Costa Rica Calls with San Carlos Memories

My bus arrives

I'm B-a-a-ck! After a somewhat stressful month of caring for my son Damian following knee surgery, I'm happy to say I'm back in Costa Rica. And how wonderful it is to be here! The sun is shining, the sweet mandarins and luscious mangos are ripening on our trees, the air feels fresh and clean and I'm about to catch a bus into Atenas for breakfast at Tres Hermanas and to pick up a few groceries.

Happily, the surgery to remove torn cartilage was successful and Damian is doing all the right things to make a complete recovery. My time there was a mix of concern for his healing and joy at having such a luxurious length of time with him and my precious grandson Kai, now a full-fledged teenager of fourteen years. One of the high points for me was attending a musical performance featuring Kai on trumpet with his four-piece ensemble at Sonoma State University. Boy, was I proud of him for making the effort to go despite feeling poorly from a lingering cold.

Sadly, my darling Layne is now in Portland, Oregon, for a month visiting his sister and planning to attend the 100th birthday of the family matriarch Hazel this weekend. That, of course, will be a joyous occasion but other aspects of his trip are more challenging, with health and mobility issues plaguing his sister Annie and her husband Jim. I know they are glad to have him there but I miss him terribly. With me gone a month and now Layne to be gone a month, this will be the longest we have ever been apart in our 33 years of love and partnership.

The gang by the river

But now that I'm back in our comfortable home, it's time to bring my loyal readers up to date on the local adventures, beginning with the last Sunday hike before I left for California. It was a long-planned excursion to San Carlos, the region where our friend Marcial was born and, like most Ticos speaking of their hometown, he claims it to be the most beautiful part of Costa Rica. After our visit there, I am inclined to agree!

Several years ago in a quirk of Fate - a case of mistaken identity - Marcial chanced to meet a man who had a piece of property for sale very near where he had been raised, so of course he was interested in seeing it. But as these things often go, the planned trip to see the land did not happen and it was some two years later when Marcial again contacted the man that he was able to visit the property in person. Needless to say, he fell in love with it and in partnership with his son Gabriel was able to purchase it for a very good price. He and Seidy hope one day to build a house on it and retire in the peace and tranquility of San Carlos.

We arrive at the neighbor's home

Nestled deep down a secluded hillside at the confluence of two small rivers, the land is a riot of foliage and flowers with the music of waters rushing over rocks and down small waterfalls as a constant background orchestra. Following a two-hour ride in a rented van holding nine of us and trailed by another car with four more, we passed through Ciudad Quesado, the largest town in the San Carlos canton, where Marcial pointed out his high school and other landmarks of his youth. Leaving town we ventured out into remote wilderness over the predictably rough and pot-holed roads and up steep inclines with magnificent views to finally arrive at the property.

Following Marcial down... 

Well, actually at the neighbor's property at the top of the hill, from whence we struck off on foot down an overgrown single-track path through precipitous but beautiful terrain. As we hiked down the sheer trail, Layne and I looked askance at one another, thinking "What goes down must come back up!" But that would be much later, so laughing it off we followed our friends a kilometer or more to the clearing at the bottom beside the rivers.

Bonnie taking in the scenery

Bonnie's son Adam and Stephen relax

Sue and Chris look happy

The neighbor has built a large colorful rancho, which she allows most anyone to use, and it was there that we spread out our potluck picnic lunch and the inevitable supply of tequila and beer. 

Marcial breaks out the tequila

Seidy visits with Daniel and Jai

Most of this lovely day was spent lounging in the rancho or on rocks beside the river but the high point for me was when Marcial led the way through the jungle to a stretch of his property where the river pools above a small waterfall. 

Following Chris to the river

Stephen captures Seidy by the river

Yours Truly, lovin' it!

So refreshing!

Marcial, at home in "his" river

The water is calm enough for a swim, although at midstream you still feel a strong current and swimming upstream against it is an invigorating athletic challenge. The cool moving water offered the perfect freshness for the warm day and the setting was ever so idyllic. I felt such ecstasy, such incredible privilege, such breathtaking happiness to be swimming alongside my friends in an unspoiled river deep in the jungles of Costa Rica. Certainly not an experience the ordinary tourist would have!

Santa Eulalia sunset

Much later as we trudged back up the hill, some of us taking advantage of a Jeep ride halfway up, we all expressed our wonder at our great good fortune in knowing such friends as Marcial and Seidy who share their lives with us with such generosity.

The next night following our Sunday outing was my last night before leaving for California and it seemed the Santa Eulalia sunset was determined to remind me of the beauty I was leaving behind. You can well imagine just how good it is to be back here. Pura Vida indeed!

