TravelStream™ news feed for member sarah on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/sarah en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 21 Jan 2007 23:13:24 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1168141980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1168141980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1168141980/tpod.html Sun, 21 Jan 2007 23:13:24 -0500 We embark on the adventure of traveling with an increasingly opinionated 16 month old.

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Zarcero, Costa Rica

Libby, Ani, and I took the bus to Zarcero to see the fantastical shaped bushes in the central park and spend the night before heading on to La Fortuna. Unfortunately, the one hotel in town (Zarcero not being a happening vacation spot) had no room, so we were directed to Gladys' house. Although I thought that maybe this was going to be a quaint B&B type of situation, it was actually a concrete utility shed that was, in fact, attached to Gladys' house. A damp, drafty concrete utility shed, with various bugs nesting on the ceiling, someone else's toothbrush on the sink, and a bare hanging lightbulb to complete the "Turkish prison" decor.

Ani ran around the Alice in Wonderland bushes, we ate dinner and called home, and went reluctantly back to our cell, where we were warmly greeted by the bugs that would bite us all night.

In the morning, we packed up, waved goodbye to the abandoned toothbrush, and caught the early bus in search of friendlier accomodations.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1168030800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1168030800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1168030800/tpod.html Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:52:50 -0500 We embark on the adventure of traveling with an increasingly opinionated 16 month old.

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Alajuela, Costa Rica

Back to Hotel Cortez Azul for the 75th time. This time, though, it is to repack our bags so Phil can go home. It was an unremittingly sad time except for Joey, an older guy from Quebec who kept giving Ani these huge gumballs that were about two inches wider than her mouth. I'm not sure what he thought she was going to do with them, maybe practice her bowling technique, because he had a seemingly endless supply, and gave her more every time we'd run into him around the hotel. Since it only has 5 rooms, we ran into him alot.

We took Phil and his 45 pound backpack to the airport and had a sad goodbye. Then headed back to the hotel to plan the rest of the trip...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167962400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167962400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167962400/tpod.html Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:43:08 -0500 We embark on the adventure of traveling with an increasingly opinionated 16 month old.

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Orosi, Costa Rica

Orosi is a short bus ride south of San Jose and we headed there for the hot springs. At the hotel (Montana Linda) we met Elizabeth and Garrett, two young adventurous Canadians who have driven from Alberta to Costa Rica in a 1990 Volvo. Their trunk was packed full of paper towels and an amusing number of shoes, but they were lacking a map of Costa Rica, so I gave them mine. In return, Elizabeth drove us to the local free hot spring, where Anikah further developed her penchant for rock climbing in an attempt to give me a heart attack before age 35.

It was a short trip, without even any photos, so I guess it is a short entry, too. I will mention that there was a nice bakery in town with free hot cocoa if you bought some bread. Ok, that's all I can come up with. Back to Alajuela.....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167837060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167837060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167837060/tpod.html Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:31:56 -0500 We embark on the adventure of traveling with an increasingly opinionated 16 month old.

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San Jose, Costa Rica

We left San Isidro and it's many ice cream parlors to head to San Jose for the end of the year. We stayed in a suburb of the city, Yoses, for one night; the hostel (Casa Yoses) had a very nice outdoor relaxing area and a pool table and darts, but our room was next to the computers (with free 24 hour Internet) and there were some very exuberant late night e-mailers staying there. And when I say "exuberant" I mean drunk. And loud. And amused by their own frequent flatulence. We moved to another hotel the next day.

It was a little strange to be in a capital city that seemed to be closed for New Years. We spent the 31st walking around the empty university district and campus, admiring the graffiti and the koi ponds. In the evening we cooked dinner and Anikah "played" with the hotel owners' 17 month old, Jimena; this consisted of Ani staring intensely while Jimena tried to tackle the cat, which was amusing for everyone, except maybe the cat. That night, we toasted the ball drop in New York (one hour ahead of midnight in Costa Rica) with some Nicaraguan rum, and Ani woke up around 11:30 so I was in the room with her when every conceivable combination of firework was ignited at midnight. Libby said it was amazing, so I'll take her word for it. Lying on our foam mattress bunk, snuggled between a softly snoring warm baby and a softly snoring warm Phil, I celebrated a new year.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167449280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167449280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167449280/tpod.html Wed, 03 Jan 2007 12:08:25 -0500 We embark on the adventure of traveling with an increasingly opinionated 16 month old.

