Livin La Vida Costa Rica, with a vengeance

Ever notice how some movie sequels attempt to be unnecessarily creative when a simple 2 or 3 suffix (as in Jaws 2 or Jaws 3) would do? I think Die Hard has to be one of the worst offenders, with Die Hard 2: Die Harder, and then Die Hard with a Vengeance. Then there's always the "Son of ___", "Bride of ___", and "___ Returns". Let me know if you remember a better silly sequel name. Enough of that though, to the main course. The resumption of our travels...

Saturday, September 10
Today we began a 2-day trip to go see the turtles in the Northeastern corner of Costa Rica - in a place called Tortuguero. Which literally means "turtle-catcher" after the natives who used to catch the turtles (I'm guessing here). This 2 day trip began with a 3 hour bus ride full of camera-toting tourists, many of them not of the 20 & 30 year old persuasion. Ooooh - the excitement of adventure was thick in the air. The northeastern area is a bit marshy and not so habitated, so the roads were not in spectacular condition. We did get to see a banana-packing plant along the way though. And about 30 kilometers of nothing but banana plantations. Fun. Our tour guide on this bus ride was the king of the entirely unnecessary dramatic pause. I've never seen (or heard) anyone, ANYONE, ever use as many dramatic pauses in normal speech where they are absolutely unnecessary. Neeraj and I had to duck down so that he didn't see us cracking up. He'd say things like, "And dinner tonight... ... ... ... is at 7pm... ... ... ... 7pm... ... ... ... 7pm." After a 2 hour boat ride from the end of the bus road, we finally arrived at our fancy hotel. They had a live band singing. Except that I thought it was more speaking in a tune rather than singing, since there was a clear lack of musical essence to the voices. And the song? Matilda. "Matilda. Matilda. Took the money and run Venezuela". In the early evening, we took a short trip from our hotel into the town of Tortuguero. During this short jaunt, we quickly got annoyed with one of the other tourists - someone I like to call "Cluelessita". I'm jumping ahead, but this quick bit will explain the name completely. On the ride back to San Jose, this girl said (and I quote, or pretty darn close) "Sometimes when someone is speaking Spanish, I can pick up a few of the words and I get really excited. Then I lose them because I got too excited." Anyway, after Cluelessita asked an inordinate number of questions related to the life cycles and mating habits of turtles and responding to each of the answers with a glossed-over brain-dead "Wowwwww", Neeraj and I went off in search of an internet terminal so that he could contact his wonderful loving girlfriend. This evening was actually pretty cool. At 8pm, we went to the beach with the park rangers to watch the turtles lay eggs. No flashlights, no cameras, and no light-colored clothing. The intent was to be as invisible to the turtles as possible. Quick aside - Neeraj had no idea what the hubbub (bub) was about with all of these turtles - he thought we came here on a 2 day trip to see the standard turtle (about 6 inches), not realizing that we would be in the midst of behemoth green sea turtles (4 feet long). So everyone who knows or sees Neeraj anytime soon, be sure to point at him and laugh uncontrollably. At him. Not with him... ... ... ... At him... ... ... 7pm. So we spotted a turtle that had just come up on the beach and was beginning to make it's way to the top of the beach to potentially lay some eggs. The group sat down and held still so as to not frighten the turtle away. Instead of coming straight up the beach, this turtle decided to come in at a slight angle and came within 3 or 4 feet from us. We were in spitting distance. Not that we would spit on a turtle. But it wouldn't notice anyway because it has a shell. We also got to watch several turtles leave the beach to go back into the ocean, and also saw a turtle laying eggs. Quite an eventful evening.

Sunday, September 11th
We woke up at 5am this morning to go on a boat ride through the canals to go check out some birds. Not "birds" in the British slang, but birds as the squawky lightweight creatures that we know them as. And we saw many birds, and I no longer remember which ones. I'm not much of a birder. We also saw some Caymans (mini-crocodiles) and a few small turtles. After a quick breakfast and shower, we took a quick 2 hour boat ride back to the bus ride, and then a 3-hour van-ride to San Jose. With Cluelessita. Neeraj and I had both come to the conclusion that we could ill afford to look at each other for the majority of the trip or else we'd burst out laughing at Cluelessita. And that would have been... ... ... rude.

