Recap #2 One Year

We blew through our one year mark without really even noticing. Our bungalows were totally full the entire week and we were too busy to pay attention to the fact that a year had crept up on us. Looking back at our books, the first week we came down we had one bungalow occupied (luckily by a sweet and excited couple from VT). A year later during the same week, not a room to spare. This is encouraging!

We were not sure if our friends and family would keep rolling in at such speed and numbers after the first 6 months but indeed they did, more than we could imagine. The time has come to give thanks to the wonderful people who have traveled far to give their support and be a part of our adventure. Where did we leave off??? Oh yes, September....

Piotr, Brendan’s old roommate from a summer in Burlington, came with his sister Margo and her boyfriend Jacob all the way from Poland and Ireland. It was great fun! Three Polish people who had never been to the tropics, need I say more? Andy, who just finished our awesome new website, came with Brooke and chased their two year old son Jack around the jungle for a week. Adam Lukens entertained us with stories of the film industry in NYC, our favorite being the one about Steven Segal kicking his stunt-man in the balls to see if he’s wearing a cup. Dotty, Evan and Molly, friends from the Cape, came in search of “the most beautiful beach in the world”, and found it. Charlie and Caitlin brought stories of life on the Obama campaign trail in Nebraska and we celebrated the new winner. Good work Charlie!! The insane November rains started and my step cousin Christine and husband, Ted, newlyweds on their honeymoon, barely made it through the flooding roads to reach Tierra de Sueños where they spent the week in torrential rain. Brendan’s entire family reached us a couple of days later under similar circumstances. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas in the same week and managed to have a good time even though it never stopped raining. One day was spent getting drunk on chocolate, a highly recommended activity. My sister Samantha and cousin Becca almost got us arrested and Sammie braved dental surgery in San Jose, quite an experience in itself. Adrienne and Peter came from DC with their friend Kevin and were exposed to some of the wacky members of the community at a wild Manzanillo party. The old, long white-bearded man who we usually see bathing his white horse in the ocean in his underwear was there showing off his moves on the dance floor. Pete carried an ipod karaoke machine along with him to the beach everyday, just a side note. Also coming from DC, Evan Smith a childhood friend of Brendan’s, shortly followed with two work friends, Jeff and Kate. Evan may have won the award for most sunburned but we couldn’t give him too much grief because he did go to Best Buy at 10pm the night before his early morning departure to purchase an emergency laptop to quickly replace our stolen one. What a friend! Then came the impromptu college reunion which couldn’t have been more fun. My old roommate from all of the college years, Jess and her dear friend Suzanne came with their boyfriends Nate and Mike, Adam for the second time around, Sean and Nick also friends from the very beginning of freshman year and a new-comer friend of Sean, Erin. Rum Punch is all I can say about that. Sarah and Mary happily came in the middle of Februrary all the way from South Dakota and Etta from the Cape as well. We just said goodbye to Jess, Melissa, Gabe and Chris from Vermont and the week was nothing less than hysterical. Friends from DC, Fareha and Chris, are riding bikes into town right now and the day they leave, Andew Baxt arrives, shortly followed by Abigail with her boyfriend Ted who I am just dying to meet and so on and so forth. There is no sign of it letting up!

The steady flow of friends and family has completely blown our minds. When deciding to embark on this journey never in our wildest dreams did we think we would be graced by the presence of so many people we love. Thank you all for coming and sharing our dream with us. Keep coming!

No Pets Allowed

Several months ago a woman called asking if we allow dogs. Well, we might, depending on what kind. This policy hasn’t been established yet. I can see why it wouldn’t work out, but we like pets. We have a big dog who tends to get excited when someone approaches his porch. Especially if there is food in his bowl. Also his brother, who belongs to a neighbor, spends most of his time here. Together their passion, other than guiding people to Playa Chiquita, is building and maintaining street rep. This means that they urinate on as much as possible in the area including idling cars, bikes. And, sometimes, they fight. The woman said the dog was a nice indoor poodle, that there shouldn’t be any problems. Okay, if you’re willing to risk it then so am I. We can use the business.

