We are sitting on the veranda, listening to the birds and sipping coffee. Today is a travel day. We are leaving San Jose airport at 1 pm, and will get into Chicago's Midway airport at 11 pm. We have a full day of airports, hurry up and wait. We will eat bad food that is expensive. We are hoping that they won't keep our luggage, again. But we both are ready to go home.
The Hotel Alta has been a refuge in a strange country. If you are in San Jose, consider staying here. We know most of the people who work here, and they are all nice.They go out of their way to make you comfortable.
If you want to get good dental work done, at a fair price, then see Dr. Marco and Dr. Cavellini. They made Deb's mouth look and feel like new.
We're packing and getting ready for today. I'll see some of you Monday. Hast la vista.
Showing posts with label traveling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traveling. Show all posts
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Some background
I wanted to talk a little about the little details of life in Costa Rica. Because it is just above the equator, I had some expectations. The first is the temperature. Being in the tropical latitudes, I expected to have hot humid days. Actually, the temps are in the 70's and 80's and the humidity is only high right after a rain storm. It rains just about every day, and it rains hard. We look out over a valley, and can watch the storms move in. But most of the time, we have a nice breeze that is almost too cool for short sleeves.
We don't have many bugs and no mosquitoes. Most of the windows don't have screens. They simply through open a window when they want to let in some breezes. We've seen some big beetles that are like June bugs back home. They are clumsy fliers that settle on one spot and stay there.
Most of the animals we see are either birds, which seem to be everywhere, or common dogs and cats. The birds are different from home but not that different. We have seen an occasional bright green parrot, but mostly swallows, black birds and so on.
Most of the plants we see are tropical. Deb is constantly amazed at what is growing around here. We have palm trees, and big flowering shrubs. Every table has a delicate orchid that would cost ten times as much at home. Here they are inexpensive, elegant decorations.
We don't speak Spanish, except for a very few words. But we understand quite a bit more than we can speak. So far we have managed to communicate although we have gotten volunteer translators, occasionally. People in San Jose are used to foreigners mangling Spanish, and they mostly take it in good humor. We have been working on learning but it takes time and practice.
The buildings are all very Spanish, built with brick and tile. Just a couple of houses down the hill, workers have been building a second story addition out of concrete blocks. When they got ready to put on the roof, it was a metal roof, corrugated to look like roofing tile. Buildings are often white, or painted bright colors.
All of the homes have gates, and many businesses have armed guards because the police don't come right away. Crime is a problem and criminals target businesses that don't have guards and gates. You need to be aware of your surroundings, just like any large large city in the states.
Traffic is amazing. Don't drive in San Jose.
We travel everywhere in taxis. Many of the drivers do not speak English, but they are willing to try and understand you. Real taxis are red with a triangular sign on the side. They are driven by professional drivers who are all courteous. You need to know that gypsy taxis don't have meters and can over-charge you. We have heard of people getting beaten and robbed when they took a gypsy taxi.
Getting directions in San Jose is confusing. Our dentist's office is "300 meters south of the Pizza Hut on Passeo Colon." Houses don't have numbers and the mail only gets delivered to post office boxes, if someone has a box. Otherwise, well you have to figure it out.
You don't get mustard with your meals. The seasoning is good but not spicy. After a week and a half here, we finally got a jalapeno relish, on the side, with nachos. Do not worry about fiery surprises. You can get ketchup with your fries, if you ask. But you get little packets of it, or maybe a small dish with a spoon and it is sweeter than at home.
Seafood is fresh and excellent. They have shrimp, calamari, and fish. Beef, pork and chicken are also good. Black beans and rice seasoned with a special sauce, called gallo pinto, are like potatoes. Fresh fruit is always available.
The deserts that are available are all sweet. I am fond of 'tres leches' which means three milks. It is sponge cake, soaked in sweetened condensed milk with whipped cream on top. For some odd historical reasons, apple strudel is commonly available.
Coffee is excellent and is mostly drunk "con leche" which means with a generous dose of hot milk.
