First off, did anyone notice that the shirt I'm wearing in the "Tamarindo 2.0" post is the same shirt I'm wearing on my "About Me" page, and in the "Ocotal's Secret" video? The About Me picture was taken while horseback riding on Oahu, Hawaii, during a trip for my older brother's wedding...

Yes, I do own more than one shirt... I think...

So as you might have guested, I recently came down with food poisoning. The saddest part? I think I might have given it to myself. Thursday evening I cooked my usual pasta & chicken dish, but something must have gone horribly wrong. Understandable, since I've only started to learn how to cook within the past 3 months.

That evening around midnight I woke up to some very bad stomach cramps, and I'll spare you the rest of that story. I was up until around 6am, when I finally got some shuteye. I then slept most of the day Friday, and part of Friday night. Saturday morning I felt much better, so it wasn't really all that bad.

Last time I had food poisoning was in Milan, Italy. My girlfriend & I were backpacking through Europe, and I was so excited about Milan's zoo, which we were forced to skip. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is to visit a local zoo, because you always get to see exotic animals that we just don't have at home. I think I've mentioned that before...

The past week or so has otherwise been relatively quiet. I have visited Catrina at the Coffee House a few times. This woman can cook, and is now a necessity for anyone's visit. I tried their ceviche, which was delicious, of course. She put the fish on a base of pineapple, yum. I did forget to ask what type of fish it was, oops. Everything I've had there so far has been phenomenal.

I happened to meet the owner of the pirate ship that is docked in the bay here. This is one of the first ships I noticed after arriving in Coco. His name is Richard, and has lived in Coco for the past 20 years. He hand built this ship, starting with the hull in a dry dock a few coves over. He then had it towed into Coco bay, where he spent the next 5 years finishing the boat. Disappointingly he does not use it to pillage and plunder. Instead, he uses it to through a mean parrrrrrrrrty, matey.

I have fished a few times recently, with no luck. I've been running, at least up until the food poisoning. Basically, I'm just trying to get everything ready for my parents visit next week, which I am so excited about.

I cannot believe I have been here for nearly 3 months already. That doesn't even seem possible to me right now. Its time to renew my visa, and so I must leave Costa Rica for at least 72 hours before my 90 day visa expires. To solve this, my parents and I are meeting in Panama for a few days, then heading back to my house in Coco.

This will be the first time my Mom has left the country, and needed a passport for it. I'm so excited to see my Mom's passport with her first visa stamp in it, and to watch her reaction as we cruise the Panama canal together.

My Dad has been to Panama before during his time in the service, but did not get to go through the canal. We will hopefully get a chance to visit his old stomping grounds, and see just how much, or how little, it has changed. From the pictures we've seen online, it doesn't look like its changed must. Either way, the three of us will have so much fun together, and I can hardly stand to wait...

Mis piernas pican!

When Scott was here, he witnessed first hand how much mosquitoes love me. I literally cannot leave the house without being bitten at least once, often times more than once. Sometimes I even get bit inside, since the screens here are not designed very well.

During our "breakfast with monkeys" morning, our waiter gave us some anti-insect lotion. It seemed to do the trick, and even smelled kind of nice. We bought a bottle, and I have been using that ever since, but maybe not as much as I should. Its a lotion, and not as easy (or effective) as the spray called OFF!

Today I had had all I can stand, and I can't stands it no more. Over the past few days I have tried to remain indoors, and let my legs heal. Neosporin is pure magic, but even magic wasn't working fast enough. Between this morning & afternoon, I got bit on my calf, ankle, forearm, and back. I know, I know, wearing shoes & a shirt would help... but I'm in Costa Rica.

Simply living inside all day is not an option, and no fun anyways. So, today, I finally broke down and bought a can of OFF! Dear local mosquitoes: bugger off.

Let me explain why it took so long...

First of all, I can be a bit stubborn for the strangest of reasons. I want to be as much of a local as I can, and I don't know any tico that uses OFF! They all seem to use the lotion, if anything at all. Unfortunately, the lotion just isn't doing the trick for me anymore.

Beyond that though, is the smell. When I'm downtown, I can always smell when a tourist walks past me. Of course there is the obvious clothing difference & ubiquitous backpack, but they are always covered in OFF! I'm sure the souvenir hawkers can smell it too, and hone in on it like a guided missile, or like a mosquito to me.

I suppose all the bug bites on my legs give me away anyways, regardless of what I smell like. Perhaps its better to just use the OFF!

You win this round mosquitoes.


This picture was taken after an evening at Pacifico, a beautiful hotel & restaurant next to my house. Scott & I had walked down to the shore to get some late night HDR photos of the sunset.

