June 22, 2010

We’re finally here in Costa Rica. Yesterday was LONG. Adam used frequent flier miles for all the tickets, so we had to fly from Atlanta to New Jersey for a 3 hour lay-over and then fly back down to CR. Frustrating to have a 2 1/2 hour flight north, then a 5 hour flight back south, looking at the flight path on the TV screen and realizing that 7 hours after we left our house, we were flying right over it again. But at least that day is over now! The kids actually did really well. It helps that each airline seat had a private TV in the headrest with on-demand movies and TV shows.

This morning the kids woke up at 5 a.m. complaining that “monkeys” were screeching in their bathroom window. It turned out to be parrots, but that’s pretty exotic in itself. This being Latin America, everyone stays up past midnight and nothing opens until after 10 a.m., so we’re hanging out in the hotel room after breakfast waiting for shops to open for business. Adam and his partner, Sal, left for a meeting so I’m on my own with the kids until lunch. Sal & Adam come back to have lunch with us, then leave again for a 2 p.m. meeting. After that is over, Adam is totally free of obligations and the vacation part starts in earnest.

We’ll spend one more night in San Jose (a dirty, ugly, stinky capital city) and then rent a car and head into the jungles. I was here 12 years ago and remember being so relieved when we drove out of the city — I expect to feel exactly that way again. San Jose really is quite disgusting. The rest of the country (from what I remember) is gorgeous. From our hotel balcony, I can see glimpses of beautiful mountains peeking over the hideous concrete bunker buildings encrusted in decades worth of pigeon poop. It’s also very crowded … lots of people living and working in San Jose, and all of them seem to be in a hurry. It’s chaotic, even by Central American standards.

Well, better go see if anything is open yet. Our hotel is right in the downtown area with a big pedestrian mall right outside the front door. I guess we’ll go poking around in shops until lunch. The kids are getting restless. We’ll have internet access through tonight, then we head to the Si Como No resort somewhere in the jungle. I don’t know if we’ll have internet there or not.

Here are some excerpts from Isabella’s travel journal:

“We are at the airport and waiting for daddy and Holden to park the car. Now we are waiting until 10:30 to go on our plane. Mama said no Pokemon dolls are to be thrown. Holden and Josie are across from me and playing together. I want to play too. Mama is a killjoy.”

“I tried to get Holden and Josie to be my models but they move too much. I don’t like how any of my pictures turned out. Worst of all, I can’t rip them out or Mama will never stop yelling at me. AAAAAA. Now Josie is making funny drawings of me. If she does any more, I will write “I am a terrible drawer” on her forehead. Now she is drawing egg grandmas.”

“We got on our plane and got bored to death. AAAAAAA! Then we got some pizza and are now in New York waiting for our next 5 hour flight to Costa Rica. Daddy said that there will most likely be TVs on the backs of the seats. I hope he’s right because I can’t look at the AirMall magazine for 5 hours straight without screaming. Holden and Josie are right now doing Pokemon battles with their Pokemon dolls. ”

“On the way home, we have 2 first class seats. Holden and I were originally supposed to be in them but Holden lost his. At the pizza place, Holden got a straw and tried to do the trick where you blow on it and the wrapper blows at another person, but Mama caught him. She said that if he did it again, he would be in big trouble but then he did it on his cup. Even if he didn’t shoot it at a person, Mama still was mad and he lost his privilege.”
(I am making all 3 kids keep a travel journal so they will be able to keep their memories. They are thinking of it as homework, but hopefully in years to come they will be really glad to have a record of their first real international experience.)

So far, at least in Isabella’s, Mama being a “killjoy” is one of the main themes. I think this is unfair, considering the things I forbid them from doing are throwing Pokemon dolls across the airport, blowing straw paper at people across the restaurant, jumping on hotel beds and slamming doors, and tripping each other on purpose as they come off escalators. If anything, I’m not being strict enough!!

June 27, 2010

I hardly know where to begin. The past two days have been simultaneously a whirlwind of activity, and a doldrums of sitting doing nothing. Mornings are busy as can be, but in the afternoons it rains. We return to our hotel room to sit on our covered balcony and read or talk, while the kids use the computer to watch movies.

First of all, traveling with the kids kind of sucks. Here is a sample conversation:
Parent: “Hey kids! Look at this incredible rain forest! Do you know how lucky you are to see this? Most people only see this on TV or read about it, yet never see it in person in their entire lives!”
Kid: “Yeah, yeah. Plants. So … when can we go hang out at the pool?”

