12/15/11: Catching Up

Crab by the entrance to his home

Black Vulture

Synopsis: Playa Guiones, Playa Ostional, San Juanillo snorkling, dinner,
Backtracking to days in San Jose and Yehudah's dental surgery.

 We are currently at Playa Guiones with our nephew Rick Smith, who is spending a month here surfing. We are staying at Harbor Reef, a place totally devoted to surfers. Richard is living in a small suite with a bedroom plus two beds in the main room, plus a small frig, sink, storage areas, a TV and wi-fi, plus a lovely porch with table and four chairs. As evening set in, a family of howler monkeys moved through the trees surrounding the resort.

Bus stop at the top of the Nicoya Bay

Tiny turtle eggshell fragments

Egrets and Vultures

Today, we drove up to Playa Ostionol, a beach that is part of the system of  parks and reserves along the Nicoya Peninsula shoreline focused on protecting marine turtles and their nesting sites.  We were told that turtles had come in numbers this past Tuesday evening to nest and that the babies will be hatching in one to two weeks.  We could decide to go back this evening at 8 pm to perhaps watch one or two turtles nesting, but just maybe, so we are passing on that. (We'd need to arrange a taxi to get there.) We did see a beach strewn with leftover eggshells, black vultures hanging out in the trees waiting for the baby turtles to hatch and some snowy egrets standing in some river water on the far side of the beach.

Then we drove farther north to a very small town called San Juanillo that is a good place to swim or snorkel because there is a series of coves with rocks jutting out between each one.  The place is just lovely, with fishing boats in the middle cove, a bevy of Tico teens playing soccor on the sand, a few Ticos fishing with nets on lines standing out on rocks in the shallow waters.  While Rick said he would find a place to read, Yehudah and I took off to find a good snorkeling spot, walked through some tidal pool areas with lots of black sea urchins, bits of coral, red-hued rocks.  I spied the farthest cove and saw that the rocks formed a fairly straight long side out into the ocean and it looked to me the most calm place to snorkel, so we scrambled over the rocks to a very quiet beach almost all to ourselves (besides the guys fishing.)


The water here is so warm and inviting, but because it rains so much the waters tend to be murky except in shallow areas around rocks.  So we stayed mostly in these shallow rock areas and observed the red-hued rocks with various fish swimming from time to time - oval-shaped with stripes running bottom to top, long silver torpedoed-shaped with a V-tail and some very small fish. If we came too close to the rock the waves pushed us in, so we held on to the rocks where we were and managed not to get scraped except for Yehudah slightly scraping a thumb.  We probably snorkeled for about an hour.
 We saw fairly large iguanas several times in that area, one particularly large right across from the restaurant where we ate lunch.  Food is more expensive here than other places we have been in Costa Rica, even at this more remote spot.

This evening we ate at a place that served lots of fish and pizza and served quite large portions.  Yesterday evening we ate at a vegetarian restaurant in Samara where Richard met us at the bus stop.  I had a great pumpkin lasagna, Yehudah ordered gnocchi and Richard had rice and vegies.  The owner was obviously Italian. Yehudah is staying with a soft diet and nothing too hot. He's trying to get me to share a huge pancake at the restaurant here, but I'm determined to eat the food we just bought. Gotta find some decent peanut butter and more yogurt today. There's an organic grocery as well as standard one in this tiny "village" surrounding the resort.

I have been having fruit drinks.  Today I had watermelon; yesterday papaya - tomorrow, pineapple.
We bought papayas and yogurt to have for breakfasts plus some bananas and I brought dried fruit and nuts from the States plus we have a large quantity of bars we hauled in our packs. 

Yehudah is healing very quickly and well from his tooth implant surgery yesterday morning.  He iced on and off the whole 5 hr. busride from San Jose to Samara picking up ice and buying ice cream at the one stop along the way.  He had the surgery, then a taxi drove us to the bus station with all our gear in tow to get on the bus.  We had been told that there was no problem buying a ticket day of for the bus to Playa Samara, 45 minutes south of Playa Guiones, but, when we got to the ticket booth, the lady told us there was standing room only.  The guy behind us suggested that we could get the 1:30 pm bus to Nicoya and from there catch a bus to Playa Nosara but we had already made plans with Rick for him to pick us up in Playa Samara and he was renting a car to do so.  So I decided that we should just buy the standing room bus tickets and take our chances.

