ABOUT MY TRIP by JOSIE WILLIAMS

April 13, 2005 -Costa Paraiso in Dominical
Today we came to Costa Rica. I went on the beach and there was a HUGE tidepool with thousands of fish. Baby fish, angel fish, a crawdad, an eel and a leopard eel. On the beach at night time we saw hundreds of hermit crabs with our flashlight. And the little geckos barked at us. We found 10 big crabs that live underground and a hopping crab on the beach. In the house we stayed in there was a bunk bed and an air conditioner. I slept on top and Connor slept on the bottom. On the plane here there was a lady going to Guatemala- she was going home. Right now as I am wiriting this it is 9:30 and I am going to bed. I'll write more tomorrow- a whole lot more!

April 14, 2005-Costa Paraiso in Dominical
OK- It's tomorrow now! I swam with the waves all day and when I went up on this big rock I found a katrillion hermit crabs! I found one as tiny as a pin head and my brother Connor named it Kenny. A cocnut almost hit me on the head while I was swimming. Most of the people who live here speak Spanish and I can only understand half a dozen words. I met a nice man named Ricardo who has a pet iguana and made me a shell full of shaved coconut. It was delicious! The iguana could bite you but he didn't bite me. I fed it a flower and it went chomp chomp and the flower disappeared! My brother found a lizard that lost part of his tail he threw the tail piece to him and he ate it! He ate his own tail- YUK!
There is a pool to swim in before and after we go in the ocean and it is cool and feels good!
There are thousands of mosquitos and I got bitten alot and it drove me mad! I whined and complained and Mom said "Would you like some cheese with that wine?" and I whined some more. Connor got bitten all over his legs. I got bitten alot less but it still drove me mad!
Costa Rica is the best place and I'm glad to be here with all the toads, iguanas, lizards, hermit crabs, birds, fish, and the monkey we saw today- but not the mosquitos! And the waves and the beach and the red crabs that live underground and come out at night and my cabina and my friends!
I'm going to bed now and will write more tomorrow.

April 15, 2005- Villas Rio Mar on the River Baru Dominical
Today we went to a new hotel and it is so pretty! It has a gigantic swimming pool- you wouldn't believe it- it looks like a fat boomerang! There is a toad that lives in our house and another lizard with his tail missing. He barks! My Mom sort of pushed the frog with her toe to see if he was awake- and he was! Connor thought that Mom was pushing it out of the house but she wasn't. There was another bug that my Mom called a roach- a cockroach! My brother was going to sleep in the hammock but now he is going to sleep in the room with me in a seperate bed. Mom and Dad have their own room but our rooms are next to each other.
I have a terrible sunburn on my shoulders, back and face. I was swimming in the ocean riding the waves and forgot to put on more sunscreen. Mom and Dad were in Uvita and they told me to remember but I didn't. Connor got a sunburn but not as bad as me and he went KERSPLASH trying to ride the waves sitting down!
After dinner all of us kids-me, Dassi, Connor, and the 2 Jakes went by the pool and my brother spotted a frog swimming in the pool! It was pretty small. Then Dassi saw one- a huge one- and I threw it out of the pool. Dassi is my best friend! And we all laughed and played by the pool and now I'm going to bed.

So I thought about the fear issue...

It has always been my view that mothers are bound to protect their
children and fathers are bound to push them out of their comfort zone.
Turns out that means out of the mother's comfort zone as well, to say
nothing of the government's, the church's, and auntie Maude's.

So be it. I'll push, mom will protect, the church will disdain my
actions, the government will charge me with crimes and auntie Maude will
tsk tsk. And the children will grow up anyway, probably healthier for
the dichotomy of views.

I noticed in the airport in Costa Rica large posters advising that
relations with teens or abducting them was a problem in that country,
and not to get involved. Well, Duh! I mean, that's clearly criminal
and anybody who does that should probably be rendered a eunuch. So are
large posters about that catering to some fear factor, an attempt to
generate ambivalence toward some overly restrictive rule somebody
wants? I dunno. What do you think?

On the wing

The very American Hotel Mango put us up, fed us and transported us to the airport competently. Had a computer for customer use too. There was wireless, but they wouldn't/couldn't let me use it so I declined to upload this.

