February 11, 2008 (Falling Behind Again)
So, another weekend trip down.... we went to La Fortuna/Arenal (the biggest active volcano in the world or the most active or some superlative like that).
We planned the trip last week as a group. That was a painful process - some people wanted a luxurious hotel one night and a cheap place the next night, some people wanted medium places for two nights, some people wanted a cheap place for two nights; some people wanted to do whatever possible for everyone to stay at the same hotel, some people would have preferred more privacy. To spare the gory details of the 90-minute discussion/argument/meeting, we eventually decided to stay in a hostel in La Fortuna, the little town just west of the volcano Arenal. All of us in the same, cheap place. One room of bunk beds for 8 people, one room with 2 queen-sized beds for the other four. Libby and I would get one of the queen beds and the rest was pretty much up in the air.
Friday at the clinic, rather than ending at noon like we've done the previous weeks (tough life, eh?), we had a full day, but we were given Monday off. The reason for the late Friday was that one of the founders of FIMRC (the organization for which we're working) came to visit the clinic. He gave us a talk that took most of the day. It was really interesting hearing the story of how the organization was born among a group of 5 college buddies, how it took off quickly in terms of fund-raising (more quickly than growing in terms of actually doing things), and what his visions for the future of FIMRC are.
The founder, Vic, was an impressive guy. He helped to found this international group while he was in college and continued to work on it full-time throughout med school and now as a surgery resident.
Anyway, Friday night, everyone went to the Struthers's house for a little fiesta, in part to celebrate Nate's and Neil's birthdays (February 10 and 13, respectively). That was fun. A small group of us played charades for quite some time, and by the end of it, pretty much everyone had joined in.
It was a bit frustrating that plans started to change again. Half of the group was going to go to a jazz cafe in San Jose and then stay in the city overnight. Alvarro (our driver) was going to come pick us up at 7:30am Saturday in Santa Ana and 8am in San Jose before heading to La Fortuna. However, Friday night people got tired (read: "drunk and weary of inevitable hangover") and decided not to stay in San Jose, and thus people decided not to have Alvarro start picking us up until 9am. Libby and I hadn't really wanted to get a ride from Alvarro in the first place (we could've taken a public bus for $40 less) but we'd compromised for the sake of people who wanted to all got together, and we suddenly found the arrangement we'd agreed to (arriving no later than 11am) changing and the drunken majority overruling us. Argh!
After getting to the hostel, we went to lunch. Well, we tried going to lunch. Even after the group decided we'd go to lunch together, half of the people ditched the other half. Libby and I were among the ditched half.
We went to lunch, and at the end, if was kind of weird. We paid the bill, and the waiter counted the money at the table and promptly informed us that tip was not included in the bill. This was weird for two reasons:
1) In Costa Rica 2 taxes are always included - service (tip) and sales
2) when we were looking at the meny initially, I pointed out to the group that I thought it was funny that literally the only text on the menu that wasn't printed in both Spanish and English was the two lines that said those taxes were included. So, we tried asking the waiter about this, but he seemed sketchy and gave us a non-answer, so I think Alisha might have added 200 colones (40 cents), and we left.
By this time, we didn't really have time for the tour we had planned on (back when we thought we would get to La Fortuna nice and early), so we decided to splurge and spend the whole evening at Tabacon Hot Springs with the rest of the group, rather than just a few hours included in the tour. The hot springs were awesome! It was beautiful there and the water was SO WARM! It was really cool how the vast majority of their pools were naturally occuring. The only disappointment was that it was too cloudy to see the volcano.
Our package included a buffet dinner. It was really good food... except, disappointingly, the desserts. Oh well. I didn't have much room left by that point.
After dinner, there was just enough time for a quick dip again before leaving. One of our drunken classmates sat under a waterfall, ignoring several workers' attempts to lure him out, telling him it was closing time and he had to leave. Eventually, another classmate told him they were calling the police, and he slowly got out at that point. I had made the mistake of putting down a deposit for the whole group's towels and lockers. It was quite an ordeal collecting them all at the end of the night. And then we took a microbus to go back to the hostel. I was frankly embarrassed at the drunken rowdyness of the group.
Sunday, the plan was a hike and then the waterfalls, and then dinner for Nate's birthday. It didn't quite work out, since it took an extra hour or so to leave the hostel and go to breakfast since the whole group wanted to go. Breakfast took longer, too. So, rather than getting to the hike/waterfall place by 9:30, we got there at about noon. When will I learn that things take SO much longer with big groups so that I'm not disappointed when it happens.
