Costa Rica (Not Quite In A Nutshell)
We are back from Costa Rica so here is our trip update. I'll try to keep it short.
In really short:
We had a fantastic time. Weather was great, food was amazing, people were really friendly and the place is beautiful.
In longer form:
Preamble and Getting There
We decided to focus our time in one area, namely the Osa Peninsula. We made that decision because it is essentially the road less travelled - tourism is focussed on the north east where, to put it bluntly, there are roads. Osa is in the south west. In retrospect this was probably a mistake because the south west is all rainforest, and me and 95% humidity don't always get along. But we kept it friendly.
We booked 3 different eco-lodges, each for a week or a little less, and between each lodge we had a travel day at a hotel in a town. The travel day may seem like a bit of a waste but we weren't sure how well our connections between lodges would go in terms of travel times, and let's face it, a night in air conditioned comfort and a nice hot shower with lots of water pressure is a nice little interlude to the cabinas (at each resort we have our own cabin) in the rain forest.
We flew into San Jose on the 2nd of January and stayed for one night at a hotel about 25 km out of town, on the hillside. The hotel was called Buena Vista and with good reason, it had an amazing view. It over looked a coffee plantation and also an orchard of some kind (from a distance looked like olive trees but I don't think those grow there), and in the distance, San Jose. San Jose is nice from afar. 'Nuff said.
The next day we took a 12 seater air plane south to Golfito, on the Golfo Dulce. That is the Gulf on the inside of the Osa Peninsula. The plane was tiny and in addition to weighing our bags they asked us how much WE weighed, which is comforting in some ways and in others does not inspire confidence. After a 45 minute flight (the alternative to an 8 hour bus ride) we got picked up at the airstrip (there is no airport, in fact I didn't even see a building but there must be a check in desk somewhere) by a staff member of our first eco-resort, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge.
Esquinas Rainforest Lodge
The lodge site was beautiful. In the edge of the rain forest in the interior, not on the coast. The nearest town was a little place called La Gamba. The road to get there was crazy, the pot holes were unbelievable and in more than one place the road is actually crossed by a (seasonally small) river. No such thing as lanes, just drive where there is useable road. Landrovers only. We were there for several days and had taken several trips on that road before we realised it was the "shortcut" and that there was actually a decent road they could take, it was just 30 km longer.
The lodge site had lots of kms of trails, all of which were almost completely unusable by us. And I thought we were hikers. I just wasn't up for getting lost in the rain forest, where you can't sit down or you might sit on a tiny insect that could kill you. (har har). Actually, there was a Swiss couple there who told us that the number one killer in the rainforest was not the wildlife, but falling coconuts and other tree debris. I could believe it. Once at the next lodge a large (cantalope sized) fruit fell from a tall tree and hit the ground about 15 feet away from me, exploding. If that were a coconut, I believe it would be your head that would give way. Now THAT would be an embarrassing way to go. Killed by a coconut. Anyway, the trails were not well maintained and just way too crazy, especially for the weather conditions (30 degrees in the shade and 90% humidity). We gave a couple a good college try and then packed the idea in. We were on vacation after all!
Esquinas not just a lodge, it's a project. It's based on the premise that a lodge hosting fewer than 40 guests at any one time can increase the quality of life for 70 local families, by employment and local economic support of small crop farming. They grew all their own fruit and veg on the lodge property. They also have an attached research station that hosts university and graduate students (mostly from Austria) doing their theses on rainforest related topics. They recently published a field guide on the region.
Our guide, Neto, took us on several tours. We went horseback riding (C's horse was named "Crazy Indian" - hey, better her than me, mkay??) along the Chorro river and swam at a waterfall, and also into the national park and along Rio Bonito, and went kayaking and snorkelling in the Golfo Dulce, and on a tour of the Mangroves in the Golfo Dulce.
We saw tons of birds, and not so many mammals. The lodge had a spring fed freshwater pool that needed no chlorine, and it was fantastic. It was not crowded, the number of guests there was always below 12.
The only thing we didn't like about Esquinas is that the humidity means everything is damp - including everything inside the Cabinas, our clothes and our sheets, and our towels never dried.
