masonry church in the town square.  We drove around the square twice looking for some ancient structure and all that was there was:

A cute church, but why would this structure be “the most photographed church”?  Look at this:

Having the volcano in the back ground does set it apart.

Here’s a cool picture of a city street with the volcano in the background:

And the town square is way cool.  Although the following picture doesn’t show how much the square is used, there were tons of locals and tourists enjoying it.  I do have a couple of pictures showing its use, but this one has the nicest view of the square.  There were kids playing, kites flying, dogs sun bathing, neighbors talking and tourists snapping pictures.  Driving up to the waterfall I noticed a lot of people walking along the road and when we left there were a lot of people walking on the road.  I guess the town is about 4km from the little town and there’s a bunch of small hotels, hostels, and other lodging options.  And I saw people in the town that I had seen at the waterfall, so all those folks walking were staying in the town.  Here’s the town square:

Well, that’s about it for today, have a great one,

ed

Hi,

Saturday we drove out to the active Arenal Volcano.  There’s a private attraction in the tropical rain forest out there with a hanging bridges through the forest.  Very cool. Lake Arenal is actually a hydroelectric project and at the end of the lake by near the volcano, there’s a dam just to keep the lake full (one of the valleys needs to keep the dam full, not the hydro part) and you go down under that and then up into the mountain (not the mountain with the volcano, for obvious reasons it’s off limits) up this very well maintained road of brick stamped concrete.  It’s probably about 2km long and there are several attractions along it and a resort hotel.

Admission was $24 per person and the walk also about 2km and takes two to four hours, depending on how many pictures you take and the pace of your walk.  There are also a couple of side paths that make a short cut if you aren’t that adventurous.  They provide you with a map of the path, bridges and noteworthy sites so you can keep track of your progress and what you have to look forward to.  There are six suspension bridges and nine regular bridges along the route.  As we crossed the first suspension bridge, right next to us was the seed pod for either a king or queen palm:

And then we came upon this flower:

And here’s our second suspension (some of these suspension bridge tours are totally canopy-this tour is both airborne and terrestrial):

There’s a ton of these trees that have a  buttress like base, some are VERY dramatic:

We saw many of these brown lizards along the way:

This catarata (waterfall) is a side trip off the main trail and can also be seen from a suspension bridge down the hill from it or from a suspension bridge above it:

Here’s another flower we found that even had Tony stumped:

They dug the hillsides out to create the paths making up the trail and frequently there was just a dirt bank on the upper side.  Here, as is most places in Costa Rica, flora has taken over:

Though they never came down close enough for us to get any good pictures, here’s one of a family of spider monkeys that was playing in the tree tops:

This is a view of Arenal Volcan from one of the suspension bridges:

This first picture is of leaf eaters coming down from WAY up ina tree, there are two lines.  One line (empty handed) goes up the tree and the other line (full handed) comes down:

Their nest is not close to the tree and you can see in this picture how they have actually worn down a path (the dirt is actually compacted from the amount of times the ants have crossed it):

At the end/beginning of the walk, there’s restrooms, a cafeteria, gift shop and tons of little and large birds hanging out for your enjoyment.  There is a tree that had several vultures in and and would fly in and out the back of the tree and never showed themselves.  In front of that tree is a papaya tree shown here with a ton of colorful little birds like this redish bird and these really cute yellow birds with the black burglar’s mask: 🙂

On the way back to Leigh’s house, we passed this white-nosed coati (kind of related to raccoons).  He let us get pretty close before some idiot saw us and swerved into to grass next to him and chased the coati away.  Leigh says the ones that live along the roads are so used to tourists that you can come right up and feed them (as long as they aren’t afraid they are going to be run over):  🙂

This next plant I had taken a picture from our trek down to Lake Arenal the other day, but the picture didn’t turn out.  These sensitivity plants are all over.  When you touch them, the fern like leaves fold in together along the vein as a defense mechanism against insects, heavy rain, etc.  They accomplish this by shift water:

Finally, these are our companions at Leigh’s house.  There’s somewhere around 30 howler monkeys in the full troupe, but they break out into smaller packs during the day.  They get up each morning around 5:30 am and the males start this low pitched, extended growling and do this for several hours.  They also do this later in the afternoon.  This morning when they were frisking about, we went down to see them and they actually moved over towards us and occupied the line of trees right along the farm path we were standing on.  They didn’t seem threatened by us.  You do need to be careful, because they are known to urinate on you if you scare them or make them angry:  🙂

One week to go, keep warm and I’ll be joining you before I want to,  🙂

ed

Hi,

Several corrections and enhancements.  What I referred to yesterday as a Prodteus, Number 1, the plant is called Protea.  Number 2, the plant I posted pictures of is actually a ginger.  Those trees lining the driveway with the camouflage peeling bark in Leigh’s driveway are a Eucalyptus.

After all our hiking around Thursday, we sort of hung around Leigh’s house Friday.  We went out for a late breakfast/early lunch at Leigh’s friend Monika’s Restaurant Caballo Negro and Lucky Bug Gallery and Bed & Breakfast right down the street.  Monika and Willy are German nationals that lived in the US before settling in Costa Rica in 2006.  Having a background in culinary, they initially opened the restaurant and then added the gift shop next to sell their three daughters’ artwork.  Later came the bed and breakfast.  The girls have gone on their way, but Monika still supplies the gift shop with items like these lamps, she makes the shades from fiberglass (I apologize, several of the pictures I couldn’t rotate them):

And they make these kind of mobile things from metal they cut into the shape of leaves and then cut the slits in them to capture the wind:

We had breakfast/lunch on the porch overlooking the bed and breakfast compound and a lake that divides the property:

And as so many people in Costa Rica, Monika puts fresh fruit scraps out to feed the local fauna:

I didn’t like the earlier angle I posted of the crater created from a volcanic rock yesterday, here’s a better angle:

We walked down to Lake Arenal and saw these club moss (looks like a fern, more of a moss) all over the place:

There was this tree with these white cords hanging down from the branches (which are actually flowers), much like you expect to see from James Cameroon in Avatar:

Here’s a wild orchid we found down by the lake:

And a passion flower growing in the forest:

Not sure what this thing is, I wasn’t willing to get too close to it in case it was a wasp next, it would hold a LOT of wasps (it quite possibly is a bird’s nest, possibly termites):

Here’s a local hibiscus with one hell of a stamen:  🙂

Have a great day and keep warm,

ed

Day Four

On Thursday, we decided to head up to Volcano Tenorio and Catarata de Rio Celeste.  It should have been maybe a two hour journey from where we have been staying, but because of a few bad calls, was over three.  And we finally saw the unpaved roads I had expected to see much more in Costa Rica.  Because of Dave’s superior driving skills, we survived unscathed and saw some really amazing country side, unfortunately the only picture I was able to capture was this one of a cemetery above ground:

The first above ground cemetery we saw was on our way to the Osori Valley at Trio Rios.  That little town was around three rivers and so I assumed the above ground cemetery was to keep everything dry, like in New Orleans.  But this little cemetery is up in the mountains.  Anyway, traditions are traditions.

Our travels took us past all kinds of fauna that was fenced (cattle, etc) and extremely interesting flora I was unable to get photo’s of.   Of the three plants I want to highlight is the way Costa Ricans use live trees/shrubs as fencing.  They plant trees/shrubs along a line they want fenced and then attach barbed wire to it.  Something that’s cool about this, besides being renewable, is you can “add posts” anytime and let them grow in.  And you don’t need to buy fence posts and a post hole digger, just plant a new plant on occasion.  (Picture to come).

The other flora I really want a picture of is this round tree that seems to grow in three distinct tiers.  These trees have these over-sized leaves arranged in the three tiers that are maybe two feet tall, about fifteen feet across and about three feet between tier.  (Picture to come).

