Closing Thoughts and a Few Pictures

We're in the Panama airport now. I wouldn't recommend it. Our tickets say "Stand By", despite us buying them a few months ago and arriving at the airport a handful of hours early because we had an early flight in and then a long layover. Still, nobody will help us until 45 minutes before our flight. Apparently they only have one person who is able to help with questions like this for each flight. So. . . that's a good time. So we're camping out near our gate (at least what we hope is our gate. It's already changed once, and the screens that say what gate is for what flight have broken and keep flashing the destinations beginning with "A" & "B") in hopes that we can be first in line for seats. "On the plus side," says Ken, "at least the air conditioning works over here." What. A. Punk. The hot, humid air streams in every time a gate door is opened, and we're at a cul-de-sac of the airport so there's no hope for air conditioning coming down the hall. It's moments like these that make going home a little bit easier. Emotionally, I mean. Logistically, not so much.

But this seemed like an appropriate time to add a few more thoughts and pictures! Eventually I'll post a video from the trip, but for now, these will be my closing thoughts. Ken's too, if he cares to chime in.

Crazy Cathedral Ceiling

I'm making this picture extra big in hopes that you can see it well. This picture is from the ceiling of the Cathedral in Granada. Any idea what it's representing? Ya, we have no idea either. Maybe Noah's 

Ark? That would explain the bear and the sloth, I suppose. What about the cherub? The guy cuddling the tiger? Ya. . . we didn't know either.

Crazy Market Items
There were two super weird items we kept seeing at the markets in Nicaragua. The first were these super odd toads holding alcohol bottles. The horrifying thing is that these oddly posed toads are real. Somehow inflated or stuffed to look fat and grumpy, and then posed to entertain you and hold your alcohol. Weird.

The other weird thing was so funny, we almost considered buying one. Everywhere we went, there were humorous paintings of people on the toilet. All types of people doing multi-tasking with all types of activities. There were so many different ones, it was incredible! 

Ken's Thoughts on His Favorite: It was a picture of a lady holding a bottle of alcohol in one hand and with a wad of toilet paper in the other hand. She couldn't have seemed happier about it. 

Ken's Thoughts: Crossing The Border
Crossing the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua was extremely surprising. I've always thought of a border as a thin line - either you're on one side of it, or you're on the other. Between these two countries, there is quite a large no-man's-land that is neither Nicaragua, nor Costa Rica. To leave Costa Rica, you pay a flat $8 fee, but to enter Nicaragua, which is a few hundred feet ahead, you have to pay an additional $14 fee. On both sides of this no-man's-land, there are barricades and on the Nicaraguan side, there are armed soldiers. But in between, there is an unorganized maze of people going from one parking lot to another parking lot to speak with a different uniformed agent and submitting a different form, trying to get across. There also seem to be tented areas of people that had been there for awhile. It was extremely odd to me because I couldn't imagine what would happen if you didn't have the money to cross both. It seemed like you would be stuck like Tom Hanks in Terminal. And the lack of organization of it was utterly surprising, too. You'd think there would just be a clear order of operations or line to go through, but it was all very disjointed and a lot of people were looking around, just confused as to what to do next. I was thankful that our bus that we were on handled most of the leg work and made it very easy for us. To give an idea of what our instructions were from our guide's after submitting our forms and submitting our passports was for us to go around this building and "stand by the first mango tree" and they'd bring our passports back to us after an unstated amount of time. I'm glad to have that done, and I'm glad everything worked out. I think that's all my thoughts. 

Ken's Thoughts on Getting the Painting:
I'm shocked I forgot to talk about this! I'm also really excited about a nice painting that we found a purchased in Granada. It was a really talented street artist that had done a beautiful painting of Ometepe Island, the island that we had stayed on for two days. I thought it was incredibly beautiful, and was very excited to have closed the deal after a good amount of haggling, since I didn't have enough cash on me to be able to purchase it. I got him down to a low price, but I was still too short on cash and I didn't want to pull anything else out of the ATM as we were still within budget for the trip, so I threw in my cheap, digital travel watch - and he agreed. It was pretty funny because it was all the cash we had left on us, as we had budgeted for everything else. So I paid in two forms of currency, and a watch. I think that was money well spent. I think that's it. 

A Few More Pictures:

After Zip Lining in Monte Verde

Kenny in the courtyard at Hostal Matilda, our beach hostel

Cactus - Justin, these made us think of you

Our lovely hostel in Granada. This is what you enter into. $35/night!

Cool old church in Granada

View from the Bella del Mar Island tour

Early morning, waiting to catch the 4:30am bus from Monte Verde

Description of the volcano we saw - notice the underlined portion

Packed ferry to and from Ometepe Island

Nicaraguan public buses are re-purposed school buses

Entry path to Monte Verde

Ken's Closing Thoughts: That was a really great trip, and I'm really thankful for it. I look forward to future trips with my wonderful wife.

My Closing Thoughts: Ditto. . . except with my wonderful husband. :-)

If You Like Visiting Granada

The title, in case you couldn’t tell, is to the tune of “If You Like Pina Colada”. Which, as catchy as it is, is actually a pretty disappointing song. Don’t believe me? Read the lyrics. This was not, however, the case with Granada, which ended up being not at all a disappointment, and in fact, way better than we expected. 

Anyways, we want to start out this post with a BIG THANK YOU TO GRAMMY, POPPY, AND SHERRI!!! (My grandparents and aunt). They gifted us with some money for Christmas, and we put it toward the events that I am about to two events that I’ll talk about in further detail below: 1) The tour, 2) The chocolate class.

