Costa Rica - La Fortuna and Arenal - Really? This is dry season?

I'm starting to become disillusioned with the phrase Cloud Forest. It sounds so lovely, doesn't it? And while it does produce some fabulous rain forest jungles, the practical side of living in a cloud has reared its damp drippy head. While clouds look all white and fluffy and marvelous in the sky, while you are literally in them, turns out they are grey, perma-mists that often erupt into downpours of rain. I thanked my lucky stars every day this week for packing a very waterproof coat. I also have converted my bunk bed into a drying rack for nearly all my clothes, which inevitably get damp or soaked if I wear them outside the room. Ticos (Costa Ricans) must be amphibious to live here year round.

Dear Les Miserables the Musical, you can keep your castle on a cloud. I bet its damp AND drafty. Definitely not all its cracked up to be. Regards, Me.

We left Monteverde and Santa Elena (where we really spent all of our time) early on Sunday morning to head up to La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano. We splurged on transportation, taking the $25 JeepBoatJeep (actually tour company name - don't be fooled by the name, the jeeps were colectivo vans) instead of the $5 bus for reasons of convenience and wishfully scenery. After an hour of a muddy unpaved road bumpy and crater-filled enough to make me perilously near carsick (and I don't get carsick), we arrived at the dock for the boat. Where we had to wait for almost an hour next to a closed restaurant with no bathrooms. In the pouring rain. Awesome. The boat ride itself would have been really pretty, had it been a clearer sunny day. Still nice to get out on the water though, the fresh air eased away the carsickness rather well.

I would normally now tell all the amusing and hilarious things that happened while we were in La Fortuna. However, since it has poured rain for 2 days straight, we have very efficiently put all the enforced hostel time to use accomplishing chores such as filling out a million insurance claims related to my chicken pox and trip interruption, printing off itineraries and planning the South America leg.

Rumour has it there's a famous large volcano in this town, which according to legend takes up half the view from our balcony. It's right behind that cloud there. So they say. I'm beginning to think they made up this alleged volcano; there's no way I can tell with clouds this thick.

Literally the most newsworthy event of today was Mick getting a haircut. No joke. But not to worry, plenty more adventures (misadventures?) to be had, as we fly out to Lima on Wednesday.

And Tuesday night in San Jose I should get to meet up incredibly briefly with Will, a friend from Tasmania who's going the opposite direction from Costa Rica to Mexico starting this week with some of his friends. Try not to be too jealous, Ottawa law friends. You'll get to see him and Bec soon enough.

Costa Rica - Monteverde and Santa Elena - La Pura Vida

Where to even begin?

Costa Rica is beautiful. Granted, Im coming off of prolonged quarantine in a hotel room, so I have lowered standards, but I heart this country. The people here are incredibly friendly and helpful, its relatively easy, though slow, to get around and theres tons to do.

Not cheap though. Especially in Monteverde where weve been for four days, as its a heavy tourist area. Worth it though. Its been one of those times where Ive been too busy having adventures to take the time out to write about them!

We miraculously made the connecting bus in San Jose to Monteverde the same day our flight arrived and delightfully did not have to spend that night in San Jose. The bus ride wasnt long so much as slow... the roads here are full of craters (too big to be called potholes), minimally paved and dont encompass oncoming traffic very well.

We made up for the hours of enforced boredom in the hotel with a flurry of activities (cha-ching), but I cant mind too much as theyve all been really fun!

Day One - Sore Legs and Killer Trees

Overly ambitiously, we set out for a 3 km hike up a smaller mountain near our hostel. On a usual day, I could walk 3km in my sleep. However, it turns out that on day two after 10 days bedrest with residual chicken pox at 1000+ elevation on some of the steeper inclines Ive ever walked on, I cannot accomplish this task. I literally had to stop every 10-15m to catch my breath (light headedness loomed in the shadows). I told Mick that next time, hed have an easier time with a literal ball and chain tied to his foot. True story. We did NOT complete that hike, although probably made it 2/3 of the way. Let me be clear - I could not have finished it. Mick annoyingly would sprint up sections that took me almost 10 minutes to shuffle up.

After a much needed lie-down and some late lunch, we went on a night tour of the Eternal Childrens Rainforest Reserve. Some Swedish kids bought the land years ago to protect the cloud forest from development (fun fact - cloud forests produce 30% of the worlds drinkable water). Saw tons of animals, cant remember most names of course.

