ShellD's trip to Costa Rica, this time with the kids!
Aug 24th, 2008, 07:52 AM
#21
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The next part of our trip was really the ride from Arenal to Manuel Antonio....Wilson Rojas who comes very highly recommended here was our driver and he was very good. He arrived promptly at Los Lagos at our scheduled time and we loaded up the van. I sat up front with him and he and I talked about all sorts of things. He told me a lot about the country and asked me a lot of questions about life in the US as well. It was very interesting! He's very prepared for kids too...the van has a DVD player and he had snacks and cold drinks for us all.
Some interesting things about Wilson and the ride, when he found out my husband was a chef, he stopped along the side of the road and bought us some cheeses and desserts for him to try -- figuring as a chef he would be intersted in some local flavors. That was very a very kind gesture. He also asked us if we were planning to buy any of th wooden hand made bowls - I wasn't but his friend hand makes them in his home and sells them to the large retail shops. Now, maybe it's a thing they two of them have going to sell bowls...but we stopped at his friends house, saw his studio, and spent about an hour with his family, sharing the cheeses, desserts and some coffee. It was an awesome experience - my kids played with their kids and we got to truely experience "real" local culture! We talked about their life and it was a real genuine experience! When we left we all hugged and they invited us to come back any time!
Back on the road!! We of course stopped at the crocodile bridge and that was pretty cool too. My daughter mentioned she'd like some ice cream and Wilson went out of his way to find her some ice cream...We also had a good lunch in Aetnas....
Overall it was a great experience, however what should have been a 5 to 5 1/2 hour drive took more than EIGHT hours due to the stops and slow driving. So there was a definite trade off in having a driver. While we got a true feel for the country and learned a lot, it was a long day in the car!!!
We got a kick out out of the "OH MY GOD" bridges as Wilson called them! And arrived at the Mot Mot Villa at Tulemar just as dusk arrived - and guess what - it started to rain!!! It was a beautiful place. More later!
Some interesting things about Wilson and the ride, when he found out my husband was a chef, he stopped along the side of the road and bought us some cheeses and desserts for him to try -- figuring as a chef he would be intersted in some local flavors. That was very a very kind gesture. He also asked us if we were planning to buy any of th wooden hand made bowls - I wasn't but his friend hand makes them in his home and sells them to the large retail shops. Now, maybe it's a thing they two of them have going to sell bowls...but we stopped at his friends house, saw his studio, and spent about an hour with his family, sharing the cheeses, desserts and some coffee. It was an awesome experience - my kids played with their kids and we got to truely experience "real" local culture! We talked about their life and it was a real genuine experience! When we left we all hugged and they invited us to come back any time!
Back on the road!! We of course stopped at the crocodile bridge and that was pretty cool too. My daughter mentioned she'd like some ice cream and Wilson went out of his way to find her some ice cream...We also had a good lunch in Aetnas....
Overall it was a great experience, however what should have been a 5 to 5 1/2 hour drive took more than EIGHT hours due to the stops and slow driving. So there was a definite trade off in having a driver. While we got a true feel for the country and learned a lot, it was a long day in the car!!!
We got a kick out out of the "OH MY GOD" bridges as Wilson called them! And arrived at the Mot Mot Villa at Tulemar just as dusk arrived - and guess what - it started to rain!!! It was a beautiful place. More later!
Aug 24th, 2008, 09:00 AM
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I'm really enjoying your trip report, Shell!
We had a rainy time in Arenal as well when we visited in 2006. We never did get to see the lava flow and I definitely plan to get back there for another shot at it. Sounds like your lava viewing experience was quite spectacular.
I'm glad the whole family enjoyed the Peace Lodge. Your kids were able get their own firsthand experience with the place, and you and your husband were able to enjoy the new exhibits. It's very cool that you were able to get the back story on many of the rescued monkeys and cats. That always really adds to the overall experience!
