Birthday Cake and Life Lessons

Josh: Today I learned that you do not necessarily need to get what you are expecting to happen in order to have fun.  I went to the beach in the rain, and I wanted to go boogie boarding, but when I got there, the boards weren’t out yet.  Ray, who came to visit us, and my dad were also bummed because they wanted to surf.  Then, when we went into the water we found out that there was brown nasty stuff in the ocean, along with leaves, plastic and other disgusting stuff due to all of the rain.  Ray and my dad left to buy fresh fish for lunch, but Chloe and I stayed to build a sand castle.  We dug and built for a while, and after the second layer we both thought it looked nothing like a sand castle.  So we decided to make it a birthday cake instead.  When we were finished we put a candle (a thin stick with some type of orange stuff) on top.  Then we ran back to our house to get our mom to come to see our glorious sand cake.  We took pictures, and then came home to eat our yummy fish lunch that my dad cooked.  Even though we didn’t get what we wanted, we still had a good time.

Chloe thinks her birthday cake looks yummy, if you like sand...

A Tale of Two Ciudades (well, really one town, and one wanna-be village)

Steve: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.  So thought Dickens, so says I.  Saturday was in many ways the worst day of the trip so far.  But it was also quite possibly the best.  Intrigued?  Titillated?  Mildly curious?  Got absolutely nothing better to do?  Read on…

Carol and I had come to the conclusion a while back that we had scheduled entirely too much time for the second half of our Costa Rican experience.  We will have numerous visitors on that leg and we do have many wondrous destinations that we’ve planned to visit and a plethora of incredible activities in which we’ve planned to partake.  Indeed, we are looking forward to that part of the trip with much anticipation. But a full two months is simply more time than is necessary for it.  We won’t quite have enough time to put down roots again as we have in Samara.  But with the schedule as-is we would simply be loitering in tourist hangouts for longer than necessary in order to bide time until the next leg of our trip.  And why is that a bad thing, you ask?  Well, in comparison to going back to Marin and shutting the adventure down, it obviously isn’t a “bad thing”.  But in comparison to using that time to visit some other exotic locations, perhaps the lingering stay in Costa Rica was instead only the lesser of two joys.

So why not change the plans up a bit?  We already had the arrangements set to visit Florida for Thanksgiving.  We have a family-reunion there that was planned well before this year-long adventure was even a twinkle in our collective eye.  So why not add a trip to visit long-lost dear friends on the east coast of the U.S.?  Why not extend our stay a bit in the good ‘ole American South before heading back to Tico-land?  Why not add a trip to visit Mayan ruins near Cancun, Mexico? I’ll tell you why not.  Because American Airlines wasn’t too keen on us changing those plans, that is why not.  But Carol wasn’t to be denied her Mayan ruins.  She was going to see ruins, darn it!  The war between heaven and hell had found a new battleground.  It was to be a knock-down, drag-out battle fought between tenacity and bureaucracy; between all that is good in this world (yes, I’m referring to my lovely wife) and all that is inherently evil (the soulless machinations of a powerful multinational corporation).  Where would you put your money?  I had $600 on the pretty little lady out of Marin.

“$600”, you ask?  Well, after a couple of hours on the internet and then another hour on the phone with airline representatives, Carol had determined that we were faced with a choice.  We could suck up a $600 penalty for changing our minds or go to the airport in Liberia and renegotiate the contract in person.  Carol had been given assurances that, due to earlier changes in our flights by the airlines themselves, vouchers were coming to us and we could apply them to our new itinerary, but said changes could only be made in person at the airport.  Fine.  She’d come this far.  Let’s ride this wave.  We decided to make a day of it.  We would rent a car, drive to Liberia, get the new tickets, and then continue on to Bagaces and enjoy the country’s most beautiful waterfall.  It would require about five hours of driving among some of the world’s craziest drivers, but we’d save $600.  And that is not a small chunk o’ change, even among world-travelers.  We reserved the car, and prepped for a big day.

It was the worst of times.  Even though we’d reserved the car ahead of time.  It still took over half an hour to actually get the car.  Then traffic was pretty bad in places.  We had intended to arrive at the airport at 10:30 a.m.  We got there at 11:30.  No problem.  The kids were doing alright.  They were troopers.  We carried on.  We reached the ticket counter without a line.  Things were looking up.  And then they weren’t.  “What vouchers?”, they asked.  Carol stood and argued at that counter for ten minutes, and then explained again and again for another ten, and then begged and pleaded for another ten.  “How we doin’?”, I ask.  Don’t ask.  No problem.  Breathe.  All is well. 

