Searching for a Sloth

You can be bitten by the travel bug in ways you never expected.  In my case, it was a conversation I had with my friend in Virginia.  She told me that her grand-daughter had spent three weeks in Costa Rica doing some environmental work with her university.  Dani told her grandmother about the beauty of Costa Rica, how marvelous the people are, how natural and healthy and inexpensive the food is, not to mention the coffee, and how little money it takes to visit there.  My friend sort of casually said, "We should go."

That's all it took.  Before you could snap your fingers, we had set a date, and were looking for flights.  Because both our husbands had birthdays in October, we decided we could more easily convince them to go if we said it was a birthday trip.  I don't remember now what sites I checked, but I am sure we bought the cheapest tickets we could find.  Although the best travel site on the web, Kayak, started doing business in 2004, I doubt that I knew about them when we were planning our Costa Rica trip.

I can't recall the details of planning the trip, but I do remember that both pairs of travelers bought travel books and began reading about where we wanted to go and what were our "must see" destinations.  I have read many different guide books, mainly from the library, but my favorite is Frommer's.  From our separate research we agreed that we wanted to visit the Monteverde Cloud Forest, the Arenal National Park, and Manuel Antonio national Park.  The Virginians wanted to see as many species of birds and reptiles as possible and, top of the list was seeing a three-toed sloth in the wild.  I was both excited and afraid to sleep in the shadow of an active volcano.

So, on October 29, 2005 we set off on our first trip to Central America.

Arriving in San Jose

Flying to Central America is fairly easy from Phoenix, often a non-stop ride.  But no matter how easy your flight may be, going through immigration is always a pain.  There are always long lines, most often you're experiencing your first immersion in a foreign language, and nothing is familiar. And, if you are like my husband and are a picky, mostly vegetarian eater, you're probably hungry.  What's worse, if you're a smoker (like he is) you're on the ground but still not in a smoking zone.

When we had arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, made it through immigration, and had our luggage, the first thing that happened was that my husband took off like a shot out the door to light up.  Left me just outside the doors with the luggage and about two dozen taxi drivers swarming over me rattling Spanish at me.  I just kept screaming, "No, no, no!" "Mi spousa!" Of course, I don't know if that's even Spanish, maybe it's Italian or totally made up. I thought I was going to be kidnapped and never see home again!

Then my husband returned, we got a taxi, and headed off to the Gran Hotel Costa Rica where we would meet our friends.  I think about that now and how much simpler life is with cell phones!  Our taxi driver was very nice and spoke passably good English, so he was able to point out various sights and buildings on the way, and he delivered us safe and sound to the hotel.

Immediately we made our way to the outdoor patio to have a drink and something to eat.  Our friends spied someone they had met the day before.  He was stranded at the hotel because he had made the mistake of going to the market in the center of town and had his pocket picked.  Lost his wallet, and his passport.  Unfortunately it was Saturday night, the next day the Embassy was closed, so he couldn't do anything until Monday.  By that time, we were gone.

Things I learned:  Don't get separated from your group, or your spouse.  Pay attention to the warnings about protecting your valuables in crowds.  Make sure you have copies of your passport, your credit cards, and the phone numbers to call if your cards are stolen. And now, I make sure we have at least two different cards and two different bank accounts with debit cards.  If one set is stolen, we aren't stranded and unable to get money.  Another good idea if you are going to be traveling for a month or longer, is to have a trusted family member added to your bank account so that they can straighten out any problem that arises.