OUR RETIRED ADVENTURE
qUEREMOS VIVIR AL SOL
KSha
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
It's been two weeks and some since our return from Costa Rica and the reality of being retired is settling in. Leaving a week after Sharon retired and the day after my last day of work was a great start to our retirement. But our trip was anything but a "normal day"; and therefore a "normal day" for both of us is still being worked out.
Thinking back on our wondrous near two month adventure, I recall my initial amazement at the mountainous topography of the country so near the Pacific coast. The further south you travel, the closer the mountains seem to come to the shore. The entire country (that we saw) was green. Walking in the jungles on paths or on the canopy bridges gave us a sense of amazement at the diversity of life that is hard to describe. We traveled during the start of the green season which goes from May to November. The northern Pacific coast is warmer and drier than the south and our first 3 weeks we didn't miss a day of sun due to rain. Here, the rain came in the late afternoons or evening/overnight. Temperatures were in the high 80's and the feel-like temperatures were in the high 90's. Coming inland and climbing the mountain to Monteverde saw a big change in the weather. We basically drove into the clouds and the rain. Temps ranged here from high 60's to low 70's; and it rained a lot more and at all times of the day. Our return to the central Pacific coast, near Jaco, saw temps rebound back up and the rain decrease in frequency. Our two farthest south home bases had the most rain and comfortable temps--although the sun with no clouds is hot anywhere in Costa Rica. Rain here is amazing. NGG describes it as "it's raining cats and dogs and iguanas and sloths." It comes straight down and has a roar to it as it hits the vegetation. Driving in a rain storm was never fun; but I was amazed at all the motorcyclists that continued to drive in these rain storms--oh baby. The roads were an adventure. Rarely is the road ever straight or flat in Costa Rica, and the speed limit is 80 kph (54 mph)--which is really hard to violate given the aforementioned info. All the speed limits are painted on the road. There is a tendency to frequently change the limit due to the up-down-sharp turn nature of the path. Oh, and any school--and they are all over the country, has a set of reductors at the onset of the school zone. These speed bumps were brutal if you went over them too fast. Highways (the main ones) are 2-lane blacktop and a majority of the offshoots into the hills or to the beaches are well-maintained dirt roads where the rain has exposed rocks that test your shock absorbers. We traveled some beautiful coastal highways that granted us some amazing views of the beaches and surf. The steep inclines took a little getting used to as we explored the areas around our home bases. We adopted the idea that the road was put here for a reason, and we wanted to see where it led. The food was diverse and wonderful! Casado; beans and rice with any meat, and a salad accompanied by fruit is a typical Tico meal. We were both surprised to see pasta on almost every menu. The seafood was outstanding! Sopa de Mariscos was my go-to for lunch. The sea bass and red snapper were my dinner favorites. I ate a whole red snapper (head, tail--yep, eyes) one night that was stuffed with shrimp...oh baby! Sharon can't recall any seafood favorites of hers...oh yeah, she doesn't like it. More for me. Each part of the country we stayed in had its own unique beauty and amenities. We are organizing the KSha U.S. based operations for a return trip to Costa Rica in the next few months for a longer stay in a single place. This will allow us to understand daily life here and embrace a prospect of a permanent move. More to come on the "daily life" updates as warranted, and more to come on our area of choice to return to Costa Rica. Pura Vida!
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We wanted to explore different places for lunch during the last few days of our most excellent adventure, and took in a scenic lunch in the mountains off the coast just south of Dominical. We returned home later that afternoon about 20 minutes before a crazy rainstorm started. During the 4 hours of nonstop rain, we lost power for about 90 minutes. The cribbage tournament was only slightly delayed until candles and a flashlight were implemented. ![]() The road to this restaurant was worth the "active driving" and wow, what a view! Our last Sunday in CR ended up being called Toucan Sunday. A light rain began as we sat by the resort pool when the first one flew in. It landed closer to the pool than any other had before as NGG jumped into action. It was tough to pack up and leave Villas Rio Mar as we headed back to Quepos for the mandatory covid-19 test. Then we continued on to the mountains, up to San Jose and our return flight.
As we were climbing a winding section of the road, we got a WAZE alert that there was an accident ahead; and just enough heads up to slow down as traffic came to a stop. The added lane that had allowed passing of slower cars climbing the incline turned into a slow crawling parking lot. In a short time, we encountered people walking in the road selling water and food items as the cars slowly moved along the road. Thus began the glitches we encountered on our return to the states... We didn't move at times, and never exceeded 30 kph during the next 1 1/2 hours as the traffic sorted itself out of the mountains and the accident areas. As we started into the interior of the country to reach San Jose, the roads got a lot steeper and (it seemed) a little narrower. Oh, and it started to rain. Oh yeah, it was dark too! Sun set is at ~6 PM at this time of year and with the heavy rain, it was pitch dark at 6:10. I do have to say that with all the driving we did on this trip, I felt cautiously confident driving on the steep and winding roads that night in the rain. Upon reaching the outskirts of the San Jose area, we hit it's infamous traffic jams before finally making it to our hotel outside the airport. Move luggage into one more hotel room, (I thought), dinner and then hit the hay to return rental car and check bags at the airport early the next day. Got a flight delay message before the hay was hit. We had a smooth rental return; but before the shuttle took us to the airport, we got another flight delayed message-- connection in Houston could be tight. By the time we were at the check-in counter, the delayed expectation would have our connection flight in Houston, gone before we arrived. [That generated a few under my breath Dbl Dangs]. We decided to fly to Houston on the delayed original flight, instead of flying from San Jose the next day, and rescheduled our flight to Chicago out of Houston a day later than planned. We were not the only delayed flight arriving in Houston this night, nor the only United flight. We waited with a lot of angry people in a line for over 2 hours for hotel and food accommodations due to missed connections. The Service Counters were under staffed and the process was posted on social media by a few fed-up people. We were finally registered at a hotel (damn, got to move the luggage again) that required an 80 mph--30 minute taxi ride while negotiating his return for pick up at 7 AM. Final luggage move settled us into our room at midnight. We completed our return to the ole homestead in Elmwood Park around 1 PM; 54 days since we had last seen her. |
Kevin & Sharon SeibelBeginning our next big adventure! Archives
December 2023
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