Be aware that the government charges an exit fee of $26/head, all ages.
This little un-announced surprise will occur at the airport between
entry and ticketing. They'll take a credit card, but the transaction
will be a cash advance. I guess they've figured out this tactic doesn't
exactly generate good will, but they're unwilling to take the obvious
step of charging the airlines so the price is written into the ticket.
That would be 10 less bureaucrats per airport, plus the cost of the
rather large desk. And then there's the lost goodwill...

Generic airport 

The daytime version of the long flight is far more interesting and
comfortable. Several things struck me:
One was the smoky atmosphere over Guatemala. There were what looked
like brush fires everywhere. It was visibly murky even at 27000
feet where we were flying. The Guatemalan lady next to me in the
plane could not tell me what they were burning or why.

The other was the vastness of the Sonoran desert in Mexico. It is so
dry and so vast! Parts were just vast dry plains, featureless, even
from 5 miles up. Other areas were very rugged, showing steep
escarpments. I imagined this is what the Sahara looks like from the
air.

Many years ago my father, older brother and Jim Custin flew a
small plane over the canyon lands between Chihauha and the Sea of Cortez. They were among the first airborne explorers of some areas.
See? I come by my traveling gene honestly.

News flash of the day:
Don't put your dirty clothes in your backpack if you expect to wear
anything out of said pack later in the trip. Given our 1 carry-on
travel methodology, this presents a problem. What to do with the laundry?

Loop complete

Hiked around Antonio's park. Saw several sloths, some white faced
monkeys and too many tourists. No pythons. Too bad. Maybe they could
have eliminated a few tourists. This is not a rainforest. It's more
like where we live in Oregon, a humid forest, only warmer.

Sloth

Sloth again

White faced monkeys posing for us. 

Drove on up to San Jose's airport and the Hotel Mango which doesn't have a sign coming from the Jaco direction. We were well into San Jose before we figured out we'd missed it.

On the road again...

Here it is 2 days later. You'd think a lot had happened, but you'd be
wrong. We explored Uvita, its beach and some of the roads around there.
Found a pizza place in the middle of nowhere and a butterfly farm. I got
some more surfing (boogie board) in on the rocky beach of Domincalita (we
learned the name of the bay Coconut Grove and Costa Paraiso are on).
Managed to scrape up my toes on said rocks. Can't wear my sandals.

Add antibiotics to first aid kit. Also, bring alternate shoes so you
have something else to wear when the primaries don't fit. Touch of
intestinal distress last 2 days. Not sure if it's bacterial or just
diet.

Today we drove (bounced a lot actually) up to Quepos. About an hour and
a half to go 45 km.

Road? to Quepos 

It seems to be a tourist oriented town, almost as
big as San Isidro. We continued on around the corner and over the hill
towards Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. Staying at Verde Mar, again
right on the beach. This area is well covered in other media so I'll
skip it here.

Back to Dominicalita

Note: There isn't a bank or ATM in Dominical or Uvita. Well, actually
there's supposed to be a bankish type place in Uvita, open a couple hours
a day, some days of the week, but we couldn't find it. So when you run out
of coinage it's back to San Isidro to tap an ATM.

We moved back out to Coconut Grove today. A nicely run little
collection of cabins and small houses with a pool, beach, boogie boards
and outdoor bar, and friendly American owners. Their 3 Great Danes are
friendly too.

Coconut Grove

The housing shuffle

Having run out our reservation at Costa Paraiso, we set out in search of
another house or cabina in the area. Checked out Balcon De Uvita, a
pleasant little villa way up on a hill overlooking Ballenas National
park.

Three very pretty little cabins, a small but very deep pool (not
a kids pool),

and about 300 vertical(!) feet up a semi improved trail, a
fine little restaurant. It would be perfect for honeymooners or perhaps
yoga aficionados (The owner is planning some yoga retreats.) But not
suitable for a couple car loads of kids looking for some beach to
bodysurf on. We actually didn't find anything anywhere near as good as
Coconut Grove or even Costa Paraiso.

Parque Nacional Marino Ballena protects one of the few coral reefs on the
Pacific side of Central America. There are all kinds of tourist
activities around it, whale watching, dolphin swimming, ultra light
flying, etc. We checked out the park and immediate environs, finding
primitive camping on the beach in the park ($3 a head for entrance,
although they let us in for a look see) We found no interesting B&B
type places. Perhaps we're too picky?