  

Dominical Dreamin' - Part II

Main St., Dominical

In my last post we took a trip to Playa Dominical, down the Pacific Coast past Quepos, with our friends Marc and Eroca in celebration of Layne's birthday. The first two days were filled with sun and surf, laughter and good cheer, the evenings with leisurely dinners of fresh fish and wine. But the third morning Layne and I got up early, enjoyed the great breakfast buffet at Villas Rio Mar where we were staying, then headed down the highway to play a round of golf.

Affordable public golf courses  are few and far between in Costa Rica so we were delighted when we discovered a 9-hole course located just a 40-minute drive south from Dominical. As a travel writer, I had been fortunate to score a free round of golf so Layne and I managed to bring our bag of clubs along, even though it crowded our Toyota Yaris rental car.

Yours Truly tees up

And what a beautiful course it is! Nestled deep in the jungles of the Southern Pacific zone, San Buenas Golf Resort is part of a planned condominium and residential community still in the early stages of construction. Only the first 9 holes of the 18-hole course are completed so far but that was enough for Layne and me to get our "golf fix." With not another soul on the fairways, other than a few maintenance workers, we literally had the place to ourselves. Riding along the tidy gravel golf paths, we delighted in gorgeous views all around, from misty mountain vistas to the unexpected sight of a tall white bird - a heron, perhaps? - standing just off the green on the fifth hole.

 

It had been a while since Layne had had his hands on a club and it showed in his game: I came within one stroke of beating him! We usually play what he calls "match play" golf, where we only keep track of who wins hole by hole, not the overall score. On the match play scorecard, I won four holes, he won four holes and we tied one. Of course, neither of us would brag about our overall scores.

Layne takes his best shot

The course is as green and lush as one expects a golf course to be but we were pleased to learn that San Buenas is committed to the ecology of the local area and employs sustainable practices in the golf course as well as the residential area. For example, the course uses a particular kind of grass on the fairways which is saltwater tolerant. So when weeds appear, they simply water the course with saltwater, killing the weeds but not the grasses. The management of San Buenas is also providing "green" leadership in the local town of San Buenaventura, helping set up a plastic, glass and aluminum can recycling program using their trucks, employees and volunteers. To protect the town from flooding during the rainy season, San Buenas is working to lower the banks of the river near the course so that overflow will run onto low areas of the golf course and not into town.

The company is likewise committed to helping build the local pueblo by providing jobs to as many local people as they can employ, offering education and job training as needed. As we rode around the course, we could see the results of this policy: despite the empty fairways, there were employees watering the greens by hand, spraying foliage with fertilizer or blowing and raking leaves. For us it was a great morning of golf; for the town of San Buenaventura, it promises a brighter future.

Layne and I returned to Villas Rio Mar, tired but happy. After sharing a tasty plate of nachos with Marc and Eroca, it was back to the playa for more sun and hopefully a beautiful sunset over the ocean. 

With signs warning of "strong rip currents" and a prohibition on swimming on the main Dominical beach, we contented ourselves with hanging out watching surfers and chatting with other beachgoers. Eroca and I engaged a stunningly beautiful young brunette in conversation and learned that she was there from Brazil with her boyfriend, who was out surfing. As I tried to chat with her, we found that since I knew no Portuguese, her native tongue, and she knew little English, my native language, we ended up conversing in Spanish, which neither of us knew very well. We both found it rather amusing that we could carry on a friendly chitchat in our second languages.

Eroca strikes a meditative pose

Another woman we met was Canadian like Eroca and a true "snowbird," with homes in both British Columbia and Dominical, spending the good season in each one and utilizing house sitters as caretakers when absent from each house. Another potential retiree we met was in Costa Rica for a month, her and her husband's third such "due diligence" trip. They were quite taken with Dominical and were thinking of buying property. Only that morning her husband had expressed second thoughts after reading a book that advises renting before buying. We agreed that we think that is the best approach to moving here as well. Not everyone can make the adjustment.

Dominical wardrobe

As the afternoon ebbed we gazed out at the surfers silhouetted against the setting sun, the beauty and peacefulness of the place intoxicating. Eventually we strolled back to the main street area for dinner at a popular hangout, Tortilla Flats. After we shared a plate of excellent Fried Calamari, I opted for Fish Tacos, which were extravagant in size and flavor, and we all enjoyed some first-rate margaritas.

With only one more day before us, I played my "travel writer card" and urged our little group to make the short drive south to Marino Ballena National Park, which would give me one more cool thing to write about. They were easy to persuade and when we arrived at this picturesque beach, they were quite happy they came along. 

What a stretch of magnificent coastline, ultra-tropical scenery and the trademark "whale's tail"-shaped coral reef offshore. Simply beautiful.

