Cindy and John’s Adventures

So John leaves tomorrow for Camden, South Carolina to see his mom.  I’ll be following in a couple of weeks to spend a few days there, then we bop down by Amtrak to see my brother in Jacksonville, and then we rent a car and drive it DC where we will spend a few days and then leave from there to Johannesburg, SA!  Woohoo!
So anyway, we bought her a computer so she could follow our blog and e-mail us and look at porn (yes, John made me put that :)) –  John’s mom has never owned a computer, never played around with a computer and would have been happy to exist without a computer – but we had to go and mess up all her plans of living life without another piece of electronic equipment cluttering her house by going on “the big trip”.

Which is one of the reasons why John is going to Camden 2 weeks early.  I’m waiting for the stories on both sides of his frustrations with teaching him mom how to run a  computer and his mom wondering “why the heck do you have to do that?”.  Oh and he’s going to eat everything in sight.  He has been making plans for months to eat every type of southern food he’s been missing since he moved to Seattle.   It’s like he has been starving himself or something.

So one almost down, one to go!  I have 2 more weeks of work (giving notice tomorrow – oh my gosh – freaking out)…

So now we’re married! And it has completely changed our outlook on life and we feel totally different. Um, yeah – I guess it would be different if we hadn’t actually lived with each other for 3 years.

So the wedding was really fun! I mean, really, it’s Vegas. How could it not be fun! John and I started the week on a Monday with intentions of getting our license and all that stuff. Well, that got thrown out the window when we instead decided to go to the Rio and get these mud-wrap things. Okay, I’m not really into that kind of stuff, but it was pretty fun. Not something I’d probably do again but it was fun. A lot cleaner than I thought it would be – I for some reason had it in my head that it would be a lot messier. Like pig pen messy.

The next day we picked up John’s mom and Aunt Geneva! Hooray! I felt really bad for the guy that owned the suitcase that was dripping red wine while we were waiting for their luggage at baggage claim. Note to self – not a good idea to pack wine. Anyway, over the next 2 days we went to the Hoover Dam (kind of huge!), got our marriage license (we didn’t even need ID!), saw the Fremont Street Experience light show dealie like 10 times, saw more Hawaiians then in Hawaii (you know when spam and eggs is on a menu that it’s catering towards those from the 50th state!), ate at In-and-Out-Burger (overrated – not sure what all the fuss is about), saw Mystere (and had dessert for dinner – can you say yum!) and a bunch of other things I can’t remember…

On Thursday we moved to the strip from downtown Vegas – we met up with Steve, Kerry and Kerry’s mom and then later my parents showed up. On Friday my friends showed up! So excited to see everyone! Spent some quality girl time watching Sheila get her hair and makeup trial done for her wedding in May that we can’t go to because we’ll be bopping around the world by then (sob!) with Sus and Jen. That night a bunch of us met up at the Monte Carlo brewpub – had a couple of shots of something called a red-headed stepsister – very sweet – and Jean was kind enough to bring a hurricane from the MGM for us to try out – oh and of course there were brews – John ordered a bunch of appetizers for all of us – I think Ro and I almost finished off a bucket of shrimp by ourselves! John and I walked Ro home to the Trop and decided to detour and see where we were getting married the next day (does that not sound typical of us – hello, we’d be in Vegas a week and hadn’t seen where we were getting married)…we were pleasantly surprised…the website pics don’t do justice…

Saturday – the day of our wedding. Sheila, Sus and Jen and I cabbed it down to the Tropicana where Breena and Ro were staying – very handy since that’s where we were getting married – Ro was kind of enough to do my hair – I think she was kind of appalled that I was thinking of walking down the aisle with air-dried hair – and hurray – Breena was there! Her plane was delayed the night before so we didn’t get to see her until that day. Anyway, I had to call John because I had forgotten: my necklace, our rings, our wedding license – luckily he was coming with his mom and aunt a little later…ANYWAY…it was a lovely ceremony…short, to the point and not too serious (except for the overly religious connotations)…and the buffet at the Mandalay was really good…after much debate over where we should eat lunch a few months ago we just decided to go with what we knew – although we’d never eaten at the buffet we’d eaten at a couple of other restaurants in there so we figured – by osmosis it would be good? After chatting it up with our fun friends and family for a while, Ro, Breena, John and I decided to go take pics at different places. Don’t know what the heck I was thinking – I NEVER WEAR HEELS – and I was wearing ones that were really tall – after the Monte Carlo pics and Bellagio I crapped out – no way I was walking any further. So with promises to meet up with everyone later we went back to the IP to rest a bit. After that we went to dinner and then went out drinking/gambling/singing at Harrah’s – fun end to a wonderful day!
I’m really going to miss everyone! I’m getting teary-eyed just writing this right now. But life is too short to not live our dreams – and our dream is to see the world and find ourselves. I think everyone at the wedding understands us well-enough to know that this is something we have to do.

