On October 17th, Farrah and I left our last AirBnB in Buenos Aires, and flew to Costa Rica.
If you noticed that it’s almost Xmas and I’m just now writing about something that happened at the end of October. You’re very smart …and good at math. Happy?
As I was saying. Farrah and I left Buenos Aires behind for the last time (shit, I think I owe you all a post about all our time in Buenos Aires). Given how far we had to travel, our flight schedule was pretty reasonable. Buenos Aires to Panama City (my first and only time in Panama, we never left the airport, so it doesn’t count as a country I’ve visited), then a short flight from Panama City to San Jose, Costa Rica. As I recall, it was a pretty easy travel day given that it was over 12 hours from end to end.
Both Farrah and I have visited Costa Rica before. It’s a really beautiful country, and I’m always happy for a chance to visit. This was the first time I’d visited with any meaningful understanding of Spanish. It was great to be able to have small conversations with people we met. The Costa Rican accent is pretty neutral, and I think it’s pretty easy to understand, so for the first time in a while I didn’t find the first couple days in the country difficult to get around. To be fair: 1) a lot of Costa Ricans speak English, so it’s generally not hard to get around as an English speaking tourist, and 2) we spent most of our time in the country at a beautiful 8 bazillion star resort.
You may have noticed in reading this blog that I rarely reference fancy resorts. And if I have it was likely not somewhere we were staying. The reason for this, as you may have guessed, is that spending a year in fancy resorts would have been insanely expensive. Really shockingly expensive. Resorts are not cheap. However, part of the point of the trip was to meet my parents, and they love this place.
Anyway, we arrived in San Jose in the evening and got a cab to our hotel, where we were meeting my parents. The hotel we stayed the night in is one my parents had been to before. It’s a little outside of San Jose proper, and the grounds are a large and beautiful botanical garden. We met my parents and Donna, their friend, and travel companion, had a quick night cap and everyone headed for bed. Travel days are like that a lot I’ve found.
The next morning we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, and strolled in the gardens before our shuttle arrived to take us to Manuel Antonio, and the Hotel Parador. We had a great driver, who we requested for our return trip. We stopped midway through the drive for lunch at a very nice little roadside restaurant. It was conveniently located next to a gift shop. Go figure…
By late afternoon we arrived at Hotel Parador.
The hotel is a bit like what I imagine paradise would be. It is situated in the rain forest high on a steep hillside that leads down to the Pacific Ocean. So, the entire property is in the rainforest, albeit a very well groomed rain forest, and most everywhere you go has a view of the Pacific. The guest suites (I’m not sure they have just plain old rooms there) are in several buildings spread around the property. Different buildings offer different views of the rainforest and the Pacific ocean. It’s all beautiful, regardless of where you stay.
We all ended up staying in some of the nicer suites on the property, because my mom, somehow, managed to present a set of requests that led to 3 adjacent suites at the price of our original rooms. I’m sure it helped that it was their rainy season, and had very low occupancy. In any case, we found ourselves in these suites, which were larger and much fancier than anywhere else we stayed in the past year, by far. The furniture on the balcony was more comfortable than some of the living room furniture we’ve had this year. Speaking of the balcony. It looks out over the Pacific Ocean. And there was a jacuzzi on the balcony. Every morning of our stay Farrah got up before me to go sit in the jacuzzi, read, and take in the views.
For the next 7 days we fell into a pampered, lazy, and very loose routine. Honestly all of the days blend together for me with the exception of a couple notable events. The average day involved getting up whenever we wanted. Then coffee in the room, or the balcony, or the jacuzzi. We’d generally then meet my Donna and my parents for breakfast, followed by laziness of one type or another until lunch, or happy hour, whichever came first. Our group tended to prefer lying around the various pools, reading, staring at the ocean, and watching the wildlife, like scarlet macaws and capuchin monkeys. In the evenings we would all reconvene for drinks and dinner. This pleasant itinerary was our norm for our stay. On more than one occasion Farrah insisted that she was never leaving. I didn’t argue.
A couple of events did punctuate our lazy retreat at the Hotel Parador.
Farrah, Donna and my dad went for a boat tour of the mangrove trees. While their trip was informative, they now know lots of things about mangroves, which may, or may not, be interesting. However, the overall trip was something of a disappointment since they’d all been hoping to see a crocodile. My mom and I skipped this adventure specifically because we were both hoping not to see a crocodile. Seriously, read up on crocodiles. They are fucking terrifying.
Farrah, Donna, my mom and I also went for a tour of the Manuel Antonio national park and wildlife preserve. We spent a couple hours walking around the rainforest checking out the animals. My favorites were the spider monkeys we got to see on our way out of the park. They’re tiny, and super quick. We also saw two and three toed sloths, several fairly poisonous snakes, lots of capuchin monkeys, a handful of howler monkeys, and so many birds. It was a morning well spent.
We also had a couple of close encounters with wildlife.
First, Farrah had a capuchin monkey swing by the pool to try on her pool wear shirt. The capuchins are everywhere, and they are curious. So, this particular monkey decided to try on Farrah’s colorful pool shirt. Meanwhile, Farrah was in the pool, and was too late to stop the thief, so she ended up having to watch and scold the monkey until some hotel staff came and helped her retrieve the shirt. The monkey used this time to model the shirt in various configurations before being driven off.
Second, we met Rocket, the local raccoon. Rocket visits the main restaurant at the hotel most evenings. We had seen him out and about, but on one particular evening he hopped up on the arm of Donna’s chair and stole a quarter of her sandwich before escaping to a safe distance. A couple hours later we saw a couple encouraging Rocket to get up on their table so that they could feed him. So, I guess it’s not surprising he feels so comfortable there.
After a week of being pampered, which felt like it went by far too quickly, we woke up early to head back to San Jose for our flight to our next destination. That’s a whole other blog post though.
Happy Holidays to all of you and your families, pura vida!