When faced with the indoor poodle Cody and his brother Drake sniffed curiously and laid back down. No threat. No excitement. Better to save energy for re-marking all the spots from the previous night, maybe see if Sparticus and Buenos Dias down the road want to brawl, or if Domer has any plans. The first night went smoothly.

The second night the couple came into the reception around 9pm to say that they would be going out to dinner, leaving Nelson in the bungalow. Sure, no problem. As soon as we hear their car pull away Nelson works himself into an indoor poodle tizzy and starts yapping his face off. Uh oh. We aren’t sure what do if this doesn’t stop. You can’t have a poodle yapping in one bungalow with people trying to sleep next door. It’s already 9pm so there’s no way the couple will eat and be back before at least 11pm. I want to crush up an antihistamine, put it in some left over food, put Nelson’s ass to sleep. I’m tired myself, don’t want to wait up with Nelson, the indoor poodle, until the owners get back. We can’t decide what to do. Uh oh, here comes a guest, Hank, father of a 1-year-old, with his shirt off, sleep in his eyes. Can you do something about that dog? Yes, Hank. Something must be done.

It never even occurred to me that Nelson might be upset about some stranger coming in to the bungalow. I was picturing a wagging tail, a quick trip to the reception, maybe a little over-the-counter cocktail for Nelson and bed for me. When I opened the door Nelson took one look, jumped up on the bed and raised the volume on that yap. I started to talk him down. It’s okay, we’re just going to take a little trip, wait for mummy and daddy to get home. He sat, yapping, allowed me to touch his head. It’s okay, buddy we’re just going to take a little trip. YAP, YAP, YAP YAP YAP. He wasn’t really calming down, so it seemed the only way to get him out would be to grab him by the scruff of the neck. I went for it. He snapped. Nelson, you scoundrel, you tried to bite me. Hank has to be wondering what’s taking so long at this point. Nelson is clearly upset and I’m realizing that it’s all or nothing. I tell Nelson a little bit more about the plan, touch his head, grab him by the neck with both hands and scoop him up. He manages to get in a few bites on my forearm, makes an insane death cry, pees all over the bed and me.

I make it out of the bungalow where Cody, Drake and Hank are waiting. Did he bite you? He bit and peed, but there’s no blood. I’ll keep him quiet. Angie waits in the reception house wondering what that sound was. I tell her that the bastard bit me and let the bastard go thinking that he would stay put fearing what lies beyond. Clearly I do not understand the indoor poodle. Nelson makes a break for it immediately. Out into the jungle. At first he heads to the road. Great. How will we explain that we lost their yapping dog? He quickly realizes that there are any number of things that would make him dinner and returns to the bungalow. I head back with rope this time. Nelson doesn’t feel so brave on the porch, is staying low profile, not yapping. I talk to him for a while longer, mention that he should not have bit me, throw a noose around him and take him to the reception. Luckily his owners came back around 10:30pm. They saw Nelson tied to the chair and began to apologize. I guess you won’t be allowing pets anymore? No pets allowed.

February showers bring March flowers

A glimpse of what happens after the rain....

Mr. Numbers

I picture an accountant as hyper organized, all about details, perhaps with a shirt pocket full of pencils and a calculator in hand. I don’t picture someone who travels with a few folders in a plastic grocery bag, gives props when you see him, calls you “brudda”, listens to your business questions then asks to borrow a pen and scratch paper, writes a few notes, folds the scrap and adds it to the concerns of others in his wallet. The latter is who we, as well as just about everyone we know here, work with. He grew up in Limon, the biggest town on this afro caribbean coast, speaking English at home . This is crucial since you don’t want to have a language barrier between you and the ever confusing accounting principals of Costa Rica. He is an incredibly nice guy and from what we can tell he makes sure that you pay the right taxes at the right time. Other than that he’s more like a friend who stops by looking for a game of chess every now and then, hoping you have some tasty treat in the oven, rather than a trusty accountant.

