catching up....Costa Rica

I have have been thinking about starting a blog for some time, now and what is better than blogging about a trip? Lots of things, I'm sure, but I haven't had a chance to talk about an interesting trip I was able to take in November. I will start there and then go forward.
Costa Rica
I went to CR for 10 days at the end of November and the beginning of December, with a trip to Argentina (for work) stuck in between. Costa Rica was a very beautiful country and a lot cleaner than most of the other central American countries I've been to. I was primarily going to Costa Rica to visit my friend, Eva and her husband, Jim. They retired down there a little over 2 years ago. They live in this nice little home and Eva has created quite the garden.

They live in Playa Chiquita, which is just south of Puerto Viejo (on the Caribbean side). This is the beach they can walk to everyday, if they wanted to. We only swam a couple of times. The water is much rougher in November and the water was up much higher than even the month before, so there wasn't a lot of beach left to sit on.

Playa Chiquita is a very small, quiet town. It was relaxing there. Eva and I went on bike rides (since that is their main mode of transportation, but it is actually easier to ride a bike than to drive. The roads have so many potholes). One night we went into Puerto Viejo to see Jim's band play at El Loco Natural (a great restaurant) and we missed the only bus going in. We were lucky in our hitch-hiking attempts and got a bumpy ride in with this nice woman and her very drunk boyfriend. Here's Jim rockin out.

We also took a bike ride down to Manzanilla. It is the last town on the road south of Chiquita. It was quite hot and humid this day, but worth it.

We ate at the restaurant that is literally at the end of the road (I can't remember the name) and had some yummy fried yucca and oh and we had the pleasure to witness a local couple having sex in the ocean. Everyone had full view from the restaurant. We were wondering why we weren't getting any service, but with that kind of a show going on, who can blame them?
We also went to the botanical garden in Puerto Viejo (another long, sweaty bike ride). But, well worth it. There were tons of great plants in the garden, but the best thing we saw was this colony of leaf-cutting ants at work. I took a video, but it was taking too long to upload, so you only get a little picture. The video is really cool, so if you're ever over, you should watch it. These ants were working on three trees and then carrying the leaf parts down a path, at least 200' and then down an incline, over a stream (by going over a fallen tree) and then up another hill to where we couldn't see them any longer.

And of course, here are some of the plants and creatures we saw in the garden. There are so many varieties of plants down there. These are only a few of the pictures I took.

The next part of my Costa Rican adventure was spent on the Pacific side in the Guanacaste region. I ended up staying in Playas del Coco in a studio apartment I found on vrbo.com. It was nice to spend some time here by myself. I walked anywhere I needed to go, which from the apartment to town was about 15 minutes. They had a nice, wide beach. This is the bay and you can see some fishing boats. The town used to have a lot of fishing, but they over-fished and now all those fishers are out of work. I think most of them hang out in town all day and make cat-calls to the tourists. No, some of them are working, since there was a huge project going on while I was there, they were putting in a new water line to the town, since there are a lot of new condos and other buildings coming in. Most of these buildings are for retired people and tourists. I guess I only took a picture right before a storm was coming in. I only got stuck in one downpour here. This area is actually very dry starting around the time I was there for 6 months. The Caribbean side where Eva lives is much wetter all year round.

I also saw a lot of howler monkeys. Here's a couple I watched for a while in Coco. They were just hanging out in the backyard of this house next to the beach. They are quite loud, but they normally keep that for the mornings. Speaking of loud mornings, the apartment I stayed in was behind a local's house. They had lots of chickens and roosters, so every morning, I could hear the rooster at the crack of dawn, along with every other bird down there. It isn't the easiest place to sleep in.

I liked it in Coco, it was pretty low-key and not too touristy and I felt safe the whole time, although, I didn't ever walk around once it was dark out. Luckily I had a tv in my room. I caught up on all my latin pop music. Who knew Enrique was so hot, again? Watch out, though, all the videos they show down there are pretty sexy.

One thing that wasn't too pleasant about my stay in CR were the bug bites I got all over my legs. I had quite a few while I was in Chiquita and thought they might have just been mosquito bites, but they were the biggest, reddest mosquito bites I had ever had and I thought that was weird. So, after the first night in Coco when I woke up with a few bites my left leg, I checked all the sheets and re-made the entire bed to make sure there weren't any spiders or other bugs sharing the bed with me. It didn't help anything, though. I ended up with even more bites on my right leg the next night and one especially large bite on my ankle. These were different than the ones I had in Chiquita. I thought they may have been spider bites, but they could have been bed bug bites and I think that is what I had in Chiquita. Anyway, I had the BEST solution. I slept with the AC on in the room and wore my jeans with socks pulled over the bottoms. It was like a tiny miracle in CR. No more bug bites after that! So, if you ever find yourself being eaten alive and you have the convenience of AC in your room try wearing more clothes.
I did get out on a few runs while I was there, I decided not to run along the road to town, since too many guys would stare at me and yell out things in spanish that I didn't understand. I felt safer on the beach, even if it was harder to run on it. I met a nice retired Canadian couple that lived in the house next to the apartment I was in. I don't remember their names, but he told me a lot of how the town has been turning into more of a retirement destination and how the locals have been out of their normal fishing industry. He said a lot of the construction workers there were actually from Nicarauga since the locals don't like working all that much. Sad.

Anyway, I think that about wraps it up, except for the bananas. The bananas in CR are so delicious. I ate at least one every day, since they only cost a penny, but now when I eat bananas at home, I only think of how much better they were down there. The banana trees down there grow like weeds, everywhere you go, there are more banana trees. My favorite variety was the manzana (apple). It was a small banana and sweet like an apple. yum.