Yesterday, Saturday Feb. 3, we sold my 1995 Toyota Corolla. Which is kind of weird since this car (and other moving objects) spurned on “the big trip”. A couple of years ago we decided to get a new car. So we went shopping for one. After visiting a few dealerships I turned to John and said, “if we buy this car, we won’t be able to go around the world”.

He just about killed me. We had visited this subject and had decided not to do it, mostly because I have lived in a box for so many years and that would require me to actually climb out of the box. I mean, let’s get real, I had moved to Seattle when I was a kid with my parents and, except for going to Pullman for a few years to go to school, had never really left this area. And ditching most of our stuff and travelling for a couple of years is not only requiring me to climb out of the box, but to break it down, flatten it out and toss it in a recycling bin.

So that’s how the whole planning of our trip began.

And now we’ve sold the car. And we move out of the apartment in 2 weeks and move in with my parents.

May the adventure begin very soon!

Cin

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That’s right, some of you knew but some of you didn’t that we were going around the world starting in April. Cindy and I started planning this over two years ago and we had our doubts that we would even go through with it but we here we are… I gave my notice a little over a week ago and Cindy gives her notice in mid-March. Cindy and I start out by getting married on Feb 24th in Las Vegas with our family and friends and then onto me going to see my relatives in South Carolina for a couple of weeks and then Cindy meets up with me at the beginning of April. We both then head down to Jacksonville, FL to see her brother and then we head to Washington D.C. because we thought it would be important to see our nations capitol before we set off to see others.

Here is our schedule

Mid-April 2007    S Africa
May 2007        S Africa/Namibia/Zambia
Jun 2007        Tanzania
Jul 2007        Tanzania/Rwanda
Aug 2007        Uganda    School             Volunteering
Sept 2007        Uganda
Oct 2007        Hong Kong/Tibet
Nov 2007        China
Dec 2007        China
Jan 2008        Thailand/Cambodia
Feb 2008        Burma(Myanmar)/Taiwan
Mar 2008        Nepal                Orphanage Volunteering
Apr 2008        Nepal
May 2008        France                French School
Jun 2008        France                WWOOFing Volunteer
Jul 2008        Swiss Alps/Italy
Aug 2008        Turkey
Sept 2008        Syria/Jordon
Oct 2008        Egypt
Nov 2008        Argentina            Spanish School
Dec 2008        Argentina            Spanish School
Jan 2009        Chile
Feb 2009        Chile
Mar 2009        Peru                Volunteering
Apr 2009        Peru

I thought I would add my old Yahoo photo webpage. It includes Peru and New York City. The link can be found under “Our Travel Links” or here http://new.photos.yahoo.com/cirrusjohn/

So after a harrowing bus ride through the mountains where I think the both of us were about to puke our guts out – can you say winding roads? Anyway, we ended up finding our sanctuary for the last leg of our trip at Casa Leon – within walking distance of downtown San Jose but in a quiet part of town.

San Jose ended up a very metropolitan city – I’m not sure why people give it such a bad name. I mean, what do you expect?

We started out with a huge friggin’ burger at this burger joint, had a drink at a very Americanized hotel bar and then ended at this really awful fusion place that was recommended in the Let’s Go book – it was terrible though.

The next day we wandered around the city, bought the International Herald Tribune, went and saw The Guardian – darn scary movie – do not know how the heck Coastguard people do the whole swimming and saving people in the ocean.