Instead of spending one of our last days running (probably quite literally) from bus to bus on our way up from Bahia Majuagal up to Granada where we planned to spend the tail end of our trip, we decided to hire a driver. Which, let me tell you, is just as cool as it sounds. Fortunate, as well! Because I really don’t know how we would have left that isolated beach without someone knowing when/where to pick us up. Probably (literally) walking 15 minutes down the beach with all of our stuff to a more populated beach, where we would hopefully be able to catch a taxi or shuttle or something to bring us to San Juan del Sur, where we’d have some hope of finding some way of getting where we wanted to go. Luckily (thanks to Grammy, Poppy, and Sherri!!), we didn’t need to go through that ordeal. Instead, Luis picked us up at exactly 7:00am from our beach paradise for a day of moseying up to Granada, and seeing all the sights along the way. The one we were particularly excited for was seeing lava!

It was a lot of fun having our own driver. We had a general pre-discussed route (see lava, see a pretty lake, etc. end in Granada) but along the way, we were able to make other requests. For example, when we got in the car, we immediately requested a place for breakfast and coffee. And he delivered! We ended up at this delicious (cheap!!!) little restaurant that had a great breakfast of gallo pinto (rice + beans), plus eggs and cream, along with lots and lots of coffee.

So from there, we went to another impulsively added stop: a fruit stand! We told him we wanted to try some of the great local fruit, and brought us to a little fruit stand on the side of the road with a bunch of fruit we had never had before. Of course, we tried all of it. Some was weird, some was delicious, and some we had no idea how to eat. All in all – a great experience!

From there, we went to the top of a mountain to look into a lake in the middle of a volcano crater. It was a cool spot that I think is a little lesser known, judging by the fact that we couldn’t find it in our trusty guide book. Super pretty! There was also a little market where I got a few shirts. So that’s fun.

From there we went to a bit market where we moseyed leisurely and drank passion fruit smoothies, and then continued onto the main reason we hired our driver in the first place: LAVA!!!! With so many volcanoes around, it seemed a shame to leave Nicaragua without seeing lava. Kenny is constantly spoiling me, so I was glad to make sure we got do to this for him! Apparently, there’s one volcano that you can drive up to, look into, and see lava. I don’t think either of us knew what to expect – I think we had some combination of the lava in Aladdin and The Lion King in our heads. It turned out, it was nothing like either of those – but it was still super cool. I wish the photos captured it better! The lava was moving fast. You could see it way down in the hole flowing (churning?) like a river. Super crazy. Super cool. Definitely worth the trip.

 And then from there, onto Granada! We arrived in Granada without a place to stay. Luis dropped us off at a potential place, but we ended up not taking a room there for a few reasons, the primary one being that the room available didn’t have a fan and it was hot. So we wandered the streets, occasionally consulting our guide book, and seeing mediocre accommodations after mediocre accommodations. I guess we don’t really need privacy, right? I guess it’s okay if we’re in sketchville, right? Ehhh. . . nothing was seeming quite right. UNTIL, a large Irish man came out of a hostel that had been recommended in our book, saying, “Are you guys looking for a room?”. We had passed up on that hostel because of the “Sorry, we’re full” sign on the door, and I asked if they had just opened up a room. He said he had just put up the sign because he was taking a nap and didn’t want to be disturbed. My kind of people. J The hostel was perfect. The room was perfect. The Irish man who we came to know as Gerry was perfect. The location was perfect. Nothing could have made this place where we would spend the capstone days of our trip any better.

Gerry gave us a map and some recommendations for what to do. Kenny and I had come into the city with two things we wanted to see, so we decided to start there so the next day would be free for whatever came up. We first walked to the cigar factory, where you’re supposedly able to watch them make cigars and even try rolling one yourself. Unfortunately, they were all out of supplies and wouldn’t be restocked until Monday. Still, it smelled great and Kenny came away with a few souvenirs. From there, we went to the chocolate museum, where we were able to go on a short tour learning about how chocolate is harvested and made (including samples), and (THANKS TO GRAMMY, POPPY, AND SHERRI!!) sign up for a chocolate workshop for the next day.

THEN we wandered over to El Camello, a restaurant recommend by Gerry. When we walked up, we saw Gerry there enjoying dinner, and we said hello. We chatted for a while, and he introduced us to Leroy, his friend and owner of the restaurant. We talked with them for a bit, and then proceeded to have a DELICIOUS dinner (that I’m guessing Kenny will talk about in more detail). From there, we went back to our lovely hostel, and called it a night.

Kenny’s Thoughts: Let’s see. . . spending our last few moments of the sitting on the beach reading was really lovely, and I was shocked at just how punctual our driver was, and how different it was from what I expected and what is normally Nico/Tico time. I really enjoyed all the different markets and trying new fruit, but I think my two favorite parts of the day were seeing an active volcano from the top down, and eating some of the best barbeque I’ve ever had in a local restaurant in Granada. I had no idea lava churned so fast inside a volcano – it was really hauling. We also got super lucky with an amazing hotel run by an old, really funny Irish guy. Gerry was a good guy. Oh ya, we also went to the cigar factory and the chocolate tour! The free chocolate tour was a ton of fun, and I was happily surprised with just how generous they were with all the different types of rum as free samples. I think that’s all my thoughts.

Ahhh, how sad I am to be writing about our last day! I wish it was just one of many more to come. I guess I’ll have to be comforted by the fact that this is that last day of just one trip, and that there will be many more to come.

