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.
Well...apologies for the delay in writing for you frequent flyers...just seemed to be so busy. We lost one of the CRST members to the States as Marie went home to Massachusetts last Friday. Prior to that there was almost daily games held at 4 PM and some sunsets mixed in there too. Enjoy the slideshow below. Last Tuesday morning, after a walk on the beach, Sha needed a pedicure so she left me on the beach to play in the water while she got a little pampering. Even though I hit the ocean without either of us thinking about a plan to meet back up after the pedicure; we timed things pretty well as I came out of the beach shower, Sha was coming back down to the beach. She introduced me to her new friend she met at the spa, and before I could tell her her toes looked pretty she said they had an opening for her to get a haircut and would I mind if she did. Now, so that you realize what a big deal this was; Sha has had the same (and only) hair stylist for the last 22 years. A big thank you to Jennafer for always making my bride's hair look fantastic! So, back to playing in the waves I went as she went back to the spa. With her great new haircut, Sha and a group of us went downtown to Coconutz Bar for karaoke night; and the place was packed. Kev might've got up and sang a song; but there is no evidence...so it didn't really happen...or did it?! Wednesday was the usual morning walk, pool and then afternoon Shanghai with Marie and Lucie, with a sunset break followed by another round of cards. Thursday was live music night at the Garden Bar around the corner from our place, where we saw Charley Lopez. He played the good ole songs we grew up hearing and sang songs in English, Spanish, and some in French! Afterward, Lucie took the group of us in her golf cart downtown to hear another band playing at the Bambu bar on the beach. Drinks and a little dancing was a great end to that night. This is the tree by the Bambu bar on the beach; and the tree is about 10 meters from the beach sand. It is hard to show the uniqueness of this tree...but it's really cool. Friday night was supposed to be Salsa night at the Garden Bar; but the event was cancelled. Luckily we had found that out before showing up there. Even luckier still that afternoon, we were invited to meet our 1st floor friend Norm's (and Karen) brother Adam visiting from D.C. When they discovered our evening's plans were open, they invited us to come along to dinner downtown! So the five of us climbed in Norm's SUV and we took a brief sightseeing tour to Ocotal (neighboring beach community) to met Karen's brother Martin and roommate at Father Roosters; a great place on the beach with wonderful food (everyone agrees that has eaten there). On the way there we crossed paths with Martin coming toward Coco where we found out, during a quick pause in the road, that Father Roosters was closed. We quickly decided to go back to town (after we finished our scenic tour) to Zi Lounge for dinner. Enjoyable conversations and a fantastic meal followed! A little TV at home capped another wonderful day. Our Saturday morning walk ended up being in the rains that started shortly afterwards, and never let up throughout the day. That sparked the long-awaited return to the CRCT. I know, I know, I haven't updated you on the standings for quite some time--another apology. Here are some highlights; we finished August with Sha leading the series 21-16. By the middle of September, I had cut the lead down to three (30-27). Sha won 2 out of the next 3 games, and then we had a break of 8 days without a game until Saturday's rain. The day started out as a friendly match between good friends... but soon turned vicious as the Kevster was making a comeback... The day saw some incredible hands, (not just the ones around my neck!) with Sha landing a couple of 24 point hands, one of these had me with 4 Aces in the crib! Having survived all "the hands", I came out ahead with 5 wins to 3 losses at afternoon's conclusion; bringing the series tally to Sha 35, Kev 33. Spaghetti dinner that Sha had stewing most of the day was wonderful with some wine, prepped us for an evening on the couch for a movie and occasional thunder, as the rain continued. Sunday, I found the couch and never moved (except to eat). I believe the celebration associated with Saturday's 5 wins to be the guilty party responsible for the inability to activate physical movement. Thank goodness we get the NFL Red Zone, and the Sunday night game! We do have to take time to watch La Casa del Dragones at 7 PM. Kyle, we missed episode 5 last week during the Bear's game and had to catch updates from the internet. Today we were back in business with another great walk through some nearby neighborhoods. We spotted a dirt road midway on our walk (our favorite place to turn onto), and ventured in to see what there was to see. We saw some more cool houses, and met two new friends... An afternoon with friends at the pool, and you're all caught up with your Costa Rican couple! Our friend the skunk squirrel even stopped by to say hi! Pura Vida!
