Costa Rica - Epilogue

Amy and I had a very pleasant trip to Costa Rica. Considering we really didn't have any sense as to what to expect, our trip certainly exceeded our expectations. It didn't rain as much as I expected. The food was not as spectacular as I expected. The "adventure" stuff was very fun. We didn't hurt ourselves on anything. The roads sucked; pretty much as expected. The beaches were pleasant, but not extraoridinary. I think I would have liked a like more infrastructure at the beach, but that would have entailed heading down to Tamarindo instead of staying at Playa Potrero.

Would we recommend Costa Rica to others?
I guess it depends. I don't know if Costa Rica would be the first place I would recommend people visit. While the landscape and geography stretch from tropical to mountainous to coastal sandy beaches, the country didn't particularly stand out to me. Maybe because we didn't go to San Jose and what we saw were the touristy aspect of the country, I never felt that I was able to grasp the local flavor of Costa Rica; something I try to do whenever I visit a foreign place or even a not so foreign place.

Because it's such a short flight away and not the most expensive place to travel, it is different and had elements of things that I wouldn't experience else where.

What woud we have done differently?
I think the only thing we would have done differently would have been to reserve a rent-a-car from Santa Elena with the option to return it in Liberia. It really isn't the cost issue, but the freedom transportation options would have given us. We were pretty much stuck at Playa Potrero whether or not we liked it or not. The rental car would have given us options to seek out more local aspects of the country that staying on the beaten track didn't allow us to do. Finally, we are never going to travel withou the Lonely Planet guidebook again. The Moon Handbook sucked big time. The maps sucked. There was no sense or recommendations as to what was good or bad. Just not helpful at all. We probably could have or did travel through Costa Rica without it.

Total Costs - Total
Airfare = $830
Hotels = $220 (5 nights)
Transportation = $244
Adventure Things and Hikes and Stuff = $550
Food and miscellaneous = $400 or so
Total costs = $2,200

Beach + Sun = BURN!!

Day 7

Today was our last full day in Costa Rica. We thought about getting out of Potrero Beach and heading out to Brasilito, which was supposed to have some more infrastructure. However, in the end, we just stayed in Potrero and enjoyed our last night in Costa Rica there.

The morning started off almost where it left off. Because we enjoyed our visit to Maxwell's so much, we decided to have breakfast with Kelly and Steve again. However, we got there a tad too early (around 8AM) and no one was up yet. We had to wake Steve up and get him to cook us breakfast. After 30 minutes, he had prepared us a nice omlette and some pancakes to go with it. Kelly woke up by then and we spent the next hour or so talking with her about why they moved down here and what their plans were.

She had given us the name of a hotel in Brasilito that we can check out. Unfortunately, they were all booked up. Nevertheless, we thought we might check out Brasalito and Playa Conchal out. Kelly had raved about Playa Conchal and we figured there was no point to staying in Playa Potrero. So, we walked along the beach, went to the bank to pay for our departure tax ($26), and then took the bus to Brasalito.

Brasalito was a little beach town with probably 10-15 businesses total. 10 of them were probably little restaurants. Not the nicest town in the world, but a whole lot more action there than Potrero. The beach was not all that good at all, but we can see Conchal and it looked pretty nice. Plus, there looked like there was a decent amount of traffic headed that way.

Playa Conchal was around 2km away from Brasalito. The beaches in Costa Rica don't have these crazy long stretches of white sand like southern California. They are more like what one would see on a little tropical island. Conchal was filled with Costa Rican vacationers. There was one resort there filled with gringos and they provided all the amenities like jet ski and ATV rentals. We didn't we didn't want to do any of those. It was way too expensive. So we just hung out. Amy fell asleep on the beach and I just read a book.

However, it didn't take me too long to realize that my chest was getting burnt by the strong sun. Apparently, I didn't apply any sunblock on my chest, neck, and upper arm. So while Amy was sleeping away, I was getting cooked by the sun. What's up with that. I soon got bored of just sitting around and toasting away and just wanted to go home. After a few hours at Conchal, we started to head back. We walked to Brasalito, got something to eat, and then jumped back on the local bus to Potrero.