We don't have many bugs and no mosquitoes. Most of the windows don't have screens. They simply through open a window when they want to let in some breezes. We've seen some big beetles that are like June bugs back home. They are clumsy fliers that settle on one spot and stay there.
Most of the animals we see are either birds, which seem to be everywhere, or common dogs and cats. The birds are different from home but not that different. We have seen an occasional bright green parrot, but mostly swallows, black birds and so on.
Most of the plants we see are tropical. Deb is constantly amazed at what is growing around here. We have palm trees, and big flowering shrubs. Every table has a delicate orchid that would cost ten times as much at home. Here they are inexpensive, elegant decorations.
We don't speak Spanish, except for a very few words. But we understand quite a bit more than we can speak. So far we have managed to communicate although we have gotten volunteer translators, occasionally. People in San Jose are used to foreigners mangling Spanish, and they mostly take it in good humor. We have been working on learning but it takes time and practice.
The buildings are all very Spanish, built with brick and tile. Just a couple of houses down the hill, workers have been building a second story addition out of concrete blocks. When they got ready to put on the roof, it was a metal roof, corrugated to look like roofing tile. Buildings are often white, or painted bright colors.
All of the homes have gates, and many businesses have armed guards because the police don't come right away. Crime is a problem and criminals target businesses that don't have guards and gates. You need to be aware of your surroundings, just like any large large city in the states.
Traffic is amazing. Don't drive in San Jose.
We travel everywhere in taxis. Many of the drivers do not speak English, but they are willing to try and understand you. Real taxis are red with a triangular sign on the side. They are driven by professional drivers who are all courteous. You need to know that gypsy taxis don't have meters and can over-charge you. We have heard of people getting beaten and robbed when they took a gypsy taxi.
Getting directions in San Jose is confusing. Our dentist's office is "300 meters south of the Pizza Hut on Passeo Colon." Houses don't have numbers and the mail only gets delivered to post office boxes, if someone has a box. Otherwise, well you have to figure it out.
You don't get mustard with your meals. The seasoning is good but not spicy. After a week and a half here, we finally got a jalapeno relish, on the side, with nachos. Do not worry about fiery surprises. You can get ketchup with your fries, if you ask. But you get little packets of it, or maybe a small dish with a spoon and it is sweeter than at home.
Seafood is fresh and excellent. They have shrimp, calamari, and fish. Beef, pork and chicken are also good. Black beans and rice seasoned with a special sauce, called gallo pinto, are like potatoes. Fresh fruit is always available.
The deserts that are available are all sweet. I am fond of 'tres leches' which means three milks. It is sponge cake, soaked in sweetened condensed milk with whipped cream on top. For some odd historical reasons, apple strudel is commonly available.
Coffee is excellent and is mostly drunk "con leche" which means with a generous dose of hot milk.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Our 'Five-in-One' Tour
 |
| Poor Man's Umbrella. One leaf could keep you dry. |
Sunday, we talked with the quiet young man at the desk and he suggested the 'Five-in-One' tour. This promised five beautiful attractions in one day. We discussed it for 10 seconds, and said, "What the hey, we wanted to see Costa Rica and this should do it." So we signed up. Now we would be picked up at 7:00 am, and off we would go.
We were both excited because we don't do these sort of guided tours. And yet, here we were indulging in completely touristy, pay your money and go along for the ride kind of sight seeing. We each laid out our morning plans, and Deb packed my knapsack with water, and other survival gear.
Of course, we were shocked when the room phone rang at 6:15 am. The driver was here, would we be ready in 15 minutes?
"No problem," I said. Follwed by scramble, stuff, grab, "Got everything?" "I think so...what about..."
After a mad dash, we got out the door. And met the driver.
After introductions, we started to chat. It seems that he had gotten back to the garage late, and fallen asleep. So when he woke up this morning, he had gotten a head start. Lucky for us!
He drifted through San Jose, pointing out different sights in town. It seems that they have a growing problem with illegal immigrants from Nicarauga and Columbia. They are very violent, bringing crime and domestic violence to Costa Rica. They take jobs from Costa Ricans. Deb and I nodded and said that we understood, while internally staring at this Costa Rican with his American concerns.
