Hola, my friends! Time for our last update.

We leave tomorrow morning for a three hour car ride to a 3 hour flight to a 3 hour layover to another three hour flight to a taxi home around 1130pm. At first, Andrea and I were relieved that we wouldn’t have to relive the horror of the anfractuous local flight from here to San Jose.  The drive would be a little long, sure, but anything beats being trapped in a claustrophobic biplane piloted by Evel Knievel’s long lost relatives. And then we learned what ‘drive’ means in Costa Rica. Roads here seem to be more of a suggestion, as drivers, pedestrians, and animals compete to see who can move in the most random patterns. Speeds are always excessive. I couldn’t help but think of Mad Max each time we took a taxi somewhere, our off-brand SUV caroming back and forth across gravel paths.

The cars combine the old with the new. No matter how junky the auto, every car seems to come equipped with NSA level GPS features. Cars also still have those miniature coin-purse ash trays jutting out from each side. Drivers always drape a discolored rag over the stick shift. At first I thought this was to mop up the occasional barf from unaccustomed tourists. Then I realized they use them to swat at flies. It’s pretty neat to watch a driver navigate a monkey and pothole littered path while laughing into a black market cell phone with one hand and towel-snapping horse flies with the other. Don’t even worry about the steering.

So Wednesday was our trip to Ecotermales, one of the many natural hot springs in the area. Andrea and I had previously visited hot springs somewhere in the bowels of Virginia. Although the Virginia pamphlet beckoned us with the majesty of the Earth’s waters, what we found was a ragged hole more suited to mass graves than family fun. So imagine our surprise when we discovered the hot springs at Ecotermales. I say ‘discovered’ because, like pretty much everything here, you must navigate through a gorgeous maze of neon green to arrive at your destination. The trees had some serious Lord of the Rings vibes going on, roots and branches twisting into Escher-like spirals. The place was wonderful. 102 degree natural water cascading down perfectly imperfect rock formations. We soaked, watched infinite trails of ants carrying gnawed off sections of leaf three times their size, and commiserated with the other tourists. Besides the two of us, only five other people were visited the hot springs that day.

We dried off and headed to the Ecotermales restaurant for a late lunch. Like most places here, everything seems to be everything. A house is never a house. It’s also a local attraction, a cattle ranch, and an official site for spelunking, kayaking, and/or insect farm. We were alone in the massive restaurant until a collection of elderly locals came hobbling in on walkers and wheel chairs. They sported the universal uniform of the infirm: massive cataract glasses, high-waisted slacks, trucker hats with intelligible logos, and slightly stained polo shirts. Always tucked. Although we had finished eating by the time they rounded the bend and sat down at a table, we stayed for a while to listen to them play the harmonica and glare at each other menacingly.

A sea of tourists greeted us on our return to the hotel. For whatever reason, (close enough to the end of the week perhaps?), tourists have now descended like locusts upon Nayara. We left our room and walked right into a large family taking pictures of a two-foot iguana. One of the kids tried to grab it, leaving us without a picture of the glorious lizard. We were, however, able to get slightly decent photos of Tony the sloth (a giant tuft of fur perfectly balanced against a single tree branch) and Pedro the macaw.

We ended the night with a five course meal complete with wine pairing. Each time the wine expert came out to discuss the particulars of why an oaken Chardonnay went well with capers, he ended with an, “Oh, yea! And it really brings out the flavors of the fruit punch, amigo!” Haha.

Today we hit La Fortuna, the small tourist town built after the 1960s volcano explosion decimated the previous town. I can’t wait to go to the drugstore. Which also functions as a Catholic Church, a papusa restaurant, and maybe a place to herd goats.

Pura Vida!

Tuesday proved to surpass Monday in terms of excitability. This one is a long one, so apologies in advance. This is all pretty much stream of consciousness.

The day began with the usual. I sat and read among the local insects while the lone employee (330 their time, after all) hummed unrecognizable melodies and shuffled a ream of receipts into various patterns. Giant crickets and cicadas congregated happily until 5, when The Sweepers arrived. Within minutes, coffee was out, insects were shooed, and receipts were filed.

Andrea and I ate breakfast and went to yoga, snapping pictures of pretty much anything that moved. There are SO many insects and birds and frogs. At any given moment, the noises you hear range from standard hoots and howls to what sounds like cranky wind-up toys. Oh yea, and the unnervingly human sqwaking of the parrot(s). I’ve been trying to hunt him down ever since catching a glimpse of him our first morning here. I’m not alone in this Mellvillesque drama. I’ve seen a number of tourists chasing him around the resort with cameras fixed to the sky. As luck would have it, we stumbled upon him later in the afternoon while crossing a bridge to a restaurant. We did not have our camera, of course. But there he was, perched a foot away from us. I said, ‘hello,’ and he responded in kind. The bird mimics some human speech pretty well. So Andrea and I stood there in front of him, repeating words and phrases to see which ones worked. Crazy.

