Sadly, our week in Costa Rica ends tomorrow.  This is truly a beautiful & developing country. 

There is good & bad with that "developing" part, I suppose.  As we have travelled about on the west coast of CR, I have had to sharpen my driving skills considerably.  Road challenges take many & surprising forms.  First of all, narrow roads - paved & not paved - twist along mountain sides.  There are no (or few) sidewalks.  Pedestrians & bicycles seem to have equal rights of way.  I watched frustrated drivers pass on BOTH sides of stopping busses at the same time, making roads where there weren't any.  Any those bus drivers?  They're fearless.  They'll pass vehicles on blind curves going down the mountain crossing a double yellow line to do so!  Those yellow lines & traffic signals, you know, the stuff the "law" is made of in our country?  Well, they're merely "suggestions" here.  By late morning in the dry season, many of the locals are burning their fields, effectively creating "smoke screens" to further complicate driving on the highways.  Then, as if then isn't enough challenge, several of the river crossings here are made on one-lane rickety-old bridges.  On the five such bridges we crossed yesterday (en route to a beautiful park called Manuel Antonio), many of the "rickets" holding those bridges together were missing!  Lots of airy spaces under one's tires but apparently close enough together to allow passage.  Nevertheless, all eyes - except mine - in my vehicle were glued to the brown, crocodile-infested waters which sluggishly flowed beneath us.

So, I guess you've figured out that is the "bad" part of the "developing country" comment. 

The "good part" has been just about everything else.  Beautiful seaside parks & vistas.  The Canopy tour was a great deal of fun.  We happened to go through at the same time as a large group from the states.  My 78 year-old mother strapped on the harness & flew 40mph from platform to platform - sometimes 1000 feet in distance - through the trees, always between 100-200 feet up in the air off the mountainside.  We covered 13 such cables on the way down from the top of the mountain, much of the time overlooking a gorgeous blue bay with white wave spray jetting over black rocks.  We encountered a tree sloth somewhere near the top.  Various jungle & sea birds flew above us, below us, & with us on our way down.  Mom earned loud applause from the entire group when she finished!  If you get to CR, DO the Canopy Tour!!!!

There is lots to see & do here.  Yesterday we visited the Howler Monkeys down at Manuel Antonio Park.  Somebody from another group slipped on the steep path & fell into the jungle-growth just below them.  The rascals up in the trees went berserko on that one!  I guess they're territorial.  Then we walked over to a nearby fine white sand beach & body-surfed some super waves.

There have been NO bugs & little rain.  Food is quite good & very inexpensive.  Beverage choices for beer are limited but Imperial & Pilsen aren't bad.  The locals are very friendly but remember (if you come down here)...they are ALL fearless when they get anywhere near a public road!  It's Costa Rican roulette on those roads, folks, so beware!!

Jimbo

Mad_Mat,

Zip lines, WOW!!  Excellent idea...at least in ONE direction, for most portages!!  My Costa Rican experience suggests an answer might be possible for the reverse up-hill route as well, however.  If we can only learn to train the howling critters, how about a dial-up phone service such as:  1-800-Portage-Monkey??  Several of the ones I saw yesterday would be big enough to do the job.  They could probably find a few short cuts not available to the likes of you & me, too.  On the other hand, the "down-side" is that they make so much howling noise, the moose, deer, & other wildlife would seldom come around.

Hey, so there I am this morning, out in the sparkling blue Pacific cove just below the veranda in our back yard.  I'm doing about a half-mile to three-quarter mile swim to the rocky point at the end of the cove in lieu of other local exercise options (I suck as a swimmer, so this is a REAL work-out for ME).  I'm taking in the scenery: watching the local vendor take sea kayaks off his truck; gazing over at the wide-spreading big-boughed trees with hanging vines; looking seaward where this fancy katamaran has been moored all week long; basically just soaking it all in.  Anyway, I'm doing some kind of a modified back-stroke & making slow progress & staring up at a powder blue sky.  Suddenly, three very large "birds" of distinctly sharp angles & long beaks (not far-removed from Pterodactyls on their family tree) start circling directly above me.  I swear I thought I was seeing a little pointy spot on the top of their heads that would have confirmed an ancestry closely linked to those in "Jurassic Park".  Hmmmm...now that I think about it, THIS IS where they filmed Jurassic Park.  Yessiree, it was disconcerting for a little bit but "reason" soon got hold of me.  So, I just kept back-stroking along.  Before long, this "predator-pack" flew off into some gum trees up on the cliff, where they scared several other strange large birds - all red - which, in turn, produced one heck of a "macaw, macaw" cacophony as they fluttered away.

Time to wake up the boys & enjoy our last full day here.

Adios,

Jimbo

Jack,

I couldn't remember the name of the place while I was actually down there.  I'll be sure to ask the family over dinner tonight.  They have better retention for such social & cultural highlights than I do.  Most of the locals were telling me that the town has grown five-fold in the past ten years.

We DID decide to visit a "mountain-top hotel/restaurant" at sunset.  The place is called Villa Caletas.  It has a spectacular vista that rivals that of any establishment I've ever seen anywhere, including my all-time favorite spots looking across at the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps!  Actually, we drove up, walked onto the terrace to watch the sunset over the Pacific, then left.  When the menus did NOT include prices and the price of after-dinner cigars exceeded what I expected to pay for dinner, well...the air seemed a bit too rarefied for my blood.  The place was about 5-6 miles north of Jaco just off the coastal Hwy 34.

I'll get back to you later re: the Hotel Cocal.  And, hey, that Imperial beer WAS very good.  I could very easily get used to that!!  My son & I raised one or two of them in your honor early on.....

Jimbo

Special K,

You know, I DO believe both my son & my Mom each grabbed some "volcanic" looking samples.  As for ME, however, it was MY pleasure to grab something I place much more value on...several bags of the Costa Rican coffee.  By picking it up in the local grocery store there (versus the tourist "gift shops") I probably saved 90%.  It's the exact same stuff & it's great! 

A bag of the precious beverage will make it into the Q with my group this year!

Jimbo