Living in a treehouse!

Cooper. Our month in Costa Rica is almost up, but luckily, we’ve saved the best for last! Finca Bellavista, a treehouse community, where people build treehouses to live in and then rent them out to other people, like us.

August 17:

We arrive at Finca Bellavista. The only reason we found Finca Bellavista (FBV), was because we saw it on a TV show called "House Hunters -- Off the Grid". When we went to the office, we were greeted by the guy who was on the show! After that, we took our luggage and groceries and hiked into the jungle 25 minutes to our treehouse. When we finally got to our treehouse (called El Castillo Mastate), it looked just as amazing as it did online. With the main kitchen & living area and my bedroom on the ground, on the edge of a deep drop-off, and a big bridge across to the 100% pure treehouse which is 90 feet of the ground, here is a picture of it.

I usually don’t put so many pictures so close together, but this is also worth seeing. We had no ordinary faucet in the treehouse, definitely not. It was a really big sea shell!

We all went to bed a few hours later. First night sleeping in a treehouse!

August 18:

We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner and did nothing else that day. Only joking! The way that the FBV is laid out, there is a red trail, which is the main trail and is a big loop. There are also some side paths, like the green trail and the orange trail. I know, they have such creative names! To go down to Base Camp that morning, we took the long way around on the red trail. On the map it looks flat. Hmmm. It is NOT flat at all! What we were thinking of as a 20-minute walk turned to a challenging 1-hour hike. In Canada, we really enjoy hiking. Here, not so much. Because it’s so humid, you literally can’t walk for 10 minutes without dripping in sweat. When we reached Base Camp, we each selected our appropriate-sized rubber boots for walking after dark for snake protection (to avoid ankle bites). While we were doing that, a dog came up to us, but this was no ordinary dog at all. It was the cutest little playful puppy you have ever seen! His name was Mowgli (he belongs to the FBV rental managers).

We swam in the river until it started raining (then you're supposed to get out, in case of flash flooding). After we got out of the water, we tried going back to our treehouse by taking the green trail. But after 20 minutes, we felt like we were going the wrong direction, like maybe we had missed a turn, so we turned back to take the red trail. After having lunch and being lazy, we decided to head down to Base Camp for happy hour and dinner. Mowgli was at happy hour! He had a little bone with him too. They had dominos, so I set up a track, and when I was finished, I put Mowgli’s bone at the start, so he came over and pushed the first domino with his nose. Supper was good too. We hiked back up went to bed. Second night sleeping in a treehouse!

August 19:

I woke up and I knew what day it was. It was the first day of grade 7 back at my school in Calgary (we always start mid-August, a couple weeks earlier than most schools), and I bet you that I am the only person who has woken up in a treehouse for the first day of school. We all went down to Base Camp to go zip-lining after breakfast. We took the green trail from the other side this time so we could see where we went wrong yesterday...and we felt really stupid. If we had just kept going around one more turn, we would have seen the sign showing that we were heading in the right direction. When we got to Base Camp, we went on their zip-line Sky Trails. It was really fun! In La Fortuna, I couldn’t do all of the zip-lines by myself, only some (because I don't weigh enough to make it all the way across the longer lines), but here I could do them all by myself! They usually have 7 zip-lines, but unfortunately, 2 of their zip-lines had to be taken down due to safety from recent flooding. Here is a picture that I took of me on the zip-line looking down at the river.

We went back along the green trail (this time knowing how far we needed to go), and went down to swim at another one of the swimming spots on the river. It started to rain again. It is the rainforest, after all.  So we went back to the treehouse and spent the rest of the day there, including cooking our own dinner. Then we went to bed and said: third night sleeping in a treehouse!