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San Vito, Costa Rica

San Vito, your pizza entices me...
So we headed to San Vito for two reasons: one, because it is in the mountains and a welcome break from the heat of the beach, and two, for the Wilson Botanical Gardens. What we didn't realize was that San Vito held the greatest wonder of all: really decent pizza.
San Vito was founded by Italian immigrants, and, according the the Lonely Planet, Italian can still be heard spoken by it's residents. Not sure who they were eavesdropping on, we only heard Spanish.
We stayed in the Hotel Rino, in a room with a great balcony (meaning it had not only a nice view but had a tall enough barrier to keep the Aerial Daredevil from flinging herself off at the first sight of a dog walking by). We had our free breakfast (so it was kind of like a bunkbed & breakfast, not a hotel) and walked up to the cemetery. Much like in New Orleans, Costa Ricans are buried in above ground vaults which are tiled with anything from your standard public bathroom 3" x 3" white tile to very elaborate and beautiful mosaics.
After looking around the cemetery (we left when some family members came to, um, visit), we caught the bus to the Wilson Botanical Gardens. It was an $8 entrance fee, and maybe you are thinking, "Hmmm, $8 to see some plants? But I was saving that money to spend on some guacamole in Manuel Antonio!", but honestly, the gardens are not to be missed. There are an incredible number of tropical plants and trees, but there is also a grove of fir trees which gave a little scent of home. The authenticity was somewhat compromised by the plate-sized butterflies and neon green parrots, but we just pretended they were crows and it was just like being in Northern Michigan.
The jungle area at the very back of the gardens is amazing, all these paths through the thick green-ness, with epiphytes and orchids and these cool red bulby things that Phil named syrup sticks. Obviously, if you take the time to read the placards with the plant names, it'll take a little longer to see everything, since there are so many plants with names. There are also a healthy representation of tropical bugs, all of which bit me.
We decided to walk the 6 km back to town which was great, not only because it was a scenic downhill amble, but also because Libby almost stepped on a severed rooster head that was hanging out in front of a bus stop. Now that was funny.
We ate dinner at Liliana's and had a very satisfying green olive pizza. The night was somewhat marred by Ani doing a running header into a chair and developing quite a goose egg on her forehead, but that also prompted me to learn,"You think she looks bad? You should see the other guy" in Spanish.
We followed up dinner at Panaderia Flor, where we bought about $10 worth of cakes and other pastries to sooth Anikah's hurt head. Ok, so she didn't eat everything, but we just finished what she couldn't. Really. And then we went the next day and bought more for the bus ride to San Jose. Oh, Panaderia Flor, how you tempt me....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167141600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167141600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1167141600/tpod.html Tue, 02 Jan 2007 09:15:07 -0500 We embark on the adventure of traveling with an increasingly opinionated 16 month old.

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Uvita, Costa Rica

Dominical is a surfer´s dream, and although we really loved the easy beach access, the copious and friendly local dog population, and the banano con leches at Soda Nanyoa, the sheer number of dudes was a little suffocating. This was brought to our attention early on in our visit when we were stopped just in front of our hotel by Randy from Indiana, who announced to us, "Dudes, this rum and coke mix is the shit for fixing a hangover!" It seems like an odd opening statement for a family traveling with a baby, but Randy didn´t seem to have really sharp observational skills. Maybe he needed another rum and coke. So we stayed in Dominical for one night (although we missed the Friday night disco at the San Clemente Bar; sorry, dudes), and traveled on to Uvita.
To call Uvita a small town is a misnomer since it´s actually just four buildings and one gravel road bisecting the highway. To it´s credit, though, one of those buildings was home to a life-sized mechanical Santa Claus who danced and sang "Rockin´Around the Christmas Tree" in the sweltering 85 degree heat. We stayed in Steve´s Toucan Hotel which is now owned by Trey and his two young sons who hail from California. They were very warm and welcoming, but it was the other members of their family that really made Anikah a happy pumpkin: two dogs, two cats, and two teeny tiny bunnies. The fact that we had a fabulous clean room with air conditioning (!!!) and one of the best hot showers I´ve ever had while traveling meant nothing to our budding veterinarian (or taxidermist; hard to tell her intentions at this age).
On Christmas day, Libby and I went on a boat trip to look for the humpback whales that migrate along this part of the coast from December to April, but we must have caught them while they were opening presents because not a humped back did we see. Still, we had some good snorkeling and I got to float along in the water for a while pretending I was a crocodile, so the day was still enjoyable. Phil took Ani to the swimming area near the local waterfall, where she apparently clung to him like a barnacle in the waist-high water. This is the same child who had to be physically restrained from throwing herself into the pounding surf in Dominical. She´s funny, that´s for sure....
The hotel is great, and I would recommend it even if Trey hadn´t put together a huge potluck dinner for Christmas and invited not only the hotel guests but also Ticos from Uvita and the nearby town of Bahia. It was fabulous! There´s no replacement for spending Christmas with all of your loved ones, but this was the best substitute we could have asked for. It is with still-full stomachs that we roll ourselves out of bed to catch the 6 am bus to San Isidro. Goodbye, wee Uvita! Goodbye, small animals still hurting from Anikah´s exuberant love!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1166819400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1166819400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1166819400/tpod.html Tue, 02 Jan 2007 09:00:33 -0500 We embark on the adventure of traveling with an increasingly opinionated 16 month old.