An hour passes.  The kids are no longer “doing alright”.  We are all really hungry.  I’m cranky.  I’m lying on the lineoleum floor for lack of a better spot, nursing my back.  An hour and a half has passed.  All of the other ticket counters have since shut down.  Signs have been removed.  All of the other agents are gone.  Lights are out.  Baggage handlers are having a meeting in what used to be a passenger ticket area.  Carol is still standing at that desk.  Our two dedicated agents are still on the phone.  Two hours have passed.  My beard is measurably longer.  The dust has settled on the children and spider webs attaching them to the floor have already caught multiple bugs.  The rain has started to come down.  It looks like the day is shot and no fun will be had.  It strikes me that that song about not chasing waterfalls has new meaning. All is lost.

And then, in the hour of our despair, the sunshine peeks through the window just enough.   A rainbow forms, seemingly inside the terminal.  The piped-in classical violin music is suddenly replaced by a banjo.  Carol emerges from the darkness with a smile on her face and tickets in hand.  She has won in a battle of attrition! The agents have finally decided to forgo vouchers and have simply issued brand new tickets at Carol’s named price because their own lunch hour had already come and gone.  The airline had ultimately slipped out the back with its tail between its legs.  Never bet against the forces of good, at least not as long as an angel named Carol still wields her mighty bow!

It was now nearing 2:00 p.m.  We had thought we’d be out by 11:00 a.m.  We were wrong.  But there was still daylight and there was adventure to be had!  Push forth, Thies family.  Carry on, undeterred!  As we left Liberia behind, we actually did the McDonald’s drive-through.  I know, I know.  How could we?  Well, speed was of the essence, and french fries can heal even the grumpiest of children, especially the big bearded ones.  Keep your hands and feet away from the children’s mouths!  The description of our ravenous hunger is an ugliness best left to your imagination.  But assuaged it was.  Nothing would stop us now!

It was the best of times.  We actually found the secret turnoff for the waterfall on the first shot.  The rocky dirt road was not the problem we had anticipated for our little compact rental car, so we had made the right decision about forgoing the 4x4.  As evil as Liberia had been to us, Bagaces would bring the opposite extreme.  The water beckoned.  And it seemed as if the Red Sea itself would have parted for us at that point so that we could reach our destination.  And oh, what a destination it was.  The pictures and video I’ve included do not even come close to doing it justice.  Even if there was no waterfall it would rank way up there on the list of lugares bonitos.  It was absolutely awe-inspiring.  You only see places like this in the movies.  Seriously, I am at a loss for words, and when I’m on a roll with my keyboard, that is a momentous occasion indeed.   This was the most beautiful acre of space I’ve ever seen.  And I’ve been to every national park there is in the United States.  Yosemite is over a thousand square miles of absolute exquisiteness (if that is even a word).  But no single acre in that park can match what we found here: positively gorgeous, even transcendent beauty.  It was one of those extended moments that connects you to nature in a spiritual sort of way.  Unforgettable.

Coco con una coco cerca la catarata

I wish this was a 360° panorama pic, so you could get the real feel.

We stripped down and jumped into the pool.  We swam under the falls and climbed behind it.  We splashed, we frolicked, we smiled, and we sighed as if knowing no moment could compare.  Then we dried off, climbed back to the car and drove the few hours home, trying to beat the oncoming sunset, knowing how much more difficult navigating the roads would be in the dark.  We were in that place for maybe half an hour.  But we were, all four of us, so taken by the beauty of the place, that we had to acknowledge that it was the best thing we’d done all trip.  That is six weeks of surfing and kayaking and horse-back riding and snorkeling and tide-pooling and hiking and biking through absolutely breath-taking terrain.  It was no small feat to find an experience that would rise to the top of our lists.  But there you have it.  Quite a day indeed.

Frolic (v, tr.) [frol -ik]: to play merrily, to gambol in a frisky manner, to romp

School in Costa Rica

Chloe: I feel lucky that I don’t have to go to Davidson this year. I don’t have to wake up early every morning.  I get to choose what time I do my schoolwork.  I don’t have a dress code.  I don’t have to sit through boring lectures by teachers, and I’m sure there is much more.  But things aren’t all perfect.  Sadly, there are also some disadvantages.  The most important one is that I really miss all of my friends.  I realized I needed to make some new ones. And where else am I going to find other kids?  So I decided that I should start going to an actual school. About two weeks ago, I did just that.

