Hiding from Tropical Storm-to-be Ghandi errr Gamma

Sorry no pics this time cause this connection is way tooooo slow. We are stuck in Playa del Coco hiding from the rains brought on by the maybe tropical storm Gamma.

OK let me start over. After piling everyone into the van, we said a sad good-bye to all our family and friends on Saturday morning. It was a very memorable and fun week, and we hope that everyone had a great time. The rest of the day was very lazy and enjoyable. Two things worth mentioning: the huge flying iguana (a.k.a holy shit that's a crocodile in our pool!), and the poor monkey that Altaz spotted falling from atop the hydro wires. We only hope that the staff from a nearby place found the injured monkey in the bush (after it dragged itself from the road, out of harms way), and were able to take it to the vet in Allejuala.

The next day Sham and I rented a car and dropped Altaz off at Jaco beach. Pretty big place, lots of restaurants, bars and other nightlife. And most importantly, big surf. (Hope you're having fun now Altaz!) Then we were off, headed to Allejuala, and to Volcano Poas. Unfortunately, after staying a night at the bottom of the volcano, and getting up rather early (5*%!!:30am!) to get to the volcano before the clouds took over, the tropical depression had already started to affect the weather and we couldn't see a thing. It was a nice drive up however.. very windy crazy turns, overlooking luscious coffee plantations, and the occasional dog wandering into the road at the last possible moment.

So it was right at the entrance to Volcano Poas where we found out that the Caribbean coast was being drenched in rain and that there was a tropical storm developing. So we decided to seek refuge on the northern Pacific coast. As was recommended to us, this is the best place to be in such weather. So off we went, and after 6 hours of Sham dodging constant huge potholes (you'll see later what I mean), we are here at Lonely Planet's recommended Playa de Coca. I must say now, I STRONGLY dislike the Lonely Planet person who wrote up the piece about this place. It's really not what we expected. And so we will be off again tomorrow, probably headed to Tamarindo, maybe to Samara. Going to have a few drinks now. At least the bar life here is good.

We're Hitched

What a wonderful day :) But......

1)Semi-planned blackout for 6 hours during prime get ready time
2)No water during prime get ready time due to above
3)Makeup lady was late
4)Hair appointments delayed
5)Initial Beach Location road was suddenly blocked day before
6)Rained just before we started, ended up using a little restaurant by beach location 2
6)Huge traffic jam due to flipped over bus on a small hill. Bus was stuck and unable to get to Reception. We had to walk across accident to second waiting bus past the accident

But regardless, we had a great time and it all added to the adventure. All our guests were great too, and rolled with each of these hurdles. Anyway, the reception went great, the owners are a bunch of Torontonions that miss home and will be heading back in a year or 2. I'll post their link soon.

Most people are leaving tomorrow for home. We have another week in CR and are going to take 1 more day in Manuel Antonio to rest and plan the next week. We'll try to stay in touch!

Pool Partay

25 drunk party guests, 7 sober ones, 10 bottles of alcohol, 1 pissed off Sloth (shown in picture, hanging out right by the pool), 1 broken blender and loads of fun. Best story (I can tell) of the night was when an unsuspecting guest was walking by the pool with a fresh set of towels and was broadsided into the pool by Jenn..cause you know, that's what Jenn does! Also, gimmick for the night was to give everyone a glass with a nickname on it. Examples :
Ass
Cap'n Ass Wipe
Burn Victim
Smelly
Dominatrix
Blondie
Rum Mum
Lame Dame
etc.. We still refer to each by these names today..

Tomorrow is the big day, we're not nervous, but we just found out that they are shutting the power down in the entire city from 6am - 2pm..yah in the middle of a weekday..it'll be an interesting day!

Attack of the Killer Monkeys

So another Monkey story today. My Mom and Saro skipped todays boat cruise and decided to eat breakfast outdoors on the balcony. Well, turned out Monkey's like toast so out of nowhere a tree full of Monkey's was poised to attack the 2 fearfull breakfasters..so they ran into the house with the food. The picture above was taken later in the afternoon when the roving band of Monkey's were a few trees out.

Second pic is of the dolphins that swam by during the boat cruise. I'll post soon regarding Manuel Antonio in general from a tourist perspective, in case any of you are thinink about vacationing here. Obviosuly we're big fans! Ok, my 30mins on the computer are up!

l8s

MONKEYS!

Ola Ya'll,

Qucik one today, here's a shot of the spider monkeys we saw during the tour of the National Park with Everyone. Every one rolled in late last night (that story to follow) ;)

Anyway, these Monkies stole a bagel right out of Saro's hand, which for the price of a bagel gave us a great show of Monkey Mayhem...ok off we go..it's starting to rain :(

Sunshine at last!!!

Hola senioras y senioritas...