Our last day as nearly perfect. We spend the day eating lots of the hostel’s free bananas and talking with Gerry. He makes the best pancakes – super thin, and then covered in lemon juice and sugar. Trust me, it’s better than it sounds.

What a great start to the morning!

From there, we decided we should do something  before our 11am tour, so we wandered the city and climbed the bell tower in the cathedral, which yielded a beautiful view of the city.

After a smoothie and a bit more wandering, we made it back to the hostel in time to change into swim suits for our BOAT TOUR!!!! The Bella del Mar boat tour is a tour of the islands (there are a bunch of islands off the coast of Granada in Lake Nicaragua) in a big, shaded boat with a bar/restaurant on board. It was so wonderfully relaxing. The tour lasted a handful of ours, and there were probably only about 10-15 guests on board a boat that could probably hold 100(??). It cruised around slowly, and we were able to sit in the shade and watch the view. So incredibly lovely.

Then, my personal favorite part, was when we anchored at the base of a volcano. The steam from the volcano made it so the water in the river running down was heated up, so where it poured into the lake (where we were) was super comfortably warm. There was a water slide off the second story of the back of the boat, places where you could jump off the second story, and a floating table to hold your beer. Is that the life, or what? We got to swim and slide and jump for about an hour, until it was time to get back on our shaded luxury boat and mosey back for an hour while eating chicken nachos. How much does an experience like this cost? Glad you asked. A whopping $15 each. Gosh, am I sad to be leaving this place.

After the tour, we spent a little bit of time in the hostel because during the boat tour, I stupidly had decided to go down the slide face first and somehow hurt my eardrums pretty badly (they’re feeling better now). So I wanted a little time to nurse my wounds before we headed off to the chocolate workshop in the afternoon.

The chocolate workshop ended up being especially cool, because we were the only ones!! As a result, we got a private workshop where we started with cocoa beans, and went through all the processes of grinding them and turning them into chocolate drinks and chocolate bars. Kenny and I were each able to design and make a chocolate bar. I did nibs & sea salt, he did cinnamon & chili pepper flakes. What a great experience! Thank you, Grammy, Poppy, & Sherri!!!

From there, we wandered in Parque Central for an hour while our chocolate set. During that time, Ken found a painting he really liked. It was $35 and unfortunately, we only had about $28 worth of cash left (in any currency). They couldn’t go below $35 and we didn’t want to pay the ATM fee to pull out more money when we were leaving the next day. So my  husband, genius that he is, offered up his $9 Amazon watch as compensation to cover the difference, and they accepted it in an instant! So now we have a really pretty blue painting of the Ometepe Island. You’ll have to come over and see it some time.

Then, back to El Camello for dinner again! This time, brisket (Ken) and satay chicken (Lila). Both life changing meals. It was SO GOOD. We hung out with Gerry and Leroy for a while and they lamented that other travelers weren’t as great as us. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not! Apparently we’re pretty enjoyable company. J

And that was how we ended our last night on the road! This morning was an early morning with coffee, Gerry’s pancakes, and then an easy ride to the airport. Now, we’re waiting to board our flight to Panama, where we’ll make the connection to SF. You can probably expect one more blog post from me (there are some wandering thoughts I want to string together), but for now – I’ll turn it over to my handsome husband.

Kenny’s Thoughts: The last full day was really a memorable one. It was wonderfully waking up slowly, and chatting with other members of the hotel, while the hotel owner – Gerry – made pancakes for all of us. The pancakes were awesome, and I’m a new convert to the English way of eating pancakes, with sugar and lemon juice, and nothing else on top. Except I also had bananas. When we eventually got out and onto the boat tour, that was a ton of fun. There were only about 12 other passengers, and it was a big double decker boat, that just slowly sprawled around the little islands in the northern part of Nicaraguan Lake. We enjoyed speculating about buying one of those little islands, because they apparently run from about $10,000 - $500,000. It was a lot of fun when we finally got to the warm water outlet from the side of the volcano. We really enjoyed jumping off the boat, splashing around, and drinking beers from our floating table out in the lake. I was really bummed for Lila when she hurt her ears, but I was happy to see her recovery over the rest of the day. It was neat seeing our first and only spider monkey of the trip, through binoculars. It was a small island, and the only resident is a single spider monkey, and he seems to have a fun life out there. And doing our big chocolate workshop later in the afternoon was a ton of fun. We enjoyed getting much more details on the history of chocolate, how other people consumed it in the past, and competing on chocolate bean grinding, while enthusiastically chanting the supposed old Mayan chant of “mate, mate, chocolate”. Pretty sure that chant was just for tourists, because nobody called it “chocolate” until the Spaniards in the 1600s, but it was still funny and enjoyable. I’m excited to try out or chocolate bars that we made. I also really enjoyed our last meal at the barbeque place. Really wish that restaurant was close to home – I’d eat there all the time. It really was an amazing trip, and I’m sad seeing it come to a close. I think that’s all my thoughts.

Mostly Nothing And Also Monkeys

1/5/2016

I haven’t written in a little bit. Partially because we haven’t had wi-fi for a few days, so there would be no way to post. Partially, because I didn’t want to. We’ve been doing a lot of nothing for a few days, and nothing is sacred and shouldn’t be interrupted. Even with something I love as much as writing.

