Little Joys in Life

Daily rythms have found their way into my life again, thankfully. There were a few months that went by without a daily rythm; moving, finding apartment, etc. That tends to to get old for me.

One of the things that I do is go to the mall (almost) every morning. Whah? The mall you ask? Yes my gym is there and it is so close I can walk. Otherwise I would be paying outrageous rich people fees to drive to some dumb country club. It's really easy here to work up a sweat. So after that on my walk home I hit the local orange juice cart. Orange juice carts are shopping carts converted into roving juice carts. So a fresh glass of orange juice on my walk home is one of my little joys, it costs about .50 cents and there is no pulp! Mmm yummy

Another little joy is seeing our truck right where we parked it. I always say to myself, woohoo I can't believe the truck is still there. There is no alarm system or anything and with late model SUVs being the easiest to break into and steal, it's a small little joy to see it parked right where we left it.

And have we mentioned before, people here are genuinely happy. There's no grumpiness, or bitchiness. There are a lot of refugees here and people who are very poor, but no need to be upset about it. When Adam is not looking I tend to give spare change out, sometimes they will give you a little treat for your change like mints but today I got a really nice smelling single stick of incense. It smells nice.

Another thing that makes me happy is working. This week I have finally started working. I like working, just not the 9-5 office thing. Here are the guys I am working for: GIS

Trip to Jaco.

Sunday morning Roberta and I woke up and decided to take a trip to Jaco. Jaco is the closest beach to San Jose and is an easy tourist destination. I guess that was the reason that it was packed with tourists. Most of the signs in the town were in English. We ate at a restaurant on the beach and our waiter talked with us in English. I felt like I was being cheated. It took all the fun out of ordering food, I knew what I was going to get.

We had a good time though. We went to a beach down the road from Jaco and hopped in the water. The weather was perfect and the water felt great. The Pacific side has the big waves around this area. I liked the Caribbean beach vibe a little better cuz it was more chill.

On the drive back over the mountains it started torrentially downpouring. Streams of water were running through the road in places. Made for an exciting trip back.

Roberta is starting work this week so we went to Office Depot to get her a keyboard. They had a nice wireless keyboard and mouse combo thing that would do the trick. We got home and opened it up and it was a Spanish keyboard. Duh. Things were all moved around and there was an upsidedown question mark. We couldn't find the @ key either.

Pictures Of Jaco Here

We didn't screw up!!!!

We finally had our show in the park. Mauricio on guitarra(guitar), Master Lucas on Tumbadora(Large Conga), and me on Bajo(bass). We have been practicing for the past few weeks getting ready for the show. Really fun music which I call Funky Latin Jam Folk. Soon I will have recordings and I will post them up here.

The show went perfectly. We were there on time and got set up without any technical problems. About ten minutes before we were supposed to play it started pouring down rain but quickly stopped. All the people came back out from hiding so we had a decent audience. We were all a little nervous but we nailed the show. Super fun time.

The weekend prior Roberta and I went to an open air produce/flea market near downtown. Piles of junk for sale. If ever I needed an old VCR that looked like it got hit by a hammer I would definately go back there. There were a lot of very expensive looking digital cameras without accesories or cables. Hmmm... Let me see.... STOLEN. They actually had the new camera that I was looking at getting there but my guilt got the better of me.

We actually went to the market to get produce which there was a ton of. An cheap too. Payin about .20c for a white pineapple. Most produce you could get a bag of for about .20c.

We also bought some Churros from this guy who was wheeling around this cooler. For .20c each we got a large stick of deep fried goodness filled with semi-sugary goo coated with cinnamon sugar. Mmmm.... That is the reason that I will go back to that market.

We are also very excited because my mom is coming down in August to stay for a while. Maybe we will go to Bogota Columbia. There is a 4 night trip deal with airfair and lodging and breakfast for $200 each person. There is the little problem with abductions in Columbia that we need to look into though.

Click here for pictures

Caribbean Coast

So this last weekend Adam and I drove to the Caribbean Coast. It took about 4 hours to get there and the road was through some really intense mountain, jungle areas. The road was good for part of the way, but than turned to dirt towards the last stretch.