Along the way we saw another overturned truck (serves 'em right, the way
they drive), a pizote galumphing across the road, a Toucan in a tree,
and I almost stepped on a green lizard in the middle of the road in
Dominical (he was enroute to the other side - with more than usual
haste).

Pizote in Manuel Antonio Park

We eventually settled on Villas Rio Mar, up the river a km. from Dominical.
Fancy grounds, cute little cabinas, 4 to a group, big swimming pool, nice
restaurant - and real estate buyers service if you're interested. The
cabinas have a rather odd arrangement of what amounts to a living room
that's really a front porch with silly netting hung on it (I say silly
because it's just hanging there, not attached on the sides or bottoms, so
of course every matter of critter with legs or wings can and does get in.
We found a toad, a gecko, a couple centipedes, several unidentified flying
critters and moths inside the netting. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to
be any mosquitos. The cabin proper is a small bedroom and bath
separated from the porch by a screened lath door that doesn't have a
latch. Our room was adjacent a small creek. Interesting critters
chirped and twittered outside all night. Yep, it's a rain forest.

Landing at the beach

Costa Paraiso, near Dominical 

We're staying at Costa Paraiso, about 2 km south of Dominical. It's a
pretty little collection of "villa's" right on the beach. The beach is
lovely, perfect for the kids to body surf and chase little crabs. It's
too rocky for real surfing, but with protection from the SW,
doesn't have the big break or rips. We picked up coconuts and
mangos off the ground to eat. The new owners don't serve any meals, or
even sit down to talk, but they've only had the place for 3 months, so
perhaps they'll get into the swing of running a friendly "villa".
There is a really low rent place across the driveway run by locals,
$20-$30 rooms, and a soda. We got marvelous big plates of huevos con
tomato con rice and pintos for about $1.20. But Costa Paraiso isn't as
nice as Coconut Grove, almost adjacent, where our friends are staying.

View from the cabina 

The wildlife (I mean the native fauna, not the parties) is amazing. A
brilliant green Iguana about 2 feet long was climbing around right behind
our cabin. When I snuck out to snap his portrait, he stood up on his back
legs and scampered up the hill so fast I could barely follow him.
There's little geckos barking everywhere, including the eves of the
cabin. Of course lots of amazing birds and butterflies too. Oh, and
mosquitoes. Being in malaria country this concerned me, but so far
nothing worse than itching bites - and a sunburn.

There are little stores and cafe's (Soda's) everywhere. Seems like every
house serves meals, much like B&B's are everywhere in Ireland. Mostly
they look pretty dodgy, but the food seems fine so far.

The "soda" across the drive from Costa Paraiso. The guys are our friend's son and his friend;

On the road to Dominical

Whoa! All night on a full Boing 757 - a close approximation of hell.
Includes a couple hours standing around a little waiting room in
Guatemala City while the policía did a 'security check'. I'll bet they
weren't looking for bombs. I mean, why would anyone want to bomb Costa Rica?

Anyway, we made it, and Alajuela airport was a welcome site. There's an
exchange bank that won't take cards, and an ATM that takes all matter of
cards and spits out colones, roughly 500 to the dollar. No problems
through customs (she didn't even ask any questions), and outside to a
phalanx of taxi drivers ready to help. Have some colones ready to tip
the really helpful ones. We got pointed at the Toyota rental guy, who
soon had a shuttle on hand.

At the Toyota rental agency I found a flyer with their rates, which were
considerably less than what we had signed up for. When I showed the
friendly guy the rate, he said, "Oh that's for manual transmission."
The web site gave the same rate for either, so I called his bluff
(Actually I didn't know my wife had requested an auto, which would be a
disaster in our poor little under-powered Rav), and he produced a
beater with manual trans, bald tires and several dings. We turned it
down, having heard about the tire scam (you blow one, you buy them a new
one), and lo and behold, he produced a new (7k km) stick shift with
reasonable tires and very little damage. He proceeded to make a show of
marking down and having me sign for all the dings, and I quietly
photographed the car from several angles in case he produced a new one.
There was a bit of a mix up about the insurance since we used a master
card to cover it. I think I got scammed on that. These guys are good.

As I mentioned we are traveling with our friends. They rented a similar
sized Suzuki from Avanti. They couldn't get the larger vehicle they
needed for the 5 of them, and couldn't get a roof rack either.