0 Comments
Life has been awesome in Playas del Coco and we have set into an easy, casual routine over the past week. Morning walks on the beach which have coincided with high tide, floating on our rafts at the pool, lunch, and a lot of afternoon cards with our friends Marie and Lucie. Afternoons this past week have been quite rainy. We also went downtown for dinner one night; and music and a little dancing another night. Had to cool off and experience the waves that were crashing on the beach. The above video is taken at the North end of Coco Bay by the small waterfall coming off of the mountain. My Nebraska boys have not had a good start to the football season this year; but there was still some hope that a renewal of the Oklahoma rivalry might spark a turnaround...a picture is worth a thousand words. On top of that, it rained cats and dogs and we lost the TV feed...which my have been the best part of that afternoon! Action shot of our golf cart ride into town for dinner. Santorini's, a Greek restaurant in downtown Coco with (L-R) Kev, Lucie, Janeen, Marie, and Sha. Elvis "live" at the Garden Bar; Kev and Marie cutting a rug. Can't beat the sunsets; even when it's cloudy! We didn't even get lost this week! Oh well, we'll see if we can test that idea this coming week. We will let you know what happens!
Pura Vida! NGG needed a shakeup from the one hour to the wall walk on the beach today. She had an idea (which is less than a vision...yeah I thought) that we would reverse our route that took us into the hills past town last week. So we took the dirt road into town that we use when we shop with the shopping cart; it gets us to right in the middle of town. The beach is probably a 3 minute walk if you turn right, and two of our grocery stores are a 2 minute walk to the left. We turned left and walked past our stores to the Lumber yard (this is where we came out at during the first walk) and turned off the main road. The first part of the way was familiar, a paved road that wound through a Tico (what Costa Ricans call themselves; ticos/ticas) neighborhood. When we hit the dirt road junction we knew a left turn would take us up into the hills and the same roads we travelled before...so we turned right for something new. On this stretch of dirt road it appeared to be laundry/cleaning day as many houses we passed had that activity and smell. Another junction in the road and we veered to the left (a right turn seemed to be headed right back into town) on what we thought was a new road for us. Several minutes later we saw a sign with an arrow to the right, Barrio las Brisa, and we both recognized that we had seen it before on our original trip. We had decided against investigating last time and kept on going up the hill. We decided this time we would find out what was down this road...and that's when the real adventure began. The road didn't appear to hold a whole lot of promise as after walking several minutes we saw two dogs "guarding" a lone property at "the end" of the road. It looked as if the road ended and the jungle began; but NGG was undaunted and we kept on going. Upon further inspection, we found a trail that veered off into the brush on the right side of the end of the road. We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and said, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained!", and headed in! We travelled on this winding footpath for about 3 or 4 minutes and then we came out on a road in a different neighborhood! It was a short, but very cool walk through dense trees and vegetation. The road bent off to the right; but both of us took a long look to the left; because in that direction we heard howler monkeys! That was all the nudging we needed; there wasn't a trail...but it looked clear. We navigated about a hundred meters through short grass, rocks and vegetation and found a dry creek bed, all the while the howls were getting louder. Some careful navigating around the downed tree and we knew we were very close to sighting our "quarry." Oh yes, NGG spotted them first and had to guide me to look in the correct parts of the tree. As NGG was getting her shots, and I was moving around to get different views, the male continued to howl, sometimes in brief grunts and then longer howls. After about 5 minutes of watching them it seemed the male was looking at us both with spittle hanging out of his mouth and grunting, so we figured we would leave them and move on. Looking through the trees and vines, we realized the creek bed had brought us about 50 meters from a road that we made our way out to. We walked for a short time and came upon what looked like the entrances to two resorts or private areas. We went