We got back to San Jose Wednesday morning, at breakfast at a greasy spoon across the street from the airport, then sat around for our flight via a regional carrier (15-seater plane) to the southern part of the country, landing in Golfito. The flight was amazing. The pilot flew west to the coast and then headed south, so we saw nothing but stunning blue and green water along untouched pristine shores.
The "airport" in Golfito, which One-Arm Willy operates
Rebekah's brother had arranged for a guy named "Tony" to pick us up from the "airport" in Golfito (by this I mean a landing strip in a field of grass, with the small concrete building as the "port" part) and drive us to Rebekah's brothers' house in Pavones (the initial idea for the trip). If Tony wasn't there to meet us in Golfito at the airport, a guy named "One-Armed Willy" was supposed to help us.
So we unloaded off the plane, not sure what this "Tony" person looks like. Then this young guy in his 30s, American and a cross between Ben Affleck and my friend Mike Leow, (i.e. tall, dark and handsome) called to us - thankfully, this was Tony. And he had his friend Julian with him (with the most amazing blue eyes). Totally sweet guys who took care of us the next couple days, driving us around, hanging out, letting us in on the local culture, answering our many questions about living in Costa Rica, making our stay as fun and comfortable as possible. And One-armed Willy? Absolute sweetheart - helped us with our bags, greeted each of us with hugs and cheek-kisses (standard greeting among locals) and even got us on an earlier flight back to San Jose at the end of our trip. We couldn't have asked for better hosts.
Julian's truck, which took us on our many travels (i.e. the beach and town)
The drive from Golifto to Pavones was an adventure in itself, as the roads were not paved and we took the back way b/c we had to pick up a gas generator for the house so we would have power. We also found out that "open container" laws don't apply in the country, except for the driver. Stopped at a small store on the side of the road (also run out of a home) to ask for directions and use their restrooms. The residents were very gracious. Three hours later, we arrive at the house in the dark, and of course, as we had already discovered in Costa Rica, it gets dark at 6:30 p.m. Quite odd to us, given that we were coming from an area where it stays light until 10 p.m. during the summer. We dragged in our groceries and luggage. The guys let us have the bedrooms while they slept on the futons in the living room. There were only two bedrooms, but all the furniture consisted of either beds or futons, so the house could easily sleep 12. Plus a fully utensil-stocked kitchen - we just had to buy groceries. We made burritos that night, at least, we made them in the light - the generator ran out of the gas just before dinner, so dinner was by candlelight. But it was so nice that way. And even though we had enough gas the next night, we turned off the lights anyway and had dinner by candlelight again.
The House:
James' house was incredible. The ultimate vacation house - simple, well-equipped and comfortable.
The House
The back porch
The view from the back porch - total jungle. heard howler monkeys in the morning, saw toucans and parakeets fly about and tons of butterflies.
You enter the house, and to the right and the left are bedrooms with futons, beds and ridiculously large bathrooms. As in, the shower was five feet by 10 feet with two shower heads. Cold water only, though, but that didn't matter, given the humidity, it was perfect.
While this is a very pretty picture of Beth, the netting was to keep the mosquitoes out while we slept. The bugs were particularly bad in Pavones versus elsewhere just because of the proximity to the jungle. But we didn't need the strong Deet stuff - the organic natural repellant worked just fine - of course, made out of lemon eucalyptus leaves. I however, had the misfortune of wearing my sandals and stepping on a pile of red ants.
Great room - kitchen is behind us and to the left
The doors were amazing - each hand-carved with a different water/beach/tropical scene.
Access to the beach was via Julian's truck. Or by walking several hours. We did both. The water was SO warm and the sun so intense. We were there during the rainy season, so there were thunderstorms often in the afternoon and at least the last two nights. I hadn't heard storms like these since living in Ohio. Pavones, while extremely small - a store, a bar, a vegetarian restaurant, gift shop and surf shop - is very well known among the surfing community throughout both north and central America for its great waves. We never got a chance to surf but probably saw more North Americans here than anywhere else during our trip.
Our friends, the hermit crabs. It was fun to chase them on the beach.
The Waterfall Hike
The property caretaker Winston took us on an early morning hike through the property, ending at this waterfall, about 100 feet tall.
We weren't expecting to, but Winston said we could go swimming in it if we wanted. Oh sure, how often does one get to splash around in a waterfall in the middle of the jungle in Central America at 8 a.m. on a Friday?
Yea us!
The Resident Sloth and his friends
Rebekah, who was determined to see some real wildlife on this trip, had the sharp enough eye to see this sloth hanging out in the trees along the driveway up to the house. We stopped, got out and stared at him as he stared at us. He was quite awake and even moved from one branch to another in front of us. Like a monkey in slow motion. We heard and saw toucans fly around the house and heard the Howler monkeys holding court every morning in the valley below. The parakeets/canaries hung out in the fruit trees by the house and butterflies were all over the place.
Rain Shower
We had just spent the morning at the beach and it was pouring rain when we got back to the house. We were soaked within five seconds of just getting out of the car. Rebekah and I looked at each other and cracked up. Then she said, it'd be awesome to take a shower in this. Then she said, well, why don't we? We got Beth to toss us Reba's Castile Soap and we lathered up. Why not? While the showers in the house were perfectly fine, you couldn't beat washing your hair in the rain.
The Neighbors
This is the house of the farmer, Sabarro, who's land we had to cross to get to James' house. His daughter, is Rucia (below). She gave us a tour of her house, which is on her father's property. She sent us back to our house with candles when we told her we didn't have any more gas for the generator and tried to convince her we'd be OK without it. Her husband is Winston, the full time caretaker of James' property and who took us on the waterfall hike Friday morning. While we had no problem with our Spanish in other parts of the country, we learned how different dialects in very rural, farming communities can be hard to understand. We wanted so badly to communicate with them but it proved somewhat difficult when we tried to have full conversations. Regardless of the language barriers, they couldn't have been sweeter. We brought them candy at the end of our trip to say thank you for their kindness.
Sabarro's cattle
Post Spaghetti Nite - This was after Tony, in the gray t-shirt, sweated over a hot stove to make us some incredible spaghetti.
Julian, Beth, Me, Reba, after a hard day of beachin' and eatin'
The only grocery store in Pavones, where we discovered Milka chocolate bars. The schoolkids across the street were playing soccer at recess.
How's this for a ferry - what our taxi sat on as we crossed the river after leaving Pavones. As we drove off, we saw a bunch of American kids with surfboards heading to the small surfing village.
The amazing flora
A member of the 5'2" Club showing off her height compared to the 15-foot-tall plantain trees.
On our last day in Pavones, the boys had left, so we walked three hours to the beach and ate at the vegetarian hut that served the absolutely best quesadillas and guacamole and fruit smoothies. In fact, after we spent time at the beach, we went back and got more smoothies. Then we trekked back home, stopped to give the candy presents to the caretakers and dealt with a lizard jumping on my head, which apparently thought I was a small tree or something.
Anyway, below, the view of our walk home, before a HUGE storm came through.
The End. :(
Again, thanks to Julian and Tony for their awesome hospitality and to James for letting us come down and hang out. Anytime the house needs a visit, we'll be more than happy to help out...