Monday, September 12th
Today was the first day we had on our own. The previous week and change had been prescribed by the package tour we had paid for. The rest of this week was up to us. So after some hemming, and a little bit of hawwing, we settled on renting a car. Not a normal car, mind you, but a 4 wheel drive manual. A Daihatsu. What the heck is a Daihatsu? I think maybe it's Kia's low-cost division. And that's pretty darn scary. Acting on some advice from other Tortuguero tourists, we settled on our destination of Dominical on Pacific coast - largely a sleepy surfer town with nice beaches. The route to Dominical went through the mountains - a stretch of road that the locals call "Devil's Pass" because it's very windy and high in the mountains. But that Devil was no match for my driving prowess, as I conquered it in no time. That is, only after I took the hint of other motorists and became comfortable with passing very large trucks going very slowly on a very windy road. At some point, you just say "the hell with it" and punch the gas. In the States, I wouldn't do this. But in Costa Rica, all of the drivers are very aware of their surroundings and understand what other drivers must do. So they are expecting this sort of driving, which is why it works. Similar to New York City driving, which wouldn't work in most other places in the country. We reached Dominical just after sundown and picked a place out of the guidebook called Tortilla Flats. This was our first sub-4 star hotel experience in Costa Rica. And even then at $35/double, it was more than most of the tourists here were paying. But you get what you pay for. Neither of us slept well, and I got freaked out by a co-habitant roach that I met during a late-night bathroom break. I hate cockroaches. Pure loathing. Even as I type this, I am shuddering.

Tuesday, September 13th
After some breakfast and dropping off a load of laundry, we drove a few kilometers up to a private rainforest reserve called Hacienda Baru for a tree-climbing and zip line adventure. On this trip, our guides pointed out a few birds, a two-toed sloth, and a three-toed sloth. The only reason we knew how many toes they had is that we waved and then counted quickly as each waved back. The tree climbing adventure was neat - they suspended several ropes from a really really tall tree. And we used ropes and winches to climb up. Winch #1 was attached to your body harness. Winch #2 was attached to your legs. So, the process is that you stand up, putting all the pressure on Winch #2, and raise Winch #1 as high as possible. Then you sit in your harness with all the pressure on the recently elevated Winch #1, and lift your legs up along with Winch #2. Lather, rinse, repeat. This was quite a work-out for both of us, since we were mostly using our arms and not our legs. I could even hear my old climbing-fanatic roomies yelling at me "Use your legs!!!". Acting on a tip from someone we met at the hotel's bar last night, we decided to head north to the Rafiki Safari Lodge (yes - Rafiki like Rafiki the medicine monkey from the Lion King). All of yesterday's driving was on paved road. Today was all unpaved. After 20 km on very pot-holey road, we turned onto a gravel road for 17km. Actually, calling it gravel is like calling Cluelessita a Rhodes Scholar. Many times along the way, we questioned whether or not we were on the right road, or even on a road at all. When we arrived, we didn't know what to think. Then the manager, Loki, came bounding down the steps to our Daihatsu in the empty parking lot to welcome us and lead us up to the bar to chat and have our free welcome drink. Apparently, we were the only guests, and the last guests were the ones who had recommended the place to us. Rafiki is a relatively new place, opening in 2000 to preserve rainforest, promote socially and environmentally responsible tourism, and raise money to soon begin a tapir reintroduction program. What's a tapir? It's this huge behemoth of an animal that occurs naturally in these parts and through Central America and parts of South America. Rafiki recycles everything they can, composts or burns everything else (they go through great pains to ensure that it's done in an environmentally friendly way). All of the power is hydro-electrically generated from a nearby stream. The lodging at Rafiki is nothing short of extraordinary. They took African safari tents, added a big front porch, and outfitted the back of the tent with a large bathroom rivalling that of 4 star hotels. Our jaws dropped when we saw it and we were speechless. Needless to say, staying at Rafiki is not cheap, but since it was low season, we worked out a deal with Loki that was mutually agreeable. And no, this did not include washing dishes or performing certain favors. But by far the coolest part of Rafiki is the pool, or more specifically, the huge concrete waterslide leading to the pool. The pool itself is quite small, but is filled by water from the mountain stream, and overflows into a lake a few 100 feet away - the constant water replenishment means that no chlorine is needed, which is again, environmentally friendly. But back to the water slide - Neeraj and I must have slid down it at least 6 times each. And you go so fast that you get scared each and every time you slide down it. Just phenomenal. This evening, two girls joined us and Loki as the inhabitants of Rafiki: Jill and Renee, who are originally from Cincinnati. Jill has been in Costa Rica for the past few months doing odd jobs, including serving as a raft guide at Rafiki for a week or two. Renee is her visiting older sister, who currently lives in Phoenix working in a landscape architecture firm.

