Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

This place is so over run with Gringos it is really starting to get on our nerves. Even the $18.00/night hostel we stayed in Liberia had cable TV with all the major American TV stations CBS, TNT, Nickelodeon, Food Network, HBO, Cinemax, and others. I think it is totally crazy that all the room rates we have been quoted so far were in American dollars. If you actually want to pay in the local currency you have to ask them to convert the bill (which they do at a pretty shitty exchange rate).

We arrived in Liberia last night and after settling in our room we went out to the closest restaurant to our hostel.

It happened to be a Chinese restaurant and we were greeted at our table by their fat young son who asked us in broken English “What you want to drink?” They are so used to Gringos here that even the immigrants don’t speak Spanish with us.

Despite all my complaining about the TV here, I did relish the opportunity to watch some mind numbing TV. I never watch football, and you could even say I hate it. Maybe it was the deliriousness accompanying the stomach flu I came down with, but the only thing on TV other than an un-watchable Hugh Grant movie was American football. There are definitely aspects of home that I miss and football seemed like a great way to catch up on them. I was actually enjoying it, despite the pictures of people wearing foam blocks of cheese on their heads. All the commentary was in Spanish and it really wasn’t so bad. At halftime I realized it was also being broadcast in English and we switched channels. When I realized that all this yapping was about how certain players were recovering from sprained pinkies and weather it is “1st down” or “4th down and inches” made me ready to switch channels. I also think that the entire country has dyslexia. Has anyone else noticed that the ‘V’ comes before the ‘R’ in Brett Favre’s name? In every language I’ve ever studied it would NOT be pronounced like “farv”. But still all you here is Brett FaRVe, Brett FaRVe. What is up with that? I’ll tell you, I’ve had enough of America and am ready to go back to Central America.

We were in a store today and in front of us were some Americans. They were paying when the guy leans over to me and asks me “Hey, what is the exchange rate here?” He didn’t say “Hello!” or “How are you?” or “Where are you from?” I tell him the approximate exchange rate and then he asks me “What is the currency called here?” I tell him they have colones in Costa Rica. How could you go somewhere and not at least “sort of” know what the exchange rate is? Matthias pointed out that Americans can book flights, tickets, vacation packages and charge everything to their credit card (in dollars) and never have to deal with details like local currencies and exchange rates. A lot of hotels actually have websites here and you can even book some of them online. This is very different from the rest of Central America.

A lot of people that we have met during our travels have described Costa Rica as “less authentic”. I actually don’t like that description of this country. I don’t think any of the people we have met are any less authentic than any other country is. (What does that mean anyway, to be less authentic?) They are richer. Does that make them less authentic? They don’t have garbage piles on the side of the road like Guatemala does, and they have better health care than other Central American countries. Most of the Costa Ricans I’ve seen are not dirty and barefoot. A lot of them are renting out their crappy bungalows for a pretty penny and that seems just as authentic as the American capitalism I’m used to. In a lot of ways they are worlds apart from the other Central American countries that we’ve been to, but that doesn’t mean they are less authentic.

Still, one of the nice things here has still been the Central American spirit. Matthias has been asking every one we meet if they know of an apartment for rent. Here’s an example of how this goes: We’re buying some groceries at the grocery store and Matthias asks the checker in Spanish “Do you know where we can go to rent an apartment. We would like to rent an apartment of 5 or 6 weeks. Do you know of anything?” The checker thinks for a moment, doesn’t know of anything and asks her manager. Her manager looks like he’s thinking of something and goes outside and asks a group of men standing outside. One of the men knows something and writes the name down for us. We ask where it is, and he says, “Oh, just follow me in my car.” We hop in our car and follow him to a hotel and he is able to get us a good deal if we agree to stay an entire week. Unfortunately none of these leads have panned out so far, but it is this part of the adventure that continues to make this trip interesting.

We arrived in Granada with our friend Cy and spent two nights there. Granada is probably the most beautiful town in Nicaragua. It is an old colonial town with buildings painted in bright colors. There was a lively market and we took a boat ride out to an island and saw monkeys. This was a big hit with William and Julian. Granada is next to Lake Nicaragua and there a lot of small islands close to the shore. A lot of these islands have been bought by wealthy Nicaraguans and they build houses on them. One of the owners decided to put monkeys on his island. When he got tired of them he put them on a neighboring island and one of the big tourist attractions is to take a boat out and see the monkeys. William was hoping that we could go onto the island because he wanted to run with the monkeys. Unfortunately you can only float by. It’s a monkeys-only island.

