Comma Dot Comma

I woke in the dark pre-dawn hours on Saturday to the sound of a hard rain falling—in the room. We were in an inn in Bisbee, an old mining town in the southeast corner of the state that has been given a facelift in recent years by artists and community busybodies. In a corner of the room where the ceiling paneling had pulled away, the water was coming in. I pulled a washbasin under the leak, which worked for an hour or so, when the drip decided to split up and attack from different areas. Dr. G finally woke as well, and helped maneuver a plastic-lined basket under the worst of it. We snuck back under the covers and listened to that months-absent sound: rain. It was nice, like washing your face after a long day.

By the time we got breakfast and sorted out the room situation, the rain had turned to thick snow, fluttering down like goose feathers. Our plans to hike the hills behind the town and wander the narrow streets were kaput, but it was SNOWING! Woohoo! Last time I saw snow was in Fairbanks, Alaska, 18 months ago. We liked Bisbee in the snow. One of the charms of Bisbee is its unpretentiousness. You get a life story with every transaction, and the prices are low. It took two visits to BizzArt and manhandling every single handmade toy to decide on a few Bisbee Stitches to take home. We met their maker, who looked kind of like his creations, with big eyes and fluffy blue hair.

The snow stopped as we drove away from the mountains into the plains, on a search for Contention City. It’s a ghost town that made an appearance (in non-ghost form) in the movie 3:10 to Yuma. The name had captured our imaginations and we decided to find it, since we were in the area. Clambering over a fence, down old roads, across abandoned train tracks and a dry riverbed, we finally came upon the few remains of the town: broken bricks and rusting nails, thick bottles in blue, brown, and green glass, broken pottery and ceramics. The sky was just like it is in the movies: Blue clouds breaking up, dousing a distant wedge of yellow-leafed trees or purple hills in light. You’d think by the beauty that they were the only places worth going.

Note: Some of the following instructions may not apply to all parties. Adjust accordingly.

1. Sleep. Get up at 2:40, when your perpetually awake spouse shakes your foot.
2. Stumble onto the balcony in your pajamas and sneakers, blinking at the sky.
3. Note how the bright edge of moon looks like something you could eat. And how blurry the edge is, throwing off lozenges of light.
4. Look at it through the monocular.
5. Look at it through the antique brass spyglass.
6. Look at it with the naked eye.
7. There it goes!
8. The moon is a dirty penny.
9. Through the spyglass, it is a pocked orange-brown rubber ball.
10. Take umbrage at the constant references to “blood red” in the press.
11. Blood can be many colors and none match the moon. Blood red indeed!
12. Announce that this is your first time watching a full eclipse.
13. It is not your first time. Several years ago, on another continent, you and the spouse stacked furniture in the hallway to climb through a hatch onto the roof. The moon was not full and the sky was cloudy. Then you called it a thumbprint.
14. It feels like the first time.
15. That’s got to count for something.
16. Stop counting. It’s the middle of the night.

http://www.space.com/news/070828_lunar_eclipse.html

OUr complimentary breakfast was self-serve rice and beans, fruit, and bread out of tupperwares, onto none-too-clean plates. We dutifully ate a bit and escaped into town to explore the mercado centrale, a maze-like collection of booths selling everything from natural medicines to cheap Chinese imports. From there we hit a local art gallery where the proprietor failed to convince us that it was worth it to spend $800 on an undiscovered artist that we liked, and the jade museum, a dimly lit space full of pre-columbian carved stone. There was so much jade that after awhile we stopped feeling interested and impressed by each new example of a stool or piece of jewelry. Ho-hum, another giant carved monkey person. Then it was time to check out and leave San Jose for the car rental place and the airport, maybe 15 kilometers away. We allowed ourselves plenty of time to get lost finding our way out of the suburbs, and we needed it. At one multi-lane, five-way intersection the conversation got a little heated,but we made it out with marriage, good spirits, and navigational orientation intact. The sky was appropriately gloomy as we got in line at the airport, what was surely several days if not weeks too early. Ah, well, what can you do?