Wednesday, September 14th
Our big adventure trip this morning was a combination horseback ride (something I had sworn to my privates that I would not do again) and rafting trip down the Savegre River. The coolest part of the horseback ride was that we saw a family of toucans. I tried to take a picture, but the darn things wouldn't stay still or in plain unencumbered view. Stupid toucans with their Stoopid Froot Loops. The rest of the horseback ride was largely forgettable as far as I was concerned. Anytime we tried to gallop, I had to re-swear that I'd never do this again. The pain. Oh... ... ... the pain. The Savegre River itself is mostly a Class 3 river - nothing all that spectacular for normal rafts. But we weren't going on normal rafts; the rafts we were using were called "Mini-Me's". It's basically a much smaller raft for two rafters and one guide in the back, which means that the raft is much more maneuverable and much lighter. This is basically a recipe for getting tossed. And I got tossed a lot, beginning with the second rapid. Loki was our raft guide, and we pretty much told him to maximize the fun at virtually any cost. Which is pretty much a raft guide's dream. Renee, on the other hand, was scared to go at all, so their boat took easy routes with minimum spillage potential. We got tossed and then went back for more. All in all, Neeraj got tossed 5 times and I got tossed 10 times. Several of my unbalancings we due to rapid swings and shifts of the raft, completely attributable to the skill of Loki. The last 5 came on the same rapid - a relatively small rapid that was good for surfing (the raft pretty much holds in spot provided that the balancing is right) with an eddy to the side that allowed you to re-enter the rapid if you lost it. So we redid this rapid about 8 times. This was the mini-highlight of the trip, by far. Well, besides the waterslide, which we slid down another 8 times or so when we got back. We decided to stay at Rafiki again tonight because we were having such a great time, and having good company makes all the difference in the world. For anyone who is counting, this would make the first time that we are staying in the same place for consecutive nights.

Thursday, September 15th
This morning, we went on a 2-hour hike with Rafael on a close-up look through the rainforest and learn more about the plantlife and birdlife of the area. I'm not naturally very excited about plantlife and birdlife, but I was very excited just to take a hike (pardon the euphemism) and have a look around and appreciate nature and its beauty. And it was visually stunning. Since Neeraj and I have had so little actual exercise, we were absolutely pooped with just hiking for 2 hours. Very very sad. But we had the perfect remedy for this when we returned. Waterslide. Say it with me: water... ... ... slide. After cleaning up, we drove up to Quepos and the Manuel Antonio National Park, which is quite possibly some of the most touristed area of the country. A few short years ago, this area was considered to be quiet and hidden. Now, it's full of large resorts overlooking the Pacific. I wasn't particularly looking forward to going here based on everything I had heard, but I didn't want to not go either since the surrounding landscape is supposed to be beautiful. After finding a place with an ocean view, we pretty much just planted down to rest. We were both exhausted. Our room had a TV too, so we watched some Telemundo. I love Telemundo. Sometimes I turn the volume down when I watch Telemundo - but that's a different story. I watched some of the Miss Italy pageant - the talent portion of their pageant is quite diverse and interesting. One girl did what looked to be a stripper routine on the host, and another did some face-painting. But the Telemundo highlight was watching that show "Small Wonder" - remember that sitcom from the 80's? It's the one of the family with a 10 year old robot daughter who talks in a monotone voice, but somehow their idiot community doesn't realize that she's a robot. It's way funnier in Spanish. And no, I was not drinking.