One of the floras you see a lot here are tree ferns (not the ferns growing in trees), but ferns that actually have a trunk and grow as a tree.  This is one of the floras I actually got a picture of:

So we made it to Volcan Tenorio and it is one of the least used national parks and I guess one of the reasons is the difficulty in climbing up the steep boulder strewn dirt road.  On the way up, we came across a flock of Montezuma birds.  You see these birds all over and besides their colorful feathers, they have this very melodic chirping and then encore when they’re chatting:

The flocks build a whole series of hanging baskets as a colony:

So we arrived at Volcano Tenorio National Park, registered with the rangers and took off up the trail towards Catarata de Rio Celeste.  The Rio Celeste is famous for its azul colored waters, 30 meter waterfall and colorful pools.  To get to the catarata (waterfalls), it’s about a kilometer up the trail through a rain forest.  It’s not one of those rainforests with wild macaws, etc flitting all over the place, but definitely worth the adventure.  Besides all the lush flora not found north of Florida, there’s also all kinds of striking growth like these roots that are very common throughout the trek:

Once you travel the kilometer up the trail, you need to decent six zillion steps to see the waterfall.  Here’s a picture of the waterfall:

It’s actually six zillion steps; I counted them on my way back up:  🙂

The reason the water is so blue is from the volcanic activity below.  This first picture is where some water is literally bubbling up from the volcano below (with a very strong sulfur smell):

This picture you can see the actual fissure where the blue water is coming out with the clear water above in the stream:

Here’s a picture of a heliconia (commonly called lobster claws for obvious reasons) we passed in the forest.  I love these flowers; I tried several times to grow them when living in South Florida without success.  I know they are native to Hawaii, but don’t know if they are indigenous elsewhere (like Costa Rica):

Finally, this picture shows cloud shrouded Volcano Tenorio on our way home:

I think that’s about it for today, have a great one, I am,

ed

Hi,

One more thing from Monday’s excursions was we were traveling up a mountain coming out of the Orosi Valley we saw a sign on the side of mountain in very large white letters Mirador de Orosi.  The miradors are a series of locations with views that the Costa Rican Tourism Office operates and many date back fifty years or so.  They are pretty much like our public works projects that were completed by President Roosevelt in the 1930’s.  Here’s a view:

We left San Jose on Tuesday and traveled northwest through the mountains up the American Highway (this road runs through all of Central America and South America).  After cutting through some mountains on our way down to Lake Arenal, we were arriving too early to meet our greeter, so we stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at the Mystica Resort, phone +506-2692-1001  It’s a very colorful yoga resort with a very nice restaurant run by some great people.  The food was great and once again our lunch filled in for lunch and dinner.

So we arrived at Leigh’s wonderful house.  You saw the pictures before I left of the front gate and the large building (which actually is the guest house, the lower, one story house is the actual main house where we stayed.  Here’s a picture of the house from down the yard before the yard falls off towards Lake Arenal:

Here’s a picture from the front porch towards Lake Arenal:

Here’s a picture from the front porch towards Leigh’s pool:

And a picture of the pool:

The driveway that you saw with the gate seems to have been an access road for something down at the lake, because there’s a cut pathway that bends down from Leigh’s yard and meanders down the mountain.  Lining Leigh’s driveway and down the pathway are these majestic camouflage trees:

Here’s a close up of their interesting bark:

Not knowing where we were going for sure, we started descending down this trail and after about ten minutes we came across these beautiful orchids growing in front of this palm:

Yeps, that’s them on top of those four foot stalks, they are terrestrial orchids (ground based instead of air based in a tree).

The trail bends around another bend the trail when through someone’s yard.  Hesitant to enter someone’s yard, we stood there for a moment while the dog barked at us.  The owner, Mike an American Ex-Pat came out and we introduced ourselves as friends of Leigh.  He was very nice and did all the right things, but when he offered to take a group picture of us and “send it to Leigh”, I got a little suspicious that he was suspicious of us.  J  Don’t blame him, he had never met us and we had set the burglar alarm off earlier.  He gave us directions down to the lake and we then pass this gorgeous Traveler Palm:

Further along the trail we came across this clearing:

There are two volcanoes in the general area (one active since 1968 and the other in-active).  When they actually explode, they shoot rocks for miles and I believe that is what this depression is from.  You see volcanic rocks and depressions like this all over the place.  I don’t know if the active volcano has actually exploded since becoming active or not.