Cin,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

That night, John started feeling kind of icky. So we called it an early night. The next day he was still feeling lousy. So we went to the Children’s Museum which was a really great museum – but he was feeling so lousy that we went back to the hostel early. He slept for a while and then went to a chinese restaurant so he could get soup. That’s when we decided to go to the hospital. We were afraid John might have caught malaria. And you just don’t mess with malaria. He was feverish, chills, achy – all the signs. We went back to the hostel and asked our Swiss owner where to go and he directed us to a hospital Hospital Biblica. After a short wait we met with a doctor that thought John had Dengue fever. After getting an IV hooked up to him and some blood taken he was negative for malaria (hurrray!), but they couldn’t test for Dengue for several days. Dengue lasts around 6 days – and it’s essentially a really nasty flu with a super high fever. All from a stupid mosquito. Ironically, I got bitten left and right and he didn’t get bitten hardly at all – but it just takes that one…We were just thanking our luck that we decided to head back to San Jose early and were not in hodinkville – well, John didn’t think he was very lucky since he was essentially bed-ridden for the rest of our trip and then had to get on an airplane while still being sick (I knew he was really feeling sick when I told him I had enough money to buy him some pepto at the airport – it was like I had just told him he’d just won the lottery). And he completely lost all of his taste-buds so everything tasted like shit.

children museum,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

We were never so happy to see Houston as when we were flying in (and no, I never thought I’d say that). We figured if we could just get there that if worse came to worse we could run him to a hospital in Houston. But he made it home to Seattle (although his doctor here tried to convince him he had traveller’s diarrhea even though, hmmm, he was missing that one key thing – he didn’t really have diarrhea). But they tested him anyway and he eventually confirmed he had dengue fever.

So all in all, a pretty good trip, well, except for the end…maybe a little too long for a country like Costa Rica…but the people were unbelievably nice (even the doctor at the hospital said enjoy Costa Rica as John was feeling like total crap)…

So we arrived on Greyline, better known as the gringo bus, from Taramindo to Quepos. We left around 2 and got there around 8. I think the guy that sold us the tickets was smoking crack when he said it would take 4 hours. So of course we had no clue where we were staying so we wandered around and enquired at a few places. Then we took the easy route. We splurged and stayed at the Best Western. It was the best move we made yet. After the container stay for 3 nights having a real shower in a real room with air conditioning and our own tv. It was amazing. We went and had tex mex at this place down the street and then totally crashed out.

The next morning, back to reality and a cheaper place to stay. We found the Mar y Luna – kind of a weird thing – first off cold water shower which I was okay with but John had a little problem with (it kind of takes a while to get used to it) and it opened out into this courtyard with semi-open windows – let`s just say the privacy was a bit lacking. Nice owners though.

Anyway, our main purpose to coming down here in the first place was to see Manuel Antonio park. Well, we never got around to it. The first day we wandered around and went to the Internet Cafe.

The 2nd day we followed, once again, a cartoon map. But this one actually worked out pretty well. After getting dropped off by a taxi to some random hotel we walked down the road, saw a trail on the side of the road and followed it down to the Playa that we were actually looking for. Kind of amazing. John was dead-set on finding the lighthouse on the cartoon map but after talking to the security guard of the beach (I think something got missed in the translation because I`m not sure why a guard is needed on this tiny little beach – but it would have cost us $100 USD since it`s on private land. But the security guy took us on this walk up to this vista – no way we would have found it otherwise – and ended up on some private road. But nobody seemed to care that we popped out onto this private property and at the entrance to the road we saw white-faced monkeys in this tree – they were much cuter than the howler monkeys. After that we ended up at the main Playa in Manuel Antonio. We stayed there for a while and then headed back to town for a siesta.

Me @ Manuel Antonio #2,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

The 3rd day we went to the beach again. We rented a couple of chairs and an umbrella so John`s white butt wouldn`t get totally burned. After a few hours where I just totally lazed and John was getting antsier and his head was hurting because of the wave noise – which I think is kind of funny considering the guy works in a computer lab with hundreds of buzzing computers all day – so we headed back to town for a cold shower and some time in this here internet cafe.

White Faced Monkey #3,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

Not the most exciting of times, but we are trying to learn how to relax and all that business. Tomorrow we take the bus to San Jose and we`re planning on staying in Alajuela which is near the airport and closer to some sites we want to see including another Volcano, a town with a Belgium church and some other things.

