Another weekend, another bunch of travel

I am so tired of traveling. If I could sleep in strange places, or on planes, I think I'd be a happier camper. But since I can't, traveling every weekend means sleep deprivation all weekend, which makes me a very whiny person. Luckily, this should be my last travel weekend in a while, though I am planning on sleeping in a hotel for several nights next week. Have a class for work down in Santa Clara and don't want to do the almost 3 hours commute during rush hour per day it'll be to get down there. But it'll just be me in the hotel room, and it'll be a stable place to stay, so it should be ok.

Nothing about this past weekend was stable. I flew on a redeye Thursday night to Boston, getting maybe 2 hours of sleep on and off during the flight. I got to my sister's dorm room around 9:30am, tried to nap on her bed (and only partially succeeding b/c it was stuffy as hell in her dorm room and she came in and out a few times to talk to my other sister, who was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor) until around 12:30 and then got up to meet my mom. Spent the afternoon with her, walking to Chinatown (and walking back with a bunch of drinks that were nice and heavy) in the rain, getting noodles at Pho Pasteur, and generally chatting with her. Skipped dinner because we had such a late and large lunch, and went directly to my little sister's a capella concert to meet up with my older sister. The concert was lovely - my sister had an amazing solo to "The Tower" by Vienna Teng, which sounded even better than the first recording of it I'd heard despite the fact that she'd been fighting a cough for weeks. It was the last concert of the year so they were saying goodbye to all the seniors, so the evening was an interesting blend of the touching/sentimental, the humorous (they did little skits), and just great singing.

Then it was to bed around 1-1:30AM only to not be able to fall asleep *at all* while sharing a double with my mom. I finally moved to the living room (this was my mom's friend's apartment) to sleep on the couch at 4:30AM and got about 2 hours of sleep between 5-7AM. Then it was time to taxi over to the airport, pick up a rental car, and drive the 5.5 hours to Ithaca, NY, stopping at Syracuse on the way to pick up a friend from the airport (who had his own share of travel difficulties). Had enough time to try to nap for 45 minutes (no luck, the rooms faced a central pool area and there were kids playing and screeching), get dressed, and run off to the wedding we were in Ithaca for. The wedding itself was really nice - on the shores of one of the Finger Lakes, on a sunny day, with the sun shining on the glimmering water behind the happy couple. The reception was also outdoors so I ended up wearing my bf's suit jacket most of the night. Had Chilean sea bass for the first time, which was quite yummy - all melty and not fishy at all. Actually danced a bit even though I'm a crappy-ass self-conscious dancer, and had fun laughing at my friends as they goofed on the dance floor. We knew a number of people at the wedding, so we had a nice evening. I left early, though, around 10:30PM, so I could try to grab some sleep before driving back to Boston the next day.

In bed around 12:30-ish, bf returned at 2AM, waking me up by mistake, woke up again at 4am with a terribly dry mouth..finally woke up for good at 8:30AM thinking I was rested enough, and taking off for Boston around 9:45AM or so. Apparently I wasn't entirely right. The drive the day before had been not great b/c I was tired and my judgment towards the end of the drive was pretty off (pulling into parking places right next to large SUVs that were opening their door), but at least I was pretty much alert and awake if not thinking 100% straight. The drive on Sunday was harder b/c I was sleepier and closer to falling asleep for more of it. Maybe because I wasn't drinking a steady stream of milk tea while driving, as I had the day before. I made it to Boston safely, though, in time to grab an early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with my sisters and mom for Mother's Day (they had a 45 minute wait even at 3:45PM!). Managed to spend almost 1.5 hours with them before running for the airport in order to return my car and make it to my 6:40PM flight. Finally got home around 11PM only to discover the huge load of laundry I'd left on my bed Thursday night, so I had to fold all that before I could go to sleep.

All in all, a very tiring weekend with some pleasant moments - a nice afternoon with my mom, a great concert for my sister and her group, a nice wedding and some time to hang out with friends - and a lot of driving, travel, and sleeplessness. Whine...