Air Conditioned Interlude
After Esquinas we spent one night in Golfito, waiting for a transfer to Golfo Dulce Lodge (GDL). GDL is only accessible by boat. We enjoyed the air conditioning, a little TV (english national geographic including a program on super snakes...... er....), and eating at the restaurant (the food was great at the lodge just sometimes its nice to choose what you want to eat!). We were nearly mugged, but never mind that. (pesky details)
Golfo Dulce Lodge
Golfo Dulce Lodge was in a great setting. On the coast of the Gulf the humidity was a lot lower, so things stayed drier. It was still around 75% I would guess, but that was noticeable. There were hammocks down by the ocean and it was great to lounge where the ocean breeze kept it cooler. GDL also had a freshwater pool, but it looked a little more like a science project until they cleaned it while we were there - I guess their filtering system wasn't as good. While we were there we saw a bunch of Scarlet Macaws, which are very endangered huge red parrots. There is a release project currently underway with these birds in an attempt to restore their population. The project hopes that this small population will expand in numbers and territory to meet with the existing natural population on the other side of the gulf, to mix genetics. Currently it seems to be a huge success, but it relies on the current trend to maintain and protect their habitat. They used to be widespread down the entire west coast of the country, but were reduced to a population fewer than 250 birds.
At GDL the Cabinas were beautiful. Great carvings on the doors, beautiful wood throughout. Both lodges are in the rainforest but they need special permission to use any wood - even fallen wood. There is one species of wood though that is not indigenous and in fact the government encourages removal of those trees if they are on your property (carefully defined) to prevent their spread, and lots of furniture in the area is made with either that or bamboo, which grows very quickly.
We met a really nice American couple there, Joe and Judy, and ate a lot of meals with them and went for a few walks. They were there for the birdwatching too and it was nice to have people to talk to - most of the guests at both these lodges were from Austria, Germany or Switzerland, and although almost all of them spoke at least some english it wasn't the same as having a conversation with people where you didn't have to worry about word choice and proper grammar!
Both those lodges were great, but we figured that you could get the best of both worlds by moving Esquinas to GDL's location, and keeping GDL's Cabinas. The food and staff at Esquinas was great. Unfortunately they are competitors!
On The Road Again
After GDL we were dropped off in the morning at Golfito to take a taxi to a place called Sierpe, about 80km away, to go to our third lodge. Taxis in Costa Rica are sometimes questionable but in general a great and inexpensive way to travel. This one however, couldn't get his car started. He called a buddy though and he drove us there, it took a little over an hour.
Sierpe is a tiny little place, which means it took us about 5 minutes to walk all the way around it twice. But we bought ice cream and sat on the hotel's restaurant patio and relaxed, and had a good time. Again, air conditioning and hot showers. The river Sierpe goes out to the pacific ocean and there were some floating islands made of rafts of lily pads and other water plants, some of them in bloom, ranging from a few small plants to the size of a front yard that made their way up and down the river. I imagine they don't get any bigger than that only because water taxi is the way to travel there and the boats must hit them from time to time.
Our third lodge was called Punta Marenco Lodge (PML). The water taxi picked us up for the boat ride to PML, which took about an hour going full tilt. This is fortuitous for them, I'll get to the reasons later. We passed a huge iguana swimming across the river.
Punta Marenco Lodge - or - Stay, Interrupted.
Punta Marenco Lodge was located on a cliff top overlooking the ocean. The cabinas were rustic, basically a screened frame with curtains and a porch overlooking the water. We saw flocks of pelicans fly by. We were disappointed though that there was no pool, something we obviously overlooked when planning. There were steps down to the beach, which was a really nice beach but the ocean there means business. The waves coming in were huge and I took one look, imagined myself getting sucked in by the undertow, and knew I wouldn't be doing any swimming. I had fun teasing the hermit crabs though (which I think are hilarious), and we actually finally saw monkeys. So they were throwing nuts and branches down at us, at least it wasn't poo, so it was cute.
The food at Punta Marenco was nice and there were more guests there than either of the other lodges, there were at least 16 of us at dinner the first night. About half of them were at the end of their tour and leaving the next day. But dinner time was where our vacation started to go off course. First, we were talking to Carlos, the guy running the lodge. I reminded him that we were leaving via the town of Drake Bay, not Palmar. Most of the guests leave via Palmar but Drake is a lot closer, and since our plan was to fly to San Jose on the 19th then fly home from there, we figured we should just fly from Drake, and save all that boat and taxi time.