At first we thought I might have been stung by a jellyfish while swimming in the ocean, after our photography was proving pointless. However, we came to the conclusion that it was just those pesky mosquitoes. A jellyfish would have stung in long, curving lines, not individual bites like this.

You can see the scratch marks where I had made it worst. Take into account that I am extra sensitive to this type of thing. Just yet another reason for me to buy a can of OFF! Told you I was stubborn.

Mom: the bites were mostly healed by the morning, the picture looks much worse than it was...

We did manage to get a great shot of Pacifico though:

Before Scott left, one of the last things we did was to visit Playa Tamarindo. As you may know, we had been to most of the other beaches near Coco. Since Tamarindo is so famous, I couldn't let Scott leave without a quick visit.

Although we got stuck behind some costa rican hill billies, I am very happy to report that we did not get lost, a welcomed alternative to our earlier road trip experience of Arenal Volcano. Tamarindo is only an hour's drive away, and I had been there a few times before, so I felt comfortable just getting on the road and heading out.

I have posted about the road conditions in Tamarindo, and was preparing Scott for the worst before we arrived. However, the roads were not as bad as I remember. The main drag is paved, and only the side streets are dirt, yet we could not escape the potholes, as they are everywhere in this country.

We found a seemingly safe place to park the car, and headed into town. We were both hungry, so we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called La Copacabanna. First thing Scott's eyes took him to was their ceviche. I had never tried that before, so I ordered the same.

I was blown away. Ceviche is raw fish "cooked" using lime juice (or lemon juice, or sour orange, depending on what country you're in), but the fish is never heated. You can prepare this using any white fish, such as Mahi Mahi, Sea Bass, or even shrimp. Bottom line is that this ceviche was delicious, and I will be trying ceviche many, many more times during my travels.

Midway through lunch, we could not distinguish what type of fish we were eating. Maybe this is a detail we should have asked before ordering, but we asked anyways. Marlin. We were eating marlin ceviche, and it was good. Neither Scott nor I had ever had marlin before, so check that one off the list...

After lunch we strolled down to the main stretch of sand. Tamarindo's beach is much larger than I had imagined, and this was my first sight of the actual beach in Tamarindo (I had only ever been here to run errands). At the far end, we could see what looked like a surfing competition.

We had become so accustomed to the empty shores of Playa del Coco that this scene looked a bit alien at first, and demanded further investigation. Turns out, it was just a bunch of umbrellas with people standing around on the sand and in the water. Ooops... Time to get the eyes checked...

One of the cool things about a busy shore line is the odd sights you might encounter. About half way down the beach, we ran into a tico & his dog. Nothing odd about this at first, until they both jumped onto his surfboard and started paddling into the waves.

When they had found their wave, not too big, not too small, but juuust right, they went for it. The dog gave a sly smile and waged his tail, as if to say "go faster." What a great feeling for the pair that must be. Man & his best friend, surfing the shore-breakers of Tamarindo, in warm, sunny Costa Rica...

Before Scott arrived, I saw some local ticos fishing with hand lines in the surf of my local beach. I remember thinking, "how fun that must be, can't wait till Scott arrives." Scott is an avid fisherman, and never passes up the opportunity to throw a pole in the water. He had even brought a fishing reel with him, but no pole.

We spent the better part of a day stopping into fishing stores, looking for poles to rent. Turns out, everyone here wants to offer their boat tours instead, and we never found anyone willing to rent us a couple of poles. Hmmm, business opportunity anyone?

We did however find the hand lines for sale. We bought a few, and set off to fish like the locals do. When in Rome, right?

Shaped like a donut, these plastic hand lines serve their purpose perfectly. You can wind then fairly quickly, and simply need to turn it sideways when casting. The outer edge is concave, so that the line naturally settles into its center, and releases just as fast. They have a grip on their inside, which makes them easy to handle in the water.

The lure is all important when Tico fishing, and apparently the heavier the better, but only up to a certain point of course. We used a two inch spoon, but I'm not sure of its weight. The setup came with 35 pound line, which might be a little overkill for our purposes. Hand casting takes some practice with these things, and we nearly hooked each other a few times.

We started on the north end of Coco beach, and moved north towards the waterfall as the day went on. There are a few rivers along the way that come down from the hills, which create a few sections of small shore braking waves. We gave them each a try, but walked with nothing to report. Its called fishing after all, not catching.

So no luck on our first day, but we had an inside tip. There is another river on the south side of town where the ticos do most of their fishing. The next day we headed straight there, and struck temporary gold. When we first showed up, there were fish jumping aplenty. It was just the two of us, and the water was boiling with hungry fish. In a vein attempt we tried to reach out and grab the fish by hand. There were fish coming up to simply have a look around, and others breaching for a low flying bug, just feet from where we were standing.