New Orleans

I have a friend who says she blogs in order to keep up her writing skills.

I apparently blog to brain dump, without taking the time to make sure my syntax, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc are even remotely close to correct. I wonder if that means this blog is actually degrading my writing skills. Oh well.

My surgery 2 weeks ago had the fortunate timing of needing to happen when I wasn't out of the country - in Argentina or Canada. It had the unfortunate timing of happening in the middle of 5 consecutive weekends of planned travel. I cancelled one trip (sigh) but this past weekend had another planned, to New Orleans for a friend's bridal shower/bachelorette party type trip. Luckily, I was already feeling almost close to normal, so going on this trip wasn't as much of a post-op issue as I had feared.

I've never been to New Orleans before, and it was neat to visit a new city in the US. My rather short time there was spent primarily in the French Quarter and at Jazz Fest, since I arrived around 1AM Friday night/Saturday morning and left around 6:30PM Sunday. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really quite liked the French Quarter - the narrow streets lined with little boutiques, shops, and restaurants, the Southern architecture with the wide balconies and verandas (my new fact of the day - verandas are covered balconies), the generally quaint feel that wasn't quite European but certainly wasn't like the big Eastern/Western cities I've visited in the US. The one odd thing was the plethora of SUV and minivan taxis. Not something I'm used to seeing. Our wanderings took us down Royal St to Jackson Square, which was quite pleasant, to Cafe Du Monde (ridiculously long but fast-moving line!) for beignets (to be honest, slightly disappointing - I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't fried dough). We then wandered over to the French Market, which I liked quite a lot. It was a covered open air structure, several blocks long, with a number of stalls and tables set up with all sorts of neat little arts, crafts, souvenirs, etc. I think I particularly liked that it wasn't cramped and it wasn't crowded, and it was quite bright, so the whole experience was just pretty pleasant. I got a $20 set of pewter jewelry (looks like bright silver, kind of) that I quite liked, and also bought a scented candle for my mom (b/c the other girls were all getting some and they needed a certain number to ship).

After the French Market, we made our way back to the Windsor Court Hotel for afternoon tea. Tea is such a female thing to do - I looked around and there was only one man in there the entire time we were there, and he didn't look too happy to be there. It's all soft music and sitting around in elegant tables with tea and cute little sandwiches and cakes. It was pretty nice, though, I'll admit. I'm not a fan of tea at all but I decided to try the Jasmine b/c it was supposed to be very light... and then poured in a lot of milk and sugar. I think I liked the four fruit tea a lot better when I finally tried it. But the food was good, and plentiful - I didn't end up being able to eat my dessert chocolate covered strawberry or chocolate truffles or cream puff, I was so full. Then it was back to the hotel to veg a bit and do some bridal shower activities - a couple games, opening presents. Then napping and relaxing until dinner.

For dinner, my friends were all determined to get boiled crawfish by the pound. We went to one restaurant that was well known for it, but the line was long and slow, so we ended up going to Felix's across the street, which had more crawfish for a better deal and almost no line. I'm lazy and not particularly inclined to work hard for my food, so I was the one person who didn't get crawfish - I got a Cajun sampler instead, consisting of jambalaya (too spicy for me), crawfish etouffe (ok), and red beans and rice (surprisingly my favorite). It was amusing watching my friends busily cracking into their pile of crawfish, which they all seemed to enjoy immensely. Afterwards, we wandered around Bourbon St a bit. From an observer's standpoint (which is what I tend to be), it was rather interesting - a whole street closed down and reserved for pedestrian traffic, all the open bars and restaurants and such which made it so people would just wander in and out of the street, people carrying drinks down the street... it was like one big open air party. The only thing is, I don't particularly like being around drunk people, particularly drunk people I don't know who approach me and try to give me beads, or call one of my friends uptight. So after the novelty wore off, I was a bit over it. Probably doesn't help that I don't drink, I don't actually like bars or clubs, and I was getting a bit tired from the long day. After getting daiquiries and jello shots at one of the numerous daiquiri stands lining the street, which resembled soda fountains except with daiquiri machines lining the wall instead of a soda fountain, and which sold pizza by the slice, my friends walked me back to the hotel before wandering out for a couple more hours.