Just Hangin' at school

Thumbs Up For Samara Pacific School

We visited a school called Samara Pacific and decided it looked good. They do half of the day in English and half in Spanish. This is helpful because it means the kids there DO speak some English. We only go for the Spanish half of the day because the classes are taught at a first/second grade level, and so we aren’t going to learn anything new when it is taught in English. Luckily, however, that means the Spanish is easy too. So far, I have learned about 200 new Spanish words.  Sadly, I can only remember about fifty of them. Still, I am learning.

The entire population of the school.

Our teacher, Nicole

Aside from Spanish we do art, social studies, and science. There isn’t any math though, because that is taught in the morning.  My favorite class is art. So far in art we painted a still life of a guava, a tomato, and some crackers. Then we made a picture frame by taking a square of cardboard and painting it.  My frame was green with blue polka dots.  In social studies class we are learning about el Hemisferio Norte y el Hemisferio Sur y los lines de parrallelos y los lines de los meridianos.  All of these are on the globe, of course.  In science we are learning about plants and animals and what they do.  My first project was to draw a landscape of an ecosystem and label and describe the parts of the picture in Spanish.

My first art project 

Here are some of things that are different about school in Costa Rica: there are only ten people in the school, we are all taught in one classroom even though we vary in age from six to twelve, our lunch time is unmonitored, we get to burn stuff with magnifying glasses, we can jump across old tractor tires, and lastly some of the kids there speak three languages.

Recess is always fun.

In case you forgot your colored pencils, just use the fence.

I am so glad that I decided to go to Samara Pacific School.  It has been a great experience. And now I've got some great friends!

My new friend, Carolina

            

Steve: Caballos y Cucarachas

Steve:  

Nothing as exciting as the last post to report, but plenty of fun things have happened this week that are worth the telling.  First and foremost, the chilluns' started school.  They were hurting for contact with other kids and they weren’t getting enough practice with Spanish, so we decided to bite the bullet and enroll them in a private one-room schoolhouse with eight (soon to be nine) local children ranging in age from six to twelve.  It is a first and second grade curriculum, and hence super-easy for our kids, but that is good, because it is taught in Spanish.  This way they don’t need to be struggling with the content while they are struggling with the foreign language.  It does mean that they still have to do their home-schooling before and after going to school each day, but that is a small price to pay for happier kids in general.  The original plan was to send Chloe only a few days a week as she has a lot of curriculum to get through with me, but she cannot be convinced to stay home.  Too much fun, or simply not wanting to miss out, I guess.  The school goes from 7:30 to 3:00 every day, but the “Ticos” learn English, math, and ethics! (which are taught in English) first thing in the morning.  So our kids skip that part and show up at 10:30 when instruction (all done in Spanish) in science, social studies, music, art and Spanish itself happens.  I am hoping to get at least one of the kids to reflect on this experience in a blog post but so far they’ll have none of it.

Josh thinks it's a bit bright on the beach.

Sunday we had quite an adventure on horseback.  It was about a three-hour ride, first along the beach, then up and through a river, until we reached a pretty sweet waterfall.  We chilled in the pristine river pools for a while (where I lost my second pair of sunglasses in as many weeks when Josh ambushed me in the waterfall), and then we trotted (well, the horses did, we just bounced) back home.  The included pictures and video will help document (Hey!, no skipping ahead!) the experience.  We all loved the waterfall pool and Carol and I, at least, very much appreciated the gorgeous jungle scenery on the ride to and from.  So in the end, we are all very happy to have had the experience.  But with your curmudgeon of an author there is always the downside, isn’t there?  Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint!  Horses are fun, I’ll admit, but they are simply not for me.  The incessant bouncing was tremendously tough on my bad back, and I have no idea how cowBOYS handle the constant pounding they take on that part of their anatomy that cowGIRLS don’t have.  Not to mention the diaper-rash one gets from the constant friction with the saddle.  Perhaps regular riding forces one’s body to adapt, but I’d be fine with never getting in another saddle again.  All four of us have very sore keisters at the moment, which is tough since our only means of long-distance travel is via bicycle.  And for me, a massage is definitely in my near future, as my back pain is almost completely debilitating.  But hey, nobody fell off and needed to be rescued by Aquaman this time!

Yup, it's a jungle out here!