We did dinner at Maxwell's again. Where else were we going to eat? Got the ribs again. I think I'm totally ribbed out. No more. We had fun, but three meals at the same place in two days is defintely our limit.

We leave tomorrow at 5AM. Why this early? Who knows.

Good night.

Beach! Here We Come!

Day 6

This morning we left the little hamlet of Santa Elena for the Pacific Coast. But on the way out, we had to drive through the mountains and hills of Costa Rica. It was here that we continued the treacherous drive through unpaved roads. I wonder why the government just doesn't invest a little more money to pave the roads. There's a reason why infrastructure is called infrastructure. The government invests the money and the improvements add exponentially to the growth of the economy. Better roads equals quicker transport of goods, services, and people. More transport equals more growth. More growth equals better standard of living. Seems pretty simple to me. But unfortunately, the fruit of this labor usually doesn't ripen until after the politicians leave office. It's kind of a horrid catch-22.



Our private shuttle to the beach was pretty much like a private taxi. There was only us and another German couple from Frankfurt. Really nice people. They were headed out to Playa del Cocos to do some diving. We dropped them off first before the driver took us to Playa Potrero. Instead of driving on the nice roads and adding an additional 3o kms, the driver took the Monkey Trail...another series of dirt unpaved roads through the rural countryside. The geography of the Pacific Coast was completely different from the Costa Rica that we had already visited. It's very much like the Santa Monica mountains that connects Malibu with Calabassas. We drove through little streams and navigated giant potholes.

Eventually, we made it to Amy's colleagues' house in Playa Potrero. Good thing he gave her a picture or else who knows how we were going to find the place. It was a nice little house with a main section and another area in the back that's supposed to be the guest house. He's trying to sell it for $475,000.



It was hard for us to get oriented. The biggest problem was that we didn't have any mode of transportation other than our two little feet. We decided to head out onto the beach which was just five minutes away. It was a nice little beach, probably 4 kms wide. We walked toward Playa Flamingo which was the nearest sign of civilization.

Me Jane! Amy = Tarzan!

Day 5

Yahoo!! Or whatever Tarzan is supposed to yell. Yep that was Amy. Jumping off a 45 foot platform with just a rope tied to some tree branch. She jumped. I decided to stay on the bottom of the platform cheering her on. I have enough problems with Freefall at Magic Mountain, much less jumping off some random platform.

I´ll try to upload some pictures when we get back to the States.

Short story. Today we did the zip lining thing. Way scary!! Seriously. Some hanging bridges.

Oh, in the morning, we toured the Monteverde Cloud Forest. Really cool.


Gotta go again. I´m trying to find somewhere to watch the UCLA vs Florida State game at the Emerald Bowl. I know it´s going on right now. The score is tied 10-10.

Until tomorrow. We´re off to the beach on the morning bus out to Playa Flamingo to rest our bodies from all this "adventure" stuff!

Jeep - Boat - Jeep

Day 4

We left La Fortuna this morning on the 8:30AM Jeep-Boat-Jeep ride to Monteverde. There are a couple of ways out of La Fortuna. Most people head on over to Santa Elena, right around the corner from Monteverde. Some people take the trip by taking a 3 hour horseback ride around the lake and through the hills. Amy and I decided that was way too much punishment for our buttocks. We so settled on the jeep-boat-jeep trip that was supposed to take two and a half hours.



We left promptly at 8:30AM. But the jeep wasn´t really a jeep. It was more like a tourist mini-van. Took us around 30 minutes to get to Lake Arenal where we were going to do the crossing on a simple tourist bus. After another hour boat ride, where the boat inevitably ran out of gas, we made it to the other shore. How does a boat captain not fill up before he disembarked. Fortunately, he had some extra gas.



The jeep/mini van ride over to Santa Elena was our first true glimpse of the notoriously bad Costa Rican road. Not paved. Holes everywhere. Somehow, we didn´t get in town until 12:30PM. Don´t know how this math works out, but our two and a half trip turned out to be four hours.

Santa Elena is a sleepy, but charming little town. The triangular shaped town square is probably 500 meters in circumfrance at the maximum. Amy want to stay at some place she saw on the internet call Don Taco. What in the world is a "Don" and who is this Taco guy. They didn´t serve any Taco´s in their little restaurant that´s never open. Nevertheless, we were happy with $35 per night and we stayed.