Apparently the fishing bell had rung, as the locals soon joined us. Scott & I made our best efforts to not look like goofy tourist, with limited success. I did manage to land a 12 or 14 inch Skipjack (lets call it a 14 inch), but have no evidence of my conquest. With a fish on the line, I gave Scott my camera, but I forgot to push the record button. Needless to say, that video won't make it to my blog.

All-in-all, it was a great experience.........

Anyone know if Skipjack would make a nice ceviche?

So our planning day was spent doing laundry, and making our online reservation at the Arenal Observatory Hotel. That morning, we had found a great little cafe to have breakfast, which was so good we returned there for dinner that night, and even breakfast the morning of our Arenal trip. Its a little slice of OC, in the middle of Playa del Coco. We felt right at home...

But that's not what this trip is about. Its about getting into the void, and experiencing new places, and new adventures. We set out the next morning for what should have been a three to four hour drive out to Arenal Volcano. I had downloaded maps to help guide us, using my iPhone's GPS.

That plan failed miserably. Since the iPhone uses assisted GPS, and we had no cell service or wifi connection, the GPS never gave us any useful information. We made every wrong turn possible, and turned the drive into a six hour tour of stress. At one point we had to buy a handmade map from a local tico, who obviously had seen many lost Americans down his road before.

Further down the road we were stopped by a dog that insisted we not pass up his town. Each time we tried to drive around him, he quickly ran up the street and in front of our car again. Even further down the road we were nearly ran over by a semi-truck that was moving a little too quickly for these small, hilly roads. We called uncle, and stopped for lunch. It was a bit odd to find a German bakery considering where we were, but this place had a great marketing department.

When we finally arrive at our destination, the guard at the Arenal Observatory Hotel wouldn't let us onto the property. Our reservation had been made online, yet they had no record of it. The guard was a bit rude at first, but ended up calling around to a few nearby hotels to help find us accommodations.

We ended up at the Cabinitas el Castillo Dorado, a quaint little set of bungalows overlooking the Arenal Volcano. To give you an idea of just how quaint this place was, our room had zero power outlets. There was no way of charging our laptops, phones, etc. etc... It was very small and rugged, but pleasant. When we sat down for dinner around 6pm, the Volcano made it's presents felt with a very loud rumbling noise; much like a mixture of thunder and a jet engine. We thought we started to see lava pouring down the volcano, but it was just the "magic moment" during a sunset, when the low hanging clouds turn red due to the sun's last rays.

Also during dinner, we were surprised by fireflies in the bushes next to our table. I can't remember the last time I saw fireflies, and Scott said they are usually only found in the mid-west US. After we ate, we walked down the road to a nearby store (we had forgotten shampoo), and found even more fireflies in the trees & bushes along the way. Little tiny bugs who's butts blink with green light... what an amazing world we live in!

When we returned to the room, we discovered that the ceiling fan only worked when the light was turned on. Unacceptable, so Scott left on a mission to find our waiter/receptionist/cook. He found our matradee who was a one-stop shop, and said "no problem, 10 minutes." This same guy offered to go buy us our shampoo, when we decided to walk instead.

So, sure enough, after about 10 minutes, he showed up with a ladder and a small switch on a long cord. He fiddled with the light socket for a few minutes, and what do ya know? We could now turn the light off and leave the ceiling fan running... Now that's service!

In the morning, the clouds had overtaken Arenal again, and it was almost too foggy to see the volcano. We left our cabinita early so we could drive around to the other side of the volcano, just to see if it was any different. We had heard a few days before from my neighbor Clara that EcoGlide was a really fun zip-line at the base of the volcano, so we stopped into a small tourist info place to check out the deals.

Since the volcano was too foggy, and we wouldn't get a good look from the zip-line, we decided to visit some hot-springs instead, and then return home. We choose a hotel called The Springs, which was reported to have many different pools filled with spring-water, all at different temperatures.

Our plans changed once again the moment we set foot into the The Springs hotel. Scott & I took one look at each other, and decided right then & there to stay another night. Thankfully the desk clerk let us credit the tickets we had bought from the tourist booth towards a room... but not just any room. A two story suite, whose back wall facing the volcano was complete glass, floor to ceiling.

Scott took the downstairs king bed, and I managed to make due with the upstairs king bed, both of which had their own full bath draped with marble. Life is pretty tough sometimes :-) The suite also came with a balcony which had two hammocks on either end. If this wasn't the perfect place to lounge and watch the volcano, I don't know what is.