After a series of transportation options (bus, taxi, ferry – the whole gamut), we arrived at Isla Ometepe a  few days ago. Isla Ometepe is an island made out of two (active?) volcanoes in the middle of the Nicaragua Lake.  The island is bigger than I had expected, but still small enough that you could drive the circumference in a few hours. . . as long as you had 4WD. We arrived in the evening at our hostel, which is at the base of the smaller volcano, on the side with no paved roads. It as a slow (but beautiful) drive to get there. The hostel was a little oasis, with its own “beach” (waterfront – no sand) and a sea full of hammocks. There were very few people checked in there. Most of them older or quieter than the people at the hostels we had passed on the other side of the island on our way there. The mood fit the setting, which is always nice.

It felt like our own little paradise, which was amplified by the fact that – even though we had though we booked bunk beds in dorms – the woman there gave us a beautiful private room. I even tried to set her straight about what we had thought we booked, but she showed me her booking chart which agreed with the room she gave us, and that was the end of that.

It was in this room, in our little corner of island paradise, that we spent that evening and the following day. Our activities consisted mostly of hammock laying/reading, beer drinking (Tona & Victoria Frost FTW), and kayaking. Lots of kayaking. We rented a kayak for the day. Ken was nervous, because he had heard them called “divorce boats”, but I like to think that we did quite nicely. Our first outing was to Monkey Island, which is appropriately named. We saw a few Capuchin monkeys, which was super cool. We kept our distance, though. Back at our hostel, there were lots of signs about the viciousness of the monkeys, and we got a firsthand experience of it when a different kayaker got too close and a monkey jumped down and growled (hissed?) at her. So, we felt like we made the right choice there. We avoided the big (embarrassing) disaster of being attacked by a monkey.

For lunch that day we wandered down the dirt road until we came to a little shack that looked like it might serve food. We asked, and they did, and we ordered “dos almuerzos, por favor” (two lunches, please). There  aren’t a lot of lunches when your restaurant is a shack. Lunch consisted of a very fishy-looking-fish, plantains, and literally the best rice and beans we’ve  ever had in our lives. Holy crap. How does anyone make something so simple taste so good?  We thought about asking her to show us, but then remembered ignorance is bliss and let it go.

The afternoon consisted of more hammock laying/reading, more beer, and lots more kayaking. Kenny timed it perfectly so we turned back at exactly the right moment to arrive safely back at the hostel about 5 minutes before the sunset. My husband is something special.

We left very early the next morning on two of the most bizarre bus trips I’ve ever been on. On the first bus, the hoisted us on through the back before even answering our questions about where the  bus was going or how much it cost. The second bus literally had a stampede to get to it. People throwing their bags onto the bus and then climbing on afterwards. No order or lines – every man for themselves. Kenny and I did pretty well. We managed to secure one seat on the bus, that we shared by me sitting on Ken’s lap. I’d say that was pretty good, considering there were so many people standing that they couldn’t even close the doors. That bus took us to a ferry that brought us back to the mainland.

Kenny’s Thoughts: The Island was really gorgeous. It was wild seeing two volcanoes appear so close to each other and create such a unique environment. I think the highlights for me were seeing the capuchin monkeys on Monkey Island while kayaking around it, seeing them in their natural element - fishing and warding us off - was really exciting and gave a much better feel for the animals than any zoo could have. I also loved just how relaxing our time at the hostel was, and how utterly gorgeous our view was from just outside our door. Reading in the hammocks and drinking a few cold beers was extremely refreshing. The bus rides out in the morning were also something to behold. The busses utterly filled with bugs on the inside, and seeing a mob of people run at the multiple entrances trying to get on, was unlike any public transit experience I’ve ever had. It was also fun eating a meal from a local restaurant, where you say, “what’s on the menu” and they say “fish” and you say “okay”. The fish and the plantains were tasty, but that was probably the best beans and rice I’ve ever eaten. I don’t know how the heck they did that, but that was unbelievable. Also, that fish was probably the sketchiest think I’ve ever eaten. Fortunately, nothing  bad happened. I really liked kayaking – I think that’s my last point. I think that’s it. I forgot to talk about the geckos! Something I thought was really neat was how the hostel had embraced what they named, “Asian House Geckos”. They were geckos that specialized in eating all the insects around. So there were signs letting people know, “Hey! There will be geckos in your room and around the grounds. And they’re not pests, they’re so you don’t have to deal with mosquitos.” And they were really effective. It was fun over dinner watching all of them sitting in shadows near light bulbs, darting out and snagging a bug or two. Apparently geckos don’t bug me at all, and I thought this addition was awesome, and thought more people should adopt this. I think that’s all my thoughts.

From the mainland, we took a Taxi to our hostel on the beach. We had decided (over lunch the previous day, as had become our pattern), that we couldn’t leave Central America without some quality beach time. So we had booked a room at Hostal Matilda.

We had already grown to like our cab driver, Luis. So much so that we had booked in for our return trip/adventure up to Granada (which I will talk about after it happens tomorrow). BUT, it was at this point that we became super THANKFUL for Luis. I’ll back up a bit. North of San Juan Del Sur (a big beach town) there are three small beaches. Think of the beaches as the tips of the prongs on a three prong fork. They are close to each other, but it takes a while to get from one to the other by road (all the way up and down the prongs). Does that make sense? For the sake of this next section, it may help you to know that “Playa” beams “Beach”. We had meant to book a room at a hostal in Playa Marsella, which is supposedly a super relaxing beachfront. In fact, I had even written it down and we had asked Luis to drive us to Playa Marsella. We were on our way there, when I got a nervous feeling in my gut and impulsively double checked our trusty Lonely Planet guide book. Whoops! We had actually booked a room at a hostal in Playa Maderas, which is the most “happening” with a cluster of hostels, a few restaurants, and a couple places to rent surf of boogie boards. He asked what hostel we were staying at, and we said Matilda’s Hostal. He said that he knew it, and that it wasn’t at either of those beaches, it was at Bahia Majagual (“Bahia” = “Bay”). We told him our book said it was at Playa Maderas, and he drove us to the fork in the road (thank goodness this happened before all the road split off), and sure enough! The sign for Matilda’s Hostal was pointing the same way as the sign for Bahia Majagual. So that’s the road we took. Honestly, we hadn’t even given this beach option a second thought. There was nothing in the guide book about it except that it exists and has very limited services. You know what, just for fun, I’ll write literally everything that our book says about this beach. For comparison’s sake, usually when the book talks about a location it has at least three sections for Sleeping, Eating, and Activities. For Bahia Majuagal, this is literally all it said:

“This beautiful bay, with its steep, white-sand beach, is perfect for swimming – watch the rip current, though. It has only average surfing; you’ll need to walk about ten minutes to get to the big breaks. Note that tourist services are quite limited here”

And. . . that’s it. Except for an end note that you need 4WD to get here – not true. Luis drove us here in his small (4WD-lacking) sedan, albeit quite skillfully. But – thankfully – Luis knew the hostal and was able to do just that, drive us here skillfully.

Again, we lucked out. The hostal was beautiful and perfect. You enter from the beach into a courtyard full of trees and hammocks. Our room ended up being the first one on the left – the one closest to the beach. We could walk from our bed to the beach in less than fifty steps, with the only inconvenience being needing to duck under the hammock hanging on our personal porch.

The book wasn’t lying when is said that services were limited. Apart from this hostal (which in and of itself has limited services), there are two other “restaurants”. One right on the beach, on the other side of the courtyard wall from our room, and the other about a three minute walk overlooking “Sunset Beach” – named for the obvious reason that it has a perfect view of the sunset.

It is here in this perfect little beach town (using the word “town” liberally), that we have wonderfully proceeded to do mostly nothing. We’ve been pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. Our days have consisted of reading, tide pooling, swimming, hammock swinging, eating delicious(!!!) burritos, sun screening, and wandering between beaches to try different  foods/drinks. Note able events include waking up this morning and shortly after being greeted with half a dozen howler monkeys (I’m guessing that’s what they were – Justin, you would know for sure) grunting in the courtyard. It sounded humorously like a child impersonating a monkey! Wearing clothes that were barely thrown on after the sudden excitement, we wandered around the courtyard following each grunt (howl?) to the deliverer. And then to the next. And the next. Pointing them out in amazement in the treetops above the courtyard. It was awesome. So awesome that I’m not even going to post a picture, because I feel  like our pictures do the experience justice, and I don’t want you to come to the mistaken conclusion that the experience was any less awesome that I tell you it was. It was super awesome.

Other notable events: we both finished both our books and Kenny got to experience for the first time the wonder that is a take-one-leave-one hostel bookshelf (one of my major simple-joys of travel); Kenny got stunk by a jellyfish(?), but don’t worry, he’s okay); and we went horseback riding on the beach near sunset time, which felt like a fantasy.

Actually, that could use a bit more description that lumped into a list. We saw some other people riding horses, and when they stopped, we talked to the guide and got his number. One thing we liked about him is he seemed like a legit cowboy. Clothes, demeanor, the confidence with which he road. He could have been straight out of the Mary Kate & Ashley “How the West Was Fun” move (Okay, fine choose your own cowboy movie). Okay, even I’m going to revise my movie. He was from some Clint Eastwood movie . . . one of the cowboy ones, not Grand Tarino. But really, truly. He was a badass.* For proof, here is a picture Kenny took of him riding up the beach on his horse, bringing in tow the two horses for me and Kenny. Does he not look awesome, or what?

So, as you put together by now, we booked a time to go horseback riding with him. He showed up like the aforementioned badass he is, with our two horses in tow. And we got to horseback down the beaches and through the forests, and it felt like I was living in a fairytale. It felt so dreamlike and surreal. Kenny has a way of making my dreams come true.

So I know that it sounds like we did a lot, but trust me when I say we haven’t. Or at least, it hasn’t felt like it. It’s been very relaxing. We went to sleep and woke up to the sounds of the waves. The days have passed leisurely, and the time has only been marked by when the sun is hottest and when we get hungry. These few days have been a lovely escape, and a memorable and relaxing part of our trip.

Kenny’s Thoughts: I really loved it here. While seeing the different sights we have in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, taking this slow respite in this tropical beach paradise has been really refreshing. Our days here have been easy going, and utterly enjoyable. It’s hard to believe that the beach could be so close –and that’s saying something coming from someone that went to UCSB for school. This place couldn’t look more like a catalog of a beach paradise, if I tried to make it so. Also, the food shack right outside the front entrance to our hostel has, I think, the best burritos I’ve ever had. It was really fun this morning when we woke up around 6:45 to what sounded like the deep frustrated bellowing of some sort of weird monkey. So we threw on clothes and ran outside, and saw a squirrel and a monkey having a standoff. It was so funny, because the squirrel was making that stereotypical chittering noise – that movie they make in movies – and what I can only assume was a howler monkey was making a very guttural and very stereotypical bellow back at the squirrel. It was really exciting to see, and was made more so by the multiple other howler monkeys that came in as reinforcement to the calls of the first  monkey. And pretty soon, right outside our door early in the morning, we were surrounded by howler monkeys. All hollering and claiming this area as their turf. It was really cool to see. Our sunset horseback ride on the beach was also wonderful and extremely romantic. Our trail guide was what I can only describe as a Nicaraguan Clint Eastwood, mixed with a Malbro man. But a lot thinner, and super leathery skin. It was a lot of fun just trotting around on the beaches and through the local jungle, just the three of us. Oh, and the ceviche! Lastly, a local restaurant has hands down the best fish ceviche I’ve ever had – bar none. Anyone looking for a tropical surf paradise, I couldn’t recommend this place higher. I think that’s all my thoughts.

