Another Epic Venture … May 2011

Once upon a time there was a travel experience that went as expected and quite smoothly … once upon a time. However, it wasn’t my last trip to Costa Rica from Michigan. Oooh no!

First of all I was traveling without a map. I had directions but no map. As I had successfully navigated from Detroit to TC I figured I’d just reverse my directions and end up where I started. Ha! My first ‘error’ was in not taking the exit for 115. I thought it looked wrong. Instead, I exited off 131 to 10 … mostly because I figured I’d made a mistake. Then it started raining. After I drove on 10 for about a ½ hour I stopped to refuel, pee, get some zingers and … buy a map! Lovely. I eventually got back on track but then missed my exit for 23! Although, I hadn’t realized it until it was waaaaaaaaay too late! Yikes. Plus, by then(and a bit before then) it had started raining a lot harder. Sometimes so hard that you could only barely see four car lengths in front of the vehicle you were in. So, I rolled along on 75 right in to the center of Detroit! I started feeling a bit anxious and sent some pleas for signs and guidance and made myself breathe deeply and gather my senses. After all, I was trying to catch a flight – extreme worry was not going to help me! Anyway, I saw an exit for Detroit Metro airport and took it (answer to plea). It seemed as though I was headed back where I came from … so, enter new anxiety! More pleas were made. Some things looked familiar but still … Remember, there are 4 to 5 lanes of traffic driving about 70 mph so it’s not like I can look at the map (I realize I’m probably changing tenses as I write but … ). Oh! And, now (or then!) the sky turned the most scary shade of black! AND, the buildings on the sides of the highway were dilapidated! I felt miserable. LOST. Alone! I kept telling myself to calm down and ‘see’ and allow the path to come to me. Believing I was exactly where I needed to be EVEN if it meant being late to the car rental place and/or missing my flight. I kept driving and driving … and, some things, again, looked familiar. Eventually I decided to take an exit with a gas station and ask for help. Of course, by then, it was raining excessively hard! I went in to the gas station and the man behind the counter asked if he could help me. “I certainly hope so,” I replied, “I am soooo lost!” I told him where I was trying to go and he said I was … ALMOST there! I should have filled up my gas tank there, but all I wanted to do was get to the car rental place. I made the U-turn that the attendant told me to, took the correct exit and ‘presto change-o’ there was the street I was looking for … complete with signs for ‘return car rentals’! I dropped off the car and got on a transfer bus - got off again to get on the correct bus - to the airport well within my appointed time frame!

Lovely! I checked in at the Spirit (airline) counter … all good. I got through security … no problems. But when I got to the gate I saw that my flight was delayed 2 hours. Not good! I had a connecting flight in Fort Lauderdale with only a one hour lay-over. I’d miss my flight. The only hope was if that flight was delayed to wait for my incoming plane. No such luck. My name was announced over the loudspeaker and told to report to the ticket counter. Sigh! All flights at DTW were either delayed or cancelled due to the rain storm. I told you it was DARK! The ticket attendant said that the only flight they could secure my passage on was for one which was 2 (two … TWO!) days away! Ai yi yi. Okay … fine. She said she’d put me on standby for the only flight (already overbooked) the next day. Then she was courteous enough to check the other airlines to see if they had room. Delta had a flight that same night that would get me in to Ft. Lauderdale at 11:30. That would work, I thought, because I had yet another flight to catch in San Jose at 5:45 the next morning (to Golfito so I could avoid the 7 hour bus ride). However it would cost me another $500 to change airlines. Not nice, but then I wouldn’t have to stay in hotels and buy meals … be tempted by impulse purchases to salve my grieving travel body. I asked if Spirit would give me a refund of my ticket that I wouldn’t be using. She had to ask a supervisor and finally came up with around a $200 discount. That would be helpful. I went back through security to see if I could find a wireless place to call Otto on Skype to let him know what was going on and to get his opinion. He approved with my plan I began to make those arrangements. I asked a random employee of DTW if there was a courtesy phone to use to contact Delta but he said no (I doubted this). I had to leave the terminal and take a transfer bus to the Delta terminal (a 20 minute bus ride). I waited in line for another 20 minutes to be told I needed to use their courtesy phone to make those arrangements. Sigh. I found the phone and talked to a man. There were no seats available … plus that flight didn’t arrive in San Jose until 11:30 a.m. the following day! I still would have missed my connection. Can you imagine? Thinking I would be arriving in Costa Rica at 11:30 that same evening but then actually arriving 12 hours later! What a fiasco! I’m glad that didn’t happen! So, I called Otto, again, to let him know the update and had him check the internet for other possibilities. None. He also had already called the Sansa airlines to see if they’d let me rebook the flight to Golfito (from San Jose) for 1 or 2 days later (without more cost). No. We would have needed to give them 48 hours notice. “But, it wasn’t possible then!” Oh my word! I got back on the transfer bus and returned to the other terminal. AND, lucky me, I got to go through security yet again! I still had my flight out of Detroit to Ft. Lauderdale and only had another 1.5 hours to wait before boarding. I wanted to keep the opportunity to fly standby. No more delays in Detroit and I slept throughout the flight (thankfully I have no problem sleeping in planes – or buses … of course, it helps if you’re exhausted!).