Leigh has a lot of interesting plants growing around here property.  As you start down her driveway, you pass this plant that I believe is a Prodteus.  Here’s a picture of the flower opening:

Here’s a picture of it fully open:

And here’s a picture of it having gone to seed:

Dave & Claire say a variety of it is the national flower of South Africa (they lived in Angola for a number of years and traveled to South Africa a good bit) and they have seen these flowers as big as a trash can lid.

Eventually, we left the compound for a friend of Leigh’s restaurant/gift shop, but unfortunately Monica had to leave and wasn’t around.  So we went to the little town of Nuevo Arenal.  It is actually a cute little town with a nice variety of shops.  Several decent restaurants, two grocery stores, two hardware stores, a pet store and vet are all located here.  There’s also the “famous” German Bakery, a bakery, restaurant and gift shop that was closing when we arrive.  But speaking of the hardware stores, after eating dinner at Moya’s (nice waiter, good food) we stopped at the first one to get some light bulbs to replace ones burnt out at Leigh’s.  The first one didn’t have anything that would match, so we stopped at the second one.  They didn’t have either bulbs, but the guy we were talking to took pictures of what we wanted and sent the pictures to another of their stores who had one of the bulbs and our Arenal store would have it by noon the next day!  Third world country and the hardware clerk takes pictures of electronics and has it delivered the next day?  Here’s a picture of downtown Arenal:

I think that’s about it for today, have a great one,

ed

Hi,

Day 2 Orosi Valley

Correction from yesterday.  It wasn’t the Honduran embassy across from the Inn we stayed at, it was the  Nicaraguan, sorry for confusing the flag.

The Valley of Orosi surrounds a lake that is a hydro-electric project that is quite scenic.  When arriving from San Jose, the first large city you pass is Cartago, the home of the ruins of one of the oldest cathedras in Costa Rica, Las Ruinas de la Parroquia.  Also in this city is Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, which is the most significant site in the city which is an amazing Byzantine style open air church that just exudes style.  Stained glass windows, wood carved altars, hand painted murals, jewel encrusted statues are just a few of the high lights.  Built in 1635, it has been renovated many times, but remains true to its original design.  One tradition that shows the religious fervor of some is approaching the basilica on your knees, even from as far away as from San Jose (about 15 miles) for the Feast of the Assumption in August.

Here’s a picture of Los Angeles from the outside:

Here’s a picture of the inside:

The highway encircling the lake is pretty well paved, as has been most roads we’ve encountered so far.  Driving around is at a fairly leisurely pace.  Partially because traffic is so dense and the roads are not equipped with turn lanes, shoulders, etc.  Having a relatively smooth paved road is a lot nicer than was anticipated in the outer areas.  But be careful of the scooters, they are everywhere and don’t seem to have any rules.

The hillsides are full of farms growing mainly coffee, but a lot of other agriculture as well.  And this is grown on these unbelievably steep slopes.  I can’t imagine working those slopes all day.

Here’s some slopes:

At the far east of this lake is a VERY narrow one lane bridge that when we crossed it, we had to share the traveling lanes with school kids walking in front of us (there was no sidewalk area).  J  But shortly before that, there was a heavily used suspension bridge over the river that filled the lake.  Permanent, very narrow entrances keep cars and scooters off the bridge.  See the bridge below:

Next is a picture of a previous bridge that seems to have been non-suspension and had been washed away:

We were traveling along the south of the lake and it was later afternoon by the time we decided to stop for lunch.  There’s a ton of little cantina kind of restaurants along any road you travel in Costa Rica.  Most cantinas seem, at best, to be boring opportunities to put something in your stomach.  One of the things I like about traveling is “local color”, so I seldom eat at any kind of chain while on the road.  So we found this open air cantina with the proprietor sitting alone in the restaurant.  It looked pretty clean and wholesome, so we pulled in.  #1 he had the tables covered in white table cloths with a red napkin angled decoratively angled in the center.  #2, as we entered and the five of us were squeezing into a four top table and he came over, greeted us and immediately pulled another table so we had plenty of room.  He then went back to the counter and started turning the TV he was watching down.  I told me not to be concerned, it didn’t bother us.  He said OK and still turned it down.  He gave us the menus & asked what we would want to drink (in Spanish, he spoke no English).  We ordered and he made his recommendations on what menu items he recommended to order and left us.  He came back shortly afterwards to take our order and three of us had ordered beer and two had soft drinks.  I told him I didn’t want a glass, so when he brought a second beer, he had a napkin decoratively wrapped around the neck of the bottle and one folded as a holder across the center of the bottle.  I love little touches.  He served the ladies first and really paid attention to us (granted, we were the only guests, but I’ve been in places with the same scenario and been ignored).  And then came out the entrees!  OMG, for such a little place the quantity of the food, the presentation was amazing and the food quality and flavoring was right on base.  I had ordered chicken and rice, pretty standard Spanish faire.  The pulled chicken and rice had a very healthy portion that was decorated with several tortilla chips on top.  There was a small side salad of fresh tomatoes & lettuce with a light vinaigrette.  The side of refried beans had a unique flavor; I think it may have had a dash of mole.  I had asked the proprietor for a business card and he did give me one because I wanted to give his business a push.  Unfortunately I seem to have lost it.  If I come across it again, I will post it.  He doesn’t have a web site, but if I give his address, etc some other traveler may have the opportunity to enjoy this fine establishment.  We were so full that we never had dinner that evening.

We headed off Tuesday for Leigh’s home on Lake Arenal.  After a number of minor wrong turns, one of which was through the famous wind farm (well over 100) serviced by the constant winds off Lake Arenal and then down a very steep decline to the lake.  While descending, we passed a troupe of White-Faced Monkeys:

Have a great one,

ed

Hi,

Day one in country.  To continue last night’s blog with pictures of Miguel’s artwork, I got the photos downloaded.

This first picture is of his art studio, all made from coffee plant parts:

Here is Miguel’s workshop:

This next picture is of Miguel in front of his house with Tony and Dave to the side:

This is the stream that runs right below Miguel’s studio, just very common scenery of the lush vegetation you see everywhere:

These are statues Miguel and his brother Hermes have carved and are for sale in their shop:

And these are several of the statues I selected.  The two end ones are of coffee picker’s, the middle one on the left is an ape (it was the only ape he had, there’s no apes native to Costa Rica, don’t fret 🙂 ), and the weeping lady at the middle right is a pretty famous legend.  She was taking her kids across a raging river and lost them and has weeped and haunted ever since.  I don’t know if this legend is exclusive to Costa Rica because I have seen it referred to a number of times elsewhere.  The TV show Grimm even did a story based on it:

Here’s pictures of Dave with Claire on the second floor porch of Miguel’s studio:

Here’s a tree that has been carved into someone with raised hands in a parking lot of a closed restaurant/bar down the street  from Miguel’s studio:

Here’s a picture of the Inn we stayed at while in San Jose, La Gioconda House Hotel:

And finally, here’s a picture of the Honduras embassy which is right across the street from our Inn.  Every day lines form in three directions (both ways on the front street and up the side street) of Hondurans looking to extend their work Visas.

Well, that’s it for now.  I REALLY need to figure out how to delete the old pictures from my camera because every time I download, it downloads ALL the pictures, which is becoming awkward.  It will soon be a nightmare.  There’s lots more from yesterday that I hope to talk and show tonight.

Have a great one,

ed

Hi,

Yesterday we arrived in San Jose Costa Rica.