into to the first entrance that looked like a club (acting like we owned the place) and walked around the grounds checking to see if there was a way to continue out the back. There wasn't. We came back out and looked at the second entrance and saw a guard there, so we figured we had to go back the way we came. (Remember this for later.) We walked back down the road we came after seeing the howlers and reentered the jungle to find the creek bed and retrace our way back to the clearing-but no path. We had successfully navigated 80% of our return when a crawling vine "jumped up" and got caught on my shoe. Down goes Frazier--I mean blog boy. Glad to say, minor fall that hurt my pride more than anything. CB made her presence felt, and said "pick up your feet old man", kissed my boo-boo, brushed me off and sent me on my way. At the end of the clearing-but no path we continued on the right bend in the dirt road. As we walked I was moving my shoulders and back to reverify that no harm was done when we came to another T-junction in the road. We encountered a man walking from the left and asked him if it was possible to find town going the way he came from. Our luck was that he spoke english and gave us directions..."continue to the curve--don't go through the gate. You will see a little trail the goes off to the right-there will be a wire-on the ground, you step over that to the trail. It'll take you to the road and Club Coco and back to Ocotal Road." OK, sounded simple. We cautiously approached the curve, saw the gate we didn't want to go into, and searched for the entrance to the trail and the wire to step over. We thought we had it, but then couldn't see a trail so we kept moving forward. I'm not sure what you mentally pictured from those directions, but it wasn't exactly what I pictured when we found it. The trail was partially hidden unless you looked fairly hard...but we were successful in finding it and walked to the paved road from the directions. We both were surprised to see that we had just been here about 15 minutes ago when we turned back into the jungle after we thought there was no way through the private areas. We approached the guard gate, said buenas dias and asked if we could continue on in. A positive response and we walked into Club Coco. The paved road was lined with beautiful trees and greenery. Next thing I know, NGG is back with another howler alert. This time we would be getting an up close and personal experience as we found two different males in the trees ahead at the side of the road. NGG was super happy having a double howler sighting! We continued on and saw the end of the road and realized we were where we wanted to be, on the far side of town and coming out on Ocotal road. We headed back into town, stopped at one of the three stores we shop at for supplies, took the horse path shortcut and made it home...two hours and six minutes after we left home. Mission accomplished! Shortly after we had lunch, it started to rain...enjoy. Pura Vida!
We needed a day of rest after completing the Cacique hill and circuit...what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger; right? Friday was an easy day relaxing by the pool, rainy afternoon changed our card plans to Saturday and I got to dive into my e-book checked out from the EP Public Library. This is the third book in the series that Josh started me out with for our trip. My senior teammates at the University of Nebraska planned a 40th year reunion for this weekend and would be honored at Saturday's game against Georgia Southern. I had been enjoying a lot of fun texting and pictures as the plans were made and the boys got together. Saturday morning beach walk to the south wall of Coco Bay; took us a touch over an hour. The pool, a late morning staple in our routine cooled us down before lunch. We headed into town for some supplies and Sha whipped up some chili after we returned; then we got ready to resume the CRST with our friends Marie and Lucie. We once again had fun and laughs as we played and were joined by 3 other friends they knew from Canada during the game. Partial English and a whole lot of French instructions had us all on "the same page". We made plans to meet back at Marie's place at 8 PM to go into town for music and dancing. Unfortunately the rains came down and didn't let up, so we cancelled as the ride into town on the golf cart (Lucie's) would not have been pleasant. The chili was fantastic for our dinner and we enjoyed a second relaxing evening at home; Sha on the TV, and I got to finish my e-book before we turned in. [Had sporadic updates on the UN football game during the evening, and was flabbergasted to see the final score. My