Gotta go. I´ll write more about our coffee planation tour tomorrow. It´s really more like a coffee backyard. 5 hectarces. That´s no planation!! They make more money sell $25 tourist visits than selling coffee!

3 Crocodiles = $45

Day 3 (Continued)

This afternoon Amy and I decided to take it easy. We had heard good things from the Runyans about a safari ride down the river. Frankly, I thought the slow ride down the river was pretty weak.



We drove for 30 minutes outside of town and jumped into a river raft. It was just me, Amy and our guide. Pretty cool. The river was around Class I at most. I think I was expecting a ton of wildlife, but we struggled to find animals. Some cool birds here and there. Some howling monkeys on the tree tops. And the highlight of the 2 hour cruise down the river...three crocodiles. Three crocodiles for $45. Oh, well.



Listened to some more Tim Keller on the ride back to La Fortuna. Took another cold shower. Our clothes that I tried to wash was still wet. I wonder if it´ll dry up by tomorrow morning.

We head off to Monteverde tomorrow morning on the jeep-boat-jeep ride over to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. We could have chosen to take a 3 hour horseback ride over, but I don´t think either Amy or my behinds can take the beating. We decided to do the canopy tour of the cloud forest tomorrow. It comes with some zip lining that Amy has been really looking forward to. I´ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Riding the Bull

Day 2

Today was a great day as Amy and I did a white water rafting trip down the Rio Toro (The Bull River). It was actually much tamer than what it sounds, but it nevertheless beat all our expectations. It´s advertised as a Class III and IV river with approximately 75% Class III with the remainder being Class IV. I was expecting Class II all the way through. Fortunately for us, it came as advertised.



The trip started early enough at 8:30AM. I had enough time to buy some bread at a local bakery for breakfast. We had a comfortable tourist bus that drove us out to the river. We sat alongside a couple from Denver that had to spend two nights at Denver International Airport before getting to Costa Rica. Now that´s sacrafice!! The husband was a big white dude that was in pharma sales and the wife was an aspiring teacher. Your quintessential American couple. I started getting jealous when they talked about buying a three mountain season pass for only $300. We gotta move out there to do some serious skiing.

It took us around an hour to drive to the drop off point. We had a nice small raft. Again we sat with Chase and Lindsay. Our river guide was a nice Costa Rican who spoke English with an American accent. His father is American or something like that. We donned our life jackets and helmets and off we went.



Immediately, after embarking we hit our first rapids. The rapids were longer than the ones we had on the Kern River this summer, but were for the most part smaller. On our second series of rapids, three people in the raft behind us had already fallen off their boat. They would continue to fall into the water at least two or three more times.

The rapids were constant. I don´t remember how many rapids we hit, but it seemed like at least over 20 of them. Eric, our guide, didn´t seem to have us doing too many technical things. For the most part, we just rode through the rapids. At many parts of the river it was fairly narrow...about 20-25 meters at most. We were always crashing into the walls. Good thing our raft never tipped over.

Some of the highlights were body surfing down a short portion of the river. They had to throw a rescue rope to Amy as she was floating down past the rest of the group. Another cool thing we did was riding up river into a rapid and suring the raft against the current. The river doesn't seem very strong, but the current packs a punch.

In the end, we rafted for over two and a half hours. For $65...well worth the trip. We had a great time and would definitely do it again. Got back to town around 3:3oPM. Took a cold shower. Watch some TV and then got a nice dinner while watching Spider-Man II on the tube at the restaurant. If you ever get to La Fortuna...go to Restaurante Jardin. Tasty.

Cold Water Showers Are Still Cold in the Tropics

Day 3

I´m trying to figure out if today was more fun than yesterday. This morning Amy and I decided to go canyoning (a.ka. waterfall rapelling). This "adventure" tour was advertised as "5 Waterfalls. Just Do It!!" Sounded good to us. So again, we decided to go with Desafio to do the trip. There´s another company that does the same thing called Pure Trek Canyoning.