Once on the bus I kept counting the number of seats left, the number of people getting on and kept watching the clock - and by the time the bus doors closed the guy across from us had told us that he had bought 5 tickets for him and his friends and all four of them had gotten the flu and stayed home and the ticket office refused to refund his tickets.  So there were four extra seats on the bus and all of us with standing only tickets got those seats.  Good travel karma.  We had a similar experience last Feb. while traveling - we wanted to change a ticket we had bought and they wouldn't refund our money.  But pressing the ticket seller we learned that what they would do is stamp the ticket as being okay for a month - and it says the same on their blog - that once you buy a ticket it is actually good until it is used, but they don't seem to share this info unless pressed.  Anyway, we had seats the whole long trip, read some, slept some, watched out the window, got off for the one stop at a rest stop, saw the town of Nicoya where lots of people got off, and made our way to Playa Samara.  Samara is a Tico vacation spot, more hippie, less spendy, with some okay surfing waves, lots of shops and places to stay. 

The area where we are - plus the areas farther north on the Nicoya Peninsula - have been bought up by Americans to create more expensive resorts that cater to Americans and Europeans.  Ticos still live in these places in their own style of living plus all the beaches are open to all.

Chopin

Backing up to our days in San Jose:  Tuesday morning into the early afternoon we spent at Dr. Alberto Meza's Dental Clinic.  Yehudah had a long discussion on his treatment, then had a crown put on one of his teeth next to where the implant would be put in.  I had my teeth examined by a young woman dentist who had studied for several years of her training at UCLA where Meza also did his dental training.  Most of his practice is devoted to people coming from the States to do implants, crowns, bridges, cosmetic dental care.  He is quite well known and will be highlighted on a TV program soon on Americans having dental care done abroad because of the rising cost of dental care in the U.S.

National Theater

My treatment was state of the art.  The dentist took numerous photos of my mouth, digital xrays, examined my teeth and gums, then showed me all the pictures and xrays together, describing my particular dental issues.  In the end she told me that my gums were quite pink and not red, that my deep pocket looked good and after scraping and such perhaps would even heal and get less deep, that all the cracks in my very old large cavities were best left alone because if removed the tooth itself might crack - and that, essentially, I needed a cleaning and scraping and that was that.  All for $124!  The dental hygienist was excellent, also informative and assured me that after her treatment my front bottom slightly-crooked teeth would never bleed again.  And, so far, she is correct.  They both urged me to floss every day.  I was impressed by the whole process.

Lobby of the National Theater

                     

Grand Finale

We managed to get all the papers and post-operation details for Yehudah's implant for the following morning, then took off to get tickets for a dance concert that evening, have a bite to eat at the cafe on the second floor of the Bar Morazan (recommended as a cheap eat in lonely planet) and then to wander over to Teatro Nacional, look at the art work in both the cafe and the gift shop plus of course the statues in the main lobby, and wandered into a few shops.  The dance concert wound up being a dance school performance with groups from ages 2-20.  Families holding flowers to give to their darling children post performance.  It was great fun.  Mostly American music - the Beach Boys, reggae, hip hop, some ballet (3 teens on toe) and ending with live drumming Tico style and everyone shaking their hips together.  On our way back to Casa Ridgway we stopped at Plaza Democracia all lit up for Christmas with the giant ball aflame in color, trees decked in purples, greens, etc
Stopped at the corner restaurant that stays open late for some hot chocolate and tirasmisu (quite yummy) - irritating waiter who tried to get us to give him a tip in addition to the service charge on the bill - plus who didn't bring our change back forever until we reminded him. This was my first experience in CR of a service person who wasn't kind and helpful.So this brings us to the surgery morning, to my using the dental office computer to check e-mail, talk with Shanthi, an old friend from Cottage Grove days' daughter who has married a Tiko, has several children and lives in San Jose right by the American Embassy and to notify Harbor Reef to tell Richard that, indeed, we were arriving today on the bus to Playa Samara.

Reflection of lights in the glass sculpture of the National Museum

View of the Plaza de la Cultura from the entrance to the Metropolitan Cathedral  

Salazar Theater

National Theater at Night

Plaza de la Cultura

Nativity Scene

                                                       

Plaza de la Democracia

Avenida 2

3 Musicians Sculpture

Richard showed up with a very muddied rental car. (The main road up and down the coast is dirt.) He goes surfing each morning from 7-9 a.m.  We took a walk on the beach hoping to see him surfing but didn't. Tomorrow we will go snorkeling at the south end of Playa Guiones and perhaps we will catch him - the guy wearing the orange helmet - having his surfing lesson.
  It is very discouraging to figure out how we will get to Nicaragua.  All the reserved seats are sold out and the plane costs $250 per person.  I e-mailed Shanthi for help and she sent us a bunch of info.We shall see if our travel karma stays good! 

Hasta luego!