A little back story. At the hotel in Sierpe we had gotten to talking about since it looked like our canopy tour wasn't going to go as scheduled, maybe we should leave PML on the 18th (after 4 nights) and return to San Jose, so we have a day there before we fly home. Our hotel manager was great and spoke fluent english and spanish, so SHE called Sansa airline to try to change our ticket from the 19th at 11:30AM to the 18th at 11:30AM, still out of Drake Bay. No problem they said, just let us check availability on the 18th, and there will be a $15 change fee. They called back, unfortunately the flight on the 18th is full. End of story, OK, we thought, stick to the original plan then.
Anyway, I tell Carlos this, and he says, "you can't fly out of Drake at 11:30, they are repairing the airstrip and it is closed between 9 and 3 every day". Well nice of them to tell us, considering they had us on the phone yesterday!!!! So we'd have to sort that out. Carlos tells us he will take care of it.
Costa Rica daylight is from about 6AM to 6PM, so after dinner it was already dark. We got accustomed to going to sleep at about 9. We headed down to our cabina after dinner, probably a little early. Anyway, we'd borrowed a headlamp from our neighbours because our flashlight was dead. The Cabina had light but it was strong in the bathroom and weak elsewhere. Inside, I saw something scurry over the shelf.
I should add - I mentioned the cabina was rustic. There was no dresser, or cupboard, nowhere to put clothes. We had unpacked onto the single bed in the cabina (there was a double bed also, with a mosquito net, although we had had no problem with mosquitoes this would come in handy). There was a small shelf where we'd put our sunscreen and books, and shoulder bags.
So I see this thing scurry on the shelf, and get my trusty C to come check it out for me. She comes, we locate it, and it's a cockroach.
I understand we are in nature, and Costa Rica has cockroaches in nature. One, I can handle. An accident of place, be on your way! But it wasn't just one. We started looking (and not hard), and they were all over the place. These are not polite little Canadian roaches, scurrying at the smallest sign of light, these are monstrously huge Rainforest cockroaches trying on our clothes and fluffing our pillows, wondering if we're done with that issue of People Magazine.
I hate cockroaches, and thankfully my exposure to them has always been limited. They are not my phobia. We spotted my phobia when we saw the silhouette of something long and thin slithering up the curtain. Is that a little snake? A little snake I could have handled, but the light illuminated a centipede about 6 inches long. I was done.
We went back up to the main building and after gabbing with the young american women staying next door to us for a while C and one of them went to get Carlos and have the situation dealt with. C and Carlos went down with cans of raid and he sprayed the place. Later she told me he apologized to the roaches as he sprayed them! Not a good sign.
We went back after the proscribed 30 minute wait period for the fumes to clear and our cabina had a number of dead and dying roaches in it. Unfortunately, it also had a number that were alive and well. We sprayed them, left the lights on, tucked our mosquito net around the mattress so nothing could get in and tried to get some shut eye. We were both up by 5, packed as soon as it was light, and telling Carlos we were on our way by 6. Some classic conversation:
C: "We're not staying. We're leaving this morning."
Carlos (actually surprised): "WHY??
pause
Me: "Our room is full of cockroaches"
He offered to move us to another cabina, which we refused. We told him we were done. He wanted to know if it was *just* the cockroaches, or if it was really some other reason (and we didn't want to tell him). We told him the cockroaches were enough of a reason.
He told us that they fumigate rarely and that this problem was not typical of the lodge. He said they don't like to fumigate because "they're just animals", which made me wonder what the conditions in the kitchen were like. However, as they basically got us out of there as fast as they could (I think they were worried we'd trigger a stampede) they were also preparing to fumigate the place. And although no one else had complained of problems, when we told people we were leaving they responded with things like "Understandable" and "I don't blame you" despite the fact that we had made a point of not broadcasting our reasons.
So less than 20 hours after arriving, we were on the boat back to Sierpe, and a taxi to Palmar, where we went to the airstrip and arranged to change our useless Drake flight to one for that day. We got on the 11:30 and although we had to wait around since 9am til then, hey, at least there weren't any roaches.
A Small Chang of Plan/Pace
C was getting sick at this point and when we arrived at San Jose we spent a few frustrating minutes in an internet cafe trying to get another resort that was local for our last 4 nights. We gave up on that and decided to go get something to eat, as we had avoided eating at the lodge. We ate a Pizza Hut. Ah.....
