AWOL! Em and Chris in South America

Last we left off, we had just landed in San Jose. We stayed the night in our slice o’ paradise and then barely managed to get ourselves on the bus for Manuel Antonio. We were a bit late to the ticket office and all the tickets for the bus we needed were sold out. But luckily full does not REALLY mean full, so we were able to finagle a ride anyway. I ended up sitting in an aisle and Emily somehow managed to snag an actual seat. It was not the most comfortable three hour ride – hot, somewhat humid, along windy roads – but no worries, we made it to Manuel Antonio and that’s what mattered.

“Playa Manuel Antonio” is beautiful. The road cuts along the coast with frequent views of the pacific. We had diner that evening at a restaurant overlooking the ocean and were blessed with an amazing sunset. According to the waiter, we were lucky because usually the afternoon clouds and rain obscure the evening sun. It was the perfect way to wind down after all the bus-related stress.

Manuel Antonio is very much a tourist area with the prices jacked up to be roughly equivalent to average US prices. What I’ve noticed however, is that margin between luxury and budget in developing countries, is by and large a lot slimmer than what it would be back home. The difference between buying barbecue from a street vendor and eating at nice restaurant with amazing views is usually a matter of a few bucks here. A lot of the people we interact with speak at least some English. So our butchered Spanish could be shelved for a bit. We still try to order things in Spanish but find we are making a mess of it more often then not. Oh well, we have to start somewhere. Our hotel, the Banana Tree, is a colorful little hotel set right against the jungle. Our room faces the road but they have a patio that overlooks the lush jungle. Our first morning, we ate breakfast on the patio while a bunch of squirrel monkeys passed close by in the trees overhead. They either have more manners or less brains than South African monkeys because they didn’t bother to come down and steal any of the food.

While at Manuel Antonio we mostly relaxed, played at the beach (the water is the perfect temperature). On Saturday, we visited Manuel Antonio National Park where a guide took us through the park and showed us two and three-toed sloths, howler monkeys, bats, various insects, a cayman and of course, the ubiquitous iguana. Oh! We also got to see a Jesus Christ lizard, unfortunately he did not perform the water walking miracle for us. We were both really glad we decided to hire a guide, because otherwise we would have walked by everything except for maybe the iguanas. Most of the wildlife was hard to capture with the camera because of the distance. The guides had telescopes but trying to take a picture through the telescope lens wasn’t very easy.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of Manuel Antonio, for me anyway, was actually right across the street from our hotel. There’s a restaurant called “El Avion”. It was the first thing that we saw when we got off the bus, and it’s quite a sight. I’ve included some pictures, but yeah, basically it is a restaurant built around a huge plane, a 1954 Fairchild C-123. The fuselage is a bar. And while the whole design concept is pretty unique and well executed, we found out later when we ate there that it is the twin to a jet that got shot down and became the unraveling point of the whole Iran-Contra scandal back during the Reagan era. “El Avion” itself was also used in smuggling the various contraband and eventually came to rest in the San Jose airport. So how cool is that, we were able to eat under the wing of a piece of history.

Ah yes, and as to the title of this post. We are back in San Jose now and have begun the first episode of language school. Man I have forgotten so much from high school and college. It’s been about ten years since I took Spanish so….I am R-U-S-T-Y. And Emily is just beginning so we make quite the pair. The first day is over now and I think it will be very good, but I should be studying right now and catching up with all the vocabulary that has disappeared from my memory banks. So that’s it for now, hasta luego!

So, this is it! We landed in San Jose, Costa Rica last night. Our little hostel has delusions of grandeur I’m afraid. There was some mention of being a “little slice of paradise”. The scenery is, well, a little short of paradise. Hah.

From what we’ve seen so far, San Jose isn’t much to speak of, it was dark when we landed so we couldn’t see much but from what people have said in general, having the light of day wouldn’t improve much. Driving is madness here, not as bad as Nairobi, but San Franscisco and LA traffic is nice and orderly in comparison. Basically traffic signs and lanes are merely guidelines and it’s up to the individual driver interpret the guidelines as they see fit. Our taxi driver had a more liberal approach to the various rules of the road.

As for the flight, things went mostly smoothly getting here. There was an eerie moment in the San Francisco airport as we were passing through security… I think someone went into an area that they weren’t supposed to, I’m not sure, but suddenly all the guards were yelling “Breach!” and the whole area was locked down in a matter of seconds. It was pretty impressive how quickly things moved. We still don’t know quite what it was…some minor incident because business went back to usual after a few minutes. We were running a little late so I’m glad it was nothing major otherwise we might still be stuck trying to get here.

Here are some more pictures that I meant to post before we left.

It has been an exercise of cramming as much stuff as possible into limited spaces. All of our worldly belongings are packed away in a 7×7 storage shed and now we carry everything we need for 3 months in just two bags. We were surprised how things could be reduced. We did get rid of a lot of junk and we left some of the bigger things with a couple people. I think we should make a habit of this whole year long trip thing. Every five years or so, we take a huge trip so we get rid of all our junk. I guess it only really works if you don’t own a house, we were renting so everything had to go. So I guess it’s not such a great idea.

It was hard to say goodbye to everyone including our poor puppy who doesn’t even know that she is being left for 3 months, poor thing. But we’re here now and I’m really excited. It feels really good to find ourselves approaching a brand new experience with our jobs and the typical day-in-day-out responsibilities behind us.