We drove out to the forest early this morning at 8AM. I was hoping to grab some bread for breakfast at the local bakery, but unfortunately it was closed for Christmas. On our bus was another couple from Colorado and a gal from Pasadena. We had to rush the trip because the couple needed to catch a flight to Manuel Antonio and the gal had booked a cave trip later that afternoon. This worked out well for us as it was a smaller group of just the five of us (there's a lot of waiting around with larger groups).

The owner of Desafio, an Indian dude from the States, happened to be the driver of our 4X4 out to the canyons. We drove through some farms and parked on the side of some random dirt rode. Safety first everyone. Serious fun second. Everyone got a harness and a helmet and here we go.

I´m sorry that we don´t have any pictures, but this was awesome. We were in the middle of the rainforest and we got both rain and forest. Our first rapel was pretty simple - 20 foot rock wall down. After a short hike along a canyon stream, we came to our first major rapel. They had constructed a platform on top of a waterfall approximatley 130 feet high. One at a time, we strapped in and off we went. Step by step, we climbed to the outside of the platform and down we went. That first step...Whoa! A rope, a harness, a figure 8 thing-a-ma-jig, and a carabiner was all that separated us from the bottom of the canyon. Pretty cool though.

We hiked along the canyon and followed the stream for another 30 minutes or so. We rappelled down some smaller waterfalls probably no more than 15 feet high. Then came the really big one. We were going to rappel down a 65 meter waterfall. Again, we got hooked in and off we went. Our guide swung everyone into the waterfall. That was pretty cool. By that time, we were all getting the hang of rappelling and were launching ourselves off the sides of the waterfall.

The morning ended after hiking a bit back up the canyon. Man, I´m so out of shape. We jumped into the truck bed of a Toyota 4X4 and headed off to lunch. Fun.

Got back to La Fortuna and took another cold shower. You would think that getting a cold shower in a humid tropical place would be a good thing. But a cold shower is still a cold shower. We got to tell the hotel manager that they need to work on that hot water.

Where´s the Volcano?

We arrived the morning of 12/23 in Liberia, Costa Rica after a quick red eye flight from L.A. This was the first time Amy and I traveled during the holidays, so we arrived at the airport 3.5 hours before our fight, just in case. The security line was the SHORTEST we've ever encountered post 9/11!! Liberia's Interenational Airport was pretty dinky.

We decided to make our first stop at a some city called La Fortuna. Apparently, La Fortuna is the main hub for lots of "adventure" tours. Primarily, however, much of the activity is due to the fact that there is an active volcano just outside the city. Unfortunately, when we arrived we scarcely knew where the volcano was as it was covered up by the low fog that had blanketed the mountain peaks

After deciding on our hotel, we looking for a credible tour operator to book all our trips while we were at La Fortuna. Since we decided to stay in the area for two and a half days, we broke up the days in the following way:

Day 1 - Afternoon - Jungle trek with a view of the volcano and an evening at the local hot springs
Day 2 - All day - White water rafting through a local river. It´s supposed to be class III and IV rapids. We´ll see
Day 3 - Morning - Canyoning. We´re going to rappel down 100 foot to 200 foot waterfalls. This should be interesting
Day 3 - Afternoon - Safari Boat Trip. Our leisurely boat ride...I hope. The Runyans did something like this and they said they really enjoyed it.

Instead of taking a horseback ride over to Monteverde, we´re just going to do the jeep-boat-jeep ride (taking a "jeep"up to a lake, crossing the lake, then "jeeping"over to town) over to the Cloud Forest. We decided that we´re going to do the zip lining through the trees in Monteverde. Gotta save something for that town. We´ve heard rumors the place is kind of over rated.

Gotta go. I´ll finish up the blogs when we get back this afternoon.

More than a month after Albert's last blog, it is safe to say that he is no longer inspired to pen further social commentaries on Vietnam and its people and I as his muse have gotten lost in the day-to-day busyness. Therefore, we will leave it to your imagination with the assistance of some pictures we took of Vietnam:

http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=73271127853950850/l=61581251/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Street Lights Are a Gift From God

Amy and I just experienced one of our most harrowing experiences travelling. Period. Our excitement from booking a 2-day motorcycle trip from Nha Trang to Dalat through the Central Highlands of Vietnam quickly turned into exhaustion, sore buttocks, and yearning for some rest. I'm going to bed as soon as I finish this blog. We want to check our emails, but this internet shop is so slow we can't even get hotmail. How discouraging.

