La Pura Vida--The Costa Rican Good Life

David and Dylan in the breakfast room of Hotel Grano de Oro

These crocs are a lot bigger than they look in the picture! This was the only picture I got before my camera ran out of battery and my extra one was back in the van.

Our "personal chef" hard at work preparing our first dinner.

After the trauma of the puffer machine, we flew without event to San Jose, Costa Rica, where Kelly had arranged for a van to take us to Hotel Grano de Oro, where we checked in and went to bed. But not before being invited out to dinner by the kids senior and junior who were rarin’ to go. It was then almost midnight. We passed on the invite in true old fogey fashion and retired. Too bad it was so late because the next morning we discovered that the hotel is a lovely period piece which reminded me of a Sidney Greenstreet movie replete with lazy ceiling fans, a breakfast room all rattan and stained glass surrounded by balconies that opened to the sky and lush greenery that threatened to devour the space and everything in it. For breakfast I had a coddled egg with cream and caviar garnished with crispy toast sticks. Absolutely delicious and elegant, my dahlings. I was then truly over my airport indignities.

But alas, dallying was not to be. At ten, we all piled into our van with Alvaro, our driver, and proceeded, first to the grocery store for cerveza, coca, agua, and huelo, and then toward our destination, Manuel Antonio, the little town where our palatial villa would be waiting. We stopped for a leisurely lunch at a beautiful Marriott resort, Los Suenos, but otherwise we were pretty much hell bent for election over mountains, streams and harrowingly narrow bridges all the while accomplishing our mission which was to “experience the countryside.” We did make one other stop to see crocodiles floating menacingly in an otherwise quiet river, co-existing with some Brahmin cattle who were unconcerned by their twenty-foot long neighbors.

Manuel Antonio is booming. Kelly and David had stayed here a year ago and apparently the building since then is astounding with hotels, condos, private homes, restaurants and all the other accoutrements of the “discovered” area evident everywhere. But we didn’t linger; rather we bee-lined to our Villa El Cantico which if you are interested you can check out on the internet. Melissa and Kevin, our house managers, were there to meet us and Kelly got a rousing chorus of “Kelly is great, Kelly is great” when we realized that we truly were going to be royalty in a palace for the next eight or nine days. Our “personal chefs” were already at work preparing dinner which we had arranged beforehand and the results were amazing. But first, we explored the house which is on at least four levels with a gourmet kitchen and dining room, great room and media room on the main level, and bedrooms and office on levels above. The great room looks out onto a gorgeous pool with sunken barstools where you can belly up to a bar with fridge and stainless steel grill. Beyond the pool is jungle where several varieties of monkeys frolic (although only Mark and Martha, up at five this morning, have seen them thus far) and beyond that is the mighty Pacific Ocean and the Manuel Antonio beach. We were quite content last night to sit by the pool, have a toddy or two and be served dinner at the appointed hour by Gilbert and forgot-his-name the other one. Dinner was a beautiful shrimp salad which alone would have sufficed, but after that we had grilled lobsters, rice and beans, veggies and an artfully presented torte for dessert. Whatever shall we do when we have to go back to the real world?

This morning we cooked our own breakfast (just to stay in practice) and afterwards, David, Mark, Tom and I took a taxi into the town for supplies. We don’t have a rented car—not practical for so many people—so we call taxis when we need to go somewhere and they magically appear about five minutes later. First stop: ATM machine at a bank. The guys went in while I waited in the car with Gilbert (another Gilbert) the driver. He had said that maybe this ATM wouldn’t have money because yesterday they didn’t but luckily the armoured car was there with guards armed with rifles looking very mean and while he and I were waiting in the car a guy got out of the truck with a huge armload of money while the armed guard looked even meaner and brandished his rifle in evey direction. I commented to Gilbert that this was fairly unusual and he shrugged and said in essence that it’s all bluster and if there was an actual heist that the guard wouldn’t know what to do.

Cash was procured without incident and then Mark asked Gilbert if he could stop somewhere where they could buy some Cuban cigars (big treat, they’re actually legal almost everywhere but in the US) so he pulls up in front of a little shop with a sign Fuego Sex Shop in front, but I figure hey it’s only cigars they want so once more I wait in the car and the guys go in. After that we had uneventful trips to the grocery store and the fish market to buy fish for ceviche and then home.

This afternoon we went to the beach in Manuel Antonio, the one we can see from our house, and not surprisingly, we can see the house from the beach as well, an impressive sight indeed. We had lunch in a little dive called the Marlin, probably the best Mahi Mahi I’ve ever had and then watched the kids taking a surfing lesson. I haven’t tried posting pictures yet, but I hope I can show you our two stars and resident surfing dudes, Michael and Dylan. They were old pros in no time. The girls did great as well, but I couldn’t get any pictures of them. Maybe next time.