Sunday morning opened with brunch at the Court of Two Sisters, which was quite nice. We sat in the cute outdoor pavilion with a fountain nearby, gazebo next to us, little well across the way, and live music in the back. The food was pretty yummy (it's too bad my appetite has been diminished since the surgery since I would have liked to eat more) and it was a nice way to start the day. We then split up so 3 of us went to Jazz Fest (one was leaving early, one kept her company, and one was very interested in historical stuff so she went to do a tour of the Katrina areas). Jazz Fest was neat - it was basically on a horse racetrack/fairgrounds, with several large stages set up all around, arts and crafts booths, and a ton of food. What particularly appealed to me was that they had 3 or 4 large tents set up that actually had folding chairs and bleachers *and* were covered from the sun, so we spent some time enjoying blues in one tent and jazz in another (I like blues better). The arts and crafts were cute, though more enjoyable to look at earlier in the day when there were less people, and it was kind of fascinating reading the signs and seeing just how many things you can do with crawfish. We wandered by a few of the other stages, but the main stage was set up so loud and with such booming bass that it felt like the bass was trying to make our hearts beat a new rhythm, which was quite uncomfortable. So we didn't stay near any stage for longer than a song or so. The overall experience was nice though - interesting music of different varieties, interesting food (I tried half a chicken po'boy, and half a pulled pork po'boy - liked the pork better), and interesting sights. We had to leave around 3PM so we missed the big names (Santana, etc) but by then it was getting really crowded and really hot, so we weren't too sad to go.

Overall, it was a fun weekend, and an interesting glimpse at New Orleans.

Slowly twisting..in the wind...twisting twisting

Well, the last couple weeks of my life have been...unexpected.

Embarked on a trip to Argentina with tons of plans and research and enthusiasm.

Flight to Buenos Aires was delayed like 3 hours, so we got to camp out on the floor of the Miami airport, waiting for our flight. OK, that sucks but we deal. First half-day in Buenos Aires was nice, if a bit subdued since it seems the entire city was shut down since it was Sunday. Almost no traffic, few people, most stores closed. We still got a nice walking tour down Calle Florida (the pedestrian shopping street where some of the shops were open) down past the Casa Rosada where we snapped some photos (including some of the neighboring historical buildings), all the way to San Telmo to find the Sunday antique market. We accidentally went into the local municipal market instead, which was fairly neat - lots of booths of antiques and old stuff, including lots of records, etc - and finally found ourselves at the antique market which was full of people and booths and neat art. We watched an elderly couple tango near the square, and bought some roasted peanuts from a street vendor, and then wandered into a cute little courtyard with cute little shops off of it. We then walked back up I think the Calle Defensa or something like that, which was also a quite busy street with street performers, street mimes, and a lot of shops and such. We wound up in a cafe to try some empanadas and local desserts (I got a gigantic dulce de leche flan which I had to eat mostly myself, while my friends split a dulce de leche crepe) for kind of a late afternoon snack, and finally wound up in Puerto Madero, where we were planning on having dinner. Since 5PM (after a 4PM snack) seemed way too early to eat, we started exploring the area before getting driven to cover by a sudden rainshower. We discovered that the entire port area was filled with a lot of restaurants but basically no stores, and broken up by several buildings of the Catholic University. We crossed the bridge over into the area across the water but only found more new looking upscale restaurants. Not the most exciting thing in the world, particularly since it was way before Buenos Aires dinnertime. We finally ended up going to the restaurant, Siga La Vaca, early. This was an Argentinian BBQ restaurant recommended by a friend, and I have to say it was rather disappointing. The salad bar was quite nice but the meat was all overcooked and there were no interesting cuts we were able to identify. What was impressive was that each of us got either a bottle of wine (full bottle), bottle of beer, or pitcher of soda with our meals, so we had a lot to drink (one wine, 3 sodas). We also got dessert - my chocolate volcano cake was huge and a bit overly sweet, but had a raspberry sauce and was decent. After dinner, we walked back to our hostel (V&S Hostel Club), passing by the back of Casa Rosada, as well as an arena where apparently a Bryan Adams concert was being held.