I asked C if she wanted to go home or if she wanted to find another resort, and we agreed on going home if we could change our flight. We were both completely satisfied with our vacation, it had, despite the small blip at the end, been amazing.
We took a cab to the airport and changed our flight to the 16th from the 19th. Now all we needed was a hotel to stay at. We went to the arrivals level in search of a tourist information desk, and passed through the gauntlet of taxis for the various local hotels. Across the crowded street I saw the beacon - a shuttle bus for Best Western Irazu Hotel and Casino. The magic words. I pointed it out to C and she was on that bus so fast the driver didn't know what hit him. He was trying to ask us what hotel our reservation was for (because he drives to two) and we were trying to tell him we didn't have one, take us to the hotel with the casino! He got the hotel on his cell phone and we made a reservation right there.
The hotel had clean rooms, hot showers, air conditioning, and best of all, there were no cockroaches!! On top of that the Casino had Caribbean Stud Poker, our favourite table game. It was bliss.
One noteable incident in the Casino had me opening my hand to see the first two cards were 2s. My third card was also a 2. So was my fourth. I got dealt four of a kind at Carribean Stud Poker. Check the replays, they watched the tapes and counted the cards to make sure I wasn't cheating. The dealer didn't "open" (he didn't make Ace-King or higher in his hand), so I didn't get my 20 to 1 payout, only the standard prize. They counted out my 80,000 colones prize, or $150 US. One Hundred and Fifty USD for four of a kind? I really would have thought the prize would have been higher. There are only two higher hands in poker - straight flush and a royal flush. The prize for a straight flush would have been $150,000 USD, royal flush was at 1.5M. But hey, it paid for our stay and our table time. And how many people can say they've been dealt 4 of a kind?
Well that was despite my efforts to keep it short.
Costa Rica was amazing, and some day we will go back for sure. I think I'll try to learn Spanish first. We will definitely hit the northern part next time, for something different.
We saw amazing birds, including motmots, the macaws, toucans, guans, pellicans, magnificent frigatebirds, a zillion hummingbirds, and a variety of parrots. And the monkeys flung nuts not poo. Always a plus.
In really short:
We had a fantastic time. Weather was great, food was amazing, people were really friendly and the place is beautiful.
In longer form:
Preamble and Getting There
We decided to focus our time in one area, namely the Osa Peninsula. We made that decision because it is essentially the road less travelled - tourism is focussed on the north east where, to put it bluntly, there are roads. Osa is in the south west. In retrospect this was probably a mistake because the south west is all rainforest, and me and 95% humidity don't always get along. But we kept it friendly.
We booked 3 different eco-lodges, each for a week or a little less, and between each lodge we had a travel day at a hotel in a town. The travel day may seem like a bit of a waste but we weren't sure how well our connections between lodges would go in terms of travel times, and let's face it, a night in air conditioned comfort and a nice hot shower with lots of water pressure is a nice little interlude to the cabinas (at each resort we have our own cabin) in the rain forest.
We flew into San Jose on the 2nd of January and stayed for one night at a hotel about 25 km out of town, on the hillside. The hotel was called Buena Vista and with good reason, it had an amazing view. It over looked a coffee plantation and also an orchard of some kind (from a distance looked like olive trees but I don't think those grow there), and in the distance, San Jose. San Jose is nice from afar. 'Nuff said.
The next day we took a 12 seater air plane south to Golfito, on the Golfo Dulce. That is the Gulf on the inside of the Osa Peninsula. The plane was tiny and in addition to weighing our bags they asked us how much WE weighed, which is comforting in some ways and in others does not inspire confidence. After a 45 minute flight (the alternative to an 8 hour bus ride) we got picked up at the airstrip (there is no airport, in fact I didn't even see a building but there must be a check in desk somewhere) by a staff member of our first eco-resort, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge.
Esquinas Rainforest Lodge
The lodge site was beautiful. In the edge of the rain forest in the interior, not on the coast. The nearest town was a little place called La Gamba. The road to get there was crazy, the pot holes were unbelievable and in more than one place the road is actually crossed by a (seasonally small) river. No such thing as lanes, just drive where there is useable road. Landrovers only. We were there for several days and had taken several trips on that road before we realised it was the "shortcut" and that there was actually a decent road they could take, it was just 30 km longer.
