January, February and March became a blur of friendly faces, and fun, and travels. In mid-January, our friends from near Trail, Hans & Ede (pr. Edie) made their second trip back to Cahuita. Last year, I “found” them in a grocery store and soon after, went out to lunch with them and another ex-pat couple and their visitor. A firm friendship formed very quickly. We all found lots to talk about. Hans & Ede were only in the area for a month this year, and celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary with us. We also went picnicking with them, and swimming more than a couple of times. One time, I got to the beach, draped my cotton cover-up over a branch, my towel over another branch, then stuffed it back into the bag, afraid it would blow away as it wasn’t very secure on that little twig. We all rushed into that beautiful, warm salt water, keeping a careful watch on where we’d left our bags and water bottles and towels. Eventually, even this inveterate waterbaby got tired so we waded ashore. MY TOWEL WAS GONE! I was really choked about that, as I had dry clothing with me in my beach bag and wanted very much to get out of my wet stuff and rinse off the clinging sand. Bob, my hero, walked back into the village and bought me a new towel.
When we got home, I went to hang up the new, wet one and discovered that the sneaky little thieves (we’d seen a whole gaggle of them hovering around our stuff on the beach and kept an eagle eye one them) had not only taken my towel from the beach, they’d brought it back to our house, climbed the fence, managed to get through a locked door and hung that darned towel, which I “knew” I had put in my bag, right back on the other end of the line opposite where I was hanging the new, wet one. Pretty nice thieves, or pretty forgetful Judy. One or the other. You can guess which. Looking back on it, I realized it had been my dry wrap-around I’d been afraid would blow away and not, after all, my towel.
We met for the first time someone I'd only been in touch with via an e-mail group and found in Tim and Kathy Gadler another great couple we hope will return, as we do the Lazlos, who vacationed in Cahuita as well a little earlier.
Only a few days after Hans & Ede left, cousin Kathy and her husband Bob arrived by cruise ship in the Port of Limón, where we picked them up. Bob S. had a big, heavy red bag with him. Poor guy! He'd dragged that bag kitty cornered across the Canada & the US, from Powell River to Ft. Lauderdale, onto his cruise ship, off the ship, into a coffee shop while they waited for us to arrive (not my fault! I seem to have girl cousins who don't compute time-zones well. The big, red bag was hauled down the street to our car, bounced around in the back with the other luggage, and he manfully lugged it all the way into our house. With undisguised glee, I dove right into that gag, dragging out the books he had so kind brought. Sadly, the picture I took of him with that big, heavy red bag didn't come out! No, he didn't break the camera, but for some unknown reason, it never showed up.
Believe me, though, our rainy day together only diminished his golfer's tan a small bit. We, who seek shade all the time, being only 9 and a bit degrees off the equator, looked pale beside him. At the our house, we were expecting to pack up a picnic lunch and take them to our favorite beach for the afternoon. Didn’t happen! What did happen was rain, and lots of it. We managed to find a few dry breaks to show them around our yard and introduce them to a lot of tropical plants. Then, in another cloud-burst, we hustled back to the shelter of the patio where we feasted on snacks of fresh, soft coconut meat from from the groves surrounding us, nibbled on mangoes and drank some of the coconut juice, which is altogether different from coconut milk, which, as far as I'm concerned, comes out of a can. We sipped cas juice, and ate other delicacies while lunch cooked in the kitchen. To the thundrous roar of tropical rain on a tin roof, we dined on corbinetta, a white fish, poached in coconut milk, pepper and fresh grated ginger. With that, we had a big salad and real Caribbean beans and rice.
To make Beans and Rice: Rinse 1 cup of small red beans a few times, soak for 24 hours, then drain and cook in about 5 cups of fresh water in the crockpot for 12 hours with a small bag (made out of a coffee filter stapled shut), containing one onion, quartered, three crushed cloves of garlic, and about a tablespoon of salt. When the beans are soft to bite, toss out the coffee filter, cool and drain the beans. (They can stay in the fridge, cooked for about 4 days if need be.) Then, make a 1 cup batch of white Basmati rice with two cups of coconut milk (adding an ounce or two of water if there’s not enough coconut milk in the can). Before cooking the rice, add the beans, stir and cover. When done, it all gets stirred together and is truly delicious.
