Jaco, Costa Rica
Here we are in Costa Rica. Yesterday started with a midnight flight and finished with Ronan and Liam madly chasing a cockroach across my bedroom floor in a super spiritual prelude to bedtime scripture reading.
The midnight flight was fine, we had spent our day packing, weighing luggage, cleaning, getting last minute shopping done and saying goodbye to Grandma. There was a general attitude of sleepy anticipation on the way to the airport where we said goodbye to Grandpa and he graciously drove our car back to wait safely in his garage until our return. We had a minor hiccup in the airport when one boarding pass didn't print and as it was one of ten we didn't really notice until we were trying to check bags. Luckily, it was a slow time at the airport and the woman checking us in managed to keep her total impatience with us mostly in check and finally consented to print us up a new one, not that there was ever an old one. None of the kids had flown before, and the first flight was very exciting, from the take off to the private television screens to the snack cart wheeling down the aisle. No one slept much, or possibly at all. By the time we got to Miami some of us were really feeling that lack of sleep. We found cheap empanadas and pastries for breakfast and settled down to wait. There may have been some napping on the airport floor. The second flight was less exciting I guess, because most people managed to sleep at least some of the time, Fionnula who had maneuvered to get the window seat on this flight so that she would have a window when we got our first look down on Costa Rica, could barely be roused to consciousness most of the flight. When Liam tried to shake her awake for that much anticipated first look, he just got a really dirty look. And then we landed in beautiful Costa Rica where the police carry machine guns and--Surprise!--everyone speaks Spanish.
We took a longish way to Jaco instead of the highway and saw lots of beautiful scenery. Liam says he spotted a monkey and I saw a toucan I think, but mostly we saw a lot of cows and chickens, which seems funny when you are used to cows and chickens belonging on acres of flat prairie. We drove over a river that we knew was full of crocodiles, and there were lots of others people there peering over the bridge for a view of said crocodiles, but we were all so tired that we lamely opted not to stop and look! When we finally arrived, after much trial and error, at our rental house, it was to discover that the key left for us didn't actually fit the door to our house. It did fit the house next door. If the house next door hadn't been under construction and therefore empty of beds, I might have just decided to settle there. A neighbor came to our rescue when Kris emailed the airbnb host, but she stubbornly continued to talk at us in rapid fire Spanish despite our very clear nearly complete ignorance of what she was saying. All I understood was "llaves," keys, yes llaves were definitely our problem. She did get us a functioning key in the end though. Inside we quickly ascertained that this house was pretty low on what we consider basic amenities, like a washer and dryer, or towels... or hot running water in the sinks. There is hot water in the shower, it involves exposed wires connected to the shower head. Neat. Still, there were beds, and I at least needed a nap.
After nap time, the next challenge was grocery shopping in a store where the measurements and the monetary units and the language are all completely foreign to us. It was an exhausting exercise in our (mostly Kris's) Googling skills to purchase a few pounds of chicken breast. PS: even though centimeters are smaller than inches, kilos are still bigger than pounds. In addition to food for a week or so we also acquired the towels and hand soap and bowls (!) that we had expected to be part of our accommodations. Fine. After dinner Kris got to polish up his hard earned first aid skills when Ronan sliced his finger open washing dishes. There's no hot water, but there are really sharp knives. Well we didn't bring enough towels for everyone, but we do travel with a first aid kit that includes steri strips for closing gaping wounds, because gaping wounds have been relatively common in our years of rearing children. The finger splint had to be improvised with q tips though No swimming for Ronan for a few days. Then we found ants in our cabinets and all the food got moved to the fridge. All of it, we have frozen oats now. And finally, there was a cockroach under the bed, which is why my boys were jumping around my bedroom, slapping the floor around their dancing feet with Kris's sandals.
None of these obstacles were really all that insurmountable. We got in, we bought towels, we taped up the injury, we killed the cockroach. Specifically, Liam killed the cockroach and he is still feeling like a mighty hunter. But it was an exhausting first day. Still, it is beautiful here and I can't wait to see monkeys!
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