Leading Up to Leaving. First Day in Costa Rica.

We're baaaaaack! Yep, Wade and I flew back from our five night trip to Costa Rica yesterday evening. We had a lot of fun, nice relaxation and it was overall, a great learning experience for international traveling! ;)


I sent Andrew two emails while we were there to let him know what we had been doing and then to help me remember. That is why I blog - for me to remember our every day lives and adventures too and later (to hopefully) scrapbook it. Right now I've just been doing the writing part and not the scrapbooking though.


Early afternoon of last Friday, my mom called to tell me that my nannie (her mom) had fallen at their house while they had taken their dog to the vet. When they were pulling in to the driveway, she was laying flat on her back on the carport. They were obviously panic-stricken and jumped out of the car to see if she was even alive! She said she had come outside to look at the flowers and had tripped over one of the dogs. (Daddy and Mom have two dogs but were dog-sitting two other dogs for my sister as she was out of town and for some friends so they had more running around than usual! LOL) Nannie said her leg was hurting but they decided not to move her and to call an ambulance. After ex-rays, it was determined that her hip was broken. Surgery was imminent. I was have anxiety because I was worried about my grandmother and then was worried how this would affect our vacation plans since my parents were keeping Elizabeth and Andrew. Mom was quick to assure me everything would be fine and not to worry.


We went to see Nannie Saturday afternoon. I tried to joke with her and told her I expected to see her walking when we came back the following weekend. She smiled but was skeptical that she would.


Saturday evening Nannie had surgery. We also took the kids over to my parents' as we were flying out early the next morning. Nannie did well through the surgery and had a partial hip replacement. The surgeon said it appeared that she had an old break in her hip. She has fallen a few times in the past so we're wondering if she had possibly cracked her hip sometime then. As all things are the Lord's will, it was probably best that she was able to have the surgery now (even at the "tender" age of 87) as it would just be harder to recover as she grew older.


That night my sister-in-law, Stacy, called and gave me some exciting news. She and Ben are expecting their second child! When she and I get on the phone together, we can go on and on so we talked for around 45 minutes. We get along well and although our husbands are pretty much night and day from each other, they are still Farmers and men and have a lot in common. She is due early January. Yay!


Our flight out of the Tri-cities airport was for 7 am Sunday. We got up at 5 am to be there an hour prior. That is the nice thing about flying out of a small airport. The downside is that airfare is usually very high. After the short 40 minute flight to Atlanta, we had about an hour and a half layover until we flew to the airport in San Jose, Costa Rica. We learned that really we aren't flying into San Jose but Juan Santamaria which is just outside San Jose. The flight there was about four hours. We arrived around noon but their time zone is two hours behind us. One learning experience here is that it took us almost TWO DAYS to figure that out. ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing!) I had read somewhere else that it was only one hour but there is something to do with them not observing daylight savings time so part of the year they are only an hour behind us. We were blaming dinner and lunch starting later than we thought it was on "Tico time". Costa Ricans are known as "ticos" as we (Americans) are known as "gringos". Ticos are also known for doing things on their own time. Here we were blaming the poor ticos for not serving food on time but when we figured out what time it really was, they were on time after all! (Hey, it didn't help that our clock in the hotel room was 15 minutes fast and there was no way to fix it. Seriously.)


When we arrived at the airport though, we had to go through an immigration line. (That just feels so weird.) That went quicker than we thought it would when we saw the line. We picked up our luggage (which all made it - yay!) and started looking for Dimas, our driver. By the way, we followed other Americans who had flown on our plane through all the areas we had to go through. Great tip: find someone who looks like they know what they're doing and where they're going and follow them! Ha!


I had read about Dimas Saravia on the travel site I used to help me research our trip. He always had great reviews and although I ended up using an expat in Costa Rica (from America) to find our driver and set up a tour for us, she had picked him. I was happy it worked out that way. He happened to be taking two other couples into Puntarenas (city where our hotel was located), but one couple's plane was behind. His driver, Tony, ended up taking Wade and me and the other couple, Frank and Barbara. This was one of my favorite things when we arrived - getting to meet Frank and Barbara. They are probably in their early 70s and were a hoot! They have been traveling to CR for 30 years and usually come two to three times a year. Frank had lived with some friends they made in CR for a couple of months to help him learn Spanish (several years ago - maybe 20?). The family he stayed with sent their 16 yr old son to live with them for SIX MONTHS to learn English. I thought this part of the story was funny because Barbara was telling it and told me it was three months, but Frank interjected and stated it was six. It helped to talk to Barbara along the way to keep my attention off the common driving practices of CR. I quizzed her about their trips there.


Frank mentioned he wanted to stop at a grocery store and hoped that would be okay with us. I was thrilled as I had a few things I had hoped to buy there (coffee and vanilla for starters). Plus, the experience of shopping in an area that was a tourist magnet! He told the driver in his limited-but-able-to-get-the-point-across Spanish that he would like for him to stop at Pali. As we were loading out of the van, the surprising thing that Frank told me that I thought he was joking with me at first is that Pali is owned by Wal-mart. Well, if my Spanish was good then I would have realized it as I read the slogan on the store later, "el precio mas bajo o le damos el doble de la diferencia" which says "the lowest prices or double the difference".


I loaded up on vanilla (cheap in latin American countries and better quality I think) and "salsa" or sauce by Lizano. I had read it was a great souvenir type gift to bring home in a Frommer's book. (P.S. Wade ate some tonight and although he was hesitant at first as he poured it out, he loved it!) They didn't have the coffee (Britt) I was looking for so I waited to buy that on a later date.


It was about an hour and a half drive to our hotel but it went quickly as we talked. We had to wait in a line of vehicles to go around a fallen tree. I later discovered that I don't think that is such a big deal here. Later that week we had to drive around another fallen tree. I don't know, maybe it was just a coincidence while we were there.


It was cloudy and looked like a storm when we arrived to the hotel, but it was a while before it finally hit. The sand here is black not like the brown sand we are used to on Isle of Palms. It is from the basalt rock from the volcanoes in this area. I remember the black sand from when we visited 11 years ago. There are beaches on the Caribbean side of the country with white sand.


Our room wasn't ready when we arrived (as we were an hour early) but guest services attached the green plastic bracelet on our arms to let us go ahead and tour the resort and get some food or drinks if we wanted. We didn't realize how annoying those green plastic bracelets would become after the first night (and first shower!). They were our gateway though to free food, snacks and drinks so we weren't going to remove them. ;) I have to say that the food was delicious and plentiful.


These are the two photos I sent to Andrew the next day (Monday) so he would "have" a photo of his daddy and mom. I later found out that he had my dad print these two photos for him.



We were pooped and went to bed at what we thought was around 10 that night but later found out was really 11 pm! Unfortunately, about an hour after we fell asleep, the disco opened up and the music started. It's loud beats reverberated across the pool to our room. Our room was ground level and had a balcony facing the pool. (Another thing we learned - next time ask for a different room. We were supposed to have another room but I won't go into that story!) The next night I pulled apart a cotton ball to stick in my ears. It helped but I could still hear it. Ugh! I'm a light sleeper but after the first two nights, I grew sorta, kinda used to it and although it woke me up each night, I was able to sleep in and was okay.