Big tarantulas were the highlights, although I was also really interested in the ficus constrictor, a cannibal species of tree that eats other trees. The raccoons here are also super tiny because they eat forest food instead of McDonalds dumpster food. It was refreshing to see some that were nervous of humans. Ive had more than a few aggressive encounters with raccoons in Canada!

Day Two - Man Up! To the Extreme and the Golden Seeds
After a minimal amount of psychological nudging from Mick, we went to Al Extremo, a canopy tour of almost 20 very high off the ground over massive canopy valleys ziplines. Now, surprisingly, as weak as I am with heights, I was relatively cool with this activity. Apparently having a safety harness strapped all around me makes all the difference. It was AMAZING.

There was even a double rainbow over the valley with the longest cable. Stunning. Eventually you will have some illustrations to go along with this anecdote. The only one I skipped was the Tarzan Swing, not due to height so much as the continual swinging causing nausea. No one wants to be that girl who threw up, so I happily watched everyone else do it from the lower platform. No regrets from skipping it. We also met some other hilarious travellers and met up with them in the evening again for a few drinks to celebrate our bravery. One of them particularly deserved a beer, having overcome his fear of heights and done every cable as well as the swing, all through the power of the expression Man Up! He and Mick had to buddy up for one double line and we spent the rest of the day teasing them about their developing bro-mance.

The afternoon we took it easy and went on a coffee plantation tour. I knew nothing about coffee. Now I know lots, so I guess that speaks to how good the tour was. Mehron, youll be delighted to know that I impressed everyone by knowing the coffee originated in Ethiopia, not Saudi Arabia. Coffee is a slow process - 3 years to grow a proper tree. Crazy. Coffee beans are called golden seeds because historically they were responsible for turning Costa Rica from the poorest province in the colony of Central America to the wealthiest country in the region over about a century.


Day Three - The Day A Turtle Peed on Mick


The title is almost enough, but allow me to elabourate. We went to Finca Las Brisas, a family run farm that does horsebackriding tours on their mountain farm. The horseback riding was very relaxing - slow paced, since its crazy hilly, with lots of awesome vistas of lakes and mountains in the distance. Probably my best experience with horses thus far, since nothing went wrong. When we got back to the farm, we also got to try guaro, a liquor derived from sugar cane, sugar cane juice, etc. Then the kids insisted on taking us to see their pet turtles (which they play with by grabbing them and throwing them into the pond... much like throwing rocks in the lake at the cottage. But with turtles). Anyhow, they wanted us to have photos of the turtles so they passed us one each. I opted for the smaller one, since they looked awfully similar to snapping turtles of the Canadian variety. About two seconds into the photo, the dinner plate sized turtle Mick is holding expressed his unhappiness with the situation and voided his bladder all over Micks arm. Priceless.

Okay, there's more fun to be had before we head out tomorrow for neighbouring La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano, so until later!

Mexico - Mexico City - Hindsight Highlights

Although I left Mexico City quite a few days ago now, I thought it only fair to mention some of the highlights of our unexpectedly lengthy stay there.

But I´m lazy and I still want to get up a post on Costa Rica where I am now, so you lucky read-along'ers get a point form list!

-Favourite Armando moment was driving in his car listening to my new favourite hiphop song I Love Eating Cereal While Im Watching My Cartoons with Armando rapping along, fully thug tough. Best line of the song - It´s Saturday morning fool!
-Favourite Meal was Tacos de Pastor (tortilla, roasted pork (I think...), onions, parsley, green salsa and pineapple)
-Favourite New Drink was Paloma (tequila with sprite and a hint of grapefruit - all the punch none of the nausea)
-Haagen Daz shops, not just cartons in freezers
-Favourite Activity was playing Rock Star with Armandos sisters even with a terrible cold. Turns out Im dreadful at guitar, worse with drums, but not half bad on the mic
-Favourite Area was La Condesa, heavy European influence, lovely neighbourhood to spend an afternoon strolling around with ice cream
-Favourite Tourist Activity was the Turibus, which wanders around all the major tourist destinations in the downtown area and explains what youre seeing. It was hop on hop off but wed already been to the castle, the zoo, the auditorium, the neighbourhoods etc, so we only got off at the Zocalo, historical downtown square
-Most hilarious discovery was the winter exhibition on in the Zocalo. They had a mini snowman building tent, a skating arena, two ice slides and some fake igloos. Way to celebrate winter and defy the +20 temperatures, Mexico!