The first time we talked he returned our call at 9:30pm. That actually seems to be the time that he sets aside to make business calls. He lives in San Jose but travels to Puerto Viejo about once every two weeks to meet with clients. He’ll often call on, say, Monday and leave a message that we should meet him, oh....around...... Tuesday at 9am at a restaurant in Puerto Viejo, which entails a twenty minute jaw crunchingly bumpy drive from Playa Chiquita. He knows that we serve breakfast here everyday making that pretty much the most difficult time to leave. That doesn’t stop him the same way that he’ll drop in unannounced at Jungle Love, the restaurant down the street, at 5:45pm knowing that they open at 5:30pm. All of his clients know the feeling of showing up to give him your receipts ready to tell him that if he doesn’t *&%$^%! call sooner next time you’re going to $%#%. But then he smiles, reaches out for that hand shake/hug, says “hey brudda, wha appenin” and you remember that this is part of what makes the Caribbean the Caribbean and one of the reasons you moved here.

A special moment was when he was helping us open a bank account. In Costa Rica they want letters of recommendation from your neighbors saying that you make a certain amount. They want an accountant to say that you make a certain amount and for you to have papers filled out from several hard to reach national agencies. We had tried various times on our own to get our ducks in a row, but we were always missing something. When we walked in with our numbers man we felt like there was no way we were walking out without an account. This is what he does. He knows all the tricks. He spends his time keeping up with the ins and outs of financial regulation. The interaction with the young female teller went something like this:

They greet each other. The accountant calls her by the wrong name. He’s always calling people by the wrong name. She corrects him. He compensates by commenting on her well put together uniform and then begins to cough uncontrollably. She gives him a home cold remedy. He asks if she’ll be his nurse. They start exchanging all the necessary papers for the new account. She’s naming them and he’s handing them over. It was great until she gets to the last one, a declaration of some sort from the ministry of finance. What? That’s new, they didn’t used to ask for that. He pleads. Just this once. She’s sorry but can’t set it up without it. We stand up, slightly amused and not surprised at all, but then the accountant seems to have a final card up his sleeve. Some pressure he can put on to get what he wants, maybe a little bribe. He leans back over to the window and whispers. “How about you give me your home number. I might forget that cold remedy.”

Tierra de Suenos just organized our first charity effort. The flooding in November ended up displacing approximately 4,000 people and destroyed one of the largest banana plantations in the country which means loss of many jobs and security for a lot of people. This area is already one of the poorest in the country so damage like this is incredibly difficult to bounce back from. A few months ago we joined a group called AHCR (Adventure Hotels of Costa Rica). The goal of the organization is to work together to create more business for everybody in the group by recommending other AHCR hotels to people traveling to other places in the country. We have received 2 different couples sent by another member hotel so the membership has already paid for itself. This is a fairly new association which is nice because we are all, well the hotels interested, participating in how it's going to work. Brendan and I signed up for the "charity committee" as each hotel was asked to join one of the 10 committees designed to help organize the members.

The damage done to our Talamancan neighbors deemed a perfect cause so we tried to inspire AHCR members to donate money, food, clothing and other supplies to the area. The awesome local association, ATEC (Talamanca Ecotourism and Conservation Association) was quite helpful in giving us a direct place to send these items. It took some teeth pulling but eventually we managed to raise quite a bit of money as well as food and clothing from the other member hotels. I spoke with Alaine, co-founder of ATEC, the other day and she says that the majority of the money donations send to her by AHCR members is being used to purchase school supplies that were lost in the flood. I can't imagine better spent money. Although this is just a start of the kind of work we would like to be doing, with and without the AHCR group, it's a good start and we are excited about all the possibilities for community building and service. I do encourage any of you interested in traveling to CR to check out the AHCR website, www.adventurehotelsofcostarica.com, and look into staying at one of the hotels listed. You get 10% off if you tell them we sent you!

On a side note, much to our disappointment and horror, our laptop was stolen recently which is a major setback for us. It really couldn't be worse timing since we have entered the busy season and are getting consistent reservation requests via email every day. Not to mention the fact that ALL my photos of our first year down here are gone. Anyway, lesson learned. On the up-side, we are super busy and everybody loves the place. This month will be our best by far.

Rare photo op at Tierra de Sueños

We spotted a rare Costa Rican tree frog in the door way to our bedroom the other day. While sleeping it tightens it's body into a thin sliver so that you can barely see the lines of it's limbs, eyes, or feet.



