Wednesday, 3 September 2008 03:08 pm
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deckardcanineGood gravy, I've been back since Sunday night and took this long to update? Yes, I've had many things to do, but this surely deserved higher priority than some.
My recent family vacation to Costa Rica was not as great as I remember the one in 2000 being, but better overall than last year's trip to Spain and France. You may recall that that trip resulted in an unusual amount of impatience, particularly between my parents, such that I wanted (and failed due to laziness) to take a solo vacation before the next family one. The latest trip was more planned, so only part of the second day saw more of the same.
The first part of the trip, which my sister Sarah could not attend with her acquired leave time, saw me and my folks in two San Jose apartments owned by one of my mom's bosses, who now lives there. The dude is a total Jerry Garcia-style aging hippie -- fun in my book. He introduced us to some of the fine dining CR offers, all of which is supremely inexpensive by US standards. (Fast-food establishments omnipresent in the US seem to have trouble spreading in CR for that reason.)
Low prices didn't mean no money problems for us, tho. Once again, despite our advance warning calls, Visa froze my folks' cards after one or two purchases overseas, requiring follow-up calls to reactivate them. There will not be a third time for this: We'll have other cards. Visa needs a lesson in keeping customers.
The other main economic grievance was at Dollar Rent-a-Car. The ending price was substantially more than what my dad was first told, as they tacked on unmentioned charges. Customers before and after us had similar unhappy surprises, some worse. Reminded me of the prostitution in The Catcher in the Rye.
It didn't help the cost that we rented an SUV, a rather unfriendly transition for Prius owners. Why'd we do it? Long mountain roads in need of paving. After Sarah arrived, we drove out to the research center La Selva, where she'd studied ecology one semester. I'm not so sure I approved the plan, at her suggestion, to spend three days in those cabins, with a cafeteria for all meals. I've loved the rainforest for years, but if you're not a researcher, there's not much to do besides hike and read. And hiking is off when the rain pours for hours, and it's pretty scary at night with no guides (we eventually all bought flashlights).
La Selva was the buggiest area we went. We'd had malaria warnings but opted not to buy pills based on Sarah's report of low incidence in this particular part. No one got very sick, perhaps because we wore Off, long pants (partly for snakes), and sometimes long sleeves. On most days, tho, I didn't bother with the Off. I've retained some of the bite stoicism from my 1999 Panama stay. Of greater concern to me was the sun, but I never got burned enough to hurt. Never thought I'd buy a cap and enjoy it so much.
Moving on to our previous haunt of Costa Verde brought a welcome jump in luxury. Sure, the trails are more treacherous, but the beaches make them worthwhile. If you don't care for that, there are the hotel pools. It was at the CV hotel's restaurant that I'd found the first alcoholic beverage I really liked; they seem to have discontinued it, but I found a couple more this time. Unfortunately, despite the motto "Still more monkeys than people," the supercute squirrel monkeys didn't show up during our second stay. I'm glad that people don't feed them as often anymore, but there's also the factor of their numbers dwindling.
The best thing about visiting any rural area, of course, is the chance to see wildlife. No telling how many species of bird we saw and heard, and they give some intriguing calls. Between the hikes and a river cruise, we encountered:
-Cute capuchin monkeys, surprisingly close (one bared teeth to scare the photographers back)
-Weird-sounding howler monkeys
-Iguanas we almost stepped on without noticing
-Whip-tailed anoles we almost stepped on without noticing
-Tiny frogs, including the well-described "blue jean frog"
-Piglike peccaries (strong in odor, but I kinda like them)
-Variously patterned butterflies, including one type with spooky brown "eyes" on one side of the wings and a pretty blue on the other
-A gnarled plant reminiscent of Pan's Labyrinth
-Lightning bugs not much like the ones I know at home
-Large brown grasshoppers
-Speedy agouti cuties
-A skulking black animal who might have been a weasel
-A coatimundi
-Raccoons who tried to rob tourists... on the beach... at noon
-Leafcutter ants that wore their own paths and followed manmade ones for possibly miles, sometimes voguing with pink petals instead (why they needed to travel that far is unclear to me)
-Bullet ants
-Bats sleeping in groups under palm fronds
-Two- and three-toed sloths, two of which were climbing down unusually fast, probably (says a guide) to relieve themselves on the ground
-Boa constrictors coming in much smaller sizes than I thought
-A birdsnake crossing the path after an obvious recent feast
Apart from the mosquitos, the only really unwelcome encounter came late in the vacation when Sarah tripped and grabbed a spiny tree (a porcu-pine?), making her right hand not want to hold anything. Hope the dermatologist has just the thing for her.
The other great thing about CR that comes to mind is the politeness. A rigid airport employee aside, nobody seems to resent the tourists. At the same time, few vendors are anything like pushy, and even they respect your decline. (Their reported treatment of Nicaraguans these days is another story.)
Ooh, almost forgot: Before Sarah arrived, we rode a zipline course. Sarah and Mom had tried a different one before, but Dad and I had chickened out. This one may be scarier. Sure, it's more professional with the helmets and whatnot, but some lines exceed 2,000 feet in length and move very quickly. Good thing my glasses let me keep my eyes open in the wind. Unfortunately, unlike in the other course, most of the lines in this course curve in a U. If you don't lean back and keep your knees high long enough to get cramps the next day, you'll probably have to grab the line and drag yourself the last few yards. Hard to see much of the forest in that position. Grateful nothing fell out of my pockets. And once you've done the first line, you have no choice but to ride the other seven. I can just about guarantee that between the wind-whipped excitement and the long wait (at least if there are two families taking the course at once), you'll need the restroom right afterwards.