-Most unfortunate recurring song of the trip (I refuse to call it the theme song) was Hot and Cold by Katy Perry. That song is everywhere I go! I even heard it in the supermarket today in Monteverde. Argh.

All in all, we found different things to entertain us before I was crippled with my unexpected childhood disease. The hotel we were stuck in wasnt half bad and room service was reasonable, though a little boring by the end of the week. Was quite happy to be able to watch Obamas inauguration on the TV though - might have missed it otherwise. I did opt to nap instead of listening to the poet though... does that make me a bad person?

Pretty much eternally grateful to Armando and his family for their incredible hospitality and all their help when I got sick. And to Mick, as he was phenomenally understanding and patient about the 10 delay on our trip, not to mention a stellar caregiver, since I was annoyingly helpless for the better part of a week.

Off to Costa Rica!!

Mexico - Mexico City - Trip Interruption: Childhood called. It wants its disease back.

So I have a serious case of chicken pox...

After a week of discovering Mexico City and its many treasures (such as the Metrobus, where a kind stranger helped Mick and I defeat an infernal ticket machine and a fellow passenger strip-salsa'ed for almost an hour next to us on the bus), I was feeling a bit run down. I attributed this to an awful cold that a certain best friend may or may not have given to me in Playa del Carmen, and soldiered on. However, on Friday last, I noticed two pink spots on my face. I figured I needed to be more vigilant with the sunscreen and went about my day.

Saturday morning I wake up and there were seven of them. Hmm, I thought. More sunscreen. As the day passed, my face was feeling increasingly swollen and Armando assessed it as worse, while Mick insisted it was better. By the evening, the spots were on my neck and arms.

At this point, I had to re-evaluate. We were supposed to be flying to Chiapas the next morning, and I figured it would be easier to get to a doctor while still in the city. So off to Medica Sur, the nearest private hospital we went. Four doctors looked at me and established that I had chicken pox, a reasonable risk of developing pneumonia and a fever of 38. This diagnosis was accompanied by strict orders of 7 days quarantine and a 10 day ban on travel. Mick and I realized that Chiapas was out, and along with it, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

I'm doing much better now (day nine), and am going for my check up tomorrow which hopefully will yield a green light on travel. The new plan is to fly directly to Costa Rica to make up the lost time.

Thanks for the calls and emails, friends and family. I only got to read the emails today, so sorry for no responses. There is no internet access in my room and I wasn't allowed to leave it until today.

Mexico - Mexico City - Red Lights Are Only a Suggestion

Well friends, I made it to Mexico City without incident. At the Cancun airport, we discovered that just because Trident makes great gum at home, that does not mean that Trident makes great gum in Mexico. Tip: avoid freshmint flavour. Gross. Other highlights of purchases made at the airport while waiting center around the excellent marketing slogans used on Mexican products. I particularly enjoyed Ahora Mas Rico (now more yummy!) while at Tulum and my airport orange juice with Contiene Miles de Sonrisas (contains millions of smiles).

Armando was very good and picked Mick and I up from the shuttle drop off. Now, under North American circumstances, I would have been somewhat alarmed by his driving style. However, in Mexico City where stop signs are definitely only decorative and red lights appear to be completely optional, I was instead weirdly comforted by his darty and unpredictable driving. And hardly anyone really walks here - the roads and buses are all crammed full of people. Armandos daily commute to his office is about two hours each way. I dont know how he can stand it.

Ten minutes into the drive, Armando then casually drops that we are not going directly to his house. Oh no, in fact, Monday was the night before the Mexican holiday Dia de los Reyes Magos, sort of a second Christmas celebrating the arrival of the three wise men-kings of orient. So we were actually going to a family party hosted by his grandmother. Mick and I rolled eyes at each other - we looked like we had washed ashore in our clothes and literally had no clean laundry to change into. I pulled my classic move of adding jewelry and redoing my hair differently to create the illusion of presentableness, but it was a sad display. We walk in the door, Armando in his work suit, everyone at the party dressed up, and Mick and I in flipflops and t-shirts. Cool.