August 20:

Today was our lazy day! We were planning to go for a nice long swim in the river, but it rained a lot, and when it rains, the river becomes dangerous. So we ended up not swimming. When we headed down to Base Camp for supper, something funny happened. When someone asks you what something tastes like, a joking answer is usually that it tastes like chicken. But tonight, the opposite thing happened: we ate chicken…and oddly enough, it didn’t taste like chicken! It was very good though. We headed back up to the treehouse and went to bed. Fourth and final night in a treehouse!

Good-bye El Castillo Mastate, and good-bye Finca Bellavista. We will miss you…

And we will miss you too Mowgli!

Fill in the Blanks: July 30 - August 12

Cooper. This is a “Fill in the blanks” blog post, where I go back to talk about cool things from the last week or more that haven’t been blogged about yet. Also, just a little list of places we have been in Costa Rica so far: San Jose, Tortuguero, La Fortuna, Monteverde, Montezuma, Manuel Antonio.

July 30, back in La Fortuna

When we were there, we went to a hot springs called Baldi. They say that they are the largest hot springs in the world (which I believe). They have 20 pools, 3 really fast water slides, and 1 “toilet bowl” waterslide! We spent over 3 hours there. But… the funniest thing happened. We were putting things into our locker and we hear “Hi Carolyn!!!”, and we turn around and see our babysitter from Calgary that we had for me years ago! She was here with a summer school travel group with other high-school kids. The waterslides were awesome, and one went 50 km/h!!! My grandparents told me they saw on TV that it was one of the world's Top 10 fastest waterslides! It was hugely fun. Here is a video of me going down the fastest one!

(We all listened to the video a few times, and I would like to say that I'm NOT swearing there, even if it sounds like it)

August 2 and 3, Monteverde

Luckily we rented a four wheel drive car! The drive from La Fortuna to Monteverde was the worst road that we have all ever been on. There are potholes feet deep every few metres, the roads are super skinny, and it was dark for quite a bit of it. Once we finally did make it way after dark, we got to our hotel (a youth hostel) and went to bed. We didn’t like our room there because it had problems with almost everything, so we moved to a fancier place called El Establo (which means “The Stables” in Spanish - this place used to be a farm with horse stables) and the view from our room was gorgeous! 

August 4, Monteverde

We woke very early to do an hour hike in the nearby cloud forest reserve (because animals are more active earlier). Our main goal of the hike was to see a quetzal, which is a very beautiful bird and often hard to spot.  It is unique to here and Panama, I think. Our guide told us it is the national bird of Guatemala, even though they don't have any of these birds in their country!  My dad really likes 'quetzal' because it's the best Scrabble word. To our surprise, we saw one just 2 minutes into our hike! In half and hour, we had seen 9, and even our guide was excited, and said he had never seen that many in half an hour! At the end of the day, we went to a serpentarium and saw lots of snakes, turtles (In grade 4, we had a class pet turtle named Tortuga, and here I found out that Tortuga means turtle in Spanish!), frogs, and lizards. From our hike in the morning, here is a picture that I took of the quetzal.

Carolyn.  A note about picture taking: yes, this is taken with Cooper's Fuji point & shoot...with the small camera lens held up to the powerful tripod-mounted lens on the guide's bird-watching scope.  This technique gives amazing photos - suddenly fantastic zoomed photos are possible with crisp, clear beauty through the scope.  We use this technique again on other guided hikes.


Cooper.
August 5 – 12, Montezuma

In Montezuma, we all had two sets of Spanish lessons. However, two sets of Spanish definitely was not enough, we needed at least four, five, or 182 lessons. In those two lessons though, I learned a lot! For anyone who knows what “!Yo tengo queso y no me asusta usarlo!” means in Spanish, then that’s a good thing, because that’s my favourite Spanish sentence! (use google translate if you don’t know). I also learned numbers and some words, but Spanish is really confusing. I will be taking more lessons in Ecuador and Peru.

Also while we were in Montezuma, we went to a big waterfall and a small waterfall. You could swim under the big one, and jump off the small one - which was still pretty big! The water was really deep, and the jump was up about 10 meters. They also had a Tarzan swing into the water. Here is a picture of us at the bottom of the big waterfall.

