TravelStream™ news feed for member paulandan on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/paulandan en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:27:19 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/10/1246372650/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/10/1246372650/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/10/1246372650/tpod.html Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:27:19 -0400 Our last day....

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San José, San Jose, Costa Rica

Well, the day has come where we look about in gratitude, thanking Costa Rica for all that is has offered us and sadly making our plans for departure. We have had an amazing experience and have much appreciation for this fine country, as well as it´s surrounding neighbors.

I apologize for not keeping up with the blog, our delinquency was due in part to spending more time in secluded locations and also using our Internet time to search for employment. Below I will give a little description of where we left off and how we have come to where we are now...

From Santa Eleana we hitchhiked to Volcano Arenal. We met up with a friend that we had met in Santa Eleana and in keeping with the beatnik spirit, we decided to forgo the paid tour of the volcanoes and searched for the free natural hot springs instead. The three of us packed up some peanut butter sandwiches and hitched a ride with a friendly gringo couple straight to the springs. We enjoyed a few hours of bathing in a steamy river surrounded by natural beauty. It was wonderful. That night we shared drinks and food with a group of about 10 people from all over the world....

Next, more or less, we headed south to San Isidro where we would spend the next 6 weeks with Frank, Sue and Jillian working at finca La Puebla. We learned how to process and roast coffee. We also learned about cinnamon, cocoa, medicinal tinctures, black pepper, fruit trees (most we had never even heard of before), sweet potatoes, corn and new types of greens. We planted a garden and ate from gardens of past volunteers. We really enjoyed the company of the campisinas as well as the company of their gigantic library which we were at liberty to peruse while we stayed. We spent our mornings 7 - 12 working on the farm and the rest of the afternoons in our peaceful cabina reading, hanging in hammocks, playing scrabble, dreaming by the river and dancing in the rain. I celebrated my birthday here, was able to be part of a ´woman´s gathering´on the new moon and on a weekend off, we climbed Mt. Chirripo. All around it was wonderful and the tears rolled when we left.


With little time left for adventures we headed south to the Osa. WOW. What a place of beauty. We stayed in a primitive structure for three nights and hiked our days away near Costa RIcas most famous national park, Corcovado. We met macaws, toucans, a sloth, lizards, pizotes, beautiful insects, flowers and breathtaking views. We spent the whole of the time with a couple from Holland, they were very pleasant and we were able to talk in the evening about thier travels (they had been traveling for a year around the world). We left feeling as though we had seen everything we had wanted to see in costa rica, except for the jaguars...

From the Osa we continued south to David Panama, nice city with very friendly people. A highlight was that we had the opportunity to try sugar cane juice squeezed straight from the cane, it was mixed with a little lime and was really tasty. From David we took a bus through Panama to a border town on the Caribbean coast. We both felt that the bus ride was a schooling in the geography and culture of Panama. The scenes we a mixture of beautiful mountains and waterfalls and burning garbage. We saw dwellings of indigenous people and lots of political signs as they were on the verge of accepting a new president. Elderly, families, students and workers would get on and off the bus as it rolled from town to town, giving us just enough to imagine what they might be doing next.

From Panama we headed back North to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. We stayed one night in a camp ground on the beach in the tent that Dan made out of plastic bags. It was really groovy, but slightly difficult to sleep in. The next day we traveled further up to Chuita. We spent four days there taking in the comforts of a small friendly town and an amazing ocean front. We were even lucky enough to attend a festival in the park where there was Calypso music and free food. We splashed around in the beach a lot and finally got to try some Caribbean style rice and beans, yum. We stayed at a humble little hotel with friendly laid back owners. They gave us a little insight into the history of Chuita and Caribbean food. We felt very satisfied when we left.