The pools were exactly as advertised, with varying levels of spring water mixed with normal water to regulate the temperature. They ranged from 103 degrees to 85 degrees, and because I'm such a wimp when it comes to hot water, I had to struggle with my own private pool at about 99 degrees. Scott jumped right into the 103 degrees pool, and made some new friends along the way, as he always does.

The Springs hotel also has their own zoo, or animal sanctuary, if you want to call it that. We caught a bus down to the lower end of the property, where we found 18 different jungle cats. Of the 18 cats, there were 8 different species. Some were obviously happier than others, and some were down right wrathful. We also saw a few caged monkeys. I got a great shot of a child hand feeding "local" monkeys, and she was silly happy after that experience.

That evening we had the opportunity to play some billiards. I semi-introduced Scott to 9 ball, simply because someone had lost the 8 ball. Afterwords, Scott introduced me to a cool version of darts. The best moment though was waking up to a window full of volcano, let alone a 20+ foot wall of volcano. My view was slightly obstructed by the slant ceiling, but I had a 30' tv to watch, so again, I made due :-)

Our last morning at Arenal, I had arranged for a late checkout, something Scott had never heard about before. Basically, if you ask ahead of time, most hotels will offer a few extra hours with the room. Instead of an 11am checkout time, we were able to stay until around 2pm.

We used this extra time to find the water slide we had heard about the day before. Sure enough, if you walk down a few flights to the lower pools, there is a fun little slide filled with spring water. We met a very nice family down there who were also from the states, and the lot of us had plenty to talk about.

Eventually the time had come to return to Coco, and sure enough we got lost on our way back. There is a town on the west side of Laguna de Arenal that works much like a Las Vegas casino, i.e.: many ways in, but no obvious way out. We must have passed the same landmarks half a dozen times, before we finally stopped and asked for directions. Maybe we should have asked someone else...

Let me explain. We stopped at the same gas station where we stopped on our way out to Arenal, of course only after we finally found this particular gas station. I had not tipped the attendant there, and I wasn't sure how resentful he might have been. He simply said go here, turn left, turn left again, continue.

We made it about an hour down the road before we really started to question his directions. We were looking for a town called Canas, but didn't think we had driven this far inland on our way to Arenal. We took the time to stop and try for a GPS signal, which obviously failed, so we had few other options than to continue on our course.

As it just so happens, Canas was only about 5 minutes further down the road, as it always seems to be. We experienced the exact same thing heading out to Arenal, stopped about 5 minutes before we hit Canas thinking we were lost. If you ever come to Costa Rica, buy a real GPS unit. Please. It will save you a lot of trouble.

At some point we finally made it back into Coco, but only after a flat tire and after dark. The pot holes here are unlike anything in the states. Since it rains so much in Costa Rica, the roads deteriorate very quickly. Some holes are so big that they would no doubt brake your axle, along with your tire, rim, bumper, and probably radiator, if you're not careful.

We found a local tico to repair the rim that was bent, and fill the tire back up with air. We gave him a few bucks for the trouble, which he didn't seem to require but much appreciated. The next morning, the tire was unfortunately flat again. We returned to our new tico friend, who laughed, fixed it, and wouldn't accept any more money. He just simply whistled and made hand gestures, since English was obviously not his second language.

Quite the adventure! I highly recommend Arenal Volcano to any visitor of Costa Rica... Just buy a GPS, for your own sake...

Scott has been here for about a week and a half, and we have had some great adventures so far... I can't believe we only have 4 more days together; time has certainly been moving fast.

A few days ago we visited a few of the local beaches. First on our list was Playa Hermosa. This is a small cove a few minutes north of Coco beach. Its beautiful and friendly, but has a lot of unfinished construction in the area. Yet another product of the US financial meltdown.

Keep driving north, and you run into Playa Panama. This beach is very quiet and relaxing, with a few little restaurants dotting the coast. We sat down at El Velero Hotel for a couple of BLT sandwiches. The bacon was cooked just right, but the tomatoes were a little green for Scott's taste. After all, he is a tomato connoisseur...

The next day we headed south, to Playa Ocotal. What we found there shocked us both. We started walking along the coast, heading north, and came across some tide pools. At the end there were more tide pools separated by a few dozen feet of water. I decided to jump in and swim across, just to see what was around the corner.

When I saw what was there, and explained what I had seen to Scott, we knew what we had to do. We left Ocotal for a few minutes to go find large ziplock bags. We then used these bags to float our packs across the inlet, and climbed over around the corner...

I think this video explains it best:


The next day was a planning day, to research our assault on Arenal Volcano... more about that in the next post...

This is a temporary post, just to let everyone know I haven't forgotten about posting... Scott and I have been very busy, and have a lot of stories to tell about our adventures... Fret not, I have been keeping notes, and promise to post within the next 24 hours...

Stay tuned...