Please feel free to leave a comment on the separate posts we make.  We enjoy reading what you think of our travels and destinations!

Vern.  In 1902, a brilliant American engineer named Willis Carrier realized that he could dry air by passing it through water to create fog.  This flash of genius led to the development of the modern air conditioner.  Mr.  Carrier’s invention would be responsible for changing lives worldwide.  However, I doubt that at the time he realized that he was instigating a new religion.  Here in Costa Rica, with humidity at close to 100% and daily temperatures of 30+ degrees Celsius, many tourists may be glimpsed performing the daily ritual known as “AC Worship”.  This ceremony, which lasts anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes, has been touted as life-saving, and travellers are normally willing to donate to the movement through a modest increase in the cost of hotel accommodations.

Carolyn.  For the record, WHEN we have A/C in our hotel room (which is not always), we have been keeping it set around 26 or 27 degrees...which really is still laughably warm compared to the 21 or 22 degrees that many people would set their A/C to back home.  It's amazing how a cool 27 degrees inside can deliver blessed relief, without being too cold or obnoxious!!  I really don't know what the outside temps are here on the NW coast of Costa Rica, surely mid-30's (haven't seen an outdoor thermometer anywhere - huh, maybe I should start looking).  But it's the humidity that is killing us.  Even though it's a bit cooler in the mornings, the humidity hits you like a wall when you open the door...then you get used to it...sort of.  The vibe here in Montezuma is very slow and relaxed, and a big part of that is that the heat & humidity make you feel quite lethargic, so you have to SLOW DOWN and take about ten times longer to walk anywhere than you might otherwise!

None of this is complaining.  It's wonderful to not be in a rush.  We are loving it here in Costa Rica.


Later update:  I finally saw a weather report when we were on the south Pacific coast.  Temperature forecast to be high of 36 degrees, with the humidex it was predicted to feel like 47 degrees.  Yep.  47 degrees is not what we're used to feeling in Canada!
  

Vern.

Foodie Report

Restaurante Caracolas, Mal País, Costa Rica

Food lovers are constantly searching for that hidden gem; that out-of-the-way establishment that is as much a delight to find as it is a pleasure to dine.  We stumbled across one of those nuggets today, in the tiny hamlet of Mal País on Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula.

Restaurante Caracolas is a small, eclectic collection of seaside tables sheltered by palm trees.   All are located a few feet from the beach and provide diners with a spectacular view of the Pacific.  

I started out with the “Superceviche”.  Ceviche is a popular appetizer throughout Costa Rica and I had sampled a number of reasonable versions over the past weeks.   Caracolas’ superceviche surpasses them all.  The chef’s succulent blend of lime, olive oil, chives, tomato and spices is mouth watering.  The dish is uniquely presented as a seafood tower, accompanied by fried plantain.  This is nice touch considering ceviche is normally served with tortilla chips or plain bread.

The unexpectedly generous portion of appetizer had me worried about personal capacity for my next course.   However, the description of the “Pollo Barrigon” had grabbed my attention from the get-go, and I was not about to surrender:  “chicken fillet stuffed with gouda cheese, basil & apple with mushroom sauce”.   

The chicken was cooked to perfection.  The gouda combined beautifully with the apple, lending both a creaminess and sweetness to the dish, while the mushroom and basil provided the perfect balance of savoury seasoning.

In spite of the inauspicious name Mal País (literally “bad country”), if you ever find yourself within a half-day’s drive of the place it’s worth the trip to Restaurante Caracolas.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Carolyn.  Today is our 21st wedding anniversary!  We find ourselves in a nice little beach town on the Pacific coast, called Montezuma.  It's on the tip of a large peninsula in the NW part of Costa Rica, so we took a ferry across from the mainland instead of driving all the way around (saving many hours).  It's stupidly hot and humid, but still lovely, and it looks like we'll be staying here for 6-7 days, enjoying Spanish lessons, surf lessons and yoga classes.