That brings us to the present....we took a bus up to Limon. Everybody told us that Limon was a dangerous city and that we don´t need to see it. That´s what we heard about David, Panama as well. Our philosophy is play it safe, but see it for ourselves. And...we have really enjoyed Limon. We walked through the market, the shipping ports and got another chance at some Caribbean style food. Today we will head back to San Jose for one last night and then to Grand Rapids tomorrow. We plan on spending some much needed time with our families and then back to Madison. Although we haven´t found jobs yet, we continue our search with a positive outlook. That about sums it up, we are both looking forward to spending time with all of you whom with we´ve only been able to send greetings to via e-mail theses past months....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/9/1240772460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/9/1240772460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/9/1240772460/tpod.html Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:03:26 -0400 Santa Elena and Monteverde

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Santa Elena, Costa Rica

Tranquilo man.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/8/1240769400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/8/1240769400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/8/1240769400/tpod.html Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:18:19 -0400 Travel on: Nicaragua

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Granada and Ometepe Island, Nebraska, Nicaragua

We don't have so many photos of Granada..Que lastima! ..it is a bustling and intense city amidst old Spanish Colonial archetecture. We found the people to be very friendly despite the extreme poverty that most of them find themselves in. We stayed in a hospedaje right inside the market ...it was filled with life every day and there was a picture around every corner. Most of the pictures, unfortunately are in our heads and you'll have to shake them out of us when we get back...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/7/1237333200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/7/1237333200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/7/1237333200/tpod.html Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:07:22 -0400 Rainsong Animal Sanctuary

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Cabuya, Province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica

hello everyone! Turns out that the Internet is not very far away from where we are staying. It is expensive though, so we will probably check once a week while we are here. I hope everyone is doing well. We are happy and healthy and working VERY hard here at Rainsong. So far Dan and I have helped to build two large animal cages...one for a wild cat (our first project it was quite large and had to be extremely sturdy) and another for four goats. We are working alongside 11 other volunteers. We have our own shelter to sleep in... we get a separate one because we are a couple, there are five others staying in a shelter and the rest either camp or rent apartments. We have one shared kitchen and have been making some meals with the other volunteers. There is a cold water outdoor shower, which I have been using at least twice a day. The weather is very hot and very dry here. We have been buying water in 5 gallon jugs, which saves us lots of money and keeps us very hydrated. Soo... what is Rainsong...it's sort of a cross between a farm and a tropical animal sanctuary of sorts. The mission is to rescue and nurse back to health injured animals of all shapes and sizes then either release them, or if they can't be released but are endangered, we try to pair them up to mate so we can release babies. People bring animals in from the surrounding area or a government agency will bring them in. We are regulated by the Costa Rica government but don't receive funding from them. This weekend, a large group of biologists are coming to inspect the sanctuary and make sure it's on the up and up. The animals range from baby squirrels, monkeys, anteaters, a kinkajou (really cute animal that looks like a cross between a teddy bear and a sloth), Peccary pig, pacas, Tucans, Parrots many other birds, porcupines, deer, chickens, goats, wild cats and lots of turtles. Our time is spent between caring for the animals (yes! I really do get to bottle feed a baby monkey!) and then also building cages, haling things and doing other random tasks. we are worn at the end of each day. Our boss of sorts, Mary, is a wild Texan lady who knows vast amounts of information about animals and gardening in the tropics. She is married to a rasta costa rican, Simon, who is really nice and at any given time has four goats and three dogs following him around. There is a long term volunteer here, Christine, who is also a yoga teacher, she leads a meditation for everyone each morning. We really like all of the other volunteers. They are from all over the world.

During our time here, Dan became the designated ¨handy man.¨ He built a goat pen, a cat house, a giant shelving unit to house small cages for things like squirrels and skunks, and he worked very hard on the initial construction of a giant bird aviary that required cementing and fencing. I think that he really enjoyed this role...I spent some of my time helping with construction, one day hauling massive wood posts out of the jungle (that was tough) and the rest of the time I worked at the sanctuary caring for the animals and doing some gardening. It t was really nice to be there for a month because by the end, we really felt like we knew the routine. It was a wild experience getting to care for tropic animals. My favorite was taking out Änti¨the ant eater to graze for ants. When we first arrived two baby squirrels were brought in who fell out of a tree. They were abandoned and had worms. One of them was injured in his eye and we thought he was going to loose his sight. Though our loving care they flourished and grew to be quite large. We bottle fed them every two hours and gave drops to the boy squirrel with the bad eye. Funny enough, I had an eye infection and went to the pharmacy and they gave me the same drops....worked for me as well..