The rental guy produced a couple maps for us, one of San Jose, the other
the whole country, and marked out and explained our somewhat circuitous
route right through San Jose, and on to San Isidro de General (There are
two San Isidro's on this road, pay attention. The route through town
turned out not to be as advertised, but we found our way.

We got a quick introduction to urban central America with
a long drive through San Jose with a map that didn't reflect reality,
(despite the rental guy's helpful markings). A quick query or two and we
found the tollway (100 colones I think) to San Isidro. Since this is THE
continent spanning highway there were lots of trucks. They all seemed to
have 20 hp diesels with no turbo or compression braking, so they were slow
as molasses up the hills spewing black smoke and, if loaded, slow down the
other side. The empty trucks were completely manaical, passing everything
whether they could see around the corners or not. I drove semi's in the
US for several years, so have a pretty good feel for how things work in
commercial trucking. These guys are nuts, and very intimidating on the
highway. Once I had a truck close the gap so I couldn't get
back in line after passing. Downright murderous behavior.

The next stop is lovely, vibrant downtown San Isadro de General. Not
lovely in the sense Butchart Gardens is lovely, rather a town center the
way town centers were meant to be. There's a "park" in the center with
lots of foot and car traffic all around it. Almost all the surrounding
area is commercial. It looked like a very healthy active business
center.

All the billboards change to English at the top of the hill approaching
Dominical. Dominical is an ex-pat haven pandering to the young surfer set.
(I mean, 2 internet cafes in a 'town' 2 rocky 'blocks' long.)

CONNOR'S TAKE ON COSTA RICA

Day one
Today we arrived in Costa Rica! Mom says that we will be driving for over 5 hours but first we need to rent a car- 15 minutes from the airport. The drive over was very pretty, lots of cows and small towns. Lots of cliffs and windy turns. We didn't stop very much because we wanted to get to the ocean-side hotel that we rented.

Long trip, eh? 

The first thing we did was run to see the cabina and then just mess around. Once we were settled in we went down to the ocean! The tide was low so we looked at all the tide pools. They were much different than the ones in Oregon. We found an eel, a sparkly blue fish, and really fast jumping crabs. You'd never see those in the Oregon tide pools! After that we went for a swim- the water was at least 70 degrees! Add that to the 90 degree days and we were plenty warm.
Our little cabina has a small room at front followed by the tiny kitchen and right off the edge of that was my sister and my bunk bed. To connect the rest to Mom and Dads room is the mini bathroom. Our air conditioner is a haven during these hot days!
I think that I am really going to like Cosat Rica!

Dis is da life! 

Gone again

We're on our way to Costa Rica! How did this happen? I'm not sure.
It seems friends of ours were going there to do a surfing and family
vacation (contradictory, methinks), and they got to talking to Francie,
and the next thing I know we're on a plane to San Jose, Costa Rica.

We're planning on spending most of our time on or near the beach around
Dominical, on the SW coast. Yes, I know it's THE haven for American
budget tourists looking to surf/party, but it's also home to several
marine reserves, close to the mountains (half an hour to San Isidro de
el General), and well away from the bigger population centers.

Ready to travel! 

But what I really want to write about is fear. In the USA we have fear
drummed into us everyday, from every direction. Don't talk to
strangers, watch out for 'evil doers' in our midst, lock your doors,
protect your children (from everything except rampant violence in media I
guess).

I remember a time when this wasn't the case. I've hitchhiked all over the
West, picked up lots of hitchhikers myself, spent many a night sleeping on
the beach, partying with strangers, and generally not watching my back.
Other than getting propositioned a few times by the wrong gender, and
having my wallet stolen on the Alaska ferry, nothing terribly untoward has
befallen me.

As much as I try not to buy into this fear mongering (have you
seen "Bowling for Columbine"?), I still have this gut reaction when my 7
yr old daughter goes trucking off to some far corner of the airport, or
stops to look at some candy and disappears from my sight.

Now I know most American's will say that this fear is justified (see
above), and perhaps it is, in environments where the constant fear
mongering has lead to high rates of violent and personal crime. But I
think most of the rest of the world is a lot more forgiving of wayward
childhood, lax security procedures, and tends not to have this fear
reaction.

I'm going to pay attention to this.