How about a second picture of a horse's ass?

And a third?  No, seriously, has anyone seen my shades?

J-Dawg is first to scale the falls!

We are always happiest when wet!

If you can't see a video above this line (but but below the photo of our family in the waterfall), then you are probably reading the blog on a device that can't handle the videos.  Sadly, they don't bother to tell you that, so you wouldn't even know there was a video there.  On my i-Pad, it leaves a big blank space and nothing more.  If you want to see the video, you'll need an actual computer to see it.  Sorry.  We are working on a way to convert the video to a format that is readable by i-devices.  You probably missed some video on earlier posts too for the same reason.  The other problem, is some people are getting e-mails when we post, and others aren't (working on that too).  But the e-mail never seems to contain the videos even if you are using a computer.  That is easy to fix.  Just click on the title of the blog or on "Thiesfamilyadventure" in the e-mail and it will take you to the webpage.

Carol and I have started a tradition of walking the beach every evening at sunset.  The pinks and oranges were brilliant above the ocean and the forested hills on that first day that we tried it, but we didn’t bring our camera.  No problem there, though, since we’d have many more nights to photograph the skies.  Every night since then, however, has been a total bust in terms of any beautiful color in the sky, so no photos yet.  On the way home last night I got punched in the eye by an extremely stupid bug.  It got caught in my eye, and once I finally got it out about five minutes later, it had decided to pee acid in my eye or something because sixteen hours later I was still in a lot of pain.  My eye was oozing puss and it was time to finally partake of the excellent health care that Costa Rica provides.  I got a numbing solution put in, had my eye cleaned out via swab and then via about a gallon of saline wash.  I was quickly diagnosed with an eye-infection and one injection in the buttocks, a few pills and some cortisone eye drops later, I should be good as new in a few days.  Carol was forced to watch the whole thing except for the injection (which is the only part she may have enjoyed).  You’ll have to ask her how she felt about watching my eyelids get inverted and my eyeball get de-goopified.  If you don’t remember to ask for the detailed version, suffice it say she was a tad grossed-out.  The infection still hurts quite a bit as I write this, so I don’t know if I believe that I’ll be all better in just a few days, but we shall have to see.  Yes, pun, most definitely intended.

The doctor visit was both super quick and super professional.  Both doctor and nurse were super friendly, and both the visit and the drugs were super cheap.  So, yes, I would have to agree that health care in Costa Rica is nothing short of … you got it …  super.  The downside, other than the pain and the puss, is that I’m not allowed in the ocean for a few days, and I’m not allowed to drink any alcohol either as it will affect the effectiveness of the medicine (or effect the affectiveness, one can’t be sure).  So what the heck am I supposed to do in Samara?  Beers and beach are what it’s all about down here, right?  Just kidding, I’d say I got off pretty easy considering the horrifying implications I was imagining before I saw the doctor.  I was picturing having to take a day-long bus ride to a specialist in San Jose and a regimen of treatment that involved losing half my liver and perhaps a kidney.  You tend to worry a lot more about your health when you are without it.

This morning has also brought in the fumigation company.  We had to clear out this morning as they sprayed to deal with our growing cucaracha problem.  We were at the doctor’s office for much of the time in any case.  Now that we are back, our very lovely cleaning lady is doing all of the dishes so we can eat off of them again, while I stand outside on the patio or in the kitchen smashing all of the half dead roaches as they stagger around.  For some reason the chemicals make them come out into the open more.  We knew there were a lot, but not this many!  And big suckers!  A couple were close to two inches long!  So as bad a morning as it was for me, it was surely a bit worse for the cockroaches.

We’re still trying to figure out the next few legs of our trip.  Well, mostly Carol is doing that.  I listen to her thoughts and respond with a lot of “sounds good to me’s”.  That is about the extent of my involvement.  We are going to be visited by Carol’s sister and her husband, by my mother and her husband, and by Mark and Michelle and their kids all within the span of about three weeks in January.  So that will be a far cry from the isolation of September and October.  Plus we’ll be cruising all over the country at that point rather than simply putting down roots as we’ve done thus far.  So if you have read this far, but are starting to lose interest in the blog, fear not.  It should get more interesting starting mid-November.  Thank you for your patience.  I said that with a “wink” that you didn’t see.  But rest assured I felt it.  Ow.  No more winking or blinking or opening or closing my eyes in any fashion for a few days.  ¡Pura vida!

Hasta luego,

Esteban