The big event of the day was the zip line. I’ve done a zip line before, but it was at an APA team building retreat. Although it was pretty scary, I figured I could handle it. This was before we took a sky tram high above the tree line of the rain forest. Reread that last sentence. A fearless group of locals (with nicknames like ‘Spicey Nacho’ etched into their helmets) led the six of us (three American couples ranging in age) down a series of eight zip lines. Imagine zipping across a wire hundreds of feet in the air and hundreds of feet across. Again, this is happening above the tree line. They strapped you in, cracked a few jokes about falling, then told you to Go with God and shoved you on your way. It was terrifying. The others were hooting, twisting and turning and gazing at the forest floor above them. I on the other hand managed to survive by keeping my eyes focused on a single fixed position directly in front of me and refusing to deviate from that point. By the last couple, your brain is pretty worn out from pumping adrenaline non-stop through your system.

That brings me to my next point: friendliness. Every single person we’ve met here, from the wait staff to the zip line guys to the naturalist to the locals in the street has been unnervingly friendly. Not just friendly, jocular. Pretty much everyone jokes around. Normally you might say they’re just reading the customer and following their lead. But here, even a first conversation is filled with playful banter. For instance, when I tell the wait staff, “no alcohol in the fruit punch, please,” they always bring my drink and say something like, “here you go, my friend! Extra rum, just the way you like it!” They also shout out, “Pura Vida!” all the time. They do this so often I looked it up in Wikipedia. Sure enough, it’s some sort of Costa Rican catch phrase meaning good health, congratulations, celebrate life, etc. But they recite this bromide with such enthusiasm. Today I’m going to ask around and see if they say it when tourists aren’t around.

We ended the day with a meal at one of the many restaurants at the resort. Resort doesn’t seem like the right word, though, but I guess it is. This is a highly rated Eco-resort. Everything is recycled, natural, from the land, etc. Barriers and partitions are made from local flora and fauna, not concrete made to look like local flora and fauna. Since today is Earth Day, the entire resort is switching over to candles and natural light. The respect for nature is amazing.

Today we’re going to visit one of the many hot springs and then go to a wine pairing dinner.

Here you go amigo, a double shot, just like you asked, right?

Day one turned out to be non-stop. Andrea planned it this way on purpose; each day requires incrementally less energy. That way, we have the least to do when we’re the most tired.

The day started out with a breakfast of delicious fruit, local eggs, and pretty much anything else you could ever want. The staff have permanent rictus smiles plastered on their faces, and are pretty much willing to do whatever you want. I probably could have asked for a dodo egg cooked of the still-smoking volcano and they would have replied, ‘perfecto!’, given me a thumbs up, and strapped on their hiking boots. Everyone seems to content. I’m constantly looking for cracks in the facade. Trying to figure out just how happy they really are. This is a habit I should probably not indulge.

After breakfast, we headed to our morning yoga session, where a crunchy yogini took us through some introductory poses. Conversation was kept to a minimum, as I suspect most of the participants were still waking up. In order to fend off jet lag, I’ve been keeping to my sleep schedule despite the two hour time difference (I got up at 3 am here, 5 back in the states). From yoga we went to the spa for our couples massage. Andrea had the hot stones; I had whatever sounded the most painful. In this case that meant having a diminutive woman use her equally diminutive elbow to balance her entire weight onto my back. It was intense. 

Next up was a quick lunch of ceviche by the pool. We took more pictures of the flora and fauna (CR has a stunning amount of biodiversity) and hopped on our tour bus for a hanging bridges tour. Oscar, our jocular guide, displayed a surprisingly deft hand at sarcasm and dry wit. We tromped through the rain forest (the first rule is don’t touch anything unless you know what it is), walked over giant suspension bridges, and got all agog over the insects and creatures inhabiting the place (the second rule is don’t stick your finger in a hole). We saw tarantulas, three different types of monkeys, birds, snakes, and more.

We returned home exhausted. Despite this, we changed and ate a delicious dinner while a guitarist played flamenco versions of 1980s hair metal ballads.

Everything here is so clean and friendly. They appear to hire multiple people whose only job is to sweep. I confirmed that this morning while drinking coffee and reading in the lobby. Bugs, lizards, cicadas, beetles, and birds must occupy the open lobby every evening, only to be swept away when the workers arrive via shuttle at 530.

Signing off for now.