After the mountains, jungles, fields, and beaches, we were headed for the Big City: San Jose. By mid-afternoon the skies had opened and the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the mist and rain; there was nowhere to pull over so we inched along the dark roadway, following the red taillights in front of us. Finally we came across a sort of rest stop with a cafeteria and some souvenier stores where we could wait out the rain. The nice cafeteria ladies heaped my plate with food, though for some reason they didn’t give Dr. G, in line behind me, quite so much. I guess I have a more winsome expression. Our city maps of san jose listed street names and numbers, but we knew we wouldn’t be able to count on those driving into the city to our next B and B, the Hemingway Inn. As navigator I counted the blocks, noted major landmarks, and mentally marked one-way streets. Even so, we spent a good twenty minutes circling the downtown area before we got to a street that would allow us to approach the hotel from the right direction. The Inn was a cool-looking old colonial building filled with antiques. The guy at the desk seemed like he might be high, with his extra-wide, glassy eyes, and mile-a-minute, american-slang-peppered way of talking.

Oh well, he had our reservation and our room was ready. We’d just have to get a little wet to get there, since the only entrance was through a courtyard where the gutters on the eaves were broken. Make that a lot wet. The spacious corner room was named after Steinbeck and had big windows facing the streets, parrots in the tree outside, and an actual clock and cable TV. The drains in the street-level bathroom, however, reeked of sewer and we avoided it as much as we could and kept the door shut. After we dried out and got settled in, we walked into the city center to parade with the young folk up and down the cobblestone boulevard, blocked off from cars. The theater building filled a whole block, and there were parks and benches everywhere. The storefronts were a mix of american chain stores (Payless Shoe Source, anyone), fast food restaurants, and local specialty stores. We picked the nicest restaurant we could find, where my gazpacho arrived on a wooden artists pallet with chopped soup toppings arranged where the paint would be, and Dr. G received a chop salad bigger than his head in a swoopy white bowl. Back at the room, Ghostbusters was on television. There’s something strange… in your neighborhood. There’s something weird… and it don’t look good. Who you gonna call?

We woke at 3 am (or rather, I woke, and Dr. G simply neglected to sleep) for glimpse of the Perseids. We spread an old blanket at an archeological site northeast of the city lights and lit Costa Rican vanilla-flavored cigars. Then we leaned back below the indian ruins to watch the meteors burn. It was a cool ninety degrees, with a breeze.

We decided to go back to the lava field and do a little exploring on our own, without the huge groups or the droning guide. We found a little-used side trail diving back into the forest in the direction of the lake and decided to take it. It was nice to be away from other humans. A few hundred meters in, a group of javelinas crossed the path in front of us. Some howler monkeys seemed to be following us, shouting from the tall trees on either side of the trail. Eventually it petered out (alas, no lake) and we turned back. At the junction, the trees were shaking wildly– some white-faced capuchin monkeys were jumping from tree to tree in search of fruit. Cool!

We had four hours of driving ahead of us, along the lake and westward across the peninsula to the beach at Samara. We stopped for lunch in a small town along the way, where I ate a grilled sandwich with shredded barbecue chicken, thick slices of tomato, and a spicy sauce. Dr. G ate tipica with stew. It always feels so great when you have little idea what you are ordering and you get something delicious. Our trip was uneventful, and we arrived at Entre Dos Aguas in Samara in late afternoon as the rain began to dump again. We waited it out in the common area, swinging in hammocks and sipping the country’s beer, Imperial. These cheap beers are all the same but it seems necessary to drink the national beer of the country you are in. The rustic wood furniture in our room radiated mustiness that the fan could not dispel and all the towels and sheets felt damp, even though they were artfully folded into flowers and fans. There were no other rooms, but the fresh-from-New-York-City young owners promised us a better room the next day. We wandered down to the beach in our inadequate raincoats and surveyed a lovely yet trash-littered white sand beach before eating at the New Yorkers’ recommended restaurant, where my grilled tilapia came smothered in a rich fresh avocado sauce with chunks of sweet pepper, onion, and avocado in it. Anything with fresh avocado wins points in my book.