I haven't been to Tortuguero yet and it is on my wish list. I live in Central Florida on the Atlantic coast and we get lots of nesting turtles here during the summer months. A few weeks ago, I was walking on the beach with a friend around dusk and we suddenly stumbled upon a large group of turtle hatchlings scrambling over the sand towards the water! I've seen many adult sea turtles over the 11 years that I've lived here, but had never seen the babies. I was pretty much beside myself!
They were absolutely adorable! We stayed and watched over the nest until it appeared that all of the babies had made it safely into the ocean.
Looking forward to your next CR chapter. And anxiously awaiting the start of shillmac's report as well! ;-)
We had a rainy time in Arenal as well when we visited in 2006. We never did get to see the lava flow and I definitely plan to get back there for another shot at it. Sounds like your lava viewing experience was quite spectacular.
I'm glad the whole family enjoyed the Peace Lodge. Your kids were able get their own firsthand experience with the place, and you and your husband were able to enjoy the new exhibits. It's very cool that you were able to get the back story on many of the rescued monkeys and cats. That always really adds to the overall experience!
I haven't been to Tortuguero yet and it is on my wish list. I live in Central Florida on the Atlantic coast and we get lots of nesting turtles here during the summer months. A few weeks ago, I was walking on the beach with a friend around dusk and we suddenly stumbled upon a large group of turtle hatchlings scrambling over the sand towards the water! I've seen many adult sea turtles over the 11 years that I've lived here, but had never seen the babies. I was pretty much beside myself!
They were absolutely adorable! We stayed and watched over the nest until it appeared that all of the babies had made it safely into the ocean. Looking forward to your next CR chapter. And anxiously awaiting the start of shillmac's report as well! ;-)
Aug 24th, 2008, 09:30 AM
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Cam--that's great! What a neat thing to see without expecting such a treat.
We had a similar experience (although more low key than baby turtles) while at Sanchiri Lodge, overlooking the Orosi Valley. We got to see a mother Paltry Tyrannulet feeding her babies in the most unusual little nest. I was able to take some really good photos. The paltry tyrannulet is a tiny little bird, and I just happened to see a little activity and was able to follow it. It was one of our most exciting moments out of a lot of moments!
Have you been just deluged? Our daughter in Tampa pretty much escaped it, although they've had unusual amounts of rain this summer. Any alligators floating in the streets?
My report has posted. I need to finish it up; doing a few days at a time. ShellD and I were hopping about at the same time. It would have been cool had our paths crossed.
We had a similar experience (although more low key than baby turtles) while at Sanchiri Lodge, overlooking the Orosi Valley. We got to see a mother Paltry Tyrannulet feeding her babies in the most unusual little nest. I was able to take some really good photos. The paltry tyrannulet is a tiny little bird, and I just happened to see a little activity and was able to follow it. It was one of our most exciting moments out of a lot of moments!
Have you been just deluged? Our daughter in Tampa pretty much escaped it, although they've had unusual amounts of rain this summer. Any alligators floating in the streets?
My report has posted. I need to finish it up; doing a few days at a time. ShellD and I were hopping about at the same time. It would have been cool had our paths crossed.
Aug 25th, 2008, 04:05 AM
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Hi Jill!
I'll look for your report. Yes, I'm a bit behind the times on the Fodor's forum because we did get hammered with rain and flooding last week.
I didn't see any alligators in the street, but one of my co-workers had a catfish swimming around in his yard where the water had flooded up over the curb! Luckily, no one I know had any propery damage to speak of but it was pretty crazy around here. I guess our area (Brevard County) was one of the worst hit. The street in front of my home looked like a river for about 3 days and the water was deep enough that a couple of neighborhood kids were attempting to paddle their surf boards down it!
Anyway, this is a major digression from ShellD's report. I just read about her journey to MA with Wilson (we must have been posting concurrently yesterday because I missed that section...). Wilson sounds terrific, and I hope it didn't rain the whole time Shell was in MA!
I'll look for your report. Yes, I'm a bit behind the times on the Fodor's forum because we did get hammered with rain and flooding last week.
