Getting Settled and Hot Springs

August 8, 2014

The first night or two in a new place always requires some time for adjustment. There are different beds, pillows, gadgets, shower water temperature/pressure issues, and so much more to figure out. I was excited that this house had air-conditioning, but I never considered it wouldn't work well. I don't know many degrees one has to hold in order to figure out how varying wall mounted air-conditioners work. No matter what we did, the temperature would change or it would shut off. The timer button seemed to make a difference, but we couldn't figure out how exactly. It was counter-intutitive. What 'mode' should it be set to? None of it seemed to matter; it did what it wanted.

I don't think I mentioned it before, but this house is located on the northwestern part of Lake Arenal. It's about a 45 minute crazy, curvy drive past the Arenal Volcano. No one is particularly fond of the constant turns, and it is easy to become car sick. We decided to take it easy on our first full day at this house. We did our 'work' in the morning (researching next stays, excursions, airline ticket prices and blog writing) and went to the pool in the afternoon. It was lovely. We had fun playing around in the infinity pool. We had a contest on who could tread water the longest (someone has a competitive nature.) Maeve smacked her leg on the wall and was upset. She blamed Michael for the incident...I mean it certainly couldn't have been her fault. Michael teased her a bit too much and she didn't care for that. After some arguing over an owed apology, Michael went to get out of the pool. Unfortunatley, his swim shorts didn't follow. The kids were hysterical laughing. His bottom was exposed just enough for Kharma to take a bite out of it. To top it off, there was a man and his baby son who witnessed the whole incident.

After our fill of the pool, I made supper at home. It was nice to have a home cooked meal. We slept in the next day and got a late start to our excursion. We headed back to La Fortuna to take advantage of the Hot Springs. There are several hotels and spas that feature the geothermal springs. We thought this was a good way of easing our way into excursions.

We took the advice of our home owner and went to a place that only features the hot springs as day trips, as opposed to the others which are part of a hotel. Eco Termales has one of the smallest set of pools, but they have another feature that I particularly liked. They only allow 100 people into the 5 pools. Fortunately, there were only two other people there. We practically had the place to ourselves!

According to one of the springs sites, hot Springs are geothermally heated rainwater intially fed by rainwater that seeps into the earth through faults and fractures. So these pools are man made, but the water in them comes from the rain and earth. The temperatures range from 90 degrees to over 110 here and close to 150 degrees at some other spas.

Maeve enjoying a nice feature of a bench behind a waterfall

It may look like she dove from a waterfall, but Maeve is doing a handstand in the water

Looks like Michael's head is photoshopped onto his body in the water

We also discovered some other critters at the hot springs. Leafcutter ants! Maeve and I went to explore the property and saw these little bits of leaves moving along in a line. Michael and I had seen a documentary on ants, so I knew I had seen them before, but we thought they were fire ants originally. There was a huge line of them to the side of the walking path. There were rocks outlining the walking path so at least no one would accidentally walk into their work route. We did see a few stray ants by the pools, so we knew to avoid them. We didn't receive any literature or warnings from the staff at the pools, so I'm just glad we knew to avoid them. I just read that next to humans, leafcutter ants are the largest and most complex animal societies on Earth. Here is a website link with more information (http://www.arkive.org/leaf-cutter-ant/atta-cephalotes) and let's see if I've figured out this video attachment. If I have, there should be two more video links that I filmed on the ants.

Hello Costa Rica

August 5, 2014

Okay, so this is my second time writing this post. I tried to get all fancy and add a map. The map had our location in Costa Rica. I did something else and the default map of New York showed up. I deleted that and poof, the whole post was gone. Yet another lesson learned. So now I will try to recreate what I had written previously....

After a short delay in Ft. Lauderdale, we made it to San Jose, Cost Rica. It was about 1:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. to us coming from Puerto Rico. Fortunately, we booked a hotel near the airport that included a shuttle and breakfast. It took about an hour to go through immigration, get our bags, clear customs, catch the shuttle and get to our room. Needless to say, we were pretty tired.

We planned for a day of recovery. We slept in and enjoyed breakfast. We went swimming and ate an early dinner. We had planned an excursion out for dinner, but we were too tired, so we went to bed early in order to get a good start on the next day.

