Costa Rica trip

It's been quite a while since I last updated this. Life has been very full in the past 3 months.

After a year of planning, my trip to Costa Rica finally happened in March. I was gone for 16 days. The first part of the trip was with my sisters, brother-in-law, a cousin, and two aunts. We spent time near Alajuela in central Costa Rica where we saw the Poas Volcano, some waterfalls, and a coffee plantation.

Then we went to Manuel Antonio on the central Pacific coast. It was absolutely beautiful! There is a little national park there where there is lots of wildlife to be seen, such as capuchin monkeys, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, sloths, toucans, iguanas, Jesus Christ lizards, orange and purple crabs, and more. We hired a guide to take us through the park. His name was Miguel, and he had a telescope so we could get a better look at the animals. He could spot a green grasshopper on a green leaf a mile away! It was definitely worth it to hire him. The park had the most beautiful beach. It was wonderful for swimming in. It was the perfect temperature, and it was sheltered enough so there weren't dangerous rip currents. There were lots of trees along the beach that were good for shade. Even though we had to pay to get into the park, we ended up going back to that beach again another day. We also went to a private beach one day, which our hotel manager told us about. It was a HIKE to get there! We tried it the first day but had to turn back because we didn't know where we were going exactly, and we weren't prepared to walk up a mountain and down again to get there! But when we got clearer directions, we tried again another time and made it, although that walk was a bit of a challenge with the temperature in the upper 90's with high humidity! We spent a lot of time on beaches in Manuel Antonio.

Four of the group left after 1 week, so then my aunts and I were together for about 4-5 days. We stayed in Manuel Antonio another couple of days. One afternoon we went on a mangrove boat tour, which was a highlight. We went in a boat through some estuaries which would be totally dry during low tide. The best part of the tour was seeing capuchin (white-faced) monkeys! They were in the trees near the boat, and then some jumped in! It certainly encouraged the monkeys that our tour guide started peeling a banana! I was so excited, but so freaked out at the same time, to have all these little monkeys so close to us! A couple of times, a monkey leaped on Trudy's shoulders to get close to the banana! I kept running away! It was pretty fun.

We had initially been staying in a hotel up the hill from the main part of Manuel Antonio when our whole group was together, but it was necessary to take a taxi to get anywhere from there, so for our last two nights, my aunts and I decided to move to a different hotel closer to the action. The unfortunate trade off was that we ended up in a crappier hotel, which we didn't really realize until we had moved. It had the worst shower of our lives in it! It was clean, but that was about all it had going for it. The shower head was dangling, and just had a tiny trickle of water, and it was cold water! The other hilarious thing was that it was very bare bones, and had very old, worn bed linens, yet we found a towel folded like a elephant on the bed when we came back one day, and when we got a load of laundry done one day, it came out to $47!! They charged per item, and we didn't add it up ahead of time, but we were getting desperate for clean clothing. Most expensive load of laundry of my life. What a fine establishment! Ha!

After a couple of days, we took a water taxi to Montezuma. That was a bit of a debacle, with us now knowing there were multiple companies that did this, and we didn't know which one we were supposed to take, and apparently missed ours. But another kind man was willing to take us in his boat, despite the fact that he had a group of 9 or 10 people already in his boat, who had a whole bunch of luggage, and we would be over capacity by 1 person. I was nervous! These boats were just basic fiberglass motorboats, and we had to walk out into the water to get on board. As we started out into the ocean, I worried that we were going to sink! Then about 20 minutes into the ride we saw another boat coming toward us. The man driving our boat told us that was our boat. However, I didn't realize that meant that they were going to get us to transfer to the other boat in the middle of the ocean!! But they did!! The three of us and 2 guys from the big group moved over to the other boat. What an adventure. I ended up drenched in salt water from the spray of the boat, but at least I wasn't afraid I was going to die anymore! We made it to Montezuma.

Montezuma is on the south side of the Nicoya Peninsula on the Pacific coast. It is known as sort of a hippie town, and it really was! One highlight of Montezuma was the food. Our favorite place was a restaurant called El Sano Banano. It has the most wonderful french toast! Montezuma was a much smaller, quieter, more remote place than Manuel Antonio. We spent time walking around, hiked to a waterfall close to town, and relaxed by the pool at our hotel. I had my birthday there. We had my birthday dinner at a restaurant outside on the beach. Pretty cool!