After waiting in vain for the rain to stop completely, we finally gave up and as the sky brightened just a tad, we quickly scrambled into our swimsuits and headed off for Cahuita Village to shop and explore, still with the hope the drizzle would stop. It did! The sun came out. We toured all one street of the village center, Bob & Kath met our friends Marie-Claude & Andreas, their dogs, Dora and Ruby, and the noisy parrot, Verde, who hates men. Roberto, the Caiman, didn't come up to the side of the creek tha day, but we enjoyed visiting at Kelly Creek Hotel, then decided since the sun was still out, we’d go for the swim we’d promised. There was a lot of really big, dangerous surf coming in that day, so we walked along the park trail looking for the green flags that would tell us it was safe to swim. We were only a few hundred meters along the trail when the sky turned black in almost an instant, and the rain came down so hard we were soaked to the skin in mere moments. It’s a good thing, too, especially for Kathy, because when a howler monkey cut loose with a roar not a meter over her head, scaring her half to death, no one knew if it was rain water on her pants or . . . something else. Howler monkeys are strange beasts. They're hardly bigger than cats, but bellow like wounded bulls when they're annoyed. Rain seems to do that. Either that, or they're cheering it on. We've never been able to figure out which. But they sure do respond to it! Since we were wet anyway, when Bob S. found a green flag, we stripped off the soaked clothes that we’d worn over our bathing suits and, battling the stinging rain, the raging wind and surf, Bob S., Kath, & I went swimming. Bob G. stayed ashore to take shelter under a tree, which provided none at all. We went home to shower sand out of various “orifices” as Bob S. put it.
When we took Bob & Kath back to their ship to resume their cruise, we spent a half hour or so in the dock-head market looking for a special shirt since the cruise ship theme for dinner that day was “Caribbean Nights” and Bob S. had not come prepared. I sure hope he wears it to our family reunion in June so everyone can see how truly Caribbean he can look when he tries hard enough. I’m also glad he didn’t get the orange one.
Somewhere in between family visitors, we managed to entertain two Couch Surfers on two different occasions. Costa Rica is becoming a very popular destination for people of all ages, but for us, famly takes precedence, so if you plan to visit us, let us know in plenty of time so we can chase away the Surfers, or at least tell them our spare room is unavailable.
My sister Joyce and her husband, Bob Wilson, arrived on the 19th of Feb. We picked them up at the airport and drove directly back to the coast, a journey of 186 Kilometers that takes 4 hours if traffic isn't too heavy and there've been few "desrumbles" (landslides) along the road as it winds through the hills that surround the Central Valley. They kept insisting they weren’t tired, but I think the photos taken moments after they arrived tell a different tale.
The day after their arrival, we “did” Cahuita and swam, playing in the surf, which had gone down considerably, but was a lot safer. It managed to up-end me a time or two and that day was the first time I've ever body-surfed on my back--not through any great talent, but because when a big wave flipped me over, I didn't know which way was up until the back of my head bumped into the sand. We also went to Puerto Viejo, a few klicks south, looked in all the touristy shops, and let Bob take a rest on a concrete turtle. They look cute together, don't they? Mostly, though, we just lolled around a lot at the Little House in the Jungle, read, talked, laughed, drank too much wine and just enjoyed each other’s company. Then, with time flashing by all too quickly, we decided (Okay, I decided), on the spur of the moment, that if we were going to Panama, which was the plan, we had to do it really soon or we’d never get there.
So, on a Thursday night, Joyce & I announced to the Bobs that we were leaving Friday morning. We left the car home, took a bus to Cahuita, got on another bus that took us to Sixaola, the very small pueblo on the border. There, we walked across a truly astounding bridge with a sign in the middle reading Costa Rica – Panama.
We cleared customs and took a taxi (a crew-cab pickup truck) to Changuinola on the Caribbean coast of Panama. After a few hours wait, fending off begging children, some of whom were really persistent and aggressive, but none of whom looked undernourished or poorly dressed, we finally got aboard a water taxi that was to take us to the town of Bocas del Toro on the island of Colón. What a beautiful trip! The whole lagoon where we waited at the water taxi dock was covered by brilliant green floating plants, much of it water hyacinth. Canoes cut through it easily, but when our water taxi arrived, the operator frequently had to stop and rev up the outboard in reverse to release tangles of weeds. We traversed a long, winding canal between low banks, where the water was so still it made a perfect mirror. Each time we neared a canoe (dugouts, much like the ones used by the natives on this coast, the operator slowed right down so as to minimize his wash. Wish boaters in this country were as polite! The narrow canal led finally to the sea, where we left most of the floating greenery behind.