I didn't see any alligators in the street, but one of my co-workers had a catfish swimming around in his yard where the water had flooded up over the curb! Luckily, no one I know had any propery damage to speak of but it was pretty crazy around here. I guess our area (Brevard County) was one of the worst hit. The street in front of my home looked like a river for about 3 days and the water was deep enough that a couple of neighborhood kids were attempting to paddle their surf boards down it!
Anyway, this is a major digression from ShellD's report. I just read about her journey to MA with Wilson (we must have been posting concurrently yesterday because I missed that section...). Wilson sounds terrific, and I hope it didn't rain the whole time Shell was in MA!
Aug 27th, 2008, 01:41 PM
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Finding time to possibly wrap this up!
We arrived in Manuel Antonio just at dusk to the Mot Mot Villa - there's been recently a lot of discussion here about this property and let me just say we loved it here! We stayed in the top unit and it's beautiful! There is virtually a full kitchen, which we didn't use once
a living area, the bedroom has two queen sized beds and a nice sized bathroom. The deck is huge with a sofa, table and chairs, grill, hammock and ceiling fans. There are windows in every room so you always have a beautiful view. I guess the only thing possibly missing would be a tv in the living area, because when you're travelling in a group of four - with kids, it would be nice to have the tv not in the bedroom. But that was my one and only small complaint!
Their private beach was perfect for us, we never made it to the national park, didn't have time and didn't see the need to go. The water wasn't too rough for us there, but the waves were fun. My daughter and I spent hours on the boogie boards they had available for us. They also have kayaks and even some sand toys for the kids. They have a small lunch menu available there and a bar as well. It is however a long road down to the beach and I wouldn't want to walk back up - we always used their shuttle and I never waited more than a few minutes. My husband and son did feel they were waiting too long and braved the walk and actually made it back up!
We had dinner one night at the restaurant on the property and it was good, breakfast there was included and it was also good. We ate at El Avion and enjoyed it as well. This was the night of the extreme rain storm though! When we got there it was a typical rain, but as we sat the wind kicked up and we ended up having to switch tables 2 times the rain and wind was blowing so hard. Several other customers had to move as well. My drink even blew over and the glass broke the wind was so strong! My kids were NOT thrilled about that, but they did enjoy the plane, thought it was cool! We also ate at tht tapas restaurant right next to Tulemar which I can't remember the name of but it begins with an "S" and it was very good!
After begging my kids to get back on antoher boat - Tortuguero really wore them out for boat rides - we went on the Damas Mangrove tour and ended up really enjoying that. Now - I know all about feeding the monkeys- but the guides pull right up to the mangroves and the white faced monkey's come right out onto the boats and eat bananas right out of your hands! They climbed right onto us and actually sat on our shoulders and heads! After not seeing much of any wildlife in Tortuguero it really was quite a lot of fun to have the monkeys right there! My son loved feeding the monkeys from his hand! So - we're bad --- but it wasn't our idea!! That tour was very nice though, we also saw a lot of crocodiles, a boa, and birds. The guide we had was awesome. He could spot things you couldn't imagine! Even a frog in a tree as we went by!
Back to the mot mot - it's true that the monkey's do come right up on the balcony. There were spider monkey's every day walking right on the railing. We saw more wildlife in Manuel Antonio than anywhere. We also saw a sloth and several coati there.
Manuel Antonio was nothing like I pictured it to be. I guess I was expecting it to be much more built up, maybe like La Fortuna. But it's really, really beautiful and lush and the views of the ocean are spectacular! Now, we never did get down by the park, so maybe the area we saw didn't give me a true perspecive, but I really loved the area and would like to go back and spend more time there. It seems that there are a lot of good restaurants to try, it's close enough to some good excursionsn and with the beach you can get some relaxation in!
On our last morning there, we just relaxed at the pool which is small but very nice. And then we were picked up by one of the drivers Wilson uses and we headed back to San Jose. We were hoping for a sunny afternoon since we were staying at the San Jose Marriott and they have a really nice pool! Of course - as we got closer to the city, the skies opened up and the rain started again!! We just had bad luck with the weather. But it did end up a slight drizzle and the kids swam for a bit until it started lightening and then we all decided it wasn't very smart to be in the pool in the lightening and ended up getting some pasteries in the nice Cafe shop they have there.