For the last 5 days of my trip I left the relatives and went to Playa Grande further north on the coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. I took a 5 hour shuttle ride from Montezuma to get there. It was much, much drier further north. I was surprised how different the ecosystem was. It was the end of the dry season, but still, the other parts of Costa Rica where I had just been were much more lush and tropical anyway.

I went to Playa Grande for the wedding of my Seattle friends, Brendan and Nathalie. It was a great few days. My friends Abbe and Patrick were among the guests, so we shared a little rental house. We also got to see some friends who no longer live in Seattle. It was impressive that there were so many friends and family who came for the wedding. I think it was 65 or 70 people! B and N have a great family and tight group of friends. It was so much fun to be a part of. The first night I was there, there was a big party for B's brother's 30th birthday. It was a fun night. There were actually a bunch of us who had March birthdays. During those days, Abbe, Patrick, and I took advantage of our friends' better vacation rental homes and pools, and relaxed. The wedding was a great time too. They had gotten married at the courthouse in Seattle right before they left for Costa Rica, so their ceremony in Costa Rica did not have an officiant. It was more like a program, with selected friends and family members doing readings and songs. B and N read their vows again, and exchanged rings. It was a beautiful, personal celebration, very true to who they are. After the ceremony part, we all got rum punch and went down to the beach for sunset. Then we went to Hotel Bula Bula for a dinner and dancing reception, which a lot of fun. The next morning was a brunch for the wedding guests, and people started to trickle away. There were a few of us left who went to a nice shell beach a little further north, and then hung out in the evening. But I was ready to head home, and get back to life at a more moderate temperature, not having to put sunscreen on 50 times a day, and back to my dear ones at home. I guess since everything I had been looking forward to on my trip was over, it was just time to go.

I flew home with Abbe and Patrick. On our flight from Liberia to Houston, we had a brush with fame! Chris Robinson, the lead singer of the Black Crowes, was on our flight! It was funny that when I first recognized him in the airport, I thought I must know him from Seattle. But then I realized he was actually a rock star! Ha! Anyway, the airport there was tiny, and open air (ie: no VIP area that I saw, and no air-conditioning, except for in the gift shop), so I thought it was cool that Chris Robinson and his wife and baby just sat in the gate area just like everyone else...and when we got to Houston and had to go through customs and everything, they were in the big long line like everyone else too. People seemed to leave them alone, so that was good, but I wonder what it's like to know that everywhere you go people are recognizing you and probably staring at you.

The trip was great, and ended up being just the right amount of time. I was amazed how time seemed to slow down in Costa Rica, in a good way. And I was glad to spend time with those family members and friends. It was great to be able to see some very different parts of the country.

So I got back home to Seattle, and right away got sick with a very sore throat and tonsillitis on one side. I had started to get a swollen lymph node in my neck, and a little bit of a sore throat in Costa Rica the last week, but nothing that actually affected me during the trip. But as soon as I was home, it attacked! By the end of the first week home, I decided to go to the doctor. He thought it was strep throat, so that Friday he did a throat culture and started me on antibiotics just to be on the safe side. I got the results back on Tuesday, which were negative! So I had been taking antibiotics for no reason for 4 or 5 days! So that Thursday I went back to the doctor, and she said she thought it was a foreign body stuck in my one tonsil that just needed to work itself out, since it was so prominently on one side of my throat, but she still did the mono blood test to be sure. She just didn't think I was the right demographic for mono though. The guy I was dating was convinced I had mono. Sure enough, the next day the result came back that I had mono. This was just over a week ago, and I had already been having symptoms for almost 3 weeks! I guess once you've had it, the virus is always in your body and at times can become active and then you can pass it on. My boyfriend had it 4 or 5 years ago, but it's likely I got it from him. Now one of my friends has just found out that she probably has it too! I don't remember sharing any food or drinks with her in the past month or so, and certainly didn't kiss her, so I don't know how I passed it to her, but I must have somehow. Boo. Anyway, my throat was pretty bad for a couple of weeks, but just in the past week it's improved a lot, but I am still very tired!

It has been a rough week, with trying to get over mono, as well as some personal stuff going on, but I am doing pretty well, and I am very grateful for a market increase raise at work, and lots of signs of spring. It was a gorgeous day today. I am also so aware of how fortunate I am to have so many good people in my life right now.