I arrived in Florida just before midnight, looked around the concourse (never having been there before), found a semi ‘cozy’ spot on the floor and tried to sleep. At about 3 in the morning everyone who was ‘sleeping’ in the concourse was told to vacate the area. They were boarding another flight and needed to account for all persons present. Those of us not boarding that particular flight went to the ticket area and found new places to bed ourselves. I managed about another hour of ‘sleep’ and then decided to go outside and walk around. I walked for about an hour and then came back in, checked in, bought some breakfast, and read my book while I awaited my standby flights departure at 10:30 that morning. I was prepared to get a hotel (maybe with a ‘distress rate’ from Spirit) to spend that night if I needed to and thought I’d probably enjoy checking out Ft. Lauderdale. About an hour before boarding I decided I’d check at the courtesy desk to see if they reaaaaaaally were overbooked … maybe, their ‘big seats’ (as they call them) were still open and I’d let them know I’d be willing to purchase an upgrade if it would ensure my placement on that plane. The lady said she was pretty sure they’d get me on the flight even though they were (wink wink) verrrry overbooked (wink wink). Okay. Good sign. Sure enough, I got on and in a ‘big seat’ that I didn’t have to pay for.

We landed at the international airport in Alajuela (San Jose) around 11:30 Costa Rica time. I tried to use Otto’s cell phone to give him an update but I couldn’t get it to work. I tried everything I knew of. I didn’t want to waste too much time as I really wanted to get the highway bus out of the city that morning. Oh, and as it is no longer the ‘busy’ season in CR the inland flights had already finished for the day. My only option, if I wanted to get to the Rancho that day, was to take the Tracopa bus (I wasn’t about to pay a taxi for that loooong journey). I then took the local bus to the center of San Jose and then a taxi to the Tracopa bus station. I had hoped to get on the morning bus to Paso Canoas (the border town 1.5 hours from the Rancho) but I had missed it by about 15 minutes! I booked the next direct bus to Golfito which left at 3:30 in the afternoon.

I tried to get Otto’s phone to work again but failed. I asked the woman in the booth at the station if I could use their phone but she said no. Plan B (or is it C, D or X by now?) … I’d try to find someone else to lend me their phone or else find an internet place to Skype with Otto. I needed to let him know I was on my way and would need a taxi once I got to Golfito at 10:30 that night! And I hoped he’d come with the taxi.