During our time off, which we were able to squeeze in a little. We did some things that we both love. We went snorkeling in the ocean with a tourist group. We were able to see all sort of interesting sea life, my favorite was the star fish. We had an amazing fresh lunch on a little island and then went back for a second round of snorkeling. Dan and I were the last ones to get in the boat. On our return to the main land we saw two giant whales!

On another day off we did some hiking in Cabo Blanco park. It was a four hour hike with a beach stop in the middle. We saw a lot of f interesting trees, different types of butterflies and of course monkeys. While we were swimming a group of monkeys came into the beach and got a little too close to our belongings. We had to rush out of the water and scare them away. By time we had finished exploring, we were the last to leave the park.

We were able to attend a school function with Mary on a trip to Cobano. We did projects with five different classes. We made model clay animals and paper mache butterflies. It was wonderful to be back in the company of litttle ones. From Cobano Dan and I took and extra day off and went to a little surf town called Santa Teresa. We swam and ate tasty food (Thia) for a day. We walked all the way back to Rainsong (somewhere around 14 kilometers), it was well past dark when we finally got into bed.

When it was our time to leave, we felt proud of our accomplishments, sad to leave all of our new friends (human and critter) but also excited for our next adventure...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/7/1236701760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/7/1236701760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/7/1236701760/tpod.html Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:23:26 -0400 Rainsong Animal Sanctuary

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Cabuya, Province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica

After a few days relaxing in Jaco with Scott and Junko we headed back to San Jose once again to get a few necessities before we head to the Nicoya Peninsula. We leave today, on what should be an all day adventure to get to the animal sanctuary. If all goes as planned, we hope to stay there for the next month. You can explore the sanctuary at http://www.rainsongsanctuary.com/ . We may not be able to update the blog while we are there, it is in a remote location at the very southern tip of the Nicoya Penninsula. Also, our appologies for not updating pictures, were lost our camera cord. We are working on some options for getting a new one and hopefully will be able to put more up soon. We love you all and miss you bundles...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/6/1236274380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/6/1236274380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/6/1236274380/tpod.html Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:28:02 -0400 Turrialba -- Rain and shine

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Turrialba, Province of Cartago, Costa Rica