We decided to do the hike first, so that we could cool off in the waterfall afterwards. (I should mention that Neil was the only one up for a hike with the Egles.)
It was the coolest hike I’ve ever done. Definitely not for sissies – 2 and a half hours straight up a steep hill and then another hour and a half back down. Most of it was in the rainforest. The view from the top was pretty darn good, too. The destination was the brim of Cerro Chato, a volcano right beside Arenal that has been dormant for 3500 years. Within the crater of Cerro Chato is a beautiful green lagoon that we were able to see. We also go a nice close-up view of a mostly cloud-obscured Arenal.
Neil was a trooper on the hike. He struggled with it quite a bit, but he perservered.
By the time we finally made it back down, the waterfall had already closed for the day, and we had to hurry to get back to the hostel – we were supposed to meet the group there and head to the restaurant together at 5pm.
Luckily, a taxi pulled up right as we finished the hike, and we made it to the hostel at 4:35 or 4:40. Guess what had happened, though: plans had changed. We made it back just in time to see our classmates heading out. The three of us took turns rapidly showering and ended up getting to the restaurant a lot later than everyone else.
Humorous side note: we had a bath towel with us, so that’s what Libby covered up with when it started raining on our walk to the restaurant to keep from getting her white dress wet. She looked like quite an exhibitionist, since it wasn’t completely obvious that she had anything on under the towel.
We had a nice dinner, and Dr. Schnuth was there. She had arranged to surprise Nate with cake. Libby and I shared seabass and fettuccini alfredo. The seabass may have been the best fish I’ve ever had. So good!
After dinner, we went to Baldi’s, the other hot spring place - less luxurious, but still amazing. All of the pools at Baldi’s are man-made, which seemed to be the only major difference. Both have many, many pools with a variety of temperatures (from luke warm to literally scalding hot).
Baldi’s had a few huge waterslides. We were silly and went with the more dare-devil-ish one. There must not be regulations in Costa Rica. Talk about dangerous! We were tossed around violently, a few people nearly getting flung out of the slide half-way down. It was so bad that after about three of us went down, we tried yelling to the top to warn the others, but they couldn’t hear us.
The rest of the time at the hot springs was fun, though. Libby and I ventured off on our own to explore for awhile. We ended up in this relaxing warm pool with a bunch of seats for lounging so that you’re lying down, half-submerged… looking up at the disco ball, of course.
A little bit of frustration at the end of the hot springs: we had arranged for a microbus to pick us up at 10pm, when the park closed. Nate and Dennis, though, were nowhere to be found. Dennis had made the arrangements, so we know he knew about it, but where were they? We sent Sean to find them, and he said they were just getting back to the lockerroom. We ended up waiting for about a half an hour for them.
When they finally showed up, they each had a girl-in-tow, meaning that not all of them would fit in the microbus, so they decided to take a cab... After all that waiting! I felt so bad for the driver, who had waited so long and was charging per person.
After Baldi’s, everyone went to a “karaoke” bar next door to the hostel, at Nate’s request for his birthday. That was a bust. There was no karaoke; there was no Nate. Libby didn’t feel well, so we went home and went to sleep.
The next morning was Monday, our voyage back. Before getting picked up at the hostel at 1pm by Alvarro, we were determined to squeeze in a hanging bridge canopy tour.
Neil and Alisha joined us, and we ended up hiring the same microbus driver from Baldi’s (so apparently he had no hard feelings). In the van, we were debating the merits of paying the extra $10 per person for a guide, but when we arrived and found out there was a $10 student discount on admission, we decided that was God’s way of telling us to get a guide.
Edgar was his name. He shod us around. I thought he was a good guide. He taught us about leaf-cutting ants, bromeliads, walking palms, pal tree roots, monkey ladders, gambas (thick roots), and other things that we may not have pait attention to otherwise. Edgar’s weak point, though, was either his luck or his ability to spot animals. A few other guides would excitedly tell him where to spot snakes or monkeys, but when we got there, he couldn’t find them.
The walk itself was really nice. The bridges, though well constructed, were scary. We ranged from really high up to ground-level. We went by a waterfall. Edgar was very nice and patient and was willing to spend as much time with us as we had.
At the end, his patience led to us needing to rush to make it back to the hostel in time. Just as we were about to exit the park, though, we finally, saw some monkeys: spider monkeys.
We ended up getting to the hostel in plenty of time, and we all made it back, safe and sound, to Santa Ana.