teammates and the whole state of Nebraska were disappointed in the outcome; so much so that our head coach was fired the next morning!] The days begin pretty early at Sombras 203; Sha is usually up before the sun is at 6:07ish AM. She has been recently enjoying doing yoga at the start of each day while I am making sure the covers don't fall off the bed. Cocochitchat.com, the social media platform for expats to find out what is what had the Coconutz Bar & Grill showing NFL games staring at 11 AM (that's 12 PM in Chicago as Costa Rica does not change the clocks for daylight savings as in the U.S.). Beach walk to the north wall of Coco Bay got the blood flowing; again a touch over an hour and about 3 miles or so; and had time for the 3 S's before heading to town for the (hopefully) Bear's game. Upon arriving we were pleased to see the Bears game on the big projection screen; then they weren't playing well and we weren't glad it was on the big screen, and by the end of the game we were glad again. We had some beers and a pizza before we left to shop for dinner. We arrived home with our shopping bags about 10 minutes before it started pouring rain again. BBQ chicken and Lisa Marie's homemade fries turned out to be a wonderful Sunday night dinner. We enjoyed episode 4 of the House of Dragons on HBO and it was lights out by 9:30 PM. Today we headed off to the beach for our morning walk and went to the south wall again. Our walks have been coinciding with the low tide this past week. We saw the most beach sand we have seen since we arrived here. It also had activity that we hadn't seen before either. As we walked south we saw a group of 7 or 8 men probing the sand with what looked like homemade siphons made out of PVC pipe about 3 feet in length. We passed them and subtley tried to see what they were searching for...to no avail. When we got to the south wall, there were several women in the rocky outcrops that were above water due to the low tide, with hammers and screwdrivers chiseling into the rocks. Sha got close enough to see what they were doing and saw one woman chip out a chunk of rock where a large shell was, and then scoop out a hand-sized oyster! We watched for a few minutes as both women masterfully knew where to chisel out these large shells for the oysters that appeared encased in the rocks. We headed back and eventually caught up to the men with the siphons. NGG went right up to one of the men and asked what they were hunting for; he showed us his bucket and said "for fishing...red snapper". What we saw were little finger-length shrimp-like animals that had a claw on one end...interesting animals. They put the siphon in the sand and suck up the sand 2 times to see if anything is in the slurry. We both are not sure how they know where to search; but they had a lot in their buckets. The usual hour time frame saw us returned home to get ready for the pool. I thought I would share some other pics of our pool area to spruce up this post. It has been a cloudy day since we came up from the pool to have lunch. The temperature has cooled from 29 to 27 degrees celsius...I imagine another math lesson is necessary. Here you go: Fahrenheit degrees minus 32 multiplied by 5/9 equals degrees Celsius. Simple, right? Now you know the answer to the question you asked back in high school..."Why do I need to know this math stuff?"
Pura Vida! Yep, Sha woke up today and had another vision. Cacique (ka-see-key) hill was where her vision was going to take us. I previously had talk about "the hill" that we didn't make it to the top of; a few weeks back. Well we found out how to spell its name; and today was the day we were going to reach the summit! We had a beautiful day for the climb and as we headed out it was in the low 80's at 8:09 AM. 1st incline at start of Cacique Hill (Original attempt picture-didn't get this shot today). Looking back at Coco from the 1st curve of Cacique Hill. Looking up to second curve of road on Cacique Hill. Looking up at third stretch of Cacique Hill. Trucks at the first of four different construction sites. Looking back down to Coco bay. Fourth stretch...still going up. We had to investigate a dirt road that led off of main road and then went upward...and this was what we saw-what a view! Freshly cleared and leveled; $1Million+ lot waiting for a house. Returning to the road...we were not at the top yet; stretch number 5! 5th stretch look back to Coco bay. Water seems a ways off. The final stretch to the top of the hill! Sha beat me to the top so she could document the bald guy making it there! I have to say...we were both proud of ourselves for making it to the top. If we only knew what was still in store for us...