My recent family vacation to Costa Rica was not as great as I remember the one in 2000 being, but better overall than last year's trip to Spain and France. You may recall that that trip resulted in an unusual amount of impatience, particularly between my parents, such that I wanted (and failed due to laziness) to take a solo vacation before the next family one. The latest trip was more planned, so only part of the second day saw more of the same.
The first part of the trip, which my sister Sarah could not attend with her acquired leave time, saw me and my folks in two San Jose apartments owned by one of my mom's bosses, who now lives there. The dude is a total Jerry Garcia-style aging hippie -- fun in my book. He introduced us to some of the fine dining CR offers, all of which is supremely inexpensive by US standards. (Fast-food establishments omnipresent in the US seem to have trouble spreading in CR for that reason.)
Low prices didn't mean no money problems for us, tho. Once again, despite our advance warning calls, Visa froze my folks' cards after one or two purchases overseas, requiring follow-up calls to reactivate them. There will not be a third time for this: We'll have other cards. Visa needs a lesson in keeping customers.
The other main economic grievance was at Dollar Rent-a-Car. The ending price was substantially more than what my dad was first told, as they tacked on unmentioned charges. Customers before and after us had similar unhappy surprises, some worse. Reminded me of the prostitution in The Catcher in the Rye.
It didn't help the cost that we rented an SUV, a rather unfriendly transition for Prius owners. Why'd we do it? Long mountain roads in need of paving. After Sarah arrived, we drove out to the research center La Selva, where she'd studied ecology one semester. I'm not so sure I approved the plan, at her suggestion, to spend three days in those cabins, with a cafeteria for all meals. I've loved the rainforest for years, but if you're not a researcher, there's not much to do besides hike and read. And hiking is off when the rain pours for hours, and it's pretty scary at night with no guides (we eventually all bought flashlights).
La Selva was the buggiest area we went. We'd had malaria warnings but opted not to buy pills based on Sarah's report of low incidence in this particular part. No one got very sick, perhaps because we wore Off, long pants (partly for snakes), and sometimes long sleeves. On most days, tho, I didn't bother with the Off. I've retained some of the bite stoicism from my 1999 Panama stay. Of greater concern to me was the sun, but I never got burned enough to hurt. Never thought I'd buy a cap and enjoy it so much.
Moving on to our previous haunt of Costa Verde brought a welcome jump in luxury. Sure, the trails are more treacherous, but the beaches make them worthwhile. If you don't care for that, there are the hotel pools. It was at the CV hotel's restaurant that I'd found the first alcoholic beverage I really liked; they seem to have discontinued it, but I found a couple more this time. Unfortunately, despite the motto "Still more monkeys than people," the supercute squirrel monkeys didn't show up during our second stay. I'm glad that people don't feed them as often anymore, but there's also the factor of their numbers dwindling.
The best thing about visiting any rural area, of course, is the chance to see wildlife. No telling how many species of bird we saw and heard, and they give some intriguing calls. Between the hikes and a river cruise, we encountered:
-Cute capuchin monkeys, surprisingly close (one bared teeth to scare the photographers back)
-Weird-sounding howler monkeys
-Iguanas we almost stepped on without noticing
-Whip-tailed anoles we almost stepped on without noticing
-Tiny frogs, including the well-described "blue jean frog"
-Piglike peccaries (strong in odor, but I kinda like them)
-Variously patterned butterflies, including one type with spooky brown "eyes" on one side of the wings and a pretty blue on the other
-A gnarled plant reminiscent of Pan's Labyrinth
-Lightning bugs not much like the ones I know at home
-Large brown grasshoppers
-Speedy agouti cuties
-A skulking black animal who might have been a weasel
-A coatimundi
-Raccoons who tried to rob tourists... on the beach... at noon
-Leafcutter ants that wore their own paths and followed manmade ones for possibly miles, sometimes voguing with pink petals instead (why they needed to travel that far is unclear to me)
-Bullet ants
-Bats sleeping in groups under palm fronds
-Two- and three-toed sloths, two of which were climbing down unusually fast, probably (says a guide) to relieve themselves on the ground
-Boa constrictors coming in much smaller sizes than I thought
-A birdsnake crossing the path after an obvious recent feast
Apart from the mosquitos, the only really unwelcome encounter came late in the vacation when Sarah tripped and grabbed a spiny tree (a porcu-pine?), making her right hand not want to hold anything. Hope the dermatologist has just the thing for her.
The other great thing about CR that comes to mind is the politeness. A rigid airport employee aside, nobody seems to resent the tourists. At the same time, few vendors are anything like pushy, and even they respect your decline. (Their reported treatment of Nicaraguans these days is another story.)
Ooh, almost forgot: Before Sarah arrived, we rode a zipline course. Sarah and Mom had tried a different one before, but Dad and I had chickened out. This one may be scarier. Sure, it's more professional with the helmets and whatnot, but some lines exceed 2,000 feet in length and move very quickly. Good thing my glasses let me keep my eyes open in the wind. Unfortunately, unlike in the other course, most of the lines in this course curve in a U. If you don't lean back and keep your knees high long enough to get cramps the next day, you'll probably have to grab the line and drag yourself the last few yards. Hard to see much of the forest in that position. Grateful nothing fell out of my pockets. And once you've done the first line, you have no choice but to ride the other seven. I can just about guarantee that between the wind-whipped excitement and the long wait (at least if there are two families taking the course at once), you'll need the restroom right afterwards.
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Not enough tourists on the beach at midnight to make it worthwhile, really.
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