Friday, September 16th
Our main activity today was a kayaking trip through a nearby mangrove swamp called Isla Damas. It was just me and Neeraj on this trip with the guide (like that's never happened before), and we had actual kayaks this time (not the inflatable kind). But there was no danger whatsoever. Except the swarm of monkeys that we met. And any temple-going Indian knows, monkeys are evil. They steal your things and hide their poop in your clothing when you're unawares (no, this has never happened to me). We did manage to see more birds and more trees. After cleaning up at the hotel, we swung by the park entrance and picked up Jill and Renee to give them a lift back to San Jose. It was a 3-4 hour drive, and it was getting late. The treacherous part of the trip was up a mountain, without guardrails. And seemingly without any lines or reflectors whatsoever. This was the real adventure. There were a number of times where I had no idea where the pavement was, what direction it was going, and where the edge of the cliff was. With the headlights coming in my direction, I generally just aimed to stay to the right of them and cross my fingers that I was correct. On more than one occasion, the road signs were not reflective in nature, and we barely veered in time for our turns. The redeeming factor in this trip was the radio. For whatever reason, Costa Rica has a plethora of radio stations that play 80's music that is extremely singable. So, every 3 minutes, we were all hooting excitedly and singing along to songs we hadn't heard in forever. We even heard two separate Bangles songs ("Eternal Flame" and "Walking Down Your Street") on two different radio stations. I mean - when's the last time that's happened?

Saturday, September 17th
I returned the rental car and then got on my flight home. No drama. No interesting stories. Nada. Sorry to disappoint. I did finish another book today though - "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris. I've read another book by Sedaris, and something tells me that all of his books are pretty similar. It's an interesting read. Nothing I'd say that you MUST go read now, but it's not a bad read in the least. That is, if you are like me and don't care much for the movie-worthy action adventures or murder mysteries or Harlequins.

Okie doke. That's it for now. I don't know where the next trip may be, but I figure that it will be something a bit more adventurous. Currently, I'm leaning towards a long hiking trip (7-10 day) in Patagonia. Any takers? Let me know if you are interested and we can work out a time frame that works for all those interested. As far as the extended guys weekend out, let me know if you are interested in that too. I'm thinking of a 3-day rafting trip down the Colorado River in April for starters.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.
-Paraag

Tidbits:
1. One of the first things Neeraj and I looked up in our Spanish-English dictionary was "moo" when we passed a cow on the bed of a truck. Just so that you know, it's "mugido". No really... it is... No joke... mugido.

2. To give you an idea of the level of comedy between my brother and me these past 2 weeks, here's a few sample whittled-down conversations:
me (offering a bottle of sunscreen): "do you want to put more on?"
Neeraj: "did you just call me a moron?"

me: "you have the door key, right?"
Neeraj: "no, you're dorky"

Neeraj: "wakka wakka wakka"
me: "here comes Jaws" (from a Pac-Man sticker 25 yrs ago when we were utes)

Neeraj: "what the hell is that?"
me: "must be one of them Mexican staring frogs of southern Sri Lanka"

Okay, maybe you had to be there. I was going to try and have a count for you of the number of obscure movie/TV/advertisement references we made over the length of the trip, but I lost count on the second morning.

3. I'll try again. On Friday, we asked our kayak guide what river we were crossing. After he replied "Naranjo", my brother asked if this was like "naranja" which means orange. When the guide replied that it was not, my brother responded with how about "naranja con cojones?"

4. Watching NFL games on HDTV is amazing. This has nothing to do with the trip, but I'm watching football right now as I write this, and it's important to note.

Livin La Vida Costa Rica

Hi. I'm in Costa Rica. And you know what that means... you probably should move on to the next message until you have time to read this! For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, a brief introduction: every year for the past three or so, whenever I travel abroad for fun and pleasure, I send back a weekly note to my friends and family who want to keep tabs on me. This was blogging before people knew what blogs were. And I'm too stubborn to find a blog site. So hit delete if you want to or simply tell me to get you the hell off of this list.