We had received a few recomendations for places to stay but we didn't make any reservations because we were hoping to bargain with people since it is the low season. We ended up at Kasha were the owner was the dad of a friend of a friend. Needless to say he didn't give us a deal. Furthermore he was charging for an all inclusive stay ($75 a night which is spendy here). All inclusive means all of your meals and drinks are included. But here is the ridiculous part, nothing was included, not even breakfast. We stayed there one night and than moved next door to MiraFlora where the lady was super nice. She's been in C.R. for 17 years and was a very nice hostess with fair prices.

We had a great time after we got over getting ripped off. First we went to Playa Chiquita which is north of Punta Uva. This beach is very tranquilo, with very very small waves so you can just hang out in the water for hours, you didn't want to hang on the beach because the sand fleas were horrible. The next beach we went to was in Manzanillo. Manzanillo is at the end of the road travelling south. Here we snorkelled and swam. Snorkelling was really good here. Than we had lunch at Maxi's and started drinking and hung out on the beach some more and than drove to Puerto Viejo. Drinking was a treat because Adam and I have virtually stopped drinking except for special occasions. You have to drink pina coladas on the beach, no way around that!

Puerto Viejo is a surf, party, reggae town. Not much else to add, except very touristy. I'm glad we didn't stay there, but they did have a few good restaurants. We drove back on Sunday. Hopefully we will get back there soon, we had a really good time.

And here are the pictures

The Rainy What?

Wow, I guess it is the rainy season here. This is not like Oregon rain, it is a hard downpour that has been going on since mid morning. There are rivers in the streets and the drivers here who constantly have the “Pedal to the Metal” have learned that the accelerator is a variable input device.

This morning when it was sunny and perfect out I planted a bunch of plants that I scored from our friend Claire. We walked around her house and just pulled things out of the ground and tossed them in a bag. I will most likely have to replant them after the rain stops. I am going to take weekly pictures or so of the garden so that everyone can see how fast things grow here. I planted a basil plant in a pot on the roof and within’ a week it had doubled in size. Roberta has said that if you put a stick in the ground here it will grow into a tree.

Travel Companions Wanted

Hello All
As Adam has mentioned, we have prioritized some travel destinations in Central America that we hope to see during our stay in C.R, not in any particular order.

Guanacaste
Guanacaste is a northern pacific province of Costa Rica. Think beaches, oh yeah. Our friends have undeveloped beach front property there were we can either do some rustic camping or get some near by cabinas. This is about a 4-5 hour drive from San Jose

Lake Nica
There are two islands in the middle of Lake Nica which were formed by volcanos. Think isolated beaches of fresh water, home of the only freshwater sharks. This lake is in Nicaraugua so would require a bit of travelling from San Jose.

San Andres, Columbia
This little island is very close to Costa Rica but is Columbian on the Caribean side. Think snorkeling in coral reefs.

Puerto Viejo
Puerto Viejo is a Caribean town which has a strong 'rasta' culture and beautiful Caribeean beaches.

Granada Nicaragua
Granada is an old Spanish colonial town famed for it's spanish style architecture.

Cuba
Come join us and break some laws by visiting Cuba. Americans aren't suppose to go to Cuba but lot's do. Which also means that it won't inundated by tacky tourist traps. We've seen some fairly reasonable packages from Costa Rica.

Volcano Arenal
This volcano is famed for erupting when president Kennedy visited. I've heard there are smaller eruptions that are neato to see. This could be a day trip from San Jose.

Tortugero
Yep, this is a turtle-like destination. I need to do some more research so we can hit this location when the turtles are migrating. I've heard that you can volunteer there to heard the turtles or transport eggs. Sounds like a good excuse to see some wildlife. My mother has some funny stories about herding tarantulas and turtles in the Mojave Desert when she was a little girl. Adam and I are activley avoiding jumping trantulas but big slow moving turtles are more reasonable. My mom's brave like that.

Panama Canal
I've heard that Pananma Canal is nothing special, but it would be interesting to see it and use this as an excuse to explore Panama.