So, another weekend trip down.... we went to La Fortuna/Arenal (the biggest active volcano in the world or the most active or some superlative like that).
We planned the trip last week as a group. That was a painful process - some people wanted a luxurious hotel one night and a cheap place the next night, some people wanted medium places for two nights, some people wanted a cheap place for two nights; some people wanted to do whatever possible for everyone to stay at the same hotel, some people would have preferred more privacy. To spare the gory details of the 90-minute discussion/argument/meeting, we eventually decided to stay in a hostel in La Fortuna, the little town just west of the volcano Arenal. All of us in the same, cheap place. One room of bunk beds for 8 people, one room with 2 queen-sized beds for the other four. Libby and I would get one of the queen beds and the rest was pretty much up in the air.Friday at the clinic, rather than ending at noon like we've done the previous weeks (tough life, eh?), we had a full day, but we were given Monday off. The reason for the late Friday was that one of the founders of FIMRC (the organization for which we're working) came to visit the clinic. He gave us a talk that took most of the day. It was really interesting hearing the story of how the organization was born among a group of 5 college buddies, how it took off quickly in terms of fund-raising (more quickly than growing in terms of actually doing things), and what his visions for the future of FIMRC are.
The founder, Vic, was an impressive guy. He helped to found this international group while he was in college and continued to work on it full-time throughout med school and now as a surgery resident.
Anyway, Friday night, everyone went to the Struthers's house for a little fiesta, in part to celebrate Nate's and Neil's birthdays (February 10 and 13, respectively). That was fun. A small group of us played charades for quite some time, and by the end of it, pretty much everyone had joined in.
It was a bit frustrating that plans started to change again. Half of the group was going to go to a jazz cafe in San Jose and then stay in the city overnight. Alvarro (our driver) was going to come pick us up at 7:30am Saturday in Santa Ana and 8am in San Jose before heading to La Fortuna. However, Friday night people got tired (read: "drunk and weary of inevitable hangover") and decided not to stay in San Jose, and thus people decided not to have Alvarro start picking us up until 9am. Libby and I hadn't really wanted to get a ride from Alvarro in the first place (we could've taken a public bus for $40 less) but we'd compromised for the sake of people who wanted to all got together, and we suddenly found the arrangement we'd agreed to (arriving no later than 11am) changing and the drunken majority overruling us. Argh!
After getting to the hostel, we went to lunch. Well, we tried going to lunch. Even after the group decided we'd go to lunch together, half of the people ditched the other half. Libby and I were among the ditched half.
We went to lunch, and at the end, if was kind of weird. We paid the bill, and the waiter counted the money at the table and promptly informed us that tip was not included in the bill. This was weird for two reasons:
1) In Costa Rica 2 taxes are always included - service (tip) and sales
2) when we were looking at the meny initially, I pointed out to the group that I thought it was funny that literally the only text on the menu that wasn't printed in both Spanish and English was the two lines that said those taxes were included. So, we tried asking the waiter about this, but he seemed sketchy and gave us a non-answer, so I think Alisha might have added 200 colones (40 cents), and we left.
By this time, we didn't really have time for the tour we had planned on (back when we thought we would get to La Fortuna nice and early), so we decided to splurge and spend the whole evening at Tabacon Hot Springs with the rest of the group, rather than just a few hours included in the tour. The hot springs were awesome! It was beautiful there and the water was SO WARM! It was really cool how the vast majority of their pools were naturally occuring. The only disappointment was that it was too cloudy to see the volcano.
Our package included a buffet dinner. It was really good food... except, disappointingly, the desserts. Oh well. I didn't have much room left by that point.
After dinner, there was just enough time for a quick dip again before leaving. One of our drunken classmates sat under a waterfall, ignoring several workers' attempts to lure him out, telling him it was closing time and he had to leave. Eventually, another classmate told him they were calling the police, and he slowly got out at that point. I had made the mistake of putting down a deposit for the whole group's towels and lockers. It was quite an ordeal collecting them all at the end of the night. And then we took a microbus to go back to the hostel. I was frankly embarrassed at the drunken rowdyness of the group.
Sunday, the plan was a hike and then the waterfalls, and then dinner for Nate's birthday. It didn't quite work out, since it took an extra hour or so to leave the hostel and go to breakfast since the whole group wanted to go. Breakfast took longer, too. So, rather than getting to the hike/waterfall place by 9:30, we got there at about noon. When will I learn that things take SO much longer with big groups so that I'm not disappointed when it happens.