The lodge site had lots of kms of trails, all of which were almost completely unusable by us. And I thought we were hikers. I just wasn't up for getting lost in the rain forest, where you can't sit down or you might sit on a tiny insect that could kill you. (har har). Actually, there was a Swiss couple there who told us that the number one killer in the rainforest was not the wildlife, but falling coconuts and other tree debris. I could believe it. Once at the next lodge a large (cantalope sized) fruit fell from a tall tree and hit the ground about 15 feet away from me, exploding. If that were a coconut, I believe it would be your head that would give way. Now THAT would be an embarrassing way to go. Killed by a coconut. Anyway, the trails were not well maintained and just way too crazy, especially for the weather conditions (30 degrees in the shade and 90% humidity). We gave a couple a good college try and then packed the idea in. We were on vacation after all!
Esquinas not just a lodge, it's a project. It's based on the premise that a lodge hosting fewer than 40 guests at any one time can increase the quality of life for 70 local families, by employment and local economic support of small crop farming. They grew all their own fruit and veg on the lodge property. They also have an attached research station that hosts university and graduate students (mostly from Austria) doing their theses on rainforest related topics. They recently published a field guide on the region.
Our guide, Neto, took us on several tours. We went horseback riding (C's horse was named "Crazy Indian" - hey, better her than me, mkay??) along the Chorro river and swam at a waterfall, and also into the national park and along Rio Bonito, and went kayaking and snorkelling in the Golfo Dulce, and on a tour of the Mangroves in the Golfo Dulce.
We saw tons of birds, and not so many mammals. The lodge had a spring fed freshwater pool that needed no chlorine, and it was fantastic. It was not crowded, the number of guests there was always below 12.
The only thing we didn't like about Esquinas is that the humidity means everything is damp - including everything inside the Cabinas, our clothes and our sheets, and our towels never dried.
Air Conditioned Interlude
After Esquinas we spent one night in Golfito, waiting for a transfer to Golfo Dulce Lodge (GDL). GDL is only accessible by boat. We enjoyed the air conditioning, a little TV (english national geographic including a program on super snakes...... er....), and eating at the restaurant (the food was great at the lodge just sometimes its nice to choose what you want to eat!). We were nearly mugged, but never mind that. (pesky details)
Golfo Dulce Lodge
Golfo Dulce Lodge was in a great setting. On the coast of the Gulf the humidity was a lot lower, so things stayed drier. It was still around 75% I would guess, but that was noticeable. There were hammocks down by the ocean and it was great to lounge where the ocean breeze kept it cooler. GDL also had a freshwater pool, but it looked a little more like a science project until they cleaned it while we were there - I guess their filtering system wasn't as good. While we were there we saw a bunch of Scarlet Macaws, which are very endangered huge red parrots. There is a release project currently underway with these birds in an attempt to restore their population. The project hopes that this small population will expand in numbers and territory to meet with the existing natural population on the other side of the gulf, to mix genetics. Currently it seems to be a huge success, but it relies on the current trend to maintain and protect their habitat. They used to be widespread down the entire west coast of the country, but were reduced to a population fewer than 250 birds.
At GDL the Cabinas were beautiful. Great carvings on the doors, beautiful wood throughout. Both lodges are in the rainforest but they need special permission to use any wood - even fallen wood. There is one species of wood though that is not indigenous and in fact the government encourages removal of those trees if they are on your property (carefully defined) to prevent their spread, and lots of furniture in the area is made with either that or bamboo, which grows very quickly.
We met a really nice American couple there, Joe and Judy, and ate a lot of meals with them and went for a few walks. They were there for the birdwatching too and it was nice to have people to talk to - most of the guests at both these lodges were from Austria, Germany or Switzerland, and although almost all of them spoke at least some english it wasn't the same as having a conversation with people where you didn't have to worry about word choice and proper grammar!
Both those lodges were great, but we figured that you could get the best of both worlds by moving Esquinas to GDL's location, and keeping GDL's Cabinas. The food and staff at Esquinas was great. Unfortunately they are competitors!
On The Road Again
After GDL we were dropped off in the morning at Golfito to take a taxi to a place called Sierpe, about 80km away, to go to our third lodge. Taxis in Costa Rica are sometimes questionable but in general a great and inexpensive way to travel. This one however, couldn't get his car started. He called a buddy though and he drove us there, it took a little over an hour.