The amazing hospitality of his family overcame my fashion-related embarassment fairly quickly though, and we wound up staying for a good couple of hours. Part of the night included a tradition of cutting rosca, a round cake bread. Each person cuts their own slice and hidden inside the cake randomly are tiny plastic baby Jesuses. If your piece has a baby Jesus in it, then in February you have to buy everyone a tamale. I emerged with my piece debt free. P.S. rosca is quite tasty.

I scored the spare room to myself which is a welcome change from our very mediocre hostel in Playa. Better yet, Mick and I have a bathroom to ourselves as well, as compared with the not very clean one we shared with 12 other people at the hostel. This morning I was delighted to be able to do my laundry. Except as it turns out, their family has a housemaid who grabbed it before I had the chance to get to the washing machine. Not entirely sure where my clothes have ended up actually, hmmmm. Pretty sure the end result of this stay will be me be spoiled for the road onward. Ah well, I shall revel in it while its available.

Mick and I definitely do not know enough about Mexico City and whenever people ask us what we want to see, the answer is usually a shrug. Some research will be done tomorrow morning. Today we went to see The Castle, so named because we never worked out what its called (Update: Chapultepec is its name). Emperor Maximilian lived there at one point. Dont know much more, but it had a great view of the city all around and I finally could appreciate the enormous size of this place.

When youre weaving in and out of traffic on curvy one way streets that all seem to be uphill, its hard to imagine how far the city extends. Plus the smog is so thick that sometimes you can't even make out the ring of enormous volcanoes around the city.


We then walked up Paseo de la Reforma, a promenade styled after Paris (we didnt really see the similarities). It was cool in that it had outdoor art displays, so it was like a wander through a gallery but outside. Although I didnt love the art on display, the idea was solid.

We met up with Armando for lunch and then went to kill some time while he finished up his work day to get a ride back to his house. We wandered down Presidente Masaryk, an incredibly high end promenade of shops including Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Lacoste, Tiffanys, etc. Rodeo Drive of Mexico City I guess. Didnt do much souvenir shopping in that neighbourhood, let me tell you!

Have no idea whats in store for us over the next few days... hopefully will squeeze in one more post before we head south to the lands of unreliable internet!

Mexico - Tulum - We´ll steal your heart and liver!

Alright, now for those of you who know me, you´re well aware that it´s somewhat difficult for me to lie around on a beach for a whole week straight. Partly because of the health hazards I´m vulnerable to such as sunburns and heat exhaustion, but partly due to boredom as well. Thus far, I´ve managed to pull a couple of beach days in a row, thanks to oodles of sunscreen, a hat-long sleeved shirt-skirt outfit, plenty of snacks and water and the occasional shade break or swim.

To break up the monotony of our remaining five days in Playa del Carmen, we decided to have a look around Tulum, a nearby ruins site with some snorkeling and other activities. Armando took the day to spend some time with family friends from Venezuela in Xel-ha, but cheap misers that Carly, Mick and I are, we opted for the under 20 dollars option and hopped into a colectivo (shuttle van) to Tulum.

The ruins were of course quite similar to Chichen Itza but far smaller, and while it was a bit repetitive, the site was more accessible, had fewer tourists and was on one of the prettiest stretches of beach coastline I´ve seen. About twenty minutes into our wander around the ruins site, we unanimously agreed on moving on to find the beach we could see from one of the cliffs on the site. There was a nice little bit of beach to swim right at the ruins, but it was full of people so we went for the more adventurous choice of wandering down the road and hoping to stumble across the beach in the distance.

One mystery road later, we walked onto the perfect beach for us. Far wider, less crowded and with better swimming than Playa del Carmen. Mick even managed to find the 2 other Australians in this neck of the woods to play beach cricket. While Carly and I were invited to join in, memories of my atrocious skills at softball came back to haunt me. The coach of my team when I was a kid consistently placed me in right field where I could do the least damage, being unable to really catch or throw the ball. Did I mention that coach was my own father? That should give you a frame of reference as to how bad I am. I opted to swim all day instead.



In fact the beach there was so nice we went again the next day! We never even bothered with any activities because the beach was so nice. Like the sign for the sidewalk bar in Tulum said: we´ll steal your heart and liver!