We decided to do the hike first, so that we could cool off in the waterfall afterwards. (I should mention that Neil was the only one up for a hike with the Egles.)
It was the coolest hike I’ve ever done. Definitely not for sissies – 2 and a half hours straight up a steep hill and then another hour and a half back down. Most of it was in the rainforest. The view from the top was pretty darn good, too. The destination was the brim of Cerro Chato, a volcano right beside Arenal that has been dormant for 3500 years. Within the crater of Cerro Chato is a beautiful green lagoon that we were able to see. We also go a nice close-up view of a mostly cloud-obscured Arenal.Neil was a trooper on the hike. He struggled with it quite a bit, but he perservered.
By the time we finally made it back down, the waterfall had already closed for the day, and we had to hurry to get back to the hostel – we were supposed to meet the group there and head to the restaurant together at 5pm.
Luckily, a taxi pulled up right as we finished the hike, and we made it to the hostel at 4:35 or 4:40. Guess what had happened, though: plans had changed. We made it back just in time to see our classmates heading out. The three of us took turns rapidly showering and ended up getting to the restaurant a lot later than everyone else.
Humorous side note: we had a bath towel with us, so that’s what Libby covered up with when it started raining on our walk to the restaurant to keep from getting her white dress wet. She looked like quite an exhibitionist, since it wasn’t completely obvious that she had anything on under the towel.
We had a nice dinner, and Dr. Schnuth was there. She had arranged to surprise Nate with cake. Libby and I shared seabass and fettuccini alfredo. The seabass may have been the best fish I’ve ever had. So good!
After dinner, we went to Baldi’s, the other hot spring place - less luxurious, but still amazing. All of the pools at Baldi’s are man-made, which seemed to be the only major difference. Both have many, many pools with a variety of temperatures (from luke warm to literally scalding hot).
Baldi’s had a few huge waterslides. We were silly and went with the more dare-devil-ish one. There must not be regulations in Costa Rica. Talk about dangerous! We were tossed around violently, a few people nearly getting flung out of the slide half-way down. It was so bad that after about three of us went down, we tried yelling to the top to warn the others, but they couldn’t hear us.
The rest of the time at the hot springs was fun, though. Libby and I ventured off on our own to explore for awhile. We ended up in this relaxing warm pool with a bunch of seats for lounging so that you’re lying down, half-submerged… looking up at the disco ball, of course.
A little bit of frustration at the end of the hot springs: we had arranged for a microbus to pick us up at 10pm, when the park closed. Nate and Dennis, though, were nowhere to be found. Dennis had made the arrangements, so we know he knew about it, but where were they? We sent Sean to find them, and he said they were just getting back to the lockerroom. We ended up waiting for about a half an hour for them.
When they finally showed up, they each had a girl-in-tow, meaning that not all of them would fit in the microbus, so they decided to take a cab... After all that waiting! I felt so bad for the driver, who had waited so long and was charging per person.
After Baldi’s, everyone went to a “karaoke” bar next door to the hostel, at Nate’s request for his birthday. That was a bust. There was no karaoke; there was no Nate. Libby didn’t feel well, so we went home and went to sleep.
The next morning was Monday, our voyage back. Before getting picked up at the hostel at 1pm by Alvarro, we were determined to squeeze in a hanging bridge canopy tour.
Neil and Alisha joined us, and we ended up hiring the same microbus driver from Baldi’s (so apparently he had no hard feelings). In the van, we were debating the merits of paying the extra $10 per person for a guide, but when we arrived and found out there was a $10 student discount on admission, we decided that was God’s way of telling us to get a guide.
Edgar was his name. He shod us around. I thought he was a good guide. He taught us about leaf-cutting ants, bromeliads, walking palms, pal tree roots, monkey ladders, gambas (thick roots), and other things that we may not have pait attention to otherwise. Edgar’s weak point, though, was either his luck or his ability to spot animals. A few other guides would excitedly tell him where to spot snakes or monkeys, but when we got there, he couldn’t find them.
The walk itself was really nice. The bridges, though well constructed, were scary. We ranged from really high up to ground-level. We went by a waterfall. Edgar was very nice and patient and was willing to spend as much time with us as we had.
At the end, his patience led to us needing to rush to make it back to the hostel in time. Just as we were about to exit the park, though, we finally, saw some monkeys: spider monkeys.
We ended up getting to the hostel in plenty of time, and we all made it back, safe and sound, to Santa Ana.
1 comentario:
My favorite part of this blog was the part about Libby wandering about with a bath towel :-)
She is getting more and more scandalous!
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