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Quepos, Costa Rica

So we left Alajuela after two uneventful days of helping Anikah get "back on track" with her sleeping schedule (meaning forcing her to nap against her shrieking-strong will), and headed for Quepos, which is a town on the Pacific coast that is the gateway to Manuel Antonio National Park. I should mention that there are a lot of national parks and conservation areas in Costa Rica; this is, of course, a good thing, because this is an insanely, intensely beautiful country with an incredible number of indigenous animals and plants that deserve to be protected. That said, the beaches making up Manuel Antonio and the "town" immediately before it are less "wilds of nature" and more "Key West´s much younger brother".
The $7 entrance fee to the park gets you past the free beach and the beachside stalls selling batik pareos, fresh coconut milk, and, in one case, "hare brading". You walk a path through a fairly dense jungle with peeks of gorgeous beaches and crystal blue water to the right, and you can believe that this is truly paradise....right up until you run into the fat, sunburned tourist bellowing,"There, Margie, there! It´s a goddamned sloth! Can you see the hairy little bastard? Hurry, get me the camera! Hurry, hurry, before he goes into his hole or something!" Still, the area is a postcard picture at every view, and Ani even got to see a group of white-faced Capuchin monkeys and some extremely rotund iguanas. We spent three days at the Hotel Vista Serena, and the view from our balcony to the sea was truly serene, at least during those times when I wasn´t frantically trying to keep Ani from hurtling off the balcony into a herd of mountain cows grazing on the steep hill below.
In search of a slightly less popular ocean access, we headed on to Dominical....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1166552100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1166552100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/costa_rica_2006/1166552100/tpod.html Fri, 29 Dec 2006 13:41:49 -0500 We embark on the adventure of traveling with an increasingly opinionated 16 month old.

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Alajuela, Costa Rica

This may have been the easiest entry to any foreign country we´ve ever visited. Well, I guess not including Canada. Not just that Customs was more a suggestion of controlling what enters the country more than actively keeping out drugs, contraband, etc (I could have walked a Clydesdale stuffed full of heroin baggies past the customs agents without a blink. Probably because not many people are smuggling drugs INTO Central America...) but also that Libby met us at the airport doors. She wasn´t too hard to spot since she´s about 2 and a half feet taller than the average Costa Rican. And she has been wearing a hugely brimmed black hat, so she´s easy to find and nice to seek shade under. This is especially helpful since Costa Rica is not only located on the southern portion of the Central American isthmus, it is also on the surface of the sun. It has been hot. Not like "Wow, lets get out of this heat and drinks some cold Fanta" more like "Oh, God! My eyes!! It liquified my eyes!!!!!" Phil is as miserable in this temperature as a manatee at a speedboat convention. But he´s soldiering on, bolstered by the promise I made to spend our next vacation in Nunavit.
So we took the bus from the airport to the Hotel Cortez Azul in Alajuela, which is kind of a suburb of San Jose. Anikah, who spent much of the plane ride complaining about, um, something (well, she only has like 8 words, but she used all of them. Loudly.), promptly fell asleep. We ate dinner at a place down the street and learned that Costa Ricans, also known as Ticos, love children. Wait. That sounds like they love them for dinner, which is a distinctly wrong impression. I mean to say that Ticos of all ages, even macho teenage boys, came up at cooed, "Que linda (cute baby girl)" at Anikah. She responded with her patented Anikah staredown. Unlike Americans, though, Ticos aren´t intimidated by her lack of enthusiasm, and usually keep talking to her as long as we stand there. They also ask me all kinds of complicated questions about her, to which Libby responds while I stand there bobbing my head and smiling like a moron to make up for Ani´s death stare. Ah, cultural interaction at it´s best.....