Once out there, it was a little choppy, but extremely shallow. Panamanian Aids to Navigation would appall any CPS member, as most of them were long sticks stuck in sand bars to warn boat operators away. We traveled past a hotel I intend to visit one day. It was a series of five or six little cabinas, each on its own float, with a kayak outside each front door. They were linked to a much larger building, the restaurant, we assumed, by wooden walkways. Unfortunately, we hadn’t known about that one, so there was no chance of getting in there. In fact, its being a Friday and the beginning of high season in Bocas, there were no hotel rooms available in the town! Our Costa Rican high season was just over, so we were surprised at this information. Finally, after checking several places, when we were about to consider sleeping on the beach, assuming we could find one that no one had built a hotel over top of, we got news that a hotel farther up the island could take us for one night, in a room with two queen sized beds. We said a heartfelt yes! If we could stay only one night in Panama, so be it. There were buses and taxis heading back to Costa Rica the next day. Then we waited an hour for the taxi sent by the hotel “La Coralina” to get us.
Tired and hungry, we got into another crew-cab little truck and set out, with our luggage bounding around in the back. We drove and drove and drove. We forded creeks, splashed through puddles, then small ponds, then lakes, each of which seemed to get larger and deeper than the last one. There were few habitations. It was very dark. We had no idea how long this trip would take as we jounced and bounced and watched in awe as the truck’s bow-wave sloshed up on the sides of the “road”. When we got to La Coralina we were met by a charming young woman from Minnesota who showed us to our huge room with a great bathroom, then told us they had kept the kitchen open for us. Downstairs we enjoyed an exquisite meal that couldn’t have been bettered anywhere in North America or Europe. We also learned that the hotel had just received an unexpected cancellation and we could stay there for three more nights if we wanted to. It was tempting, because not only was the breakfast as appetizing as the dinner, and included in the price of the room, but there was a darling baby monkey one of the groundskeepers had found. The hotel is raising him, feeding him milk from a bowl and whatever fruit he could cadge from guests. However, we really did want to see Bocas which was an hour’s drive, and another twenty dollars away. Seeing that road in daylight left us wide-eyed and glad we hadn’t been able to see it the night before. In places, it was nothing but ruts along the beach and those puddles really had been creeks, ponds, and small lakes!
Bocas del Toro was an interesting town with lots of activity going on. In one of the hotels we’d tried the previous evening, they’d said they “might” be able to fit us in if we were there at check-out time on the Saturday. There, we were able to get nice rooms for each couple and were informed we could have them pretty well as long as we wanted. Seemed strange for a place that had been so totally booked the night before, to find it so open the next day with a number of “vacancy” signs farther back from the waterfront. We could have, but didn’t, go snorkeling, content to hang out in the hotel’s pool and wander around town, shopping and exploring. The only swimmable beach we saw was, as luck would have it, right out in front of La Coralina where, because we were in a hurry to get back to town and the possibility of that hotel which “might” have rooms available, we didn’t take time to swim. All the rest of the beaches appeared to be on other islands, or covered by hotels and restaurants who’d built their dining decks right out over the water.
We dined in one of those restaurants, my Bob with his back to the water. I knocked over a glass of Club Soda and since he’s easily startled by spilling liquids, he flung himself away, nearly knocking himself and his chair into the bay because there was no railing behind him. I laughed so hard I ached, and really do wish –okay, nobody ever accused me of being “nice”—that he had fallen in. It would have made the night for me and for a whole lot of other diners. However, neither the Club Soda nor the bay got him and I was punished for laughing so hard. That night, I was sick, and lay shivering in bed all the next day and the following night too. Joyce and the 2 Bobs went out for dinner, apparently had a good time, but I knew nothing about it. After a full day and 2 nights in bed, I was ready to eat a small bowl of chicken soup, and was glad when it was time to catch the water taxi back to Changuinola.
Obligingly, because I had sat on the port-side seat on the way out and was able to get some great photos, I suggested Joyce take that place on the way back. Before long, it was pouring again! Joyce took the brunt of it; her blouse got soaked and rain, combined with the speed of the water taxi smashed into her face like pellets. I'm such a kind, generous sister! Amazingly, the same driver who had taken us from Sixaola was there and drove us back to the bridge and Customs.
Note to anyone who is not a documented resident of Costa Rica: If you take that trip, be sure to carry a photocopy of your return ticket to Canada or wherever, so they’ll let you back into CR. We thought for a little while Joyce and Bob might end up becoming permanent residents of Panama!
A few days before they were to fly out of Costa Rica, we drove back to the Central Valley where we toured the Britt Coffee Plantation and went to Zoo Ave. (Ah-vay), which is a haven for rare and injured birds. They also take in mammals and reptiles to be rehabilitated and returned to the wild. We visited our friends, Laurie & Gene (Laurie's blog, edgeclingerandthetallguy.blogspot.com can be accessed at the bottom of this page. Then, muct too soon, it was time for Joyce and Bob to go. Poor Joyce has yet to get to the Butterfly Gardens. Next trip, I promise!