The Information Desk had previously given us directions to the hill; and had also described a fellow Sombras owner walking the hill and then continuing on down into Coco and then back home. This was the secondary part of Sha's vision for the day...continue on and into town. After a brief rest at the top to get our bearings, we continued on the road into the Los Alto del Cacique residential area. As we went on, we encountered another stretch of hill (that I didn't think was fair), but soon lost that feeling as we looked at the houses along the road that had views overlooking the valley and Bay. We followed the road and ended up at the entrance to the area. We both wondered, what road was this that we were approaching-frequent traffic was seen going both ways on it as we approached. From gathered bearings, we knew we had to go right to get back to town and our condo. So off we went on the nicely paved road. We quickly realized that this was one of the main roads, and Sha identified it as Ruta Nacional 159! Trucks, cars and buses were soon cruising by in both directions. You may recall my descriptions of Costa Rican roads from last year's posts...there is about a foot of asphalt outside the white lane lines at the edge of the road. So, we are mainly walking in the "grass" next to the road when vehicles approach. We were both keeping our eyes open for any road branching off to the right to take us directly back to the Bay, and home. [We were going south on the road, which was the correct direction; but needed to veer west to get to the water and home.] The temperature was rising, and we kept seeing the road continue onward. We then came across two structures that we remembered passing on the road trips we took from Playa Hermosa to Playas del Coco. Oh, crap! Realization came into focus that we were a long way from home. At this point we had been walking on the road for more than a half an hour; we had also backtracked to a residential area we thought was our road back to the water--only to find it dead end, forcing us back to the road to continue onward and realizing there was no turning back. So we kept walking. Luckily the sun was covered by light clouds as we had walked this last stretch so the asphalt wasn't baking us alive. Recalling remembered stretches of road while driving doesn't translate well into figuring out distances when you are walking those same roads. We knew we had to get to "Billboard corner" to reach the road that led back into Playas del Coco. It took us quite some time to reach that corner; and the clouds were clearing and the temp was going up. We saw a sign, 3km to the Supermercado; my math people will know that's 1.8 miles...water is pouring out of me and our water bottles are almost empty. I am having to ask Sha to stop to rest more often as we work our way down the road into town. At one of these stops I get a little dizzy and need to sit on the ledge outside a bar we came across. Sha saved the day by refilling our water bottles at the bar--even though we weren't sure they were open. We finally hit the Supermercado-I forgot to tell you there are two of these; and this one is the farthest one from our condo, so with a stiff upper lip, we kept walking. We finally got to the other Supermercado, where we walk to to shop, and then realized we could make it home. The back gate to our complex never looked so good as we rounded the final turn on the road home. Then I remembered we live on the second floor and there were still stairs... Opening up the door, Sha chuckled and told me it was 11:09 AM; three hours on the nose from when we left on our vision-quest. We figured we walked 10 or more miles today...my legs think it was a lot more than that! We both agree that that was a once in a lifetime vision. We do plan to climb the Cacique Hill again...but we will be walking back down next time! Sha had a vision for today's walk...but the high tide "said" that changes would be necessary. Two hours later, with the sweat soaking through my entire shirt and dripping off my shorts onto my shoes, we arrived back home. Depending on where we enter to the beach, we have one "river" to cross on our way to the "downtown" area; and another to cross if we want to get to the farthest south part of the beach (recall a few days ago we made it to the point out on the rocks during low tide at the southern end of Coco). Now to explain. During low tide, these "rivers" are 10 and 20 feet across with water about 3 to 6 inches deep (water coming down from the mountains). They are always there and don't pose any problem to cross with water-shoes during low tide. High tide is a different story. The small one that is before we get to town, becomes 20 feet across with 1 to 2 foot deep of flowing water out to the ocean. The large one at the end of town becomes 50+ feet wide and the flowing water is waist deep or more. We bypassed the first "river" by taking the road to town and then going to the beach after we passed its exit point. We enjoyed the views walking (in our tennis shoes) along the beach path to town and continued to the other end of town and the second river crossing. We watched as a man forded this river and carried his cargo in a plastic bag on his head as the water flowed just below his chest. Sha had thought to continue to the other side and find some new trails for us to explore. I heard GG in my head saying...recalculating. We reassessed, and undaunted, we rerouted and continued on. We needed to return the short distance back into town and get to the Ocotal road which we frequent quite often because it has the fruit/vegetable store and another supermarket that we shop at for supplies. Since we had only been walking for 20+ minutes, we both wanted more. Sha picked a road we hadn't tried before and we were off again-this time to parts unknown of Coco. We walked the dirt road into neighborhoods, giving and receiving friendly greetings from people sitting on their patios, walking and riding bikes along the way. As the elevation got higher, we had to look hard through all the trees sometimes to see the houses along our path. Stopping at a junction in the road to grab a shot of water (Sha carries the small backpack with the water bottles), we saw several houses up on the hill that we can see from our place, and then realized we were quite a ways from our home. [I then remembered the plans within the plan that we needed to shop for a few things before returning home, and we still had a good hike to get back to town] We navigated, and chose our turns carefully to head back to town and found a road that would take us to the main road and familiar territory. We hit the main road into downtown and saw that we had about a kilometer to go to get to Ocotal road (where we started on our new path) to get to the shops for supplies for our dinner. We made it to the store and picked up a sweet potato, sweet peppers, a carrot, and a butternut squash; along with a couple of oranges. Our last stop was to resupply our beer-somebody appears to have dwindled the supply when I wasn't looking-and then headed home. Luckily we were able to take the horse path shortcut home, because a light sprinkle started just as we arrived outside our complex. As we unpacked, the rain began in earnest. We had a hotdog lunch-yes I took the casings off before cooking; and then Sha began prepping our dinner. She chopped up the roots, peppers and onions and slow-roasted them all afternoon. Then she made some rice and seasoned up the sea bass. As the end of the afternoon rain was easing up, the roasted roots were done and the sea bass went into the oven. Fifteen minutes later we were enjoying a gourmet meal made at home! We both hope your holiday weekend was enjoyable and memorable. Pura Vida!