Sierpe is a tiny little place, which means it took us about 5 minutes to walk all the way around it twice. But we bought ice cream and sat on the hotel's restaurant patio and relaxed, and had a good time. Again, air conditioning and hot showers. The river Sierpe goes out to the pacific ocean and there were some floating islands made of rafts of lily pads and other water plants, some of them in bloom, ranging from a few small plants to the size of a front yard that made their way up and down the river. I imagine they don't get any bigger than that only because water taxi is the way to travel there and the boats must hit them from time to time.
Our third lodge was called Punta Marenco Lodge (PML). The water taxi picked us up for the boat ride to PML, which took about an hour going full tilt. This is fortuitous for them, I'll get to the reasons later. We passed a huge iguana swimming across the river.
Punta Marenco Lodge - or - Stay, Interrupted.
Punta Marenco Lodge was located on a cliff top overlooking the ocean. The cabinas were rustic, basically a screened frame with curtains and a porch overlooking the water. We saw flocks of pelicans fly by. We were disappointed though that there was no pool, something we obviously overlooked when planning. There were steps down to the beach, which was a really nice beach but the ocean there means business. The waves coming in were huge and I took one look, imagined myself getting sucked in by the undertow, and knew I wouldn't be doing any swimming. I had fun teasing the hermit crabs though (which I think are hilarious), and we actually finally saw monkeys. So they were throwing nuts and branches down at us, at least it wasn't poo, so it was cute.
The food at Punta Marenco was nice and there were more guests there than either of the other lodges, there were at least 16 of us at dinner the first night. About half of them were at the end of their tour and leaving the next day. But dinner time was where our vacation started to go off course. First, we were talking to Carlos, the guy running the lodge. I reminded him that we were leaving via the town of Drake Bay, not Palmar. Most of the guests leave via Palmar but Drake is a lot closer, and since our plan was to fly to San Jose on the 19th then fly home from there, we figured we should just fly from Drake, and save all that boat and taxi time.
A little back story. At the hotel in Sierpe we had gotten to talking about since it looked like our canopy tour wasn't going to go as scheduled, maybe we should leave PML on the 18th (after 4 nights) and return to San Jose, so we have a day there before we fly home. Our hotel manager was great and spoke fluent english and spanish, so SHE called Sansa airline to try to change our ticket from the 19th at 11:30AM to the 18th at 11:30AM, still out of Drake Bay. No problem they said, just let us check availability on the 18th, and there will be a $15 change fee. They called back, unfortunately the flight on the 18th is full. End of story, OK, we thought, stick to the original plan then.
Anyway, I tell Carlos this, and he says, "you can't fly out of Drake at 11:30, they are repairing the airstrip and it is closed between 9 and 3 every day". Well nice of them to tell us, considering they had us on the phone yesterday!!!! So we'd have to sort that out. Carlos tells us he will take care of it.
Costa Rica daylight is from about 6AM to 6PM, so after dinner it was already dark. We got accustomed to going to sleep at about 9. We headed down to our cabina after dinner, probably a little early. Anyway, we'd borrowed a headlamp from our neighbours because our flashlight was dead. The Cabina had light but it was strong in the bathroom and weak elsewhere. Inside, I saw something scurry over the shelf.
I should add - I mentioned the cabina was rustic. There was no dresser, or cupboard, nowhere to put clothes. We had unpacked onto the single bed in the cabina (there was a double bed also, with a mosquito net, although we had had no problem with mosquitoes this would come in handy). There was a small shelf where we'd put our sunscreen and books, and shoulder bags.
So I see this thing scurry on the shelf, and get my trusty C to come check it out for me. She comes, we locate it, and it's a cockroach.
I understand we are in nature, and Costa Rica has cockroaches in nature. One, I can handle. An accident of place, be on your way! But it wasn't just one. We started looking (and not hard), and they were all over the place. These are not polite little Canadian roaches, scurrying at the smallest sign of light, these are monstrously huge Rainforest cockroaches trying on our clothes and fluffing our pillows, wondering if we're done with that issue of People Magazine.