Tonight's anniversary meal was "Tipical Costa Rican Food" of rice and chicken.  We have been amused throughout our travels in Costa Rica that restaurants advertise their "Tipical" fare;  sometimes it's even spelled correctly as "Typical" - but either way, it seems a rather basic, even crude, effort at marketing.  We guess that it's meant to advertise "Authentic Cuisine", and at some point in history a bad translation just stuck.  Everywhere.

As our year away progresses, there will be more milestones celebrated in new places - three birthdays should spread out nicely across three continents - and if all goes well, we'll still be on the road NEXT Aug 6 to celebrate our 22nd Anniversary!

Vern.
(July 31)

It has been said that zip-lining was invented in Costa Rica, a rumour cleverly perpetuated by the local tour operators.  Whether true or not, sailing over tropical waterfalls through lush rainforest at 50 km/h is an experience not to be missed.

We elected to put our lives in the hands of Mundo Aventura , having confirmed that their guides and cable system would accommodate Cooper at 75 lbs and 4' 4".   (Many operators have a strict minimum height and weight policy and will refuse kids that don't measure up.  Cooper was accompanied by a guide on a few cables to provide the ballast required to get him across.)  Our adventure included seven cable runs, one of them a kilometre long, suspending riders over a 100 m drop to the forest below.  The safety briefing was thorough, though a dry run on a practice cable would have been appreciated before clipping onto the real thing and speculating on the adverse effects of gravity.

At the conclusion of our three hour tour, we agreed it was time well spent.

Carolyn. 

(August 1)

In the La Fortuna area of central Costa Rica, near the Arenal volcano, the choices in adventure activities seem endless.  There are MANY options that we declined (whitewater rafting, tubing, ATV'ing, bungee-jumping, hiking suspension bridges, horseback riding and more).  But the day after zip-lining, we decided to try "canyoneering";  all we really knew was that this would involve some rapelling down waterfalls - sounds great!   In fact, it was a fantastic half-day excursion hiking through the rain forest, moving regularly in and out of water, jumping into waterholes, free-climbing (sitting? slipping?!) down canyon walls, and yes rapelling down four sets of waterfalls - two sets were over 200 feet high and provided quite the adrenaline rush when taking that first leap off the platform at the top.  Add this to the list of cool things to do in Costa Rica!

Cooper. If anybody was wondering why there were no posts over the last two weeks and a half, it is because we were enjoying our time with no internet at our lovely cottage in Ontario from July 9 - 23 (between Inuvik and Costa Rica).

Warning... This is a long post for over July 23 - July 28.

July 23:
We left our cottage to head out to our friends' place near the Toronto airport to catch a 8:00 am flight, getting us up and out at 5:00 am. A late night today and an early start tomorrow!

July 24:
Got on our early plane ride to Costa Rica, a five hour flight. Those who travel on planes would know that usually the plane would have seatback screen entertainment for shows and movies, but this one didn't! But...it did have Wi Fi to watch movies they give on your own device! When we landed, we got on a shuttle to our hotel, the Adventure Inn Hotel. It is a great place, a nice pool (key for the one who's writing this post) and overall a good hotel. I'm happy that we're coming back here in four days.

