Last week, Matt and I took a little vacation. We had been talking for a while about taking some time off from work and Matt had been talking to some people at the Regional Office for Disaster Assistance in San Jose about a possible informational interview. So, we decided to go to Costa Rica.
The trip started in Managua, where we caught a bus at 5:00 am for Costa Rica. The ride wasn’t that bad, only about 7 hours to a town a bit over the border called Liberia. It would have been a bit shorter if the driver had actually stopped and told us we were in Liberia – instead he just drove through. When we decided to ask how much further it was, he informed us that we had already passed it. Lucky for us, he just so happened to have a friend driving a bus in the other direction that let us get on and go back for free.
From Liberia, we made our way to Playa Tamarindo, one of Costa Rica’s more developed beaches. And when I say more developed, it is a different world in comparison to Nicaragua. There were a number of hotels, condominiums, grocery stores, surf shops and pizza places. We stayed at an adorable little hotel run by a retired Italian woman, and had an amazing room complete with its own little kitchenette.
Our Room at Los Flores, Playa Tamarindo
As many of you may know, Nicaragua and much of Central America has been suffering this year from a virtual lack of rainy season. It normally rains all of September, October and November, but for the months of September and October, there was no rain at all. As our luck would have it, the rain decided to return the week that Matt and I choose to go to the beach. So, while our hotel was great, we didn’t really get to take advantage of the ocean or pool because it was raining so much. But we did get to spend a lot of time watching TV and nursing upset stomachs after a bad piece of cheese cake.
The Pool at Los Flores, which we didn't use that much because of rain.
Our wonderful meal of bread, cheese, peperoni, black olive paste and yes....they do have Arbor Mist in Costa Rica.
From Playa Tamarindo, we decided to make our way to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. We were completely astonished. We are both used to Managua, a dirty, ridiculously hot, evidently third-world city. San Jose felt like New York after almost two years of frequenting the capital of Nicaragua. It was much more developed, there were people walking everywhere, and you felt safe walking almost downtown. We filled our two days in San Jose with visiting museums and other attractions, and eating really, really good food.An amazing Argentinian Restaurant in San Jose. To give you an idea - my meal was homemade pasta, filled with ricotta cheese and smoked halibut in a broccoli, pistachio, garlic pesto. Again, amazing.
This was a reposteria/panaderia that we found. Also amazing.
This guy was our favorite at the San Jose Zoo - a dwarf Jaguar that was rescued from the wild!
Matt did his best to blend in and make friends, but I'm not sure that it worked all that well.
The Museo de Oro in San Jose (Gold Museum)
The next stop on the trip was La Fortuna and Volcan Arenal. La Fortuna is a tiny town about 4 hours north of San Jose, situated directly below the enormous and very clearly active Volcan Arenal. We stayed in a cabin just outside of town and filled the two days with hikes, visits to one of the local hot spring resorts (with 25 different pools of varying temperatures, sizes and themes) and a lovely evening trip up to the observation deck for the volcano. While the rain made it a bit difficult to see the characteristic red lava flowing down the side of the mountain, we were able to spend the evening chatting with a nice older couple from Oregon who accompanied us on the trip.
Matt and I on our way up the mountain in La Fortuna.
A lone Bromeliad, blocking the view of the volcano.
Volcan Arenal emerging from the mist.
After two days of outdoor adventures, we left La Fortuna at the crack of dawn to be able to make it back down to San Jose so that Matt could spend some time talking with the Director of the Regional Office of Disaster Assistance. For those who may not know, this office is a branch of USAID, the US Agency for International Development and it mostly does what its name implies – it provides international assistance in the event of disasters in Central America and the Caribbean. Disasters can include anything from hurricanes, to earthquakes and volcanoes to political coups. Mat is really interested in Disaster Preparedness and Response and spent a morning learning a lot about what the organization and its director do.
That was about it for the vacation. We came home to find Astro and Yoda happy to see us and just as energetic as ever.
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