We took the gringo bus from Santa Elena to Tamarindo – it would have taken us like 16 hours to get there whereas for a few more bucks we got there in 4. Hmmm, let me think about that…

Anyway, we grabbed the Interbus with these guys from Chicago that went to a wedding somewhere in Monteverde and then were heading to the beach for a few days before going back to the frigid north. They were very entertaining and John was able to trash talk basketball with them. We stayed at Hostel Botella de Leche. In a 40′ container. With very little ventilation. And it was super hot. But the place was really chill and well, that is pretty much the whole town. Pretty chill. The funny part was that next door was the Hotel Chocolate. Which came first, the Chocolate or the Milk?

Hostel De Leche #1,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

This was the first town where they had semi-interesting food – I had been feeling like total crap for a few days so vegetables and Subway were a fabulous addition to our diet which had consisted of Arroz con pollo or Casado which is some type of meat, potatoes, etc. Costa Ricans are firm believers in rice, beans, meat and fruit and that is about it. Not much variety. Oh and the tipical cheese – I can do without.

Hostel De Leche #3,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

We did not do too much in this town. We wanted to see the turtles nesting but it was very expensive and we found out later that you pretty much sit on the beach and wait for someone to go find a turtle and then they march you over there to scare the turtle and then they take you back to your hotel. So we mostly just played in the waves (until John saw something resembling a shark and we got out – I never saw anything since I am totally blind without my glasses), walked on the beach, and did next to nothing. Which was awesome. I can see how people get stuck in these little towns and just never leave. Way too hot for a Seattlelite living in a container, but for others, I am sure it is heaven.

Hotel Chocolate,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn

So after taking the Jeep-Boat-Jeep dealy we ended up in Santa Elena – a town near Monteverde, the Cloud Forest. It was significantly cooler here than in La Fortuna – we ended up staying at this place called Casa Tranquilo – run by a cute couple and their new bouncing baby boy. Free internet and breakfast and clean – what more can you ask for – they had previously tried to run an internet cafe but the competition drove them out of that and they found out after a few renovations that it’s easier and less of a hassle to run a hostel…

On the road to Monteverde #1,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

Anyway, the 1st day we walked to the Butterfly Farm – okay, not intentionally, but we got lost going to the Children’s Eternal Rainforest – so we ended up going there and it was really cool – John was in hog heaven, well, I guess butterfly heaven – I was seriously just going to leave him there for a couple of hours and come back because he could have stayed there for hours and hours. We met this Australian volunteer there who was bopping around from volunteer position to volunteer position – the last one was kind of cool as she was introducing monkeys back into the wild – not sure if I could work at the butterfly place though since they have to touch these gnarly insects too – hmmm, nope don’t think so…

Butterfly #14,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

So we finally made it to the Reserva Forestal Bosque Eterno de Los Ninos after some better directions – kind of cool because they’re trying to become one of those World Heritage sites – saw nothing but it was fun walking around –

The 2nd day we went to Reserva de Santa Elena – it was super windy so we saw nothing until we came upon these other 2 people that were looking up at the sky – John kept walking – he thought they were looking at birds or something but I stopped and the man pointed out the things they were looking at – they were coatis and I thought they looked like anteaters that were wandering about the trees …we were pretty bummed because that was all we saw until we got into the bus to take us back to town and the driver said did we see sloth – of course we hadn’t so we stopped next to this guy’s backyard and there was this thing that looked like a bunch of moss in this tree – apparently these monkey things don’t move much – some of them even grow moss on them since they just hang out a lot – what a trip – and par for the course that we don’t actually see much of anything in the forest but outside of the forest.

Coati #3,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.

For some reason we were so done with this town – it was nice but we were done with wildlife for a while so we made a reservation for the zip lines that afternoon and decided to head to the beach tomorrow – Tamarindo – oh my gosh – a great combination of utter terror and fun – I was absolutely terrified for the first couple of lines but then it got more fun – John was like this is just cool – no adrenaline rush at all for him – whatever – just because he’s not afraid of heights…

But it was totally cool because we went with all these senior citizens and they were totally going after it – hopefully we’ll be doing that at 70!