Got derailed the first morning (second day) when I woke up with severe lower abdominal pain, localized to the left lower abdomen (which meant very unlikely to be appendicitis unless I was backwards). Probably freaked out my friends who woke up to me whimpering on my bed and then running to the bathroom to dry heave. Fun for all! Of course, we had a flight to Trelew/Puerto Madryn in just a couple hours so all they could do was feed me motrin, pack my stuff up, and bundle me into the taxi to the airport. I vomited (sort of) again at the airport, and then curled up in a ball waiting for the plane. I really really wanted to see the penguins at Punta Tombo, especially since I'd arranged the tour and done the research, but by the time I got to Trelew airport, it was pretty evident I was in no shape to go bumping around in a bus and wandering around looking at stuff. The tour guide was very sweet and very concerned, and called for the shuttle bus to Puerto Madryn to pull over so they could transfer me aboard and get me to our hotel, where I spent the rest of the day napping and trying not to move so as not to aggravate the pain. By the time my friends returned in the late evening, I was feeling better, enough to partake of some of the Welsh pastries they brought me back from their Welsh tea, but not enough to go out to dinner with them. My meals that day therefore consisted of some powerbars and some Welsh pastries. Healthy! At least the hotel was nice - I highly recommend the Solar de la Costa. It's not downtown (apparently it's a 15 minute walk away) but it's on the waterline with a nice view, the rooms are clean and pretty and cute, the bathrooms are sparkling and large and modern, and if I had to hole up somewhere for a day, there are far worse places to do it! Like the V&S.

So, day 2 in Argentina for me: Wake up in pain. Travel in pain. Sit in (very nice) hotel in pain. Eat Welsh pastries.

Day 3 I was determined not to miss out on everything, and I was feeling better, so I went on the Peninsula Valdes tour with everybody. The tour we originally booked - Tito Bottazzi - had mechanical problems with their bus so they were over an hour late. My friends got fed up and called our company from the first day - Cuyun Co - who had a later departure, and we ended up going with them. Though not before Tito Bottazzi showed up (even though our hotel had called them to cancel). Slightly awkward. That was not the best time of the year to visit Peninsula Valdes (mid-April) so we didn't see that many animals, but we did see some, which was nice. The area around there is all very flat, dry steppe - lots of brush but not very interesting landscape, so we all ended up sleeping a great deal on the bus since there were long transits between every stop. I discovered that I could look at animals if they weren't too far from where the bus stopped, but walking or standing for a while wasn't fun, so I ended up squatting on paths taking photos, or just sitting and staying behind when there was a longer walk involved. Saw a couple elephant seals, a cute colony of Magellanic penguins in the side of a hill, some guanacos (big llama looking mammals), armadillos (trundling their way across the parking lots), rheas (I think - ostrich looking birds), and lots and lots of sea lions. Less than you'd usually see, but more sea lions than any other animal. We were told how there is a colony of I believe 21 orcas in the area, and of these only 7 know how to do the beaching behavior that apparently only these orcas do, where they deliberately beach themselves in order to catch baby sea lions during high tide. And of those 7, only 2 of them teach it to others. Unfortunately we weren't there during high tide but apparently a few had been spotted that morning at 7am. Had a very late lunch in Puerto Piramides, the final stop on our tour (all the other places you usually eat were closed for the season) and then headed back to Puerto Madryn. At this point I was starting to feel worse again, though not nearly as bad as the previous day, so I opted to stay in the hotel (where I watched a ton of silly American TV subtitled in Spanish) while my friends went to get dinner in the city. This time they brought me back a ham sandwich =).

Day 4 was partially a travel day, as we caught