Tonight we had a real rain storm with the loudest thunder any of us has ever heard and some very impressive lightning so it’s just as well we had decided to stay in and eat the ceviche I had prepared and some wonderful Colombian concoction that Martha whipped up out of the leftover rice and salsa and some eggs. We sat outside until the rain really got going and the thunder was fearsome and then decided to come in. Dylan said the thunder crack was really loud, and I said it’s thunder clap, not crack and then someone else said that Dylan sometimes says crap when he means clap, and then we made up a tongue twister—clap, crap, crack—and I defy you to say that even once let alone three times. It’s impossible. We found that unbearably amusing and after a major attack of the giggles went to bed where I lie now finishing up this blog which I hope to post tonight or tomorrow early. Good night my dears!

WARNING! If you can’t stand a whiner do not read the following blog! I wrote it Sunday still smarting from my unfair and discriminatory treatment at the airport and in re-reading I do detect an ever so slight air of self-pity which I am not proud of. I could just erase the whole thing and no one would ever know. But on the other hand, I think we are all entitled to know what it has come to in these United States when a grandmother of 12 ½ children cannot get on a plane without harassment.

With that caveat, you may read or skip the following:

November 18, 2007

Why does the make ready for a trip always seem so endless? We didn’t leave home til 3:00 today, a good thing actually, since we didn’t have to be ready at the crack of dawn, but still…here we are on the plane FINALLY, it’s just after six and we have a four hour flight ahead of us. I’m a little cranky because I got the “treatment” again at the check in after being treatment-free for the last year or so, including during the entire Asia/Ireland extravaganza.. A couple of years ago, I was apparently on the terrorist Master List. I was singled out almost every time I flew someplace—no, EVERY time I flew some place—for “special treatment” which included everything from ordinary rudeness to being pulled aside and frisked to being put in the dreaded Puffer Machine, which happened at the end of a lovely trip to Las Vegas. Then we went to Asia and Ireland and I was treated like an upstanding citizen the whole time! This happy experience unfortunately rendered me complacent because I was completely unprepared for today’s ordeal. At home I had made sure my jewelry was minimal and had worn no belts or metal objects on my person. There were no suspicious liquids in my purse nor did I carry any pointed objects or weapons. At security, I innocently put my stuff in the containers, took off my shoes, and then confidently walked through the initial screener. No sirens or whistles went off. Home free I thought.

But noooo. The very nice attendant smiled and said, “have you ever been in the puffer machine?” Alarmed, I said, “Yes, and I don’t like it! It scares me.” “Well close your eyes,” she said and unceremoniously pointed me toward the phone booth-like contrivance which determines if you are fit to fly or bound for prison.

Not that I am looking for sympathy or anything, but even as an old hand at the puffer routine, it was just as scary as before. It just about takes the hair off your exposed skin which I’ll admit is a brief unpleasantness, but then, having been totally unnerved by that, there are two bright red lights which blink at you and a sign which says “DON’T MOVE UNTIL THE LIGHTS TURN GREEN!” This takes about an hour and a half. Well, maybe not that long, but it feels that way. When the lights finally turned green I was ushered out of the torture chamber and having passed that test (or maybe not), I was then given the spread eagle treatment and patted down by Chatty Cathy, who asked me if there were any sensitive parts on my body where I didn’t want to be touched (well, yeah!), because if so we could do this in some private place god knows where, and what was wrong with my one shoulder and why was it smaller than the other one (arthritis says I), and weren’t we going to have a great time in wherever it was we were going, and have a nice day. Having passed that test, one would think I would be sent on my way, but NO! Another nice man said he had to check all my stuff which he did with great care, all the while chatting amiably and when finished he asked if it had been explained to me why I had been given such a careful examination. No. Because the initial screener detected a substance on my body which is used to make bombs! Oh swell! I don’t even wear perfume, sez I, I’m allergic to it! He just smiled and said who knows where one picks up these contaminants. I was then free to go, almost in tears, to which my dear and loving husband said “get over it.”

At least the Gestapo here was courteous and friendly, which is more than I can say for the crowd in Las Vegas where a similar incident occurred.

After that fiasco, we met up with the rest of the group, had a couple of gin and tonics in the Irish Pub and I am officially over it. But I’ll go on record yet again—I hate to fly! Maybe they sense that and treat me accordingly. Can’t wait to get there where I promise my frame of mind will be from this moment forward uniformly cheerful and perky.

The next entry will probably be tomorrow en route to our palatial villa where I will be treated like a queen for the next ten days. I hope.