So we have a bit of catching up to do. As per Sham's previous note, we arrived safe and sound 3 (?!!) days ago. The flight from Miami was delayed 3 hours and smelled of sewage when we stepped on the plane, but we survived, and got to our hotel after 15 hours total of travel.

It was cloudy and a bit rainy our first day here, but yesterday and today are GORGEOUS so we hope the weather holds. But if not.. well we’ll just have to do more drinking (see pic 3)! Pic 1 is of a cool restaurant right on the beach. Feels like you’re in the middle of the rainforest, depending on where you’re sitting.

Yesterday we sat our butts down on Playa Espillada and sunbathed for a few hours and then went kayaking. Huge bloody waves, but we made it a few kms out and around some “little” land mass (see pic #2). It was cool riding a big wave in and we almost made it right to the end but the kayak turned over and dumped us both out.

Today we moved from Hotel Verde Mar to Casa Romano. See pic #2 for the view out of our bedroom window. We’re pretty proud of ourselves for booking it and we’re sure the family and friends staying there will like it.

OK that’s it for now. We’re off to do a bit of grocery shopping and some surfing before everyone else gets in!

Adios amigos.

We're here!

In cloudy Costa Rica!

 

No pictures yet as I left my USB cable at the Hotel (3kms down hill on a windy road).  We're up by Casa Romano cause we wanted to check it out.  For those of you coming up it's about 25mins Up Hill on windy road, Cabs are probably best for those of you at Hotel Verde Mar.  After the long travel day yesterday we're still a bit pooped so we're heading back down the hill and taking nap (Mel claims she's not taking a nap).  We did get time to hang out at the beach today, although not sunny, it wasn't raining during the day either, so we'll consider that a good sign.  Ok this one was short and sweet.  Hopefully we'll upload pictures soon.

We Outs

Another Phew!!! We're packed!! The trick is to use those large heavy duty ZipLock Freezer bags. I roll all my clothes (usually 4 t-shirts or 3 thin pants) into the ZipLock bag, Zip it up most of the way and then let all the air out...It's actually really therapeutic. Anyway, the black suitcase is the one that comes back with somebody since it is wedding related only.

So..our flight is at 9:45 in the morning and we won't get to CR until later in the afternoon, we took the cheapy stop over in Miami flight, so hopefully read some books and settle into Tiko time. We're in Costa Rica for 2.5 weeks and then return to the T-dot for 3 days to repack!

For those of you concerned, we still left half the electronics...It's going to be interesting when we repack for the Big Trip in a few weeks...Although, I'd sacrifice clothes for electronics any day :D

For those of you that are coming up, have a safe and enjoyable trip and we'll see you in Manuel Antonio! For those of you staying in the temperate climate of the North and have this as their homepage (Nat!):P, Mel and I will try to stop into a cafe (Don't worry Cancer Care Ontario folks, I will not be testing out the iPort security) sometime before the wedding, and hopefully a few times after. TTY guys soon!

Errands, Errands & Hurricanes

PHEW...what a crazy few weeks. Kudos to all you guys that have had big weddings in town, I can't imagine the amount of work that went into that! I've heard from some friends that it took every weekend for a year to get their weddings planned...although Mel and I haven't gone through that, it's been hectic with the wedding and the trip. We'll be glad when we're done planning..Which means Tuesday! Although there are some items left to figure out for the trip...we'll do the rest on our 3 days back here after the wedding.


For those of you watching the news, Hurricane Beta (they're using the Greek alphabet now) did not hit Costa Rica directly. Manuel Antonio is on the pacific coast where hurricanes are rare this time of year and Beta was another Atlantic hurricane. Basically the pacific coast did get rained on, but none of the water surges/wind that were expected on the Atlantic side.



Speaking of hurricanes what's with the Greek alphabet names now? What about Indian or Chinese names? Doing that would also solve the problem of people not evacuating, a name like Hurricane Bhupendra would surely scare those Floridians into leaving their homes no?!

The Tikster

For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of meeting her, I'd like to introduce you to Tiku. We're definatley going to miss her .... a lot. She's an old lady now, over 13 Human Years old, which means my family has had her since I was 16. She's been moved a lot, lived with my Mom when Altaz and I were in University, and has for the last while lived with Mel and I. She's definatley a Senior Citizen now and has been through the ringer; 2 Cancers, 1 weird growth that keeps coming back and 1 bum hind leg later, I'm hoping she's got another few years in her. Mom will be house sitting for us and looking after her while we're gone.

We were planning on taking her for the wedding to Costa Rica, but decided against it, since we're not sure she could handle the flight. Also, Air Canada changed their Pet policy on us out of the blue. You used to be able to take small pets with you on the plane as long as they were left in a cage. Now they have to go with the regular luggage...I'm sure it's those terrorist Terriers they're worried about, a couple of bad seeds ruin it for the rest of doggy land..End Snark