We consulted with the ID before deciding to have Italian for our Saturday date night dinner. Pueblito Sur, which is just down the street from our condo, houses a series of restaurants within an enclosed open-air square area. La Dolce Vita was touted as having home-made pasta that was very good and a nice place for dinner. We were greeted by the owner's son and seated at a nice table for two. The aromas present had our mouths watering before we even ordered anything. A nice bottle of wine began our evening as we listened to the specials of the day. The son pointed out that his mama makes the pasta daily; but only in the mornings before it gets too warm (there is a gallery style window that allows her work to be seen). With the help of our waiter, we settled on two of his three favorite dishes. Sha got the fettuccine with truffles and mushrooms, and I had the Strozzapreti fruiti de mar. Oh my! This is where you can watch mama make the pasta in the mornings. Note the reflection in the wine glass... The chocolate lava cake with strawberries and ice cream was too hard to pass up as we finished our wine. Fantastico!!
Sunday after an hour and a half walk on the beach in the morning (figured that the homemade pasta might permanently attach to a hip or thigh if we didn't put some miles in), we spent the afternoon at the pool. We had a pool full of people; Norm & Karen, K & Sha, Michele (who lives in the 700 building) and Ed, our 2nd floor neighbor; all enjoying the wonderful Sunday afternoon sun. Then we combined our leftover pasta with 2 more of our ribeye steaks from the "heaven on earth" meat store that we grilled up on the deck to finish a wonderful day. I know I had previously promised that we-I mean NGG, would get you a picture of the elusive skunk squirrel-well she did a while ago and I forgot to share. So I'll leave you with her shot. Pura Vida!! Blog boy had the last of the month on paid leave; so he boycotted adding to the story until today. I'm just joshing you...not you Josh! You know there's those times when you think you're funny, and you really may not be funny...I'm just saying! The second installment of the CRST occurred two days ago on Monday. We met at Marie & Eric's place in the building next to ours--took us all of 53 seconds to walk there. We again had a wonderful time, and Lucie was our day 2 champion. L-R: Lucie, Marie, Elise, Sha, Kev, and Eric. Tuesday, we planned a boat and beach day with our Sombras neighbors and friends. You might want to remember the above pic as it shows us in the most clothes we've worn since we've been here. Thought the prudence of "sun shirts" was necessary for today as shade could not be guaranteed anytime during the trip. We had the boat "for a three, I mean five hour tour"; two more than Gilligan! We all packed a lunch and water for the day and scanned the bay for our ride the Blue Eyed Angel. Juan arrived "Costa Rican on-time" to meet us on the beach as his son Kenneth brought the boat in for us to board. A quick little slideshow of some highlighted pictures from the day. We stopped at 3 awesome beaches and swam, floated and enjoyed the little fishes swimming in the shallows. Juan had snorkeling equipment, fins and noodles to float with for us to use. We all enjoyed ourselves tremendously!! Sha said, "We might have to make this a monthly outing!" Cool; we can go two more times! NGG was a bit under the weather the next day and we both had a day on the couch...maybe a tad too much sun--either way we both felt better after a slow day indoors. We've had some carefree days since the recovery day with walks on the beach, excursions to the veggie/fruit market (still have some sea bass and shrimps left in freezer), grilling on our deck, and eating out at a few places. I'll leave you with a few pictures to enjoy so that I can regroup and keep you more current now that the "holiday weekend" is over. We are sending good vibes from Playa del Coco...Pura Vida!
|
Kevin & Sharon SeibelBeginning our next big adventure! Archives
December 2023
Categories |