So, if any of these destinations perk your interests or if you have any that you want to add let us know. It's a lot more fun to travel with companions and it cuts down on costs.

Martha's Vineyard

What... I thought this blog was about Costa Rica. Well I, Roberta, attended a friend's wedding at Martha's Vineyard. I met Sonia at Cornell and she was recently married to Brook, who she also met at Cornell. They went thru some 'relationship growing pains' but they are now married. Which is great they are definately meant for each other on a lot of levels.

The wedding was really fun. My Cornell friends and I met up in Boston for an evening of beer drinking and catching up. Boston is a beautiful city. I would consider an urban living situation in Boston for a few years, unfortunately it's about as expensive as Manhatten in the nice areas.

The next day we head off to the Wood's Hull port where we caught a ferry to the island. My southern friends and I (from San Diego and Florida) brought the sun because it was beautiful weather. Almost as hot as C.R.

As soon as we get to our hotel we have 45 minutes to catch a bus to the clam bake. This clam bake had awesome food, including yummy lobster and wine. I've been missing good wine and beer - Costa Rica doesn't have too many options on that front except if you want to pay too much.

The next day is the wedding a short walk from our hotel at another hotel with a great view. It reminded me of Florence and growing up on the Oregon Coast except Martha's Vineyard was much much nicer and had a lot more yachts.

You can check out the pictures here:
Wedding pictures

New movements

Roberta and I are getting excited because we started looking into all of the vacations that we are going to need to take from this vacation. Cuba is probably tops on my list, then there is this little island called San Andres which is a Columbian island off the coast of Costa Rica, then there are these two volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua call Ometepe. Next weekend we are spending three days in Puerto Viejo which is on the Carribean coast. We promise that we will post more pictures then.

I have been practicing with this band three times per week getting ready for the show. The music is going very well. Supposedly the Mayor will be giving a speech right before we go on. No stress or anything. Oh well, they rarely blame the bass player.

Orchestra and Sit and Spin

Last Sunday morning Roberta and I went to the Teatro Nacional and saw the Costa Rican Orchestra. There were 100 choir singers on stage behind the orchestra and the sound was awesome. There was a lady sitting around us who was wearing some perfume that smelled like a a fishing tackle box that I had when I was a kid. I have fond memories of that tackle box.

Then after the orchestra we went to this Cultural Craft Fair at the old booze factory which is now the Cultural Center downtown. To get there we walked through the park that we are going to be playing music at next month. Nothing too interesting at the cultural craft fair but I got a great picture of some kids playing on something that was either a toy or an old industrial component.

Check out the pictures for more:

Click here for pictures

How many ways to say rain?

I thought I knew rain. You know living in Oregon my whole life. Nope, you don't know rain until you've lived in the tropics. Today around noon it started pouring down, really pouring down with big huge drops accompanied by thunder and lightning. Rain here is like a little baby: sometimes nice, clean and refreshing but other times screaming bloody mary trying to put out the fires of hell. Rain here is both a noun and verbo with more palabras (words) to describe it. Here's a few that I found:

lluvia - rain
pelo de gato - (cat's fur) a soft drizzle
garau - drizzle or sprinkle
aquacero - downpour
temporal - a storm that can last for days
granizado - hail
llueve a cantaros - raining buckets

Just naming a few. But luckily here it is warm when it's raining so you don't need to worry about hypothermia if you get wet. As I was walking home from school in 'llueve a cantaros' my legs from my hips down were soaking wet. This while using an umbrella for a 15 minute walk. Increible.

Luckily the mornings are the best. I do yoga on the roof, after shooing away the noisy parrots. Parrots here are like loud noisy seagulls.

Adios Roberta

Evening adventure.

We went to see Star Wars III last night. After about 10 minutes into the movie the it stopped. After about a 5 minute wait they got it running again. The after about another 10 minutes it died for good. Then after about another 20 minutes they decided to move everyone from this huge theater into this tiny theater. At that point Roberta and I were like, lets go home and get some dinner.