Our next stop was Isla de Ometepe which is farther south on Lake Nicaragua. The island consisted of two volcanoes connected in the middle. Cy was interested in climbing the active volcano and Matthias decided to join him. They left at 4:45 AM and it took them 10 hours to climb up and down the volcano, but the experience and stories they have been telling sure seem worth it. (Although Matthias is still not sure what is easier – 10 hours without the children or 10 hours of sheer agony of climbing a 5000+ foot volcano.) They had a great guide who told them a lot about the animals and ecosystem of the place they were climbing. They even saw about a dozen howler monkeys and a coral snake.

The boat ride off the island was a real trip. It was the ricketiest boat I’ve ever been on. There were some pretty strong waves that day and the boat creaked with every wave. After about 10 minutes the engine died. No one seemed alarmed, so we guessed it was just a normal occurrence. Judging by the shape of the boat it seemed likely that this wasn’t the first time to boat broke down on the water. It took about 15 minutes before they were able to get the boat running again and we made it safe and sound, just a little off schedule. Once back on the mainland we spent one more night in Nicaragua on the coast and the next day we continued on to the Costa Rican border. Things went fairly smoothly there except for the fact that they wanted the original title to our car (we only brought a copy). We had to wait an hour and a half for the boss to come back from lunch before they accepted our documentation. I should note that this is the first border crossing in a while where we did not see any of the officials playing Solitaire on their computer. Once we got through the border we headed back to the coast on the Nicoya Peninsula. The next morning (Thanksgiving) we spent some time on the beach. Matthias and I were on the beach with the kids digging in the sand and swimming in the waves. Cy took a walk on the beach and checked out tidal pools. Later we headed down the peninsula and took a ferry back to the mainland. The ferry left at 5:00PM, which was perfect time to catch the sunset over the water.

Costa Rica has such a different feel from the other Central American countries we’ve been to. In the first larger town we drove through we were confronted by a Burger King, Pizza Hut and other typical American fast food restaurants. One nice thing is that it seems much cleaner. Garbage piles on the side of the road were not uncommon in Mexico and most of the other Central American countries we’ve been to so far. But we haven’t seen any of that in Costa Rica. In some senses it also seems a bit more modern. For example, in Nicaragua on Isla de Ometepe our taxi was stopped 3 times by livestock crossing the road. Cows, pigs and horses are often times left to roam at will. We haven’t seen that at all in Costa Rica either. Also, in contrast to other Central American countries, tourism is a huge industry in Costa Rica. Since we’ve been here we have seen one small tour bus after another shuttling around Americans in white tennis shoes, khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts.

Costa Rica doesn’t appear to have the roughness that all the other Central American countries have, but I totally understand why it is such a popular tourist destination. It is clean and beautiful and so far the people we’ve meet have been so friendly and helpful. Costa Rica has also set aside ~25% of its land for national parks and reserves. They understand that preserving their environment is key to preserving their higher standard of living.

Now we are in Alajuela, which is close to the airport and San Jose. Cy left this morning and it has been anything but dull since he left. At breakfast William was sitting eating his toast when he fell off his chair and split his chin open. A paramedic from Seattle happened to be staying in the room next to us and suggested we go to the hospital after ruling out any serious injury. William ended up getting 6 stitches in his chin. One interesting thing was that the Costa Rican government pays for the healthcare of all children in the country, so we didn’t end up paying anything. We would have been happy to pay for it, but they refused. The bill was less than 40 dollars, which for an emergency room visit in the states would be unheard of. Later that day we came back to the hotel and Julian was about to take his afternoon nap when he threw up all over the bed. So today we just decided to lay low in the hotel and get a lot of rest.

Tomorrow we are headed back up north to look for an apartment. In mid-December my parents are going to visit us for nearly 4 weeks. We want to rent an apartment for a month or two where we can all stay and then take day trips. Matthias has been really great. He’s asked everyone we’ve meet so far if they know of an apartment we could rent. He’s asked at restaurants, hotels, cabs and even at the hospital. We have a couple of leads so far, and I think it’ll just be a matter of time before we find a place.

Sorry I can’t write a whole lot, but our friend Cy and I just returned from climbing the Conception volcano on Ometepe island in Nicaragua. I won’t be able to move for the ... [Continue reading this entry]