Tennis in CR

These are some shots of me playing tennis in CR. This was by far my best day playing tennis since 1943.

Puerto Viejo

These are a couple of pictures of my trip to Puerto Viejo September 12 - 14. Got back into San Jose at 9 or so on September 11 and got up in time to catch the 6 am bus from San Jose to Puerto Viejo. It is a

4 or so hour ride, mostly on paved roads. Puerto Viejo is interesting. It is a sort of hippy town. The beaches right in front of Puerto Viejo are not swimmable because there are rock formations. There is surfing about a kilometer down the beach. I caught some pretty cool waves. Ernesto, who was boogie boarding with me kept on complaining that I was catching whitewash because he could not catch a wave as he was too far out. He did finally catch a pretty cool wave (big enough to crest out in the boonies where he was stationed almost the whole time). I, however, caught more waves, more total feet, and rode the only wave all the way in.

I need to get rid of that har and those glasses. Oh well.

More whale pics

These are some bad boy pictures that needed to be posted. I just got them from a gal on the trip who had a humongous camera lens.

This is how close we were. Pretty cool.

Rain plus one

This is one more picture from the trip to Abanico - on the right.

The other two pictures are to show a little about the reality of life in CR. It is not sunny every day, as you may conclude from the other pictures alone. It rains almost every day at one point or another. Sometimes it is for a few hours. Sometimes all day.

El Abanico Work Day 2

Even though this is called "2" it was only one day. I just broke it up into two entries. These are some of the folks I work with. The second picture is with my new co-worker volunteer, Maureen, from Boston. And yes, that is a pet squirrel. Amazing.

El Abanico Work Day 1

This is a project that we worked on on August 12, 2008. It is a housing project in an area called San Carlos, about 2 hours from San Jose near the Arenal Volcano (we could see the volcano on the way there).

It was like 400 degrees. We worked for an hour and a half or so and were toast. We were shoveling and wheelbarrowing rocks and fill dirt for the floor of a house. Was a good day.

Whale Watching 2 - The Monkeys

These are pictures of some of the monkeys and a toucan we saw on the way to the hotel. The hotel was called Poor Man's Paradise. My roommates were Alberto (from Mexico in the middle) and Carlomagno (from CR on the right). Nice dudes.

The monkeys are white face capuchin monkeys. They were 6 feet away or so and there were around 20 or so of them in what appeared to be two groups. The toucan was a green/yellow beak dude. There were two in the tree.

Whale Watching

This is a trip to some whale watching. We took off from playa pinuela (which is the beach). We went to a place called San Josecito, which is a beach near Corcovado National Park (San Josecito is the subject of another blog). Corcovado is recognized by Nat'l Geographic as being a great place. The island is the Isla del Cano, off the coast from Josecito. The water, as you can see, was crystal clear and blue as blue can get. In one pic I am on the boat. The last picture in this series is of the other boat in the group heading up the Rio Sierpe at the end of the trip (after Isla del Cano and the whale watching).

At Isla del Cano, one of my roommates, Alberto, and I went body surfing (sort of body surfing, it was more like sand eating because the waves were breaking right on the beach). I actually got a little piece of sand/rock stuck in my toe (it got imbedded there).

Water Polo and Friends

The first picture is actually after the second. We were eating at a place called Fiesta de Mariscos. It was a good seafood soup. That is Gilbert (my friend and tennis instructor) and his ex-wife, Lorena.

The picture in the pool is with two young guys who we challenged to a game of water polo (sort of as the water was about 1 meter deep). The old guys prevailed. I lost track but I think I scored around 8 or 9 of our 12 goals and was also our goal tender on the other end. Was a good time.

My new pet

This is just one of my new friends in CR. They are the size of a small Cessna airplane. Sound like there are people in the other room when they move. And, yes, that is a regular size air conditioning vent.

Crocodiles

These are crocodiles that are found on the way to the beach. They are freaking huge. Apparently, National Geographic studies them and all that jazz.

Weekend at Playa Blanca

Day Started at 6:30 am or so when Gilbert picked me up. We then picked up Gilbert's ex-wife, Lorena, with whom Gilbert maintains a good friendship. Their daughter, Erica, was supposed to come, but was hemming and hawing about the time, not having bathed yet, etc. So it was the three of us. The drive from San Jose to Punta Leona, which is on the West Coast (Pacific) takes 2-3 hours. It is mostly through the mountains.

We stopped at a soda (that is a diner/cafe in CR) for bfast. Was good. We then picked up some meat for grilling.

When we got to the beach, it was very nice. It had a white and black sort of sand. The water was perfect. There were waves to body surf but it wasn't crazy rough. I had put on 15SPF but still got sunburned. Also burned my feet some when we walked over to the big rock in the pictures. It was worth the walk though.

We stopped for a good sopa de mariscos on the way back into town. We also stopped at a little place called Fiesta de Maiz for arroz con leche. Best I've ever tried, although my focus was on the chorreada (cachapa) (corn pancake) with white cheese. Was very good.

That is all for now.

Hablamos