The quick overview - my brother Neeraj and I are in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks. For any of you who have had the pleasure of meeting my brother, you`ve understood within 5 seconds where I got my rather strange sense of humour from.

Saturday, September 3rd
I got up early this morning to catch my 8am flight out of LaGuardia. Worse even, my poor cousin had to drop me off. Wow. I'm even boring myself already. This was a pretty ho-hum day. I waited at the hotel for my brother to join me. In the meantime, I read an ENTIRE book - The Kite Runner by some Afghani fellow. It's really quite good. Consider that a reco.

Sunday, September 4th
Neeraj and I started the first real day of our 10-day package tour today. I got lazy and we booked a package tour. Very unlike me, I know. Please forgive and forget. First stop: the Monteverde cloud forest. We boarded our private soccer-mom mobile transportation taxi for the 3 hour ride. Roughly 53.7% of this ride was unpaved and filled with pothole-hell. But we arrived to the Hotel El Establo in the early afternoon. This hotel was absolutely stunning. We had a "Junior Suite", complete with a walk-out back entrance that overlooked said-cloud forest. Our first event of the day? A Canopy tour. I had no idea what a canopy tour was, but what I did know is that we were doing the tour with "The Original Canopy Tour" company. It`s a good thing I did this package tour thingy, otherwise I may have been tempted by "The Imitation Canopy Tour" company`s offerings. And that would have been very bad. So, the canopy tour is basically as follows: the company selected very strong and sturdy trees to build platforms on way way up there (enter some height dimension here that would make you go "oy vey!"). Between these platforms, they string a super duper heavy duty industrial-grade cable. And on this cable, they attach you with a harness to a pulley and send you on your way. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! It was fun - yes. But we were so focused on getting us tourist types from platform to platform that we didn`t really have time to focus on the surrounding nature. So, 1 hour of 7 zip lines and 2 rappels and we were done. On our tour was a fellow who manages the zip line operation up at Whistler. He says he was "merely" on vacation, but we think he was doing some serious recon work. You know - since Whistler in British Columbia and Monteverde, Costa Rica are direct competitors and all. I made it a point to let him know that "The Original Canopy Tour" is often imitated, but never duplicated. Neeraj and I were not content with driving through pothole-hell only to take in a few zip lines, so we signed up for a night walk to look for sleeping animals and grody bugs. We even got to hold our own weakly powered flashlights in desperate need of new batteries! Imagine the fun and excitement. So let`s see - we woke up an armadillo sleeping in the trees (that`s what we were told it was), made a tarantula retreat into a hole, and saw lots of ants, leaf-cutters, and other grody insects. Unfortunately, they didn`t let us keep our weakly powered flashlights in desperate need of new batteries as a souvenir. After a quick dinner at Morphos Cafe in the tourist trap town of Monteverde, we went in search of nightlife. We found it at Bar Amigos. Blaring music, disco lights, and completely empty. Perhaps 9pm was too early. But I`m an old fart now, so we headed to the hotel, where hanging out on the back porch watching the lightning and listening to the thunder over the cloud forest narrowly beat out watching Scary Movie 3 on the tube.