We had a fairly early flight home on Sunday morning, which turned into a very, very long travel day. We departed on time from San Jose only to have a really long line at Customs in Miami. We barely had time to grab sandwiches for the flight home, only to have to sit on the runway in Miami for 2 hours because - you got it!!! Bad weather! It was storming all along the coast and we couldn't take off. We should have arrived in DC at 5 pm and we didn't land until close to 9pm and still had a 3 hour drive home....It was a long, long end to our trip.
But overall we had a great time. It was a wonderful experience for the kids. At first all they kept saying was that it rained too much in Costa Rica, but now when you ask them about it they talk about the volcano, the turtles, the hummingbirds and monkeys...they want to go back. I'd probably not go back in August again. It is just too expensive to be rained out part of every day.
Also, while I truly enjoyed the experience of having Wilson drive us, it just took way too long. I don't think we'd bother with that again. Either we'd find a way to fly and pay the extra money or just drive ourselves. The time we spent driving we really had fun. My husband and I drive well together - he drives and I navigate and we do well. We didn't find the roads overly bad, curves and mountains - yes - but we enjoyed the ride.
We learned that our kids can travel like that - they did great! They both overcame a lot of fears, especially my son - he was petrified of storms - and now he knows he'll be ok!
My husband however is ready to move on to another part of the world - he feels that he's seen all CR has to offer - been there, done that! We'll see!
I have hundreds of pictures - I'm not sure if I can just post a link or if I have to email the link so if anyone is interested let me know! I haven't edited out all of the pictures my kids took yet and there's several that look like duplicates - like 10 sunsets that look almost the same! But if anyone is interested - I'll be glad to try to get the link to work!
I'm ready to plan my next vacation
We arrived in Manuel Antonio just at dusk to the Mot Mot Villa - there's been recently a lot of discussion here about this property and let me just say we loved it here! We stayed in the top unit and it's beautiful! There is virtually a full kitchen, which we didn't use once
a living area, the bedroom has two queen sized beds and a nice sized bathroom. The deck is huge with a sofa, table and chairs, grill, hammock and ceiling fans. There are windows in every room so you always have a beautiful view. I guess the only thing possibly missing would be a tv in the living area, because when you're travelling in a group of four - with kids, it would be nice to have the tv not in the bedroom. But that was my one and only small complaint! Their private beach was perfect for us, we never made it to the national park, didn't have time and didn't see the need to go. The water wasn't too rough for us there, but the waves were fun. My daughter and I spent hours on the boogie boards they had available for us. They also have kayaks and even some sand toys for the kids. They have a small lunch menu available there and a bar as well. It is however a long road down to the beach and I wouldn't want to walk back up - we always used their shuttle and I never waited more than a few minutes. My husband and son did feel they were waiting too long and braved the walk and actually made it back up!
We had dinner one night at the restaurant on the property and it was good, breakfast there was included and it was also good. We ate at El Avion and enjoyed it as well. This was the night of the extreme rain storm though! When we got there it was a typical rain, but as we sat the wind kicked up and we ended up having to switch tables 2 times the rain and wind was blowing so hard. Several other customers had to move as well. My drink even blew over and the glass broke the wind was so strong! My kids were NOT thrilled about that, but they did enjoy the plane, thought it was cool! We also ate at tht tapas restaurant right next to Tulemar which I can't remember the name of but it begins with an "S" and it was very good!
After begging my kids to get back on antoher boat - Tortuguero really wore them out for boat rides - we went on the Damas Mangrove tour and ended up really enjoying that. Now - I know all about feeding the monkeys- but the guides pull right up to the mangroves and the white faced monkey's come right out onto the boats and eat bananas right out of your hands! They climbed right onto us and actually sat on our shoulders and heads! After not seeing much of any wildlife in Tortuguero it really was quite a lot of fun to have the monkeys right there! My son loved feeding the monkeys from his hand! So - we're bad --- but it wasn't our idea!! That tour was very nice though, we also saw a lot of crocodiles, a boa, and birds. The guide we had was awesome. He could spot things you couldn't imagine! Even a frog in a tree as we went by!