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/pre-trip/1093471200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/pre-trip/1093471200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/pre-trip/1093471200/tpod.html Mon, 03 Jan 2005 13:30:40 -0500 'Our Honeymoon' or 'Who Wants to Bet We're Still Married in a Year?'

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Royal Oak, Michigan, United States

Well, we're back home. Back at work (more of a struggle for me than I thought). Glad to see everyone again, and to meet Phil's niece Carina for the first time (born while we were in India). Since we are back to the same jobs, in the same house, and with (most) of our same pets, it sometimes feels like we never left. Until someone makes the mistake of asking about "The Trip"; the mere mention of which can elicit anecdotes ad nauseum. Now we have the task of looking through all 6000 (!!!!) digital pictures and printing some off.
Our next adventure? Me turning 30 without trauma. Finishing grad school. Having a baby. Hopefully in that order...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/pre-trip/1090598400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/pre-trip/1090598400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarah/pre-trip/1090598400/tpod.html Mon, 03 Jan 2005 13:20:33 -0500 'Our Honeymoon' or 'Who Wants to Bet We're Still Married in a Year?'

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London, United Kingdom

Spain after Morocco is a shock...to one's rapidly depleting money belt. We headed to Granada to see the inestimable Alhambra and ended up staying in the ultimate backpacker quicksand hostel. Run by the kind of guy who was obviously cooler than you in high school, staffed by travelers who "just...stayed", and set in the hills opposite Alhambra (making for an incredible nighttime view), the Rambutan Guesthouse was a sweet resting spot in a explorable city. And the Alhambra was amazing. Incredible. Astounding. Breathtaking. Umm...I'm running out of descriptors, here. There is a time limit on the entrance ticket, so we only had 5 hours to see everything, but we would have stayed all day, if possible. I could have spent all day just in the gardens, and Phil is a little worried that when we get home, he's going to look outside and I'll be digging a huge pit for my own Olympic-sized reflecting pool, in order to appreciate God's grace mirrored in a harmonious body of water. Not being a master harmonious pool-digger or even a civil engineer, my effort might look more like a big dirty sludge pit. Hence his concern.
We only had two days in Granada (oh, how I miss the unscheduled time decadence of South East Asia...), and then back to Malaga (good potato restaurant, but getting a little old on this, our third pass through) for one night.
Phil's birthday, the big 2-9 (finally, he catches up!), spent mostly walking around Malaga and partly in the airport in London, waiting for the morning so we don't have to pay for a hotel room (all together now: We're Cheap Bastards!). I admit it: we were excited to be in an English-speaking country. Not because we ever had much trouble getting around, well, anywhere, but because we didn't have to feel apologetic for not speaking the local language. That comfort was shattered when we asked the first man we saw where to catch the bus into the city center, and he pleasantly explained the directions at length in what sounded like Farsi spoken by a man wearing ill-fitting dentures. We have since learned that it was Glasgowegian, which is confusing enough to have been used by the codetalkers during World War II. This knowledge was no help at the time: we numbly nodded our thanks as we backed away, clutching our packs, and stumbled toward a bus bench to frantically consult our map of the world to determine where the hell we'd landed. Bolstered by the fact of our plane ticket and reinforced by the advent of rain, we confirmed we were, actually, in England, and ventured forth to ask directions again. Fortunately, we asked the actual bus driver, who pointed toward the bus and said, "There." That we could understand.
Since we were still too early to check in, we dropped our bags at the hostel and ate at the local diner, a healthy breakfast of grease on toast. Mmmm....getting closer to home.... We had three days in London, so we did some of the typical touristy stuff: enjoyed the British Museum, ate fish and chips, visited Boots pharmacy, tried to see "Batboy: The Musical" (didn't open until November; damn). We also practiced our method for getting through US customs with a ice bucket-sized container of Moroccan olives. Just enjoyed the cosmopolitan feel of the city, soaking in the atmosphere, spending money like Howard Hughes (in his crazy stage, of course).
The day to fly home. We both have mixed emotions, a significant protion of which stem from the fact that we now have to go back to work. And do house maintenance. And spend the next 2 years paying off these three days in London...
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