On the way home we saw some people spinning fire at a stop light on a hugely busy intersection. We rushed home to get the camera and come to find out that the power is out in our neighborhood. We parked the truck out front of the apartment and Roberta ran up to get the camera. I was looking at this park ahead and kept seeing these bright flashes of light coming from within. It looked like someone running around striking a lighter. Then I realized that it was fireflies. Instead of glowing all the time they would flash for a split second. There were a ton of them out there. Too bad I don’t do mushrooms because with a lawn chair and a bottle of water that would be hours of entertainment.

We went and got some pictures of the fire spinners and then decided to go out for dinner since we don’t have power at our house and can’t get the car in the garage since the gate is electric. We went to this Mexican restaurant that still had power and there was the loudest mariachi band playing there that I have ever heard. I think that gets the point of our evening across fairly well.

Here are some pictures of the Fire Spinners. If you look at the top of the picture you will see the stop light. They are in the middle of traffic doing this:

Click for fire

Rockin'

Last night I went up and played music with Mauricio (Claire's Boyfriend) up at their house and had a great time. Leo (Claire's Son) records samples into the computer and makes songs. Then Mauricio on guitar and me on bass were playing over the top of it. It actually works.

We are going to start practicing 3 times per week because we have a show in a park during a French Music festival in about a month. Supposedly we might have a drummer, timbales, congas, trumpet, and maybe keyboards. Sounds like it will be 45 minutes of enjoyable chaos. Hopefully we will get the show recorded and I will post it up here.

The most enjoyable part of the evening was playing traditional Latin songs. Mauricio is very good at playing and singing those types of songs.

Some notes on Catholocism

A few observations.

I was riding a bus to Escazu and two nuns got on and the driver just waived them on. They didn't have to pay their .35 cents. It was funny because that same day I was thinking about how fun it would be to walk around in a nun outfit. See how people treated you and stuff. Now it turns out I have a financial incentive. Free bus fare!! I'm not sure it's worth how hot they look, so many layers. There are a lot of nuns here out in public unlike the states.

Second Observation. Now that I have a TV I watch it. I can't help it. I turn on the TV and say to myself I'm going to watch some spanish novellas (soap operas with good slang) and study spanish. Well I always end up changing it to some dumb English speaking station and watch it. Adam is getting really irritated with me, he hates TV more than big hairy spiders. But the obervation I am offfering is that every time I turn on the dam thing the default station is the Latin Catholic station. So I always end up watching some nun blab on in Spanish for a while. It's really funny in Spanish , it's even funnier when it's English that has been dubbed over in Spanish. Why is the default station spanish? I guess catholocism really is the nation's religion.

Here's my third observation, it's a link to a website with a lot of good content. This guy is an expat from the states in Costa Rica.

Ten derelictions of the late pope

Up up up up... To Volcan Irazu.

We decided to take a small road trip with our slgihtly legal auto. We decided on Volcan Irazu which is about an hour away from our house at 12,000' on the top of a mountain. It is a really amazing drive up this winding road with an incredible view the whole way. Pictures to prove it:

Pictures of the trip

On the way back down we stopped at a farmers market to get some produce. Talk about cheap. There was this guy who was BBQing some chicken on coals that were in a hub cap. There was a line so it must have been some good hub cap chicken. Roberta had just got over some stomach problems so she didn't want to eat it.

Adam

Bribery in Costa Rica

This is Roberta telling you her little exciting story about bribery and not passing a smog check. Adam, fortunately had to work, and did not accompany me.

I've been reading in Tico Times that the government has been trying to crack down on bribery, but luckily that hasn't happened in our case.

So in our previous blogs you may have read that we have successfully purchased a legal vehicle in Costa Rica. All is fun and games until you don't have that last little sticker. Well in Costa Rica there is an equivalent DEQ smog check, which the truck past last December, but never obtained the sticker for some mysterious reason. Here is the crazy scenerio of Thursday afertoon. You have to remember that this is in a foreign country and I don't know spanish that well, the whole time in my head I'm thinking "Midnight Express". Here's how it goes:

- Get picked up by the owner to go get the infamous sticker in Limon, about an hour and a half away. Realize that the sticker was expired.
- Stop by this junkyard where some guy owes somebody some money. Waiting in the car, kind of creepy...
- Head over to Escazu, an hour an a half away, where somebody knows somebody who can get us into the smog check that day because it takes a week to get an appointment at this place.
- Head over to the mechanic who will fix some things to get it to pass.
- Go over to this other guys house, pay him off to get us an 'in'. Paying off, is a quick 10,000 colones (~$20) in a shady like handshake. But, we have to take his cousin.
-So we drive another hour to get the cousin, who also happens to bring another sidekick who just wants to tag along for the ride.
-So there are four people in the car to go get this sticker. At this point I'm drinking Smirnoffs in the back seat with the sidekick.
-We get in, but somehow there is a hole in the muffler and we don't pass. Complete bummer. I guess you can't bribe your entire way here, by that time I was ready to pay. The mechanic friend is going to get this worked out on Monday, because Orlando the guy who was suppose to work this out is heading to Florida for the week.

We'll See...

Discos, cars, lawyers!

This is Roberta bringing in her experiences of the previous weekend.

Well lots have been happening. Last weekend I went to a multi-level disco that was pretty cool. I can go to a club like that maybe once a year. Last year it was a club n Las Vegas. So I went to this club because Clair's son Leon was the opening dj for Anthony Pappas, who is apparently so famous he doesn't even have a website. Ok I guess it was pretty good house music as house music goes, but I don't think I digested enough drugs (any at all, alcohol doesn't count) to enjoy it that much. But luckily since I 'knew' the opening dj they let me back stage were I hung out with all of the cool people. But since I didn't know spanish and the music was blaring through my earplugs I couldn't hear anything anyways. We didn't even show up to the club until midnight and they main performer didn't start until 2:30 am. I guess since they don't have laws telling them when to stop serving that can start and end at any time. Here's the link to the clug website: http://www.vertigocr.com/ But the best part about this club is that everybody is really nice and happy. I accidently bumped into this girl who had a drink, I said I was sorry in broken spanish and she just smiled back, no attitude complete niceness. People give you space to move about and there is none of the ego attitude that you get in american bars and pubs. The girls are not mean and snotty and the guys are gentlemen. Ok that's CR's only club scene, really it is the only disco in the country.

So Adam and I just bought a car. Here's the story: our friend Clair says she knows Pinky who knows a guy who imports cars from the states. I'm thinking in my head, Pinky? This sounds really shady?? But you have to remember in Latin American countries nicknames from childhood sometimes lasts a lifetime. I met a guy in Puerto Rico whose name was Coco because his head as a baby looked like a coconut, his sister didn't know his real name. OK back to Pinky.

Pinky takes a day or two, calls back and says he has something. Adam goes and looks at it cause I'm in spanish class up the street. I get back and the car and price has Adam's OK so we run around town trying to figure out how to wire money into Costa Rica without paying too much. We get that figured out but Adam has to work so I have to go to the lawyer (abogado) and put the truck in my name. !!Yikes!

I'm running around with two guys I just met carrying hundreds of dollars (just the money necessary for the lawyer and paper work signing) going to see a lawyer that was suggested by the seller. Guidebooks say this is not a good idea, we should obtain lawyers seperately. But I say to myself, this guy knows Pinky and Pinky knows Clair, what could go wrong....?

So I'm sitting in this lawyer's office, pretty fancy shmancy lawyers office that looks like a complete dump from the outside. I was really nervous going in. I know nothing about the process of buying cars, this was supposed to be Adam's responsibility. Well nothing went wrong, we got the money transferred, the lawyer paid off, some legal looking stickers in the window and a cherry red four door 91' Izuzu Rodeo for around $4,000 which was about half the price cars are going for in lots.

We got a good deal (for Costa Rica), a solid car and made some new friends. There's still some more stickers and documents to obtain but the keys and the car are in our hands. We were a little worried about getting ripped off but luckily we knew Pinky who knew Clair. It's a small world down here. The seller of the car also drove us around to four differenet mechanics trying to get us a seat belt replacement. He's still going to get one for us, which is better because all of the mechanics will charge us gringo prices but he will get a better deal cause he's Tico.