I found a restaurant nearby and ordered lunch. And, the waitress leant me her phone!!! I reached Otto, who happened to not be surfing, and made my pick-up arrangements. All was good. Well mostly. I managed to maintain a semi-sleeping state on the bus but when we finally reached the outskirts of Golfito the bus stopped every 2 or 3 minutes to let passengers off. I got really car sick. Fortunately when I swayed off the bus at its last stop Otto was waiting for me with open arms. I fell into them with profound gratitude and relief. He had also prepared some freshly squeezed orange juice. Sweetheart! I then ‘slept’ in the back seat of our taxi until we reached the Rancho at just before midnight! That’s 2 o’clock in the morning Michigan time. Heavens to Betsy!

So! I ended up arriving the same day that I originally was going to … only about 15 hours later. The next day a had a sore throat and an achy body and then a couple of days later I also got a stuffy nose. Now, 1 week after my return, I can report that all is well! Health has returned. All systems … go.

A Bit O August ...

Super groovy waterfall at Casa Punta Banco. Just around the corner from where I live and about 20 to 30 minutes walking up the mountain and around a few curves. You can even walk behind it but you have to hold your breath.
I find this site amusing. Cows being herded down the beach towards Panama. So bizarre. But then, there's no other way to get them to the villages beyond the Rancho.
Cows waiting for .... well, let's not talk about that.
Itty bitty human! Great big universe!!!
Just a sign on the way to one of the waterfalls ... identifying the tree. I think it's funny! And pretty! It looks so tropical!

Photos from Panama ...

Wasp ... weird, but oh so cool!






Umbrella man ... reminds me of Johnny Depp in Pirates III ...


























These are the second place we stayed at ... nifty colors ...

90 Days In

For me August marked my being in country for 90 days which meant that I needed to exit the country for 3 days to renew my visitor status. Otto joined me, even though his time wasn’t expired, so that we would be on the same ‘exit’ schedule. Plus, neither one of us was too keen on my doing it alone. One of the other owners of the Rancho, Wouter, was here vacationing for 3 weeks so we planned our jaunt out of country during his stay here (so he could manage the place).

We thought about going into the mountains of Panama – near the Costa Rican border – in Bogote because the Lonely Planet Guide made it sound like a pretty nice place. But then, I thought that it might be getting a lot of rain (it being the ‘rainy’ season and all) and the temperature would be much cooler than we are accustomed to, so we decided, instead, to go to the Playa Las Lajas (an hour south of David) on the Pacific side of the country … which was only a 2.5 hour bus/taxi ride from the border. Never-the-less the entire trip (one way from the Rancho) takes about 8 or 9 hours when you travel by bus and then have to go through customs etc.

Crossing the border from Costa Rica to Panama at the border town of Paso Canoas is an amusing process, I think, because the customs offices of the two countries are about 1/3 of a mile apart. And there are no signs indicating what to do or where to find it. First, you must get your exit stamp from CR (in your passport) and then you must locate the Panamanian office and get your entry stamp. The border is so extremely loosely guarded that it is super easy to just wander from one country to the next. Back and forth and back and forth … many people do. Paso Canoas (La Frontera) is a busy shopping town for both countries so it’s really crowded … and very, very, very dirty … and ugly … but it has some great prices … $4.50 for a liter of Bacardi Gold (rum). Crazy, no?

Anyway, we got to Las Tajas and checked in to our dirty little room that was right on the beach and had its own bathroom. This establishment also had a restaurant and the staff (probably all from the same family) were very nice. We enjoyed our stay but switched to a different location the next day because we found a much nicer place for the same amount of money … and, that first night it rained and our roof leaked right on top of our bed … so we had to busy ourselves with positioning our bed in between leaks so we could stay dry …and then try to fall back to sleep. We got up early that next day and went for a long walk along the beach which was very nice – you know, tropical sunshine, warm breezes, the ocean, solitude. Then, we packed our stuff and walked down the beach to the next family-owned set of cabinas, had a cup of coffee while we waited for our cabina to be vacated, and then moved in. We busied ourselves with long walks, yahtzee with beers, reading, and playing in the ocean. Quite nice and relaxed for a ‘forced’ vacation.

We headed back the next morning hoping that the customs officials would accept our interpretation of what constituted ‘3 days’. No problems.