Adam and I have spent a lot of time with grimaces of frustration and disgust on our faces. Yet, in spite of it all, we’ve managed to have a really good time.

This afternoon we went to Manuel Antionio National Park (rain forest you can walk around in) and were lucky enough to have quite a few wildlife sightings. The weirdest, by far, was a raccoon. We’ve all seen raccoons before, so that wasn’t the strange part: it was his behavior. A lady was relaxing on her beach towel, contemplating the beauty and vastness of the ocean, when a raccoon moseyed up to her beach towel, opened her backpack, and began rummaging through it. The lady’s friends all screamed “Oh My God! Look behind you!” and the beach-towel lady sprang up faster than you’d have thought possible. The raccoon kept rummaging through her backpack. Clearly, raccoons in this national park have learned that people sometimes have food in their backpacks, and that people pose no threat whatsoever. Finding nothing of interest, he shoved her stuff aside with disappointment and continued on down the beach with a gaggle of people following him snapping pictures.

We also saw a couple of wild monkeys swinging around in the trees, and a mother deer with a baby that was so used to human contact that she didn’t blink an eye with a group of probably 15 people gathered around taking pictures of her an her nearly-newborn. In that national park humans simply aren’t considered a threat. We also saw a sloth, hanging around in a tree staring at us as though we were the exhibit and not him. We also ran into crabs, snakes, lizards, weird caterpillars, different kinds of birds, and a thing called an agouti. An agouti is basically an enormous rat that is cuter than a regular rat, so people don’t freak out when they see it. It’s bigger than the average house cat.

The remainder of our days has been spent at the pool (kids swimming, Adam & I reading poolside), eating, and in our room. It’s the rainy season here, so the afternoons are cloudy with bouts of sudden downpours. Today was the longest and hardest rainfall we’ve had since we’ve been here.

That brings us to our hotel room. The kids watched a movie we’d brought on the computer (no TV at this hotel, since you’re supposed to be communing with nature) while Adam & I sat on the balcony and read books and drank wine. The big entertainment was across the jungle valley: the hotel room opposite ours. We noticed a person check in, alone. From this distance, we couldn’t tell if the person was a man or a woman. I said lady, Adam said man. This led to bets being placed. The Person came out onto It’s deck and we still couldn’t tell because it was just too far, so Adam got out the camera’s zoom lens and we set up a spying station. Two hours of surveillance and all we managed to glean was that the person definitely checked in alone, was wearing a manly watch and manly socks, and spent a lot of time on a laptop computer. But It also crossed It’s legs in a ladylike fashion and perhaps had some bosoms. We’re aware that we’re behaving like British people visiting Italy in the movies. That’s what happens when you take away internet access and television.

Back to the kids: we’re experiencing the same frustrations as parents throughout the ages — ungrateful kids. Instead of being awed by the magical experience we’ve worked so hard and spent so much money to provide, they are constantly bickering with each other, complaining about whatever activity we are currently doing, complaining in advance about whatever activity is planned for later, and whining about food. Adam & I sat on our hotel balcony during the daily afternoon rainstorm and decided that we just can’t take them places expecting them to appreciate anything, so we have to switch our attitude about the whole process. Instead, we’ll take trips we want to take and drag them along as part of our life’s baggage. They can either spend their adulthoods reminiscing about all the horrible trips Mama and Daddy forced them to take, or (hopefully) appreciate all the experiences in retrospect. Either way — torturous fodder for future therapy sessions, or long-term investment into their memory banks — Adam & I will get to take trips to exotic locales and not be held hostage by them. Until now, we’ve only gotten to go places when we can coerce a set of grandparents to come babysit for long periods of time. The kids are now old enough to come along and sulk quietly in the background if they can’t muster up some enthusiasm. Adam & I have decided we’ll ignore the sulking and have a good time in spite of it.

Actually, they are enjoying the trip, just not enjoying the things I keep trying to get them to enjoy. Josie, for example, doesn’t care one bit about the setting; she is having a fabulous time chatting up all the other hotel guests. Everyone at this resort is from the US and speaks English. Josie will talk to anyone, at any time, about any subject. Yesterday we came to the pool area and some other kids were already in the hot tub. As we were claiming a couple of chairs and setting up our towels and sunscreen station, I heard Josie exclaim to the hot tub crew, “Hi friends! I’m here!” A chorus of genuinely happy voices said, “Hey, it’s that girl Josie from yesterday! Come sit with us!” She was finally out of the jungle and in her element. The day before, she struck up a conversation with those kids’ grandmother. Her opening line was, “Hi. You look like a Grandma.” The lady said, “Yes, I am a grandma. Those are my grandkids over there.” Josie said, “Then you’re super lucky. It’s great to be a grandma because if you don’t have any grandkids, then you’re just an old lady.” Her voice is so bright and she’s so obviously friendly that she can say practically anything and it’s charming.