Spanish Classes, Whoohoo!
They told me to just show up on Monday and they will get me into a group. Well the groups are so small there wasn't one for my level so I have a personal spanish class for four hours a day. It is completely intense. You cannot daze out the window when you are the only student. Cripes the lesson is formed around the points were I have difficulty, which is hard. I'm use to excelling at classes, not having my difficulties pointed out. Oh well I'll get better at this sooner than later at this pace.

Funny things we saw today:
Crazy man dancing in the middle of traffic, slapping his butt and having a good old time in the middle of crazy Costa Rican traffic. I gave him 100 colones (.25 cents) because I couldn't stop laughing. I never give money out the window (cause it's dangerous). Usually people try to sell you something or look pathetic. This guy was dancing hillariously for money. Gotta give props where props are due.

Some guy dressed in a really good Zoro outfit trying to advertise for the bookstore. It was funny because I don't understand the connection between Zoro and the bookstore, and the outfit was really good.

Here a couple crappy pictures of the truck:

Link to picures of truck

And the hunt is on.

We have been searching for a car for the past week and it is a royal pain in the ass. We drove around all weekend and hunted for a car. It was good to get out and see the terain that we will have to be driving over. The Pan American highway is really nice. Everything else is pretty damn intense. We decided that we have to have a small SUV. It doesn't need to be 4x4 it just needs to be high off the ground.

Enjoy these pictures from our weekend trip.

Link to pictures

Screaming like school girls

That is what Roberta and I were doing last night. I came down the stairs to the kitchen to get some fresh squezzed OJ and Roberta wasn't too far behind me. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs she lets out this high pitched yelp. I look over and there is this huge cockroach flipped over on its back. I guess Roberta almost stepped on it. We opened the door and swept it outside. Disaster averted.

Then we sit down on the couch and start to study some Spanish/English flashcards. After a couple minutes of this it was my turn to scream like a school girl. I looked over and saw what I would consider a tarantula walking along the floor next to us. The thing was probably 4 or 5 inches across and moving fairly fast. We jumped up and got our wits about us and armed ourselves with a couple brooms.

I poked at it with my broom and it started literally jumping around which made both me and Roberta again scream like school girls. I can't imagine much worse than a large fast moving spider that has the capability to jump. We moved all the furniture away from its path to the door and started to nudge it out. Finally Roberta got her chance and swept it outside. Whew, disaster averted.

This all happened because we left the downstairs patio door open at night cuz Vida likes to go outside. We learned our lesson.

What do the guidebooks know anyway.

Last night we went out to the red light district and did some gambling. All of the guide books say in particular “Don’t wander around the red light district at night.” While walking around down there I had my leatherman in my hand and was fumbling with it so that people could see something metal and shiny. If someone attacked us I would have to ask them kindly to hold on while I open one of the blades into its full locked position. Hey, we made it. I didn’t feel any less safe than being on Burnside at night.

Prostitution is legal here so there was a nice mix of hookers and gambling. Roberta and I only partook in the gambling. We went into this nasty casino called the Horseshoe and hit the slots. We started off with $10 and walked out with about $24. That paid for our cab and dinner. Amazingly the drinks they served in there were really strong. At 9:00pm on a Wednesday the central square by the Grand Hotel Costa Rica was about as packed as Pioneer square during the day but by 9:30 it was dead as a ghost town.

Roberta and I are starting Spanish language classes next week. I am taking one on one lessons at the house and Roberta is taking classes over at the college. Hopefully this will help break down the language barrier. It is actually surprising how few people speak English in and around our neighborhood. That was exactly what we were looking for.

We had a really nice time last Sunday out with some friends from here. They are old time Costa Ricans and own a fair portion of the Costa Rican coffee production. They are potentially the nicest people I have ever met. They had about 12 people over and most people spoke at least 3 languages. People were mixing French and Spanish and English. It was fun to listen to but sometimes hard to understand. At one point I thought that everyone was talking about pasta but it turned out they were talking about the grass in the yard.

Here are some pictures from Sunday and some action photos of the cat:

Click link for pictures

And I present to you..... Pictures.

Here are some pictures of our apartment and various other attractions in our neighborhood. Enjoy.

Link to pictures