Back to the mot mot - it's true that the monkey's do come right up on the balcony. There were spider monkey's every day walking right on the railing. We saw more wildlife in Manuel Antonio than anywhere. We also saw a sloth and several coati there.
Manuel Antonio was nothing like I pictured it to be. I guess I was expecting it to be much more built up, maybe like La Fortuna. But it's really, really beautiful and lush and the views of the ocean are spectacular! Now, we never did get down by the park, so maybe the area we saw didn't give me a true perspecive, but I really loved the area and would like to go back and spend more time there. It seems that there are a lot of good restaurants to try, it's close enough to some good excursionsn and with the beach you can get some relaxation in!
On our last morning there, we just relaxed at the pool which is small but very nice. And then we were picked up by one of the drivers Wilson uses and we headed back to San Jose. We were hoping for a sunny afternoon since we were staying at the San Jose Marriott and they have a really nice pool! Of course - as we got closer to the city, the skies opened up and the rain started again!! We just had bad luck with the weather. But it did end up a slight drizzle and the kids swam for a bit until it started lightening and then we all decided it wasn't very smart to be in the pool in the lightening and ended up getting some pasteries in the nice Cafe shop they have there.
We had a fairly early flight home on Sunday morning, which turned into a very, very long travel day. We departed on time from San Jose only to have a really long line at Customs in Miami. We barely had time to grab sandwiches for the flight home, only to have to sit on the runway in Miami for 2 hours because - you got it!!! Bad weather! It was storming all along the coast and we couldn't take off. We should have arrived in DC at 5 pm and we didn't land until close to 9pm and still had a 3 hour drive home....It was a long, long end to our trip.
But overall we had a great time. It was a wonderful experience for the kids. At first all they kept saying was that it rained too much in Costa Rica, but now when you ask them about it they talk about the volcano, the turtles, the hummingbirds and monkeys...they want to go back. I'd probably not go back in August again. It is just too expensive to be rained out part of every day.
Also, while I truly enjoyed the experience of having Wilson drive us, it just took way too long. I don't think we'd bother with that again. Either we'd find a way to fly and pay the extra money or just drive ourselves. The time we spent driving we really had fun. My husband and I drive well together - he drives and I navigate and we do well. We didn't find the roads overly bad, curves and mountains - yes - but we enjoyed the ride.
We learned that our kids can travel like that - they did great! They both overcame a lot of fears, especially my son - he was petrified of storms - and now he knows he'll be ok!
My husband however is ready to move on to another part of the world - he feels that he's seen all CR has to offer - been there, done that! We'll see!
I have hundreds of pictures - I'm not sure if I can just post a link or if I have to email the link so if anyone is interested let me know! I haven't edited out all of the pictures my kids took yet and there's several that look like duplicates - like 10 sunsets that look almost the same! But if anyone is interested - I'll be glad to try to get the link to work!
I'm ready to plan my next vacation
Aug 27th, 2008, 02:22 PM
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Shell, great report! Yes, I want photos--all of them is fine. You mean, you're not SUPPOSED to send people 10 photos of the same thing??? LOL
Uh-Oh!
[email protected]
LOL Uh-Oh!
[email protected]
Aug 28th, 2008, 04:31 AM
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Jill,
I just sent you a link with the pictures, can you let me know if it works? If so, maybe I can just post it here because I'm not sure if a password is even needed?? I'm not too great with that part - I can get the pictures out there, but I'm never sure about sharing them!
Enjoy!
I just sent you a link with the pictures, can you let me know if it works? If so, maybe I can just post it here because I'm not sure if a password is even needed?? I'm not too great with that part - I can get the pictures out there, but I'm never sure about sharing them!
Enjoy!
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MichelleY
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