One of his gripes were the pretty young Nicaraugan girls who worked to catch the eye of a Costa Rican man so that he would marry them and give them a visa. Seems a buddy of his had married one of these girls, very much younger than he was, and now he was looking to introduce our driver to an eighteen year old girl! That is the other problem with those Nicaraugans. Once one of them shows up, all of their very big extended family shows up and expects help.
We finally got to the real tour bus, where we took our seats and said good by to our pick up driver. Then the real guide came on and we began picking up passengers from various downtown hotels.
The sights that are close to San Jose, are up in the hills. This is a nice way of saying that we would drive to the edge of nowhere and then begin walking. We drove up increasingly narrow bumpy roads until we reached a national park, and then walked up to the edge of Poas, a local volcano which grandly parted the mists to show a steaming lake of sulfuric acid.
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| Poas Volcano has an acidic, steaming lake of water that traps the worst of the fumes. |
Then the road became steeper, narrower, and in worse repair. Deb pointed out that no guard rails were anywhere. But we started seeing a yellow warning tape tied to sticks in the ground stretched along the side of the road which started us giggling. That wouldn't help a bus stay on the road, and the steep drop to a green hell was obviously dangerous.
La Paz Waterfall is a beautiful sight. We found an excellent lodge and carefully maintained paths that led down. First to a beautiful nature preserve with an aviary, a butterfly garden. Deb had a toucan land on her arm. We saw ocelot, margay, and jaguar. We saw capuchin and spider monkeys and they served us a nice buffet lunch. Then we began to walk down stairs and down steps, and even further down into the rain forest.
The waterfall itself is spectacular. But that walk was a lot of exercise. If you want to train for a vacation in C.R. I'd recommend finding a tall building and walking the stairs up and down all day. Because that is what we did.
The bus ride home was pretty quiet. Everyone was tired. We went to bed early. Tomorrow Deb has her first dental appointment. By spending the whole day on our tour, she didn't think about that until the bus stopped in San Jose.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Travel Day
We left Alden Il, at 9:00 am, via a taxi driven by "PK" an Indian from Punjab. He suggested "PK" as an acceptable way to refer to him, apparently his given name was too much for Americans to pronounce. He was a little fuzzy on our area, but once we got him to route 47, he knew what he was doing. We had a little time to talk, and Deb drew out that he had been in the States for 11 years. He was married and had two sons. He grew up on a farm in India, which was still a working farm, and he found that Woodstock suited him because of its farming orientation. He has been to Brooklyn, NY, and down town Chicago and he very much did not like it. We got down to Midway Airport in plenty of time to wait for our plane.
We got checked in by a busy man who kept getting calls for Delta Cargo. Since he was not a Delta Cargo clerk, and he was very busy, and the caller kept calling back as quickly as they could hit re-dial, he was getting kind of short with the caller. I can't blame him. But he did get us all checked in and we were off to security. Note: Delta doesn't have a Cargo area in Midway.
I have to say that the TSA, seems to be more of a full employment scheme than a real terrorist prevention squad. But we went through the whole drama. I wear suspenders, so I had to be wanded. The fellow who did was joking with me that I was lucky because this station was normally handled by a "BIG black girl. Real BIG. " I came back with "but she's sweet." and he laughed.
We finally got through, and after tucking our clothes in and putting on our shoes we ambled off to check it out.
Midway Airport is a nice little airport, on the south side of Chicago. Brick bungalows line the streets right across from the airport. Once, an airliner skidded past the end of the runway and collided with a car. It's that close to the neighborhood.
We ate lunch in Midway at a place that made hot sandwiches, and we both liked them. I noticed that several stewardesses, and pilots were eating there, so I think it was the best. I only mention this because in Atlanta we ate supper and were not happy. The joints in Atlanta all had expensive and not very tasty food. Deb had sweet and sour chicken, and I had a b.l.t. wrap. We both got stringy pieces of meat stuck between our teeth. Eating and waiting are pretty much what you do on a travel day. And that is what we did.
I avoid the airline free pop and coffee, because: a) I don't like using the bathroom while bouncing around. b) I don't like wearing coffee or pop. If I do get a drink, I try to chug it down, so that it can't spill.