Our United Airlines flight was scheduled to depart at 7 am and our good friend Sue wanted to get up at 3 am to ensure everything went smooth, which it did.  We were sitting at the gate over an hour before they started boarding, but that was OK.  So many time’s my MO has been arriving at the airport and stressing over parking, screening, etc that this leisurely arrival was nice.  I haven’t flown in a few years and I must say the TSA were the most polite and professional I have ever seen them.

We had a layover in Houston, where our friends Dave and Claire had one as well (they live in Austin) and they had a flight that was to bring them into Costa Rica three hours before us.  So they were assigned getting the rental car.  Their connecting flight from Austin to Houston was delayed, so guess who we bumped into at the Houston airport?  Yeps, Dave and Claire.  Their connecting flight was earlier than ours, so they still got into Costa Rica almost two hours before us.

On our connecting flight from Houston to San Jose (United flight number UA 1055Y- the reason I am including a link to United so if United uses Google Alerts, they may be interested in locating who the following stewardess assigned first class that gave me such poor service so they may contact me, if they care), the steward/stewardess’ passed out the Customs and Emigration forms for us to fill out.  I didn’t have a pen and the passengers next to me had a pen that broke as they were filling out their form.  So as a United stewardess was passing, I politely requested to borrow a pen.  She stopped, turned to me and tersely said “No.”  She told a step and turned and said “Ask your neighbors”, turned her back on me a second time and then continued up the aisle.  Now up until now, overall I had been again pleasantly surprised with the service I had received from United (I came with low expectations).  They even surprised us was with a warm lunch of salad, carrots, chicken or roast beef sandwiches and brownie.  What a rude thing for her to say and what a terrible attitued.  I could understand “I’m sorry I don’t have one”, “I’m sorry it’s illegal to give passengers a pen” or any other excuse, but a terse “No” is just unacceptable from anyone that works the hospitality field.

The decent into San Jose was quite stunning.  As you get lower and can see land, the landscape is quite exciting.  There’s the ocean on one side and a wide plain with rolling hills in the background.  And the rolling hills turn into gradually climbing mountains that level out into the central plain that hosts the city of San Jose.  We arrived in San Jose and the airports fairly modern and staffed with gracious and fairly bi-lingual staff.  One thing I found really amusing was their emergency exit signs.  It shows a stick figure “running” for a door.  You immediately understand its meaning; we should adopt that up north.

The mountains as seen from San Jose airport:

The city of San Jose is pretty dense and the roads are better than anticipated.  Not well marked, but if you pay attention, the signs are there and not too hard to navigate.  Lots of police all round, but they seem to just observe and the locals seem aware of the police presence.  I felt very comfortable.  Absolutely everyone so far that we have dealt with has been very nice and eager to assist.  Their English may not be good, but my Spanish is worse and for this I am thankful.

I called Verizon about using my iPhone or cell in Costa Rica.  The iPhone was not manufactured to work here and I would need to rent a phone that they would assign my phone number to.  So I checked about my cell phone and they said that would work fine, they just needed to adjust some settings that they did remotely.  I was told to do *228 for the phone to pick up the latest cell towers before leaving the country, which I did in Houston.  I immediately lost service and haven’t been able to get it back.  It keep “Searching”.

We stayed last night and this evening at the La Gioconda House Hotel, a center city bed and breakfast run by these very nice people.

We had a great day today in the Orosi Valley.  One thing I definitely will talk about more is Miguel, of the Casa Del Sonador, house of the dreamer.  Miguel and Hermes are sons of Macedonio Quesada, one of Costa Rica’s most famous Tico carvers.  A friend of Tony, one us, had stayed with Miguel’s parents as a translator in the 1970’s and Miguel clearly remembers Leon.  What an amazing man, amazing place and amazing artist.

It’s late and I have another big day tomorrow.  I hope to have time to fill in some more of today and post as many pictures as I can of today before retiring tomorrow.

Have a great day,

ed