Short hike to Playa Ballena

Eroca takes in the view

Marc takes in the view too

Beach as far as you can see...

... in each direction

We could have easily spent an entire day there instead of the two hours we had. But in that time, Eroca and I walked down the beach to an area we'd been told was home to Scarlet Macaws. And indeed, perched high in the trees were numbers of the bright red birds, flapping at each other indignantly and squawking their distinctive caw. It was quite a thrill to see so many in their native habitat.

But soon it was time for the drive home, a quieter group than on the trip down as we all enjoyed the memories of our outstanding holiday in Dominical. ¡Vamos a regresar! We will return!

          

Tropical Sunset

Sunday, February 28, 2010

         A blustery wind is blowing through here today in a flurry, with gusts up to probably 30 or 40 mph. It’s exhilarating in its own way but for me, still nursing this persistent sore throat, it means another day indoors. Our Villas here sit so high up on the side of the mountain that a very fine mist is being pushed down from the cloud forest above, not enough for an umbrella (in fact, forget an umbrella in this wind!) but enough to dampen my spirits, literally. Looking on Google Earth, I see that the mountain above us climbs to more than 11,000 feet, all the way to the peak of Irazu Volcano. Layne and I took a drive up to the Irazu crater during our last visit to Costa Rica and it was very cold! Hardly what you expect in Costa Rica. The smaller crater is unusual, containing a lake filled with water that changes color from deep green to rusty red, due to the minerals present. Irazu is one of the quiet volcanoes here, although it’s not dormant since it last erupted in 1963 on the day President John F. Kennedy visited Costa Rica. Volcan Irazu was calm following that eruption until some noticeable activity in 1996, hardly long enough past to provide great comfort regarding this sleeping giant. 

(Photo courtesy of www.traveladventures.org.)

         Up the slope to the east toward Irazu, the mountaintop is constantly wreathed in clouds. Our neighbor Denis, the science teacher, paid a visit recently to some friends of his who live up there and they told him they rarely see the sun. I don’t know, there may be some attraction to it, but that’s not why I came to Costa Rica.

         Yesterday’s sunset, however, is one good reason to be here. Late in the afternoon, I looked out front and noticed a golden glow, a kind of ginger-flavored haze that colored everything. I grabbed the camera in hopes of catching some semblance of the flaming clouds above. Traveling very light on this exploratory trip, we only brought my rather antiquated digital camera, opting to leave Layne’s professional-level gear for a future visit. As I stood composing my shots, Denis called to me and identified the glowing, almost bubbling clouds as “pre-tornadic,” adding the reassurance that they were unlikely to create a tornado here. This formation of billowing clouds, he explained, was such that in other circumstances they could lead to the whirling vortex of a tornado but were blowing apart even as we watched. Dennis was also taking photos. With a very strong lens and his high-end Canon camera, he has gotten some great nature shots on his various tourist outings. He offered to send some of the day’s shots to me for use in this blog and this afternoon invited me over to choose which ones, not an easy job for sure. But here are his just slightly colorized efforts. (Photos courtesy of Denis Carnochan.)

         On Friday night, we got our first taste of one of the more colorful aspects of “the real Costa Rica.” In reading expat blogs and other reports of life in Costa Rica prior to our coming here for this extended visit, we had learned that noisy parties, loud music, barking dogs and other disturbances were commonplace in a Tico neighborhood. But since moving from the apart-hotel down the hill with all the traffic noises and fumes, life here in Villas Roma has been muy tranquilo, with only the lowing of the neighbor cattle, a few dogs and a distant rooster or two greeting the dawn to mar the peace.

         But apparently, we have some new Tico neighbors in villa #10 next door to us, and as we walked through the grounds after our dinner out, we saw several cars parked along the drive and a crowd beginning to form on the neighbor’s front porch, with Latin music playing inside and laughter filtering out. It actually looked quite inviting and if I hadn’t been nursing the initial stages of this sore throat, we might have wandered in to introduce ourselves as the Gringo neighbors. As it was, we strolled on to our villa and settled in for the night, enjoying the occasional burst of music and laughter.

         I really was under the weather so I headed upstairs to bed with a book. But a quiet night was not in the cards! The laughter grew raucous with a loud shriek now and then and soon the music gained in volume. As the evening wore on and the crowd grew even more exuberant, the musical offerings changed to karaoke, with several excellent voices taking the microphone and a few others serenading rather off-key. Clearly, everyone was having a great time! It was all quite festive and I truly wished I could have participated. Instead, I took a couple of Excedrin P.M. and closed the doors, blocking out as much of the noise as I could. Later that night I awoke to find the party over and the noises back to normal: a steady tropical breeze through the trees and the pre-dawn quiet of a Costa Rican village. Muy bueno, muy bien.