Deb had a rum and coke and had a little trouble with it. She got half way through her drink, and started to feel the alcohol, so she didn't want to chug the rest. She is a real light weight drinker, by the way. When the plane hit a bump in the air, she got rum and coke all over herself, her book and her paper work.
Arrival in San Jose was at 9:05 pm which is one hour later than our local time which would be 10:05 PM. So after 13 hours of travel, we were both tired. We wanted to get our luggage and clear customs/ immigration. The Costa Rican government has the system set up very nicely. So, we did get all of our luggage, and cleared the official part of the trip without any adventures.
We grabbed a luggage cart at the baggage claim which helped immensely with our mountain of bags. But when we got to the exit, we had to give it up to a helpful young man who transferred our bags to another cart managed by "his partner." both of us were a little alarmed, thinking that this was the last we'd see of our luggage, but it was not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all, it turned out, because we were met by a driver from the hotel and this guy trucked our stuff out to the taxi. Deb had told me to change some money for colones and then told me to tip him, so I tipped him 20,000 colones. Too much? Too little? By that time I didn't care.
We did get to our room by 11:30 PM. Deb stayed up for a while with a drippy nose. I layed down, shut my eyes and took a deep breath.
Then it was morning.
We got checked in by a busy man who kept getting calls for Delta Cargo. Since he was not a Delta Cargo clerk, and he was very busy, and the caller kept calling back as quickly as they could hit re-dial, he was getting kind of short with the caller. I can't blame him. But he did get us all checked in and we were off to security. Note: Delta doesn't have a Cargo area in Midway.
I have to say that the TSA, seems to be more of a full employment scheme than a real terrorist prevention squad. But we went through the whole drama. I wear suspenders, so I had to be wanded. The fellow who did was joking with me that I was lucky because this station was normally handled by a "BIG black girl. Real BIG. " I came back with "but she's sweet." and he laughed.
We finally got through, and after tucking our clothes in and putting on our shoes we ambled off to check it out.
Midway Airport is a nice little airport, on the south side of Chicago. Brick bungalows line the streets right across from the airport. Once, an airliner skidded past the end of the runway and collided with a car. It's that close to the neighborhood.
We ate lunch in Midway at a place that made hot sandwiches, and we both liked them. I noticed that several stewardesses, and pilots were eating there, so I think it was the best. I only mention this because in Atlanta we ate supper and were not happy. The joints in Atlanta all had expensive and not very tasty food. Deb had sweet and sour chicken, and I had a b.l.t. wrap. We both got stringy pieces of meat stuck between our teeth. Eating and waiting are pretty much what you do on a travel day. And that is what we did.
I avoid the airline free pop and coffee, because: a) I don't like using the bathroom while bouncing around. b) I don't like wearing coffee or pop. If I do get a drink, I try to chug it down, so that it can't spill.
Deb had a rum and coke and had a little trouble with it. She got half way through her drink, and started to feel the alcohol, so she didn't want to chug the rest. She is a real light weight drinker, by the way. When the plane hit a bump in the air, she got rum and coke all over herself, her book and her paper work.
Arrival in San Jose was at 9:05 pm which is one hour later than our local time which would be 10:05 PM. So after 13 hours of travel, we were both tired. We wanted to get our luggage and clear customs/ immigration. The Costa Rican government has the system set up very nicely. So, we did get all of our luggage, and cleared the official part of the trip without any adventures.
We grabbed a luggage cart at the baggage claim which helped immensely with our mountain of bags. But when we got to the exit, we had to give it up to a helpful young man who transferred our bags to another cart managed by "his partner." both of us were a little alarmed, thinking that this was the last we'd see of our luggage, but it was not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all, it turned out, because we were met by a driver from the hotel and this guy trucked our stuff out to the taxi. Deb had told me to change some money for colones and then told me to tip him, so I tipped him 20,000 colones. Too much? Too little? By that time I didn't care.
We did get to our room by 11:30 PM. Deb stayed up for a while with a drippy nose. I layed down, shut my eyes and took a deep breath.
Then it was morning.
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