Funny side story about food: we´ve been rocking the street meat cafes for dinner because they´re super cheap (10 pesos for a mini taco and 3 of them will fill you for the night) but the night before last we decided to change it up and went to an actual restaurant that had come recommended by a few people. We order the special - a massive platter of beef, chicken, pork, and veggies on a mini pot of embers with cheese, guacamole, salsa and all other types of toppings imaginable. We were pretty hungry so we dove right in. In the time it took Carly to have one bite and Mick and I to wolf down two tacos, we came to the all-too-late realization that they had amped up the spice on something. Now, I´m no wuss about spices... I´m not saying I´d chow down on a jalapeno or anything but I can usually manage a fair amount of heat in my food. This was HOT. Mick´s face swelled up like a tomato and he and Carly had some serious watery eyes going on. I felt like someone was holding a torch to my lips.

The best part was that none of us was sure which part of dinner was the source. Was it the rice? The salsa? So they used me as a guinea pig to sort it out. My amazing detective skills determined that it was one of the meats, so from that point out, we had to cautiously select what made it into the tacos. Pretty sure that´s a game the staff there like to play on all the tourists - we got more than a few stares and cackles of laughter from neighbouring tables. Whatever - it was delicious and I´d probably eat it again. But with a big side of yogourt.

I´ve got two days to go in Playa more or less - Armando leaves today and Mick and I fly to Mexico city to stay with him tomorrow. Carly flies out on Tuesday back to Ottawa to work on that law degree of hers - she´ll be missed for sure. I tried to sell her on staying on for longer with promises that we could follow DJ Marvin, Latin America´s self-proclaimed greatest hip hop DJ, on his tour around the Yucatan peninsula (we´re huge fans), but apparently school is kind of a big deal. Alas.

Mexico - Playa del Carmen - Suntans and Other Aesthetic Deformation

Starting my trip with a beach vacation was an excellent idea. Not that I´ve been too stressed out leading up to this trip, but when isn´t a week of relaxation a good idea?

Armando sold Mick, Carly and I on a week in Playa del Carmen, a town just south of Cancun. Having only Varadero in Cuba to measure it against, Playa comes out the winner. The streets are impeccably clean (as is the beach), there are no touts while you´re sunbathing, and there are way more places to stroll around and find a snack.

Now I´m not usually a lounge-on-the-beach-and-tan kind of gal, but with enough applications of sunscreen and enough layers of clothing, I´m starting to see the appeal. Mick and Armando scoff at how precautious I am about getting a sunburn, but Carly knows better (see Varadero, 2006).

Strangely enough, we didn´t even get to the beach during the day until our third day here. We were only interested in finding some dinner the night we flew in. Day Two Armando scored us a package to go see Chichen Itza, the largest Maya ruins in the area and as everyone will tell you, one of UNESCO´s 7 new wonders of the ancient world.

I can see why. The temples and the main pyramid were enormous and the science behind how they were built is mind-boggling. Although the Maya civilization could build a perfectly circular tower, they never invented the wheel. They had amazing astronomical precision. They created the craziest echoes with their architecture, and positioned the main pyramid exactly on the same latitude as the pyramids in Egypt. Crazy right?

On the weirder and slightly appalling side, they also practiced a whole lot of human sacrifice. The willing victims drowned themselves in cenotes (underground water wells, usually incredibly deep). The unwilling ones went to the temple past a statue of a reclining man who as it turns out symbolizes ¨Repent¨. Nice eh?

There was also an arena where some sort of ball sport was played and the winners were decapitated (you would think that would be a disincentive to win, but apparently it was a huge honour and almost surefire way to sweet after-living). Here is where we learned about the practice of aesthetic deformation.

Now for those of you who saw the new Indiana Jones movie, you may already have heard of this practice. When a Maya baby was about a month old, mama would bind his-her teeny head between two big planks of wood to change the shape of the skull as it grew. Needless to say, not all babies survived this head trauma, which is why this civilization typically had families of 10-12 children.

It gets stranger. They also highly valued cross-eyedness. They would dangle a piece of jade between babies eyes on the bridge of the nose to encourage that trait, so most Maya would be cross-eyed to an extent. We were left wondering how useful that was come battle time - surely it had to impact their peripheral vision...

The tour to Chichen Itza also included a few other stops on the way back to Playa. One was for lunch, one at a local cenote (we were allowed to swim in it but it was late and the air con was full blast on the bus, so not many took advantage - not to mention the catfish and bats in the cave), and lastly in Valladolid to see an old church (very random).

Hope everyone had a great New Year´s eve... Welcome to 2009!