*Sorry about the language – nothing else seemed to fit.

Happy New Year! Lovely Llano Bonito & Adventurous Monte Verde

Wow! A new year! And if you had told me how I was going to celebrate New Year’s Eve, I wouldn’t believe you for a second. Maybe I could believe it of myself in extreme circumstances, but definitely not of Ken. It’s not his style. But before we get to how we celebrated, let’s rewind to the circumstances and events leading up to it.

Thursday, December 29, 2016 – The Last Slow Day

This was a great day! In the morning, we visited the coffee coop, which I’ve talked about. What I didn’t mention is that it also included a coffee tasting and coffee gifting. 

Coffee tasting/smelling

We tried to buy a bunch of coffee, but they kept giving it to us. But I still vow to buy some online! For lunch, we went with the Fernandez family to go FISHING in stocked pond. Ken and I both caught three fish. But don’t get any ideas about us being great fishermen, Ken also caught a tree, and I caught my own leg (and have the hook mark to prove it). 

Baiting his hook

Ken catching the tree

The fishing pond was in this beautiful little spot out in the middle of nowhere, and we got to ride in the back of the truck to get there, which I love. They cook up the fish you catch right on the spot, which is a lot of fun. 

Me with my fish

The spot was run by a little family. There was a little boy (probably about three) who was proud to show us how he picks coffee. Ken helped him out a little bit, and it ended with the little boy continuing to tell Ken where all the high ones where to fill his basket – super cute. 

Ken helping the kid pick coffee

Oh, and while Ken was on the seat to a little zip line, he nearly got attacked by the biggest spider I had ever seen! It looked kind of like a black widow, but the but was about the size of a tootsie pop – literally. He did a great job at staying calm, cool, and collected while Eligio used a stick to remove the descending spider.

After lunch, we got to go see the family that I had stayed with during my first time in Llano Bonito! It was like no time had passed, except for all the kids were much, much taller. They fed us and gave us coffee, and we were able to walk and pick guavas (Ken with kids on his shoulders), and it was absolutely lovely.

Ken helping Josue pick guavas

The family I stayed with before - now all grown up!

Ken’s Thoughts: I had no idea that making coffee was so complicated! And one product they had was so cool. It was a little cloth/paper packet that’s disposable, that folds open and hooks over the side of a coffee mug, and turns any cup into a drip coffee device. I think that the fold out coffee packets were extremely innovative, and I don’t see why more people don’t do it. Also, it continued to surprise me that even though these people don’t have much, they just continued to give what they had to us. We were both very appreciative. And I wish we could ride in the back of trucks like we can everywhere else, because it’s a lot of fun. I thought it was really cool how in their culture, the kids want to start picking coffee at a really young age to be like the adults, so the kid had his own mini-bucket with straps that he could practice with. And apparently they’re not afraid to recruit help from the local tourists. Also, that spider reminded me that I do, indeed, have a fear of spiders. (From Lila: Anyone would be stupid not to be afraid of that spider. That thing was a man eater). And I just couldn’t get over how beautiful the whole landscape was. It was crazy seeing the people that lived there look at it like it was mundane and every day. I think that’s all my thoughts.

View from the back of the truck on the way to fishing

Now, we’re going to transition a bit into a different format, and I think it will reveal why our New Year’s Eve was as it was. It was a bit of a marathon from here, so I think bullet points and timelines are appropriate to keep everything straight. I’ll elaborate when needed.

Friday, December 30, 2016 – Travel Day

• 5:00AM Wake up! - What’s kind of weird about waking up at 5am in Llano Bonito, though, it that we woke up to a bustling house. Everyone was already up, cooking breakfast, getting ready for work, etc.
• 5:50AM Bus adventures start! - We bussed from Llano Bonito to San Pedro, San Pedro to San Jose, and then took a taxi to a different bus station where we bought our bus tickets to Santa Elena for that afternoon.
• 11:30AM Children’s Museum – Wandered over to the Children’s Museum! Which ended up being pretty awesome, because a) they had coat check for our backpacks, b) there were lots of different exhibits, and c) the Spanish was simple enough that I could read most of it. Here’s Ken reenacting the spider attack:
  