Monday, September 5th
After a quick breakfast of black beans and rice and scrambled eggs, we were picked up by another soccer-mom mobile to head to the Arenal Volcano. Except this time, our ride was not so private: we were joined by 4 backpackers and a local lady complete with snot-nosed (though cute) 2 year old. After surviving another few hours of pothole-hell on dirt bullock-cart roads, we came to Laguna de Arenal. The next portion of our trip was by boat. So there`s a bunch of us tourists standing there, waiting for instruction, and the fellow tells Neeraj and me to get on the boat. So we do. And the boat takes off. The backpackers are still standing on the dock. And so we`re the only two people on the boat with at least 60 seats. We thought we had booked a relatively cheap package tour. I guess not. So Neeraj and I did what anyone would do in this situation - we laughed and pointed and stuck our tongues out at the backpackers. And when we got to the other side of the lake? Yes - we had our own private tour bus take us to our hotel. Quick aside to demonstrate the level of stupid comedy that ensues when my brother and I are in the same room. The tour company`s name was Arenal Adventures (not to be confused with A Renal Adventure that occurs with passing a kidney stone), and their motto was "For Nature Lovers". Upon seeing this plastered on the boat, I promptly turned to Neeraj and said "Neeraj, don`t be a nature hater". Okay. Maybe we`re the only two people in existence that find this funny. Our hotel here is Arenal Paraiso, and our accommodation is a private bungalow with a view of the still-active Arenal Volcano. There is a beautiful pool with a wet bar, and 10-15 small jacuzzi pools scattered about for privacy. Very romantic indeed. Too bad we`re not gay. True - we are brothers, but remember that we grew up Kentucky. Our tour this evening was to the base of Arenal Volcano. Pre-1968, no one knew that this was a volcano, and the name was Montana Arenal. Unfortunately for the villagers on the west side of the "mountain", everyone learned the truth loud and clear as a village was wiped out. Since then, the volcano has been spewing forth a steady stream of lava bursts. With the binoculars, it was possible to see some red rocks tumble down the side. After the volcano tour and some nice picture-taking activities, we went to the Tabacon hot springs for a relaxing soak in hot springs and a grand buffet dinner. Again, Que Romantica!

Tuesday, September 6th
Ahhh... our first real exercise on the trip was planned for this morning. After another breakfast of black beans and rice and scrambled eggs, we headed out for a 4 hour mountain bike ride with two other tourists, who doubled as American Airlines flight attendants. Chris and Andre. Both female. And both over 40. But they were loads of fun and we learned plenty about the secret lifestyle of flight attendants. By the time we returned to our private hideaway bungalow, we were thoroughly exhausted - feet, ankles, quads, butt, you name it. All in pain. But instead of relaxing to give the pain a chance, we had to get cleaned up to be taken to our next destination: Selva Verde. Selva Verde is a private rainforest reserve on 500+ acres. They are level 2 on the eco-tourism commission scale thingy, whatever the heck that means. And this being low season, we were about the only ones there. Except for about 15 retired folks with Elderhostel. Neeraj and I tried to do as much exploration of this place as possible, since our departure was scheduled for early the next morning. So, we took a walk about the grounds. Or at least we tried to. The primary forest was restricted for private tours only and it was too late in the day to take a private tour. So we were left with the much smaller secondary forest, which to our chagrin was not very accessible either. The park attendant there basically restricted us to a straight gravel road that ran for a few hundred meters. That was much fun. So we went back to the room to rest the aforementioned sore parts. Then we met Iliana. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. She works at Selva Verde and spoke perfect American English. Probably because she grew up in California, but that´s beside the point. She came by and talked with us as we had our dinner in the empty dining hall, and then we were graced by her presence again later as we had a few cordials at the bar. And that´s about it. Quick clarification for Neeraj`s girlfriend Rupa (earmuffs for the rest of you). Iliana is no Rupa. Believe me. I just had nothing more exciting to write about than a decently cute lady who we spoke to for about 5 minutes in total. We were THAT bored.

Wednesday, September 7th
We woke up this morning at 6am to go on a free birdwatching tour with one of the guides. As expected, we were the only people on the tour. So we had customized service. Among the more impressive sightings were a toucan, a couple of kingfishers, and other random birds that we don't remember the names of. Later in the morning, we went kayaking this morning on the Class 2 Sarapiqui river. Neeraj has never kayaked before, and I`ve been a few times. But before you get some amazingly glamourous imagery in your head of us doing rolls and hot dogging it in the rapids or anything like that, I should make a few minor clarifications about this kayak. Firstly, we were in a 2-person kayak. Secondly, the kayak was inflatable. They call it a ducky kayak. I think of it more as an inflatable canoe. But it was all good since neither of us had ever been in anything other than a raft over Class 2 rapids. Again, we were treated to customized personalized service, since we were the only two people on this trip with our guide. Our guide David gave us little to no instruction at all too, which I particularly liked. David reminded me of Lou Diamond Phillips. Or Benjamin Bratt. Or a cross between the two. Along the way, Lou/Benji took us on a quick meandering through the woods to find some poisonous frogs. He caught a few really cool ones - a red one with blue legs called the Blue Jeans frog and a camouflage green and black one called the Sgt. Slaughter frog (okay - I don't remember what the real name was). W got to hold them and cuddle them and call them our own. They're poisonous but it's safe as long as we didn't lick them or rub them against any open wounds. Which was a bummer since I wanted to have a distance frog-spitting contest with Neeraj. Oh well, next time... After a quick lunch, we were driven in our luxury vehicular transport (a 20 year old four-door ratty pick-up truck) to our next hotel, which was another private reserve called Sueno Azul. This place could have been really cool, except that it was virtually deserted. It`s two in the afternoon and even the reception fellow was at a loss for what we could do for the remainder of the evening. Looking at the brochure for the place, we saw this huge man-made pool that is filled by a natural waterfall and figure that perhaps we should head over there to find people. Since there is no way to easily get there at this hour, we embark on a one hour hike on a gravel road. The place is deserted. So deserted that the fellow who maintains the area comes up to us and strikes up a conversation (though he speaks no English) because he`s bored out of his mind. We take a dip and then head over with this fellow to the butterfly garden that he also maintains, where we get to see all sorts of pupae, larvae, and all of those other icky and slimy and gooey stages that a butterfly goes through before becoming a butterfly. The neatest part of this excursion? We rode a tractor back to the lodge.

Thursday, September 8th
This morning we begin our 2-day/1-night rafting adventure down the Class 3/4 Pacuare River. On the trip with us were a couple from a Barcelona business school, a married couple who run a restaurant and store in Florida, and six ex-Enron older fellas who get together for an extended weekend every year for a guy`s weekend out of sorts. This is their 12th year doing this, and they`re just loads and loads of high hilarity and are full of stories of their drunken misadventures in the past. Through the course of conversation, it turned out that one of those guys has spent the last year and a half in Indianapolis (where my brother lives) and they both used to frequent the same place (BW3) and play the NTN trivia game all the time. They even recognized each other`s NTN names. Small world. After having breakfast and riding in a bus seemingly in the middle of nowhere for 3 hours, we finally arrived to the put in for the rafting trip. The six fellas in one raft, the other six in the second raft. The other raft also had an innertube that they dragged behind the raft for someone to attempt to ride out. "Attempt" is the key word here, as it didn´t take long for the first guy on the inner tube to get tossed. I was very jealous - I WANNA RIDE THE INNERTUBE!!! Today`s rafting adventure only consisted of one hour of Class 3 rapids. Along the way, we passed by many of the campsites of the other rafting companies. And then we arrived to the Pacuare Lodge where we were staying. Boy this was luxury. A bungalow for every 2 people, complete with fully functional bathroom. The kitchen was amazing and appointed with extremely nice cooking appliances. The lawn was meticulously manicured. Unbelievable. To kill some time while most of the others went on a canopy tour set up here, a few of us went for a short jungle hike to a couple of waterfalls for a swim and a waterfall massage. It had rained extremely heavily last night (which made for a much better and faster first day of rafting by the way), so our waterfalls were more than mere trickles and were powerful enough that we had trouble even staying underneath the waterfall to get the waterfall massage. But that didn`t keep me or Neeraj from trying. Our guide Laura remarked that we were like little kids. Dinner this evening was exquisite and by far the best meal that I`ve had so far: beef tenderloin, cashew rice, and some steamed vegetables with a few glasses of red wine. Even our dessert plates were decorated, just as you`d find in a fancy restaurant. Even breakfast the next morning was sans the black beans and rice. And yet, we were in the middle of nowhere without even electricity. Led by the six older fellas, we all proceeded to the bar and drank the place out of beer, vodka, and tequila. Slowly, everyone retired and went to sleep... before 11pm. When the guys realized this the next morning, they quickly realized that this was the earliest any of them had ever gone to bed on any of their prior 12 excursions. Even so, one of them was so drunk that he fell in a ditch at some point and woke up in a dirty bed with an extremely badly bruised/broken toe.

Friday, September 9th
At first, I thought to myself that this was way too luxurious for my style. I thought differently this morning when I woke up completely and utterly refreshed. The pampering had had its intended effect. So I showered up and headed to the dining bungalow, and WHAAAA! There's a huge 4 or 5 foot long venomous Bushwacker snake right there on the ground in front of me. And now that I've jumped away, it hasn't moved an inch. And it appears that its head is propped up on a rock. And there are people inside the dining bungalow laughing at me. Nice prank. But I want to see my brother's reaction. After all, night before last, he freaked out over a crunchy junebug on the OUTSIDE of the window screen. This should be good. So I walk with him from our bungalow to the dining bungalow making sure that he passes right by the snake, and ummm... nothing. Doesn't even notice it. So I call out to him to stop and motion over and he's like - "Hey, there's a snake on the ground." Today is the fun day of rafting: all Class 3s and 4s. Yippee! The first half of the day was largely uneventful in our boat, as we were mostly turning around to watch the six guys sing songs and halfheartedly paddle out of synch. After lunch, Neeraj and I swapped with a couple of the older gentlemen who weren`t of the mind to get tossed from the boat. In the end we were very happy that they offered to do this. For one of the rapids, we all stood up on the raft in a circle huddle, and attempted to ride out the wave. It didn`t work, and three of us were tossed from the boat. For another rapid, we headed straight for a rock wall as our guide yelled "No brakes! No brakes!". I got tossed with Neeraj on this one, and found myself under the raft for what seemed like 90 seconds, but in reality was a little more than 5 seconds. I was actually pretty calm and collected while under water, and I remember thinking to myself that I just might want to find out where the edge of this raft is because breathing is important too. And seemingly, every which way I went, all I found was more raft. Until 90 seconds later of course (or 5 seconds if you want to believe the guide). The guide told me that he could see me pushing up on the raft floor and that I traversed the raft a couple of times before finding the edge. All good fun. After the rafting run, we said our goodbyes, exchanged e-mail addresses, and headed on our way. The fellas were heading down to a town on the Caribbean coast called Cahuita, and we were headed back to the lovely Sueno Azul, where we would again have absolutely nothing to do. So I picked up a book there called "Ragtime in Simla" by Barbara Cleverly. I don`t recommend it. It`s your standard murder mystery with plot twists and so forth, but it was set in early 1900`s India. Every major character was a Britisher, except of course for the fellow who came out of the woodworks to be the ultimate villain - the seemingly innocuous (and very Indian) workplace confidante of the female suspects. Just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Okay, that`s week one in a nutshell. I`ll write more when I get home and let you know all about week two.

Tidbits:
1. I`m thinking of starting my own guy`s extended weekend (3-5 days) out type of groups. I`m not looking for any level of drunken debauchery here that these guys partake in, but I think it`d be neat to have a standing weekend trip where a bunch of us go hiking/camping/rafting/biking/spelunking/whatever to somewhere where few or none of us have been. And you rotate planning ownership among the group from year to year. Let me know if you`re interested.

2. For whatever reason, virtually every tourist that we`ve come across from the US has been from the West Coast. My theory is that East Coasters go the the Caribbean for vacation, while West Coasters go to Mexico or Central America for vacation. Note that I`m still working on the refinements of this particular theory.

3. Black beans and rice and scrambled eggs are the standard breakfast here, as Zach and I found that a single pancake and porridge were the standard breakfast in Peru. In both cases, it was very good and filling the first few days, but gets very old very quickly. I want my Kashi.

4. The standard phrase that everyone says here is "Pura Vida", which is the national "hello" or "goodbye" of Costa Rica, and literally translates to "Pure Life". I suppose this is akin to "Hang Loose" in Hawaii and "No problem, Mon" in Jamaica.

5. Does anyone know how to say, "Get your brown ass a calling card so you can call your lovely, spectacular, magnificent, loving girlfriend" in Spanish? Rupa would like to know.

6. Any serious coffee buffs out there? I'm thinking about hauling back some nice beans, and just wanted to know if anyone was nuts about coffee enough to want some.