Meanwhile, Holden has the social graces of the Three Stooges. Yesterday, he ran out of the pool and said loudly to me, “Hey Mama, want to hear something weird about that kid Aiden?” I started panicking because Aiden’s grandmother was sitting less than 18 inches to my left, with her ears pricked to hear every single word. I could tell by her body language. I said to Holden, as quietly as I could, “No thank you, I don’t want to talk about other people right now.” (PleasepleasePLEASE get back in the pool without saying another word!) No such luck. He just kept talking. “The weird thing about that kid Aiden….” (don’t be anything bad!!! ) “….is that he’s wearing the same shirt today as he did yesterday.” (Thank God! It was OK this time.) Whenever Holden opens his mouth in public, I cringe because there is such a high probability that whatever he says is bound to be embarrassing. You just never know what to expect.

Isabella, I think, is more impressed by Costa Rica and more aware of how exotic it is, than the other two. Her problem is that it’s uncool to think anything is interesting. This leads to her getting carried away with fun, then catching herself and reigning it in with a dismissive “Whatever.” As in, “Oh, there’s a monkey! Look at that monkey! But, I mean, Whatever. I’ve seen monkeys in the zoo lots of times. That’s not so awesome.” And then she spends a lot of time gazing into trees hoping to see another one.

Right now everyone else is asleep. I’m sitting on the porch listening to the strangest animal sounds I’ve ever heard. They have either a bug or a frog here that makes the EXACT same noise as our smoke alarm when the battery is dying. Chirp! Chirp! It’s such an electronic sound it’s hard to reconcile it coming from a living creature. It’s actually a very annoying sound. I’m sure the smoke alarm manufacturer chose it because it’s so jarring and unpleasant that people immediately put new batteries in just to make it stop producing that noise. (Or, if no batteries are in the house, disengage the horrid thing and then forget about it until someone visits and notices it hanging by wires from the ceiling.)

Anyway, I better get to bed. Everyone else is going to be up at 5:00 a.m. and expect me to get up, too.

Now for the photos:

A few street shots of San Jose.

Conures in San Jose, Costa Rica. This is the ONLY wildlife shot taken with a telephoto lens.

Josephine watching a street artist in San Jose.

Isabella and a baby bird eyeing each other in San Jose.

View from our Hotel in Quepos, about 3 hours outside San Jose. Note the rainbow.

Capuchin monkey tribe near beach. One of these monkeys tried to snatch a lady’s camera from around her neck and freaked everybody out.

Coatimundi, a member of the raccoon family. Adam took this shot in the jungle as this guy came down from a tree to get a better look at us. This was not shot with a telephoto — he really was that close.

Random jungle lizard on the path.

Crocodile — shot taken from a bridge right next to the crocs.

Butterfly.

Sloth. Again, not taken with a telephoto. He was hanging out right there on the jungle path.

Scenic view.

More coatimundis, this time raiding garbage cans. This group had several babies and they were really, really cute. They got too close to people though. We stayed back this far because who knows, maybe they have rabies or something.

On way up Irazu Volcano near San Jose.

Small town on outskirts of San Jose, on side of Irazu Volcano.

Irazú Volcano. This is still an active volcano, although the last eruption was in 1963. Still, we are able to drive right up to the lip of the craters (there are 5 at the top, elevation 3400 meters) and walk around.

The kids had a wonderful time running around on lava beds, but complained about the cold – at over 10k feet up, it’s perpetually cold in Costa Rica. Josie was not a little worried about the chances of an eruption during our visit, and was relieved once we were back in the car and heading down the mountain.

Holden had to pee, so we stopped by side of road and these cows came over to check us out.

Holden and Isabella having a grand time at the beach in Manuel Antonio National Park.

We stayed at Si Como No resort in Quepos. We were there during their off season, so we had this pool all to ourselves most of the time. Fabulous hotel, highly recommend it. (It’s one of the nicest ones in the country.)

Isabella turned around in the hot tub and discovered she was being watched. This iguana liked to hang out around the pool and snatch people’s unattended food.

Holden bellying up to the pool bar. They could get lemonades without having to get out of the water. The blur under the water is Isabella.