  Then we stopped for Chinese food on our walk back to the bus terminal.
• ·2:30PM Bus to Santa Elena  - We bussed to Santa Elena, which is a little tourist hub/town right outside Monte Verde, which is a giant cloud forest. Similar to a rain forest, but more cloudy. You probably figured that out for yourself. One thing we were really excited about was seeing the animals, but most of them are nocturnal, so the best way to see them is with a night walk. Most of them start at 5:30, so we thought we had missed them when our bus pulled in around 7:20.  So when we checked into our hostel and learned there was one at 8:30, we jumped at the chance! So after impulsively signing up, we quickly changed clothes, and grabbed dinner.
• 8:30PM NIGHT WALK – Got picked up for the NIGHT WALK!!!! The capital letters are on purpose – it was that cool. We were in a group of about seven of us. We were the only Americans, which at first we thought was pretty cool, but turned out to be a bit of a bummer because it turns out that camping is kinda an American thing, and as a result, non-Americans don’t have as good flashlight etiquette (i.e. not shining it right in someone’s eyes). But despite a couple blinging moments, it was still an awesome experience. We bussed out to the middle of some forest, and then we followed a guide as he took us on winding paths up and down and back and forth looking for animals. I don’t know how our guide did it, but he was able to find things that we never would have been able to find. We saw a huge stick insect, an orange knee tarantula, a sloth way up in the trees, a few kinkajou (which our guide was super stoked on because they’re endangered and really rare to see!!), a frog with super red eyes, and a few super poisonous snakes that will kill you within two hours if you’re bit by them (a guy tried to poke it to make it move – but the guide thankfully stopped him, saying that he was already in strike position). But my absolute favorite thing that we saw was a sloth super close up. It was probably five feet above our heads, all stretched out because it was eating. He was swinging upside down in the (harsh!) wind, but seemed not to mind it at all. He was just happily munching away. We watched him for a really long time, and although I’m sorry that I don’t have any pictures to show you, Ken and I were thankful to not have our cameras because we were able to just soak up the experience. The guide said that it had never happened. After the night walk, we bussed it back to the hostel, arrived back around 11pm, and went to sleep.

Ken’s Thoughts: Driving through San Jose in a cab and bus, I felt glad that we didn’t set aside a lot of time to spend there. Maybe I’m not a big city person, but it seemed like there were a lot of better ways to spend our time – like out in the rain forest. I’m glad to have witnessed it, but I think I’m satisfied with the amount of time we spent there. The drive up to Monte Verde was beautiful, but a bit different than I expected. I had an image that most of Costa Rica was all rain forest and jungle, but as we got close to Monte Verde, it started to get that way. Once we arrived, the whole area was beautiful. I really liked our hostel and our double room – it wasn’t just function, it was nice. And we were both so thankful to have a night tour offered up to us! And just an hour after we had checked into our room. And that night tour might have been the highlight for me for Monte Verde. Pretty much that and the zip line tour were my favorite things. It was really exciting seeing all the nocturnal animals active and in their natural habitat, while in the complete black other than our flashlights. And you know you found something truly great when you’re tour guide, who is a season veteran, is in awe of multiple things you saw that night. Being able to watch a sloth from just 6 feet away eating and in his natural habit was really amazing. And while I don’t know much about kinkajous, it was clear from our tour guide’s reaction that our seeing it really was something special. I was really happy with just how many animals we got to see. I think that’s all my thoughts.

Saturday, December 31, 2016 – Grinding Monte Verde

Do you know the term “grinding”? I learned it from Ken. It’s a video game term for getting as much out of a game as possible, as quickly as possible. This wasn’t our original intention for Monte Verde, but hey, things don’t always go as you plan.

• 6:15AM Wakes Up! – Ken woke up to scope out options for the day and signed us up for the hanging bridges for the afternoon (bridges though the treetops).
• 7:05AM Wake Up – Ken woke me up saying, “time to wake up, we’re leaving in twenty minutes”. So I get dressed, we shovel down breakfast, and we jump on a bus headed to Monte Verde.
• 7:25AM Monte Verde! – We opted out of doing a guided tour for Monte Verde, and instead paid our entrance fee and entered the park with a map and super stylish ponchos.  

         One of the cool things about going without a guide is that we could go where we wanted, when we wanted (and we saved money!!). The only problem, though, was that we didn’t know where to look for things, or what they were when we found them. Our main priority was seeing the mammals that we had seen the night prior, so we felt okay to not pay someone to help us find the birds. Still, I was a little bummed when we would find something and I wouldn’t know the name of it. Praise the Lord for my creative husband! He came to the rescue with some homemade names for the birds we saw, which oddly was completely satisfying for me. We saw a bunch of chirp-chirps, three fat-fats, two packs of chub-chubs, two poof-poofs, and a handful of black humming birds. No quetzal, unfortunately. We’ll save that for another trip. J We hiked (and I mean hiked! Steep, big hills), until it was time for us to put a little pep in our step to get out of the park and catch the last morning bus back.

• 11:45 Lunch & Impulsive Decision Making – When we got back from our morning adventures, we chatted with our hostel owner about different bus options for tomorrow. We were considering moving on from Monte Verde the next day, but we didn’t know where we wanted to go, or when. He gave us some options, and we said we’d talk them over during lunch. So we walked down the street to a Soda (small restaurant), and got some food while going through guidebooks. We decided to take the 4:20AM bus out the next morning (whew!), and we also decided that despite thinking we were okay skipping the canopy zip lining (we had done zip lines before in Santa Cruz and felt pretty satisfied), we still kinda wanted to do them. And when in Rome, right? So we decided to talk to our hostel guy about if it was possible to join a tour late in the afternoon. So after lunch, we walked back to the hostel and booked the early morning bus ride, and tried to see if there was a late option for the canopy zip lining. The problem was, we already had tickets to go to the hanging bridges at 2:00, and that was the same time that most the last zip lines were. Our hostel guy said he’d call the company and see what he was able to do. Turns out that the same company that offered the hanging bridges offered the zip lines, and we could do them both if we left RIGHT THEN! Emphasis on the RIGHT THEN! So we booked it and changed our clothes quickly while he called a 4WD taxi, and then we took the taxi up the muddy mountain and into the forest.
• 1:00PM? Hanging Bridges and Zip Lines – We started with the hanging bridges, which was super cool. It was a path through the cloud forest that had eight giant bridges through on above the tree tops. It was awesome. It took a little over an hour to walk the whole thing. I keep using the word “walk”, but make no mistake, there were times we really had to hoof it. We were able to see some more chirp-chirps and chub-chubs, which was fun. And we even saw a monkey! It was very, very cool. 
  
