Texas to Costa Rica

Hola!  It's Thursday morning...  I'll catch up my blog from Tuesday evening...  Celeste took us to DFW airport after she got off work.  We missed an exit and sort of got lost for a while...  took the scenic tour around the airport before finding the terminals.  By that time it was about 8pm.  Our flight left at 6am the next morning - we flew Spirit - and they said to be there 3 hours before takeoff.  It hardly seened worth getting a motel for those few hours so Bill asked the "hospitality" person if we could stay in the lounge area of the reservation area.  This person was SO accomodating!  Not only could we stay, he called someone who brought us cots and blankets and pillows!  Can you believe that? 

We chose not to use the cots, but those blankets and pillows sure were nice!  Here's Bill, taking a snooze sometime before 3am...   (those blankets are disposable...  my "save the world" side had a hard time with that...  but my personal comfort overruled)

At 3am the reservation counters opened...  although we had our e-tickets, and Bill had printed out our boarding passes, we had to check our luggage.  Then it was a long wait until the security area opened.  By 4am we finally got through all that.  Bill didn't even set off the beepers this time ;-)

Around 5:30am we boarded the plane, and shortly after 6am we left Texas and headed for Ft Lauderdale.  It was still dark at that hour, the flight about 2.5 hours....  but by Florida we could see that it would be a beautiful day.

We had only a short wait until our connecting flight to San Jose, Costa Rica departed. 

One last view of Miami.....

And...  2.5 hours later, our next view is...

Costa Rica!

That red and silver thing on the left is the wing of the plane.  Our seats were in row 29 of a 30 row plane.  We could see the mountainous terrain...  thought we saw a volcano or two.

The house we've rented in Cuidad Colon won't be available until April 1st, so Bill made arrangements for us to stay in a Bed and Breakfast/Hotel for 3 nights until then.  Jose Luis, the owner, came to the airport to pick us up.  It's about 30 miles and the nearest city to the hotel is Grecia....

Just one picture of the city at this time...  this is the all metal church...  We'll take the bus back into Grecia after I finish writing this... it runs every hour from this hotel.

Jose Luis is from Madrid, Spain; his wife is from Lithuania...  they met in Belgium while both were working at their careers.  They saved some money, spent a year travelling the world trying to decide where they wanted to live.  Bought this place in Costa Rica a year ago and then decided to start their family.  They have a 2 month old son, Kiran.

Here's where we're staying...

I'd call it a "cabin"...  each hotel unit stands alone...  each has a kitchette, full bath, microwave, fridge, TV, and .... YES!  Internet!  That "mountain" in the center background is the volcano "Poas". 

This is an agricultural region...  lots of coffee plantations and fields of sugar cane.  Also, Jose Luis told us there are pineapple plantations...  most of which is imported to the USA.

Behind our cabin are lots of banana trees...

Not ripe yet.... 

And the views from our front door are fantastic!

The elevation here is around 4,500'.....  (about the same as Albuquerque, NM)...  so the nights are chilly...  but the days are 70-80's. 

The rainy season will start next next month.  We'll probably catch the beginning of it before we leave at the end of April. 

One really exciting thing here are...  the birds!

The first picture is a hummingbird.  I don't know which species...  but I know we've seen two different kinds so far.  The bottom is a kiskadee...  I don't know if it's the same species as in the Rio Grande Valley...  We've also seen clay colored robins and quite a few species we don't even know.  But we've been here only last evening and this morning...  and have a whole month to go!!!

Here's Bill... 

You can't see it here, but Grecia is in the valley below him.   We ordered pizza delivered for dinner last night .. along with a bottle of red wine.  By 6pm we were exhausted and called it a night.  Around 10pm I woke up...  looked out over the valley at the lights in the town.  Saw the flowers, trees and lush mountain growth in the faint light.  Even saw some stars in the sky.  I kept hearing the call of a bird...  repetitious!  On and on and on.....   around 10:20pm it just quit.  I believe it was a paraque.  Tonight if I hear it, I'll shine a flashlight out to see if I can see the glow of red eyes.

This morning Jose Luis fixed a full breakfast...  toast, fresh fruit (papaya, pineapple, watermelon), fresh eggs (from nearby farm), bacon, hash browns, and orange juice.  Coffee, too...  but neither Bill nor I use much caffeine.....  Delicious!

So that's our first 18 hours or so in Costa Rica....

We'll take the bus into town before noon...  maybe have a late lunch there...  buy something to fix here for dinner this evening....  just wander around. 

That's All For Now....