I hate cockroaches, and thankfully my exposure to them has always been limited. They are not my phobia. We spotted my phobia when we saw the silhouette of something long and thin slithering up the curtain. Is that a little snake? A little snake I could have handled, but the light illuminated a centipede about 6 inches long. I was done.
We went back up to the main building and after gabbing with the young american women staying next door to us for a while C and one of them went to get Carlos and have the situation dealt with. C and Carlos went down with cans of raid and he sprayed the place. Later she told me he apologized to the roaches as he sprayed them! Not a good sign.
We went back after the proscribed 30 minute wait period for the fumes to clear and our cabina had a number of dead and dying roaches in it. Unfortunately, it also had a number that were alive and well. We sprayed them, left the lights on, tucked our mosquito net around the mattress so nothing could get in and tried to get some shut eye. We were both up by 5, packed as soon as it was light, and telling Carlos we were on our way by 6. Some classic conversation:
C: "We're not staying. We're leaving this morning."
Carlos (actually surprised): "WHY??
pause
Me: "Our room is full of cockroaches"
He offered to move us to another cabina, which we refused. We told him we were done. He wanted to know if it was *just* the cockroaches, or if it was really some other reason (and we didn't want to tell him). We told him the cockroaches were enough of a reason.
He told us that they fumigate rarely and that this problem was not typical of the lodge. He said they don't like to fumigate because "they're just animals", which made me wonder what the conditions in the kitchen were like. However, as they basically got us out of there as fast as they could (I think they were worried we'd trigger a stampede) they were also preparing to fumigate the place. And although no one else had complained of problems, when we told people we were leaving they responded with things like "Understandable" and "I don't blame you" despite the fact that we had made a point of not broadcasting our reasons.
So less than 20 hours after arriving, we were on the boat back to Sierpe, and a taxi to Palmar, where we went to the airstrip and arranged to change our useless Drake flight to one for that day. We got on the 11:30 and although we had to wait around since 9am til then, hey, at least there weren't any roaches.
A Small Chang of Plan/Pace
C was getting sick at this point and when we arrived at San Jose we spent a few frustrating minutes in an internet cafe trying to get another resort that was local for our last 4 nights. We gave up on that and decided to go get something to eat, as we had avoided eating at the lodge. We ate a Pizza Hut. Ah.....
I asked C if she wanted to go home or if she wanted to find another resort, and we agreed on going home if we could change our flight. We were both completely satisfied with our vacation, it had, despite the small blip at the end, been amazing.
We took a cab to the airport and changed our flight to the 16th from the 19th. Now all we needed was a hotel to stay at. We went to the arrivals level in search of a tourist information desk, and passed through the gauntlet of taxis for the various local hotels. Across the crowded street I saw the beacon - a shuttle bus for Best Western Irazu Hotel and Casino. The magic words. I pointed it out to C and she was on that bus so fast the driver didn't know what hit him. He was trying to ask us what hotel our reservation was for (because he drives to two) and we were trying to tell him we didn't have one, take us to the hotel with the casino! He got the hotel on his cell phone and we made a reservation right there.
The hotel had clean rooms, hot showers, air conditioning, and best of all, there were no cockroaches!! On top of that the Casino had Caribbean Stud Poker, our favourite table game. It was bliss.
One noteable incident in the Casino had me opening my hand to see the first two cards were 2s. My third card was also a 2. So was my fourth. I got dealt four of a kind at Carribean Stud Poker. Check the replays, they watched the tapes and counted the cards to make sure I wasn't cheating. The dealer didn't "open" (he didn't make Ace-King or higher in his hand), so I didn't get my 20 to 1 payout, only the standard prize. They counted out my 80,000 colones prize, or $150 US. One Hundred and Fifty USD for four of a kind? I really would have thought the prize would have been higher. There are only two higher hands in poker - straight flush and a royal flush. The prize for a straight flush would have been $150,000 USD, royal flush was at 1.5M. But hey, it paid for our stay and our table time. And how many people can say they've been dealt 4 of a kind?
Well that was despite my efforts to keep it short.
Costa Rica was amazing, and some day we will go back for sure. I think I'll try to learn Spanish first. We will definitely hit the northern part next time, for something different.
We saw amazing birds, including motmots, the macaws, toucans, guans, pellicans, magnificent frigatebirds, a zillion hummingbirds, and a variety of parrots. And the monkeys flung nuts not poo. Always a plus.