  
  
  

          BUT THEN we suited up for the zip lining, which we were happy about but in a kinda apathetic “ya, I guess this will be cool” kind of a way, AND IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! One of the coolest adventure activities I’ve done in my life. Up there with the Macau bungee jump, which I love love love. Ken and I went first and second, which is always great. I thought it would mean no waiting, because we were in the front. But it was so well run that nobody waited. I would be surprised if I was on the platforms for more than 45 seconds. There was a person on every platform ready to receive you and send you off. And you were only there as long as it took them to receive you, connect you to the safety wire, unhook you from the previous zip line, hook you to the next one, and tell you to go. Honestly, it probably took about as much time as it just took for you to read that sentence. Very impressively run, which added to the experience because it didn’t detract from the magic. ALSO, with it being so cloudy, you often times couldn’t see the receiving deck, so you felt like you were just going forever. Some of them you went through the trees, others you went over. There were about 13 zip lines in total. Highlights for me were the 800m one where Ken and I got to go together, because I wouldn’t have been heavy enough to get across by myself. 800m!! Did you catch that? That’s a little over half a mile (right?)! This was a super cloudy one and you couldn’t see the receiving station until you were almost there, but you could see all the forest around you. Such a cool experience to share with my favorite guy!! The other highlight was the last zip line. Ken and I opted for the additional $10 option to do a superman harness for the last one – which was 1000m!!! That’s like 5 miles! (Okay, not really, but it felt like it). That was awesome, because we were laying on our tummies, connected to the zip line from our back. Because we were facing down, we couldn’t see the zip line, only the forest passing below you. WE weren’t able to go together, but we did go at the same time on neighboring zip lines. I remember looking back and seeing Ken racing forward like a bullet. My husband is awesome. It was so cool to see the forest passing by below. At points, the clouds were so think that the water stung my face – but it was worth it. I was smiling so big that I drooled all over that rain forest. J It was AWESOME. I’ve never done anything quite like it. Definitely a highlight of the trip so far. Then, soaking wet from spending a day in the clouds, we bussed it back to our hostel.

Another cloud forest picture

• 5:30PM Dinner  and Such -  After showering and changing into clean clothes, we left to do some recon and preparation for the next day. Where our early bus leaves from, grocery shopping, etc. Then we went to Taco Taco AND HAD THE BEST BURRITO I’VE EVER HAD! Maybe it was just because I was starving, but it was really, really good. Slow cooked beef. Super good. Oh my gosh, so good. With a delicious mango salsa. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. It was delicious. Then we went out for Costa Rican craft beer. We tried two different beers at two different places, and both were underwhelming.
• 8:15PM New Year’s Eve Celebration!! – Here is the moment you’ve been waiting for! But tell me, how did you celebrate New Year’s Eve!!?? You must be saying. Well, I’ll tell you. After a marathon of a day, we packed up and climbed in bed, and we were fast asleep well before 9pm. Not at all what we expected, but exactly what we needed. Happy New Year!!!!

Ken’s Thoughts: Even though the day turned out to be a fully action packed day, it felt really fun and not stressful. I don’t think we could have done Monte Verde any better than we did. The two of us zip lining through the rain forest is something I’ll always remember. It really is a beautiful place, and I feel like anybody who is in Costa Rica who is capable of making it there should make it there, but it is COMPLETELY touristy, so I’m glad we only spent one day. The cloud forest have a really different feel than a normal rain forest because of the constant thick mist – the cloud that is almost always on top of the forest that you’re in. And it gives the place a very surreal feel, only being able to see 100 feet or so into the forest before it disappears into the mist. And even though it’s always completely damp and mildly drizzling on you, you just don’t mind. The mist especially enhanced the zip line experience, ‘cause there are many times that you’re zipping along, and it looks like your line just goes on forever, because you can’t see the start or end of your line. The food in Monte Verde is nothing to write home about, except for the one burrito shop that we found. They were awesome. The local breweries were fun to sample and had a lot of fun ideas, but were ultimately pretty lacking. It’s fun how in Costa Rica there are just dogs running around everywhere, and they’re all super friendly. I really liked the German Shepherd puppy in our hostel. Oh, and the bridges! I really enjoyed walking through the bridges that took your right through the trees in the cloud forest. It allowed you to see a whole new part of the forest really closely that I had never experienced before. I also really enjoyed seeing a few monkeys up there! And with all the mist rolling around, it just felt very picturesque on the bridges. There’s also something really refreshing about the air in a forest that I really enjoy. By the end of the day, I was completely pooped, and had no problem falling asleep at 8:30. Happy New Year. And that’s all my thoughts.

And that brings us to today! We took a bus to a random intersection where we were promised another bus would pick us up – which it did. And now we’ve just passed the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border, and we’re on our way to a port town where we’ll take a boat to a volcano island in the middle of a lake where we plan to spend the next few days. (Most likely with no internet – do don’t be worried when there aren’t any posts for a while).

Congrats on making it through this beast of a post! And Happy New Year!!

P.S. I wrote that all on the bus. Now as I post this, I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Nicaragua. Our phone is charging so that we're able to put money on it, and Ken is out looking for food. Life is good!!!!! Pura Vida. :-)