With a little poke it awakens and red eyes expose themselves as well as an orange toe or two.

Another poke and it jumps showing off its incredible speed, flexibility and colors.

One more scare with the lens of my camera and the little fellow makes the daring decision to jump from the second floor onto a huge hanging leaf but he misses the leaf and splats onto the ground.

He survives the landing and hops back into the jungle.

I think he's done this before.

Dark and Stormy

We just survived our first tropical storm.... barely! The storm was in fact the worst anybody can remember. The amount of rain that fell out of the sky over the period of 9 days was more than fell in 6 weeks of rain 13 years ago. Neither Brendan nor I had ever seen anything like it. Buckets, just buckets! Sheets of rain so thick you could not see across the street.

A few days before the rain started we were woken up from our jungle slumbers to a terrifyingly swaying bed. It took a moment to realize what was happening, earthquake! Being from Washington DC and Vermont this is not a sensation either of us are accustomed to and it is certainly shocking. What does one do when the earth is moving beneath them, threatening to take down your house with you in it? It was too late to make any decisions when the rumble stopped leaving us both too excited to fall back asleep. It turns out the earthquake was a 6.2 with it’s center in David, Panama which is a good distance away from us. So for us it was only the aftershock, poor David was pretty bad off.

A couple days later while serving breakfast to the southern invasion (an entertaining group from Atlanta filled up the bungalows for one night after making it to the finish line of an insane mountain bike race that ended near us) we heard a loud crash. We assumed it was the neighbors who had been cutting down some trees the other day. We forgot about it until I walked dawn the path towards our house and was completely shocked seeing one of the largest trees on our property had ripped out of the earth leaving a massive hole where the roots had once taken hold. Lucky for us there was no human or house near it. The day was strangely crisp and clear yet gusty and there was definitely something brewing. That evening was the last bit of sunshine we would see for 8 days.

The rain started that night and it was to create disasters this part of Costa Rica hasn’t seen in years. Tierra de Sueños faired very well. There were some moments we got nervous watching our gutters turn into rivers overflowing the paths and rushing under some of the bungalows an inch away from the floorboards. Thankfully the bungalows were built on stilts as was our house. We watched our gutters flow out into our neighbors property who were totally flooded. The road was flooded with rivers coming up over bridges preventing any crossing. The ocean rose faster than anybody could believe and soon took out trees, flooded houses and dragged out what once was vast stretches of sandy beaches. On the fourth day of rain, the news traveled to us that a major bridge entering Puerto Viejo connecting us to the rest of the world was flipped on it’s side. There was a mad rush to grocery stores to collect supplies, nobody new when we would get support down here. We were expecting friends that night and had no idea if they would be able to cross. They did eventually show up after sitting in a bus with water up to the wheel well and an indecisive driver. They crossed the sketchy bridge by foot and made it to us to celebrate their honeymoon in the worst torrential rainstorm in Costa Rica’s history.

By day 6, Brendan’s family had arrived to Costa Rica to celebrate Thanksgiving with us and ended up sitting at a road stop half way between here and San Jose trying to figure out if they could get to us. The flooding was growing worse by the minute and landslides were preventing cars from passing on the main highway between San Jose and Puerto Viejo. They managed to find a rustic lodge whose owner, Cheeto, enjoyed wrestling a massive crocodile in his spare time and waited out the rain there until the morning when it was declared safe to cross.

The worse seems to be over and although we stayed relatively high and dry, many people in this area did not. Indigenous communities in the Sixiola valley experienced severe damage. We read that 4,000 people lost their homes last week and some areas are still completely flooded. If anybody is interested in helping these communities you can go to greencoast.org for information. We have been donating canned goods but I know they are accepting donations as well.

Amazingly, the coast is on its way to a speedy recovery. Yesterday the sun was shining and the water had retreated significantly. There is a temporary bridge allowing people in and out of the area and now more than ever we need tourism to return and help restore the flow of life in this little piece of paradise.

Nature showed us her strength and power yet again. We have a lot to be thankful for this thanksgiving.