We left from San Jose mid afternoon with a friend we met in the hostel and headed east towards Turrialba. The bus ride was very beautiful, mountains, gardens and little villages scattered the horizon. When we arrived in Turrialbe we took some time to walk around and get our bearings. We found the town to be filled with pleasant people, informative road signs(non-existent elsewhere in Costa Rica) and pretty scenery. After checking out a few hotels, we settled in at the interamericana. nice enough, right price, hot showers. We were very hungry, so we got out our little stove and cooked up some beans and garlic. I mashed up some avocado, onion and spices. We joined the two together in some corn tortillas for an excellent lunch. After the meal we headed out in search of the post office. We walked around a bit and then asked a wonderful woman for directions. Minutes later we were mailing our letters. Unfortunately, I mailed away our 'to-do' list in a letter to my sister(oops). After that we went to a very inexpensive Internet cafe to check in with our friends Scott and Junko who we were hoping to meet up with soon. Later that evening, we had dinner with Alex and made arrangements for the following days adventure. As it turns out, the volcano is actually pretty far away 1.5 hours by car, (we have no car) so...we decided to go to Guayabo National Monument, a pre-Colombian site, on the way to the volcano and try our luck from there. Although it was raining, we headed out the following day. The bus ride was straight up a windy path. We passed many homes and a few schools. By the picking up many people on their way home from school or work along the way. It was a fun mix of all sorts of people. we stood for much of the ride, but didn´t mind. When we arrived at the park it was closed for the day and still raining... The park rangers we nice enough to let us set up our tent under a small pavilion so that we wouldn´t be swimming in the a.m. A light dinner and a game of scrabble later and we were sleeping like babies a little after 9... The next morning it was still raining, but we entered the park with excitement. There were amazing ruins of an ancient civilization. The ruins were surrounded in rainforest lush and we were privileged to see a beautiful blue hummingbird flying around. We were VERY wet when we finished our tour and waited patiently for the bus to scoop us up. Considering the rain and the lack of transportation, we decided against visiting the volcano at the present time. It is actually the least visited volcano because it is so difficult to get to. Back in Turrialba, we checked into the interamericana for another night while we waited to meet up with our friends. that night we visited the local Barber and Dan had his first ever clean shave with the straight edge. the barber shop experience was also fun, an old man practiced his English with us and told us all about his job and pension and such. he also told us that in the mornings at the shop they practice their french over bread and coffee! We had another nice meal with Alex that night and played Spanish scrabble with Alex and another traveler from California. The next day we caught a bus to san jose and then made our way to the airport to meet scott and junko...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/5/1236095700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/5/1236095700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/5/1236095700/tpod.html Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:04:42 -0500 So long civilization...

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san jose, Costa Rica

After three days of the city we are gonig back out into the wilderness. We have enjoyed a wonderful stay at a hostel with all the big ammenities --hot water, free internet, free breakfast, open use kitchen and friendly people. While we were here this time we went to a contemparary art museum-VERY cool and unusual art work, inspriring to us both. we also went to see the movie the Curious case of Benjamin Button, great movie and nice temporary escape from reality. We found a travel spanish scrabble game called, Intelect and also some other odds and ends we needed to buy, hairbrushes and books. We met some wonderful poeple at the hostel and are now ready to shove off. We are going to Turrialba to hike up a volcano and then hopfully over to the carribean... Take care all.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/3/1234970040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/3/1234970040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/3/1234970040/tpod.html Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:22:26 -0500 Cartago to Orosi -- Mountain Adventures

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Orosi, Costa Rica

From San Jose we took a bus south that got us to Cartago. Cartago is the old Capitol of Costa Rica. It was busy with locals selling fruit, buses zooming here and there, school children skipping on the side walks etc. We asked about five different people how to catch a bus to Jardin Lankaster, finally getting to the right destination. We took a bus out of Cartago and got off on a dirt road in search of a botanical garden, Jardin Lankaster. A young boy, Steven, told us how to get there and then decided to walk with us. It was a pleasant 20 minute walk to the garden. The gardens were beautiful, there were over 1,000 different types of orchids, all types of trees, birds, flowers, succulents and butterflies...

From the gardens we hitched a ride into town and then took a bus to Orosi. We were greeted in Orosi by many happy beautiful faces.

I am ending this now so that I can upload many pictures rest assured that eventually I will continue to tell our tales...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/4/1235952420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/4/1235952420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/4/1235952420/tpod.html Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:09:50 -0500 Pacific Coasties

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Uvita, Costa Rica

As we promised... we will try to fill this in later...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/2/1234836540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/2/1234836540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/paulandan/2/1234836540/tpod.html Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:18:49 -0500 San Jose

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San Jose, Costa Rica

A lush new landscape, wonderful smells and perfectly nice strangers, travel is delightful. We had a breathtaking view of the country as the plane came to land. Mountains drifting towards a blue pacific ocean, windy roads and little villages tucked in between. We took the bus successfully from the airport for less than a dollar and then wandered around until we found a great hostel, complete with pool (since when do hostels have pools?). We just came back from a yummy dinner and are both ready the hit the nice double bed that awaits us! ciao!
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