Predawn. We had neither watches nor cell phones (our usual method of telling time) so I was appointed timekeeper, judging by the light and activity when we should get up. This grave responsibility meant I slept lightly, jolting awake every few hours to make sure it was not yet morning. I had just drifted off after one such jolt when an otherworldly groan (fast forward to the 42 second mark) echoed through the room. It was coming from outside. It repeated, and repeated again. My foggy brain listed the possibilities. Jaguars. Volcano exploding. Howler monkeys. Some fainter answering groans came from across the gorge– choice C must be the right one. I thought I saw a shadowy figure moving in the biggest tree but was too befuddled to focus. A few hours later, we devoured our complimentary breakfast in the restaurant– pancakes, eggs, sausage, fried plaintains, gallo (beans and rice), papaya juice, coffee, and lined up with other guests for a guided hike through the grounds and to a waterfall. Our guide, Eduardo, set up his scope so we could peer at the comically groucy faces of the howler monkeys groaning in the trees. He set it up again near a grassy field so we could watch the parakeets and cherry headed parrots swooping from tree to tree. A wild turkey dropped by just as the clouds broke, giving us our first view of blue-grey Arenal. Puffs of steam and ash streamed from its top and we could see puffs of dust as hot rocks rolled off the rim. It was hard to know where to look, there were so many interesting things happening at once. At the waterfall, we got drenched in mist and I stuck my sweaty head in the pool though our guide had sternly admonished us that we had no time for swimming. He pointed out medicinal plants and plucked citronella berries for us to break open and rub on our skin as mosquito repellent. We got towed back to the lodge in a painted cart pulled by a tractor.

The lodge had a lovely tile pool and clover-leaf shaped jacuzzi. After our hike, we swam a bit and sat in the jacuzzi to watch the volcano before heading into town. In La Fortuna, I discovered mango con leche– a mango fruit smoothie. From that moment forward I ordered smoothies at every opportunity. They only cost a dollar and were sometimes made with juice, and other times with fresh fruit. Delicious. Dr. G. discovered comida tipica– stir-fried rice and beans, grilled meat or stew, and fresh vegetables, which he ordered every chance he got henceforth. I think Costa Rica produces most of its own food, and nearly everything we ate– fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, cheeses– tasted fresh. After exploring the park and the tourist shops, we headed back to the lodge for a sunset hike in the national park across a recent lava field. It was the same guide, and this time he pointed out toucans and buzzards in the ancient trees, and showed us how to identify guava trees to pluck our own fruit. As we waited on the bare volcanic rock for the light to dim, we looked out over Arenal Lake at the base of the mountain. The clouds were not allowing good volcano views, but from this close we could hear the groans from its core and the crashing and splintering of hot boulders being pushed out of the cone. When the clouds moved, we could see glowing red sparks as the boulders rolled down.

We were so full from breakfast and lunch that we decided to skip dinner and take advantage of the low ($40 a person, but still better than $80) night rates at the Tabacon Hot Springs. The resort had redirected a steaming hot river (41 degrees C) into a collection of interconnected pools and waterfalls, some natural and some paved. They were connected by trails snaking through mangrove-like trees. At the entrance, they had a hot-water waterslide into a pool below, where you could then swim up to a bar to order the drink of your choice. Our favorite section was one of the waterfalls, about forty feed wide, that we could sidle behind and then stick various body parts through the pounding water. Two hours there was enough for us. We were delighted but sapped of strength, parched and exhausted. Time for bed, yet on our way back we noticed the now-clear volcano putting on quite a show. We had to stop and watch awhile.

We shook hands with the rental agent. “All right!” he said. “Let’s go take a look at your car.” As we moved from the desk to the door, the bright gray skies collapsed into thick darkness, dousing the parking lot with dense raindrops the size of fava beans. “Maybe not,” said the agent. He directed an underling to bring the car into the garage. An inspection, some cautions against fraudulent tire-changers, and we were off, cut loose to roam the narrow Costa Rican roads in a tiny yellow Suzuki. Our first destination was Arenal Observatory Lodge, a former volcanlogist outpost below the volcano,now converted to tourist accomodations.

To get there, we had to thread through green mountains and banana plantations for hours. In the rain, the tropical flowers and plants shimmered in well-landscaped yards. For a long time we lost the trail of pictographs with arrows we had relied on like Hansel’s breadcrumbs. Where the heck were we? The roads were alike and unlabeled, and we had made several turns. We went on awhile longer, finally reassured by the snarl of stalled traffic we encountered over a rise. No one was hurt. We shook our heads pityingly as we inched past an abashed truck driver whose trailer had tipped into the ditch. By the time we reached the town closest to the volcano, the sun had set and the heavy clouds created a starless darkness. We spotted a sign for the lodge, indicating a turn onto a dirt road. “<– 9 kilometers,” it said.

The insects were loud enough to overcome the rain and the rolled up car windows with their song, and trees pressed in on both sides as we drove deeper and deeper into the forest. This place was really, truly, in the jungle! We saw an animal like a racoon with round ears. Near the end of the road, a rippling sheet of water flared up in the headlights– we had to ford a shallow river. How cool was that. At last we reached the lodge, lights glowing yellow from the windows. Our room had cool tile, a ceiling fan, and a balcony overlooking a deep forested gorge. It was just steps away from a wide deck where we could sit bird watching in the day and volcano watching at night, but we were tired. We ate steak in the overpriced restaurant and then went to sleep.