July 25:
Early wake up again, the same time as yesterday, and then we got off on another long trip to Turtle Beach Lodge, in the National Park in the rainforest. Meaning a four hour bus ride with a half hour stop for our breakfast, but I slept through most of the ride, but on the ride, we were told that the pool was closed! ahhh! That was disappointing. Also right afterwards, we got onto a boat for another hour and a half because the only way to the lodge is by boat. We had a pit stop in Tortuguero, a small but nice little town. But also, while on the bus ride, we saw pineapple growing fields, yam growing fields, and banana fields. And I bet you haven't been keeping in mind that it's a 32 degrees hot day with lots of humidity in the air, making everyone sweat up a storm, and to top that off, we had to wear a lifejacket making it all worse. We finally made it to our lodge by boat in the rainforest. We collected our luggage which was taken there on another boat, and we settled into our hotel room and went to lunch. Lunch was, in this order, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, rice, beans, a veggie combo, pasta, sauce, and meat. Why does the food and its order matter? you may ask. You will see later. Later in the day but before supper, we went on a cool rainforest hike in rubber boots because it was really muddy and we saw lots of little red frogs, called Blue Jean Frogs (they are called that because their legs are blue even though the rest of their body is red), plants and a small, cute turtle that walked over someone's boots. It was then supper, and it was the exact same setup as lunch!

July 26:
Still not a sleep-in day, 5:15 am to go on a morning life jungle tour, which was really cool, but too early in too many days in a row. Everyone saw many things on the tour, we saw Kingfishers, Herons, Toucans, Ningas (bird that swims underwater to catch fish), River Otter (which is my spirit animal), the Blue Jean Frogs, Herons in their nest, really nice butterflies, Caiman (like a small alligator), lizards, a turtle, and a swimming monkey, which was apparently super duper rare. And another big bird in a tree at the end that I spotted - don't know what it's called. Afterwards, we ate breakfast (which wasn't the same as yesterdays lunch and supper - good!). We right after breakfast went on a small kayak trip through the small rivers in the jungle! I had a river kayak, so I kept spinning in circles all the time. I really was annoyed with the kayak. After we were out for about an hour, we returned to our lodge to take a nap to catch up for our lost sleep in the morning, but also to prep for tonight when we will be out until about 1:00 am, hoping to see turtles laying eggs - which only happens late at night! Yes, at 8:30 pm that day, we left on a forty minute boat ride to Tortuguero, in the national park section, to go on a turtle tour. After we got off the boat, it was a short walk to a shelter from the rain (it was slightly raining). We were told a whole bunch of facts about the turtles. By the time we were ready to go to the beach area, it had stopped raining. We had to wait for another half hour on the beach away from the turtle until she was laying eggs and in her "trance" or else we would scare her back to the ocean. The turtle was over one meter long (108 cm to be exact). We got to see her laying her eggs, and the average turtle lays between 80 - 120 eggs each time, and I think this one was closer to 120 eggs. After she was done laying eggs, she buried her eggs with the sand. We were there to see that at the exact right moment. Along with her, we saw 2 other turtles come up from the ocean, but then they must have thought "no, with all of these weird people", and go back down to the ocean again. Seeing these three HUGE turtles was the coolest experience ever!!!

July 27:
Finally a sleep-in morning! Also, the pool opened! yay! After breakfast, we went kayaking again, even though I didn't want to because of my bad kayak yesterday. But I am so glad we went again but this time with a different kayak! It was so awesome, and instead of 1 hour, we stayed out for 3 hours!

July 28:
Leaving time! Had breakfast and left on the same boat for our 90 min ride back to the bus loading area. On the bus though, we were delayed by a really bad car accident that blocked the highway. People died, which is sad. We were originally told we were going to have to wait for over four hours, but we ended up starting to slowly move after one and a half hours. Eventually we made it to our Adventure Inn Hotel again!



Cooper. Please feel free to leave a comment on the separate posts we make. We enjoy reading what you think of our travels and destinations!


Vern.

On my list of unique experiences, the turtle tour in Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica has secured a place in the Top 10.

Where else in the world could one get up-close and personal with a 150 kg turtle returning to her birthplace after journeying thousands of kilometres and then crouch by her side on the beach in the middle of the night and watch her lay 100+ ping pong ball sized-eggs?

Cooper. Proof that we not only dipped our toes in, but dunked ourselves in the water of the Arctic Ocean!!! We...