And we are off...

This blog chronicles the Vega's sabbatical trip to Costa Rica and points in between.  The Bee Gees reference relates to the seeming love affair that CR radio stations have with the 70's wonder trio...and who can blame them...a little Bee Gee goes a long way.

Playing catch up posting since we left on the trip on June 30th...internet service has been sketchy...time limited.

June 30, 2014

You can never have too much time...even with the best planning...we always seem to pull an all-nighter getting things ready. This trip was even more stressed getting launched, as a result of getting the house ready to rent while we are "in-country" (I just like saying in-country:) -Costa Rica.

We leave the house in the trusted hands of Gareth Williams (who works at Intel out of the Swindon, UK office) and his lovely family.  

We were planning on being self sufficient and getting to the airport by bus/rail, but there's no way we would have been ready in-time, so we cabbed it.

We flew to the City of Angels (and our former stomping ground) to visit Celeste's Mom (Dar) for a few days.

Before visiting Dar - we decided to make a lunch-run to some old west-side haunts - Abbott's Pizza or Alejos...Alejos won out.  Yum!

June 30th is Zuzu's B-Day!  The weekend before we left on the trip Z had a slumber party with a few friends.  We continued the fun with candles in EVERYTHING she ate that day:-)

Zuzu is 8 yrs old - spelled out with Mallomar candies.

The Alaska Airline captain on our flight to LAX was sweet enough to let Z sit in the captain's chair, as a special treat for her B-Day.  I thought he might launch into "Airplane - the movie" dialogue:

Captain Oveur: You ever been in a cockpit before?

Joey: No sir, I've never been up in a plane before.

Captain Oveur: You ever seen a grown man naked?

That movie is pure Farrelly brothers genius (IMO)

And last, but not least- the cake!

We rented a room at the Motion Picture Villa, which gave me the opportunity to chat-up some of the characters that contributed to Hollywood's golden era. http://www.mptf.com/home.

One interesting guy I met is Robert Feller.  Bob started his camera career in the military and continued it in Hollywood...working on pictures like "The Godfather" and former board member of the Society of Camera Operators .  I just love hearing about Hollywood lore and the way things used to be done.

Dar worked at Universal Studios for over twenty years before retiring in 2005.  Her contributions to the Public Relations, Promotions and Premieres Department allowed our family to be guests at MANY awesome movie premieres, as well as being her date for the Academy Awards.

The following photo is a non-sequitur - captured while in LA.  Kinda self-explanatory

July 2nd/3rd - Arrive in San Jose, CR

We arrived in SJ at night and were met by a driver from the B&B - Tierra Magica located in Escazu - a close-in suburb to San Jose.  The B&B was great and so were its hosts - Barbara and Otto.  Barbara has an art studio on-site and incorporates sand from different parts of CR and ROW into her paintings.  Cool stuff. I suggested that now that she has mastered the art of weaving organic matter into her paintings, she might want to try some other substance....such as ashes from cremated animals and humans.  Yes, I know - there is an ick factor to what I just stated - but sand/ashes...I can see it working.  Family or pet owners who commission a piece from her will have a special painting.  Imagine - when someone comes over to view a painting - you can point to it and say "I see my mother when I look at that painting...no literally, ashes of my mother are in the painting".  :)

One of my main objectives while in CR was to buy an old Toyota Land Cruiser to drive during the trip and then ship back to the States as a momento from my sabbatical.  I had done a fair amount of research - calling TLC sellers in CR, on-line searches, talking to various maritime shippers and customs brokers.  Lucikly for me, one of the cars I was interested in was located in Escazu, so we contacted the seller and walked from the B&B to test drive it.

(Funny thing about CR is there are no physical addresses on buildings/houses.  If you are trying to find a place, Tico's just say "we are down the road from the school, or near the church...".  A bit weird, but it seems to work for the country and cuts down on advertising mailings:)

We test drove the TLC you see below and much as I tried to love it, it rode like a horse with one-lame foot. I just couldn't subject the family to almost two months of riding a round in a truck that would rattle loose teeth from their jaws.
.