We just got back from a six-day trip to lovely Costa Rica, and, as we shuffled through the lines at the airport, kept wishing we had another 15 days. We’ve never been to Hawaii but Costa Rica seems like it could be considered a poor man’s Hawaii. It’s got the beaches, the reefs, the forests, the volcanoes, the mountains, and the canyons. I’d recommend a visit there to anyone who loves the outdoors. A more lyrical post on our adventures later. For now, some “glad I did/wish I’d done differently” moments to help others who may be planning a trip.

1. Don’t rely on a printed tour book. The tourist industry is growing so quickly in Costa Rica that our 2005 edition was already out of date. Hotels had changed ownership or gone downhill, restaurants had disappeared, and some of the fees were wildly inaccurate. Start with the book to choose the areas you want to visit, and then use internet forums and travel sites to get up-to-date recommendations.

2. Budget the exit tax into your travel plans. At the airport, we had to pay $52 in order to exit the country.

3. If you don’t have a lot of time, rent a 4×4 and drive yourself. Despite the narrow,winding, hilly roads, we were glad to have the additional time and freedom a car provided. We calculated what the expense would have been if we relied on buses, shuttles, and taxis for six days, and the car cost came out slightly lower.

4. Be careful with your credit card. Although we paid for our trip with traveler’s checks and cash, we had to reserve all of our hotel rooms ahead of time with our credit card information. Someone used it to order $700 worth of goods online. Fortunately, our credit card company didn’t authorize the purchases and canceled the card. Next time, we will use a separate, low-limit credit card to reserve rooms and reduce risk.

5. If you stay in touristy areas, you can pay for everything in dollars and get away with not knowing Spanish. Of course, this convenience comes at tourist prices.

6. Leave the restaurants behind sometimes to eat yummy gallo (stir fried beans and rice) at a busy soda (lunch counter) frequented by locals. Also, order the fresh fruit or juice smoothies, available everywhere for a dollar or two.

7. Use the in-room safes. All the places we stayed had lock boxes, and we figured they were there for good reason. All of our valuables stayed safe and sound, and it felt excellent not to have to traipse around with our entire trip budget in our pockets.

8. Enjoy the origami. Most places, we were greeted with towels, sheets, napkins, and even toilet paper folded into fanciful shapes like swans and flowers. A treat!

9. Bring a compass or good sense of direction. Though streets and highways are numbered on maps, they are not named or numbered in real life. We never got really lost (it’s a small country), but we did have to do a lot of guesswork.

I’m happy to report that the family camping trip was not a bit exciting! We were on a lake shore near Tahoe, where Dr. G and I marvelled at how benign the outdoors were. The biggest threat I faced was getting tree sap on me, although Dr. G did sustain a pine-cone related injury in the last hour we were there. The trees were shaggy and shady, the ground soft with dirt and pine needles, the water plentiful. We fished, hiked, swam, explored a creek, built forts, and hung out around the campfire playing non-competitive games. (Question: If you could control anyone’s mind in addition to your own, whose would it be? Answer from an inlaw: Steve (my dad)HMMMMM…)

We wore T-shirts during the day and sweatshirts in the evenings. We were peppered with hard-to-answer questions from my practically-four-year-old-nephew (“Why doesn’t the fish want to die?” “Why do some people deserve bad things?”) and helped maintain a constant perimeter around dangerous areas to screen out my troublingly mobile one-year-old nephew. We were nine adults to one baby and he still broke through occasionally. Maybe he has a future as an affectionate, talkative smuggler. “YumYUMyumYUMyum!” he will say to his clients about the black market caviar hidden on his person. “Bubbles! Coooool!”

Hanging out with my family is like being part of the in crowd. We’re a noticeable bunch, partly because there are so many of us (11) and partly because the members convey an image of tallness and stylishness (I’m among the shortest) and a knack for telling stories. When we go somewhere as a group, strangers sneak up to the fringes to hear a joke or figure out the rules to the complicated rock-throwing contest we have devised. It’s fun to be an insider for a few days. I usually don’t get to be one. And, oh, we saw a golden eagle swooping up from the lake with fish in its claws. That was nice, too.