After breakfast, we had arranged for a taxi to take us to the location where we had reserved a car. Only after we arrived did we find out that they would have picked us up for free. Sigh. At least we know now that when we drop it off next week, they will transport us back to the hotel. We knew we would get the hard sell on additional insurance, but we were not planning on the extra $100 in taxes. Oh well. All in all, it was a decent experience. Better yet, Liam was impressed with the car and the push-button ignition.

It was about a 3.5 hour drive to the house we rented. We made our way through the small town of San Ramon in about 40 minutes. After that, the roads narrowed and became quite curvy. At one point, Michael got something in his eye and we changed drivers. I probably would have puked if he had continued driving anyway.

We stopped in the touristy town of La Fortuna and had lunch. This is where many people stay for Arenal Volcano tours, hot spring baths, sky trams, zip lining and suspension bridge tours. We will have to decide which of these we are doing when we return for a day trip.

We had about another hour of zig zagging roads. We didn't get too far when traffic stopped. People got out of their cars in the middle of the road to look at nearby animals. Not sure what they were....a cross between a monkey and an anteater, but we decided to heed the advice of the signs warning not to feed the wild animals. The five cars in front of us not only ignored that, but they stopped to snap pictures. They even took out their young children so they could have a better view. I chose to video tape it with the window down as we drove by.

We stopped in a small town called Nuevo Arenal for some groceries. My two years of high school Spanish were not too helpful, but I was impressed with myself that I could ask if they had eggs. The young man at the checkout was kind and helpful.

We were eager to see our rental house for the week. We drove over a kilometer up an unpaved road. The property manager Jorge was waiting for us. He gave us a quick tour of the house and its amenities. Once we realized our location and distance to stores and such, we decided we weren't going anywhere else that night. We took a tour of the property and found the community infinity pool. Later, we enjoyed our dinner of grilled cheese and chips before settling in for the night. Time to make plans for the week.

Beautiful view from the community infinity pool

Good Bye Puerto Rico

August 4, 2014

During the last half of our stay in Puerto Rico, we visited the beach and the rainforest. Our time at the beach was perfect. It was not too crowded and we found a breezy, shaded spot under some trees. The kids spent all of the time in the water or playing in the sand. Maeve didn't reapply sunscreen soon enough and found out how quickly the sun can burn your skin. She was fine, but it was just another reminder for us to be careful. We only went in the water for a short time and still saw the effects of the sun on us the next day. We ate sandwiches and snacks and just relaxed. Great day!

Liam and Charlie cooling off- the girls in the background

We also finally made it to El Yunque, the rainforest. We had tried earlier in our visit, but it was so crowded and there was no parking. That was so unfortunate because it was over an hour drive to get there. We stopped halfway up the mountain and ate at a food stand that serves empanadas before the return trip. The Garcias were kind enough to take us back another day. We left earlier this time and went during the week. We were able to park on the side of the road. There is a paved trail that leads you to a waterfall. You spend a lot of time making sure you don't slip and making room for others walking by on their return trip. I made sure I paused to take in the views of the massive trees and foliage.

It's about a half hour hike to the waterfalls. It was a little crowded, but not too crazy. The kids immediately found their way over the rocks and into the water. Zoe was a great tour guide and helped Maeve and Liam find their way safely to the main waterfall. After I felt I had enough footage of their experience, I patiently waited for one of them to exit the water so they could watch my gear and I could jump in. I wasn't going to be an observer on this one. The water was cold, but refreshing! Definitely worth the trip!

Zoe pointed out the other smaller water fall and parts to explore. This involved far more rock climbing than I was anticipating. Michael said he was going with the kids to make sure they were safe and Maeve balked and refused to go. She regretted that decision 3 minutes later and I found myself climbing with her to join them. At least we got our exercise in for the day. Liam found a large rock and carried it with this goofy grin on his face that said to me, "I'm taking this with me." I told him the rock wasn't going anywhere. The words were barely out of my mouth when he slipped and the rock fell and landed on his pinky finger. He was fine, but his finger was a bit swollen and bruised. Suddenly Mom was the wise person that he should have listened to and he clinged to me the entire hike back. Another lesson learned: a first aid kit is of no use if you don't bring it with you....sigh.

The other side of the waterfall where we had to navigate our way over the rocks for more swimming

So we say good bye to Puerto Rico and the Garcia Family. You were the most gracious and generous hosts. Muchas Gracias!

We now have to continue on our journey alone. Costa Rica, here we come.