This was supposed to be one of the highlights of our trip as I have been reading about the good reactions travelers have had recently doing similar trips. Motocycle trips through Northern Vietnam and the Central Highlands have recently become very popular with tourists. In Dalat, the main stopping point in the Highlands, there are a group of 30 or so riders who call themselves the "Easy Riders." They all speak excellent English and are supposed to be very good guides. Many tourists book one of them for day trips around Dalat. Others book them for longer trips, going for 2-3 days. We chose the latter to see more of the countryside and to experience some travel that's off the beaten track. We also decided that we wanted to ride our own bike rather than just sit on the backs of one of them.

We had met Tuan last night after he finished taking some Norwegians from Dalat to Nha Trang for a 3 day trip. We wanted to go the reverse direction and also do the trip in two days instead of three. Tuan spoke excellent English, is college educated, and seemed like a good enough choice. We also met with Nam the Man, but he was very hesitant to allow us to ride ourselves. Tuan was just as hesitant, but he eventually reliquished to our request.



The day started innocently enough. We left Nha Trang around 8AM soon after breakfast. I quickly got the hang of our tiny 125 CC bike. We were soon zooming up the highway towards the Central Highlands. The land was peaceful and drove through some gorgeous passes. Along the way, though we had to navigate Vietnamese traffic. I sincerely believe that roads are some of the defining aspects that separate third world countries from the developed world. Cars and trucks were passing each other without abandon. Sometimes if felt as if the oncoming cars drove more on our lanes than they did on their own lanes. Fortunately, we had no major instances for the first 3 hours of our ride.



That's when our trouble started. Around11AM, Tuan's bike broke town. We stopped by a roadside house that advertised that they fixed bikes, but they barely had any tools. Eventually, after some coaxing Tuan bought some rope and we towed one another into the next town. While we ate lunch, the local mechanics tried to fix Tuan's bike. After four hours, we were ready to go. His bike went 30 meters and gave out. They tried to fix it again. By this time, it was getting near 4PM, and we decided that we couldn't wait for Tuan anymore or else we would be stuck in this nasty little roadside village. Amy and I packed both of our bags and we were on our way.



We were 90 km from the city where we were planning on spending the night. I thought if we drove around 60 kph, a reasonable speed, we should get to Buon Ma Thout (BMT) in a reasonable time - hopefully before nightfall. We didn't get into BMT until 7:30PM, over 2 hours riding in the dark and rainy road.



First, the we were afraid to ride faster than 40 kph because of the various obstacles along the road - oncoming traffic, trucks and cars trying to pass us, scooters and bikes, tractors, and pedestrians. Soon, we started to hit areas where the ground was wet and slick with loose mud and gravel.

This is when the trouble began. As we rode through another town, we HIT a bicyclist. We hit a teenage girl on her bike. My motorcycle knocked her over and basically mangled her rear wheel. Suddenly, a mob appears and circles us within seconds. The girl was fine, shaken, but not even in tears. Some in the crowd starting yelling out that we should pay her 200,000 VND, approximately $14. Fortunately, a nice English speaking local woman intervene and told us that because we damaged her bicycle, we should pay her 100,000 VND. I quickly brought out the cash, asked the local woman to tell the crowd to disperse, and raced off. Amy and I were shaken, but at least we weren't attacked.

The fun continued. It suddenly got pitch dark and that's when we started to appreciate the streetlights of home. Imagine the same road scenarios above, but just without lights. What makes matters worse was the fact that bicycles and tractors here don't have reflectors. Dodging people was straight out of Toad's Wild Ride in Disneyland. Oh, did I mention it started to rain? Of course, it starts to rain. We took some temporary shelter, bought some weak ponchos and decided to press forward. We were only 20 km from our destination and we didn't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere.

After another hour of harrowing near misses we made in into town where streets lined with street lights. I don't know if this was the stupidiest thing I've done traveling or not, but it must have been on the top of the list somewhere. We made it only by the God's mercy, that's for sure. We checked in at a hotel where we're planning on meeting Tuan.