Off to Hertz to rent a car.  Not a bad deal on a Daihutsu Bigo with 4X4 - 50 days for $2,400.

We found a restaurant we enjoyed within walking distance from our B&B called: La Posada de las Brujas...yummy smoothie drinks and local tico food.

On the way to pick-up the rental car in downtown San Jose, I needed to pickup an electrical adapter for my new Acer Aspire Switch 10 / 2:1 with Intel :-) Bay Trail processor.  Unfortunately, I left a piece of the electrical plug stuck in the airplane's charging outlet:-(.  Why is it that manufacturers feel the need to make plugs modular?!?!

I bought the 2:1 from Microsoft for $314 shipped, which I thought was a pretty good price point.  I added a 128GB microSD to the device.  I also purchased a UE Boom bluetooth wireless speaker via Amazon, which is compact and loud.

We also needed to exchange some of the U.S. cash we brought (to buy the car and pay for the houses we rented) into CR Colones. It was quite the process to count out 1,000,000 colones.  Many of the places we are staying, rental car, restaurants function on a cash only basis.  Wonder if it is challenging to collect revenue taxes in CR?

July 4th - July 11th - Punta Jaguar, Osa Peninsula 

July 4th saw us head out early from the B&B in Escazu to the Osa Peninsula.  The drive along the pacific coast sun highway was pretty smooth saling.  We drove through a lot of towns that we would eventually drive back through again to head to our next destination.  Where the rubber-meets-the dirt road is once we got to Puerto Jimenez in the Osa.  All dirt roads and a few river crossings to get to/from places.

There really isn't a way to comply w/ the below car rental advice:

.

The open air tree house we stayed in is called Punta Jaguar.  It's 3 stories tall and made from local trees. The build quality of the house was quite impressive.  You can see pics of the house and all the natural wood furniture in the above link.

We saw lots of wildlife during our stay in Osa and felt like we'd entered Jurrasic Park.  The highlights were close-up visits from a gorgeous Toucan and discovering a variety of camouflaged tree frogs.  We would wake up to a cacophony of Howler monkeys and parrots and go to sleep with crashing waves in the distance and crickets and frogs chirping.

During our week there, the Osa was experiencing record breaking heat and humidity.  Trying to fall asleep in beds with mosquito nets but no ceiling fans or ocean cross breezes proved challenging.  Sadly, seasonally high riptides precluded us from enjoying an ocean swim:-(  However, Jane Fonda would be proud of our daily treks to the beach down a private path with 370 steep stairs each way.  The nearest town was one hour away with the only route requiring multiple river crossings.  So we stayed around the house and enjoyed what nature had to offer -

After climbing the steps up to the house - Violet would bang the gong...or the equivalent of dropping the mic and walking off stage.

Which brings me to the point of this blog and the need to always be "connected" to the internet.  I know travelers come to Costa Rica to get "away from it all", but it's hard to give up an always-on way of life.  Sad statement - but true.  And when a scorpion is in your bed (as it was in mine in Punta Jaguar) and it stings you (read -ME) and your not sure if the little bugger is poisonous or not...well, that's when you reach for the internet.  Luckily - of the 12 variety of scorpions that make CR their home - none are considered poisonous.  Yes - at barely a 1/2" long you are laughing at my cowardice...but let me tell you...You should've seen the way [he] talked to me....(name the episode)

Now, being from Miami and living in Portland, OR - I've experienced my fair-share of rain storms...but sitting through a lightning/thunderstorm - 30' up high in a tree house is a "horse of a different color" ( quick - name the movie).  Here's a small sample of the storm- which knocked down a tree that nearly flattened our rental car.

We did venture out occasionally and made it to the local eating/watering hole

And here is a closing video compilation accompanied by David Van Tieghem; 

Well that concludes stuff up to 7/10/14.  Next posts will include our stay at Momma e Papa (seriously - that is the name) Hotel in Ojochal and Villa Prana in Montezuma...more to follow after that.