Day 46: San Isidro, Costa Rica

A lazy day today. Just doing a few errands this morning and eating some ice cream to escape the heat. We sat in the city center and pondered the painted figure on the church (it´s not Jesus…actually it kinda looks like a conquistador). We wanted to ask someone but we don´t know enough Spanish and no one here seems to know any English either. When we were tired of that, we spent the afternoon doing nothing, absolutely nothing, and it was great!

Day 45: San Isidro, Costa Rica

After a night of fearful awakenings to see if that huge, extraterrestrial cockroach (seriously it was like 4 inches long) was back, we caught a 6:45am bus to San Isidro, a small city about an hour and a half inland from Dominical. Not having any idea what kind of place it would be, we wandered around for almost an hour before discovering that San Isidro has no hostels. We ended up checking a few hotels and found a really clean private room and bath for $10/person! It even had TV and a balcony and towels! Whoa! Oh, and it also had a rare find–a hot shower! Read the rest of this entry »

Day 44: Dominical, Costa Rica

Today wouldn´t have been a Saben-birthday without some grumbling from the old man. He always hates his birthday even when he says he doesn´t. Lin thinks is just him getting more senile as the years go by. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 43: Dominical, Costa Rica

Ready for a slight change of scenery, we got up bright and early this morning ready to catch the first bus to Dominical, about 18 km away from Uvita. We discovered that the next bus wouldn´t leave for another hour and, not wanting to waste any time sitting about at the bus stop, we started walking. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 42: Uvita, Costa Rica

An hour and a half or so from the hostel to the very end of the beach and we arrived at the Whale´s Tail. Although it´s difficult to make out while you´re standing on the Tail, from the sky you can see how this part of the beach got it´s name.

Aerial view of the Whale´s Tail (photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleven_stitches)

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Day 41: Uvita, Costa Rica

After a yummy “homemade“ breakfast we cooked at the hostel, we gathered our miscellanous beach wares and set out for a whole day on the beach. The walk from the hostel takes about 40 minutes but is pleasant despite the heat of the early morning sun. To make it easier, we stopped for some admittedly early in the morning ice cream cones. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 40: Uvita, Costa Rica

Still groggy from yesterday´s travel (bus travel makes one very lethargic), we sauntered down the street back to the bus terminal and hopped a bus to Uvita. It was headed down the “slow“ road along the coast and crawled the whole way, probably never going over 30 mph. Luckily, we got to sit in the handicap seats with a lot of leg room since no one actually needed them on this trip. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 39: San Jose, Costa Rica

Today was an utterly glorious day. Knowing that we were going to get our Brazilian visas this afternoon put a skip (or two) into our step. We wandered around the city some more this morning and enjoyed a lovely (huge!) lunch served on a fancy cut piece of wood and banana leaves. Between the two platters (let´s be real here–“plate“ just isn´t a sufficient description), we could´ve fed 2-3 other people. Once we were stuffed to and beyond the gills, we waddled a couple miles back across the city to the embassy and danced a little jig all the way up to the 6th floor and into the office as we picked up our much-sought after, overly complicated visas. Then, after triple checking that they were indeed real (and switching to check each other´s), we danced another jig while we waited for the elevator. But the doors opened to reveal another, rather serious looking passenger so we had to forgo the descending jig and just quietly giggled at each other for the joy of finally having those stupid visas. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 38: San Jose, Costa Rica

It´s Groundhog´s Day, woohoo! So apparently the groundhog predicts more bad winter weather for those folks in winter-weather areas but today marked some seriously good news for us: The formerly irritated old woman at the embassy gave us a nod instead of a head shake! Read the rest of this entry »

Day 37: San Jose, Costa Rica

Started painting bright and early this morning but today we were using chalkbord paint. Fine and dandy for the 5 hours of painting we did today til we went to wash up. Apparently chalkboard paint spreads really really well when mixed with skin and water, but we didn´t know that til we were covered up to our elbows in the evil stuff with not even a tiny hint of skin peeking through. Read the rest of this entry »