I'm done. Time for bed.

Am I Getting Too Old For This?

That was what I was thinking when we stopped for a dinner/toilet break at 10PM last night; four hours into our 12 hour bus trip from Hoi An to Nha Trang. I've taken all sorts of modes of transportation throughout the years; two 24 hour bus rides in Yunnan, China with smoking Chinamen, overnighters in freezing weather in the Peruvian Andes, and a nine hour standing train ride from 1AM to 10AM in the middle of central China. This one 12 hour bus ride was nothing close - A/C and non-smoking. Nevertheless, it just felt a little tiring. Maybe we should have just flown all over Vietnam. That just seems a little wimpy to me. Maybe when I turn 30. Oops. That's just around the corner.

We are now in Nha Trang, Vietnam's attempt at a beach resort. It's certainly getting there; it has the night life. The beach ammenities needs some work though. There is plenty of diving for those wanting to enjoy the underwater world. The beach stretches 5-6 km. Nothing like the beaches of Southern California, but few places in the world can match that.

It's kind of a bizarre city. It's actually a pretty big city, being a provicial capital. The beach was absolutely empty the entire first half of the day. Granted, it rained all of yesterday and was raining the first part of the morning. But around 4PM, the whole beach area of town came alive. All the restaurants became fully opened. The street vendors came out. Even the street lobster vendors came out. We going to get ourselves a lobster from the street corner tomorrow evening. We'll let you know how that goes.

Didn't do much today. The beach was empty and we were skeptical about the cleanliness of the water. I figured that L.A. beaches were always off limits right after a rain shower because of the runoff, how much more worse would Vietnamese waters be! So, we rented another scooter and just rode around trying to find places of touristic significance. Not much available. Oh, well. Walked along the beach a little. Ate dinner at a table side, cook your own meat on a charcoil grill type of place. Looked cool. Smelled cool. But the meat was just inferior to stuff we can get in K-Town at Soot Bull Jeep or Chosun Galbi. Not even close to Gyu-Kaku on the Westside. But hey, can't complain for a more than adequate meal for under $10.

Made our first big blunder in Vietnam this morning. We allowed our previous hotel to book us a room with a mini-hotel before we left Hoi An. The two set of referrals have worked out fine through Hue and Hoi An, so we decided to go with this recommendation chain again. When we got there this morning, the room they showed us was fine; small but more than adequate for shelter for rain and some rest from a long bus ride. We decided to stay without even checking out where we were in town and what our other accomodation options were. We left our bags (our big backpack got really muddy in the cargo hold of the bus, bummer) in our room and decided to walk down to the more centrally located part of town. We eventually found a hotel and room that we really liked. When we went back to pick up our bags, they told us that because we already checked in, we have to pay the full night's stay. I guess we could have made a big fuss and argued some more with them, but by then I was just tired of their attitude. I figured this was the cost of not being more alert this morning. I was just tired, slightly wet, and got pressured a little bit into doing something I wasn't all that sure or comfortable about. Kind of annoyed me through the early part of the day, but it's done with. Chalk it up as a learning experience.

Our last day in Hoi An was pretty uneventful. We went to our tailor, walked around, ate, went back to our tailor. Then went back to our tailor. Finally stayed at the tailor's until we got everything done. I ended up getting 2 suits, 3 pairs of pants, 5 work shirts, 5 linen shirts, 1 linen pants, and 2 linen shorts. My total tab - $375. Amy got 4-5 dresses and a bunch of shirts done. This was much more than I intended to spend before we left, but it was a like a downward spiral. They made something for us. We liked it. Then we ordered some more in a different color. LOL!! The way I figure, $375 can even get me a decent suit back at home, much less one made to order.

Our plans tomorrow are a little more defined than today. We're taking a little snorkeling trip. And most importantly, we are meeting a potential guide named Tuan. We want to ride motorcyles through the Vietnamese Central Highlands for 2-3 days. I've never taken such a long bike ride before. I doubt if our rear ends would be able to handle it. Plus I don't even have a bike license. But sitting on the back of a bike with a Vietnamese guide seems a little gay to me. If all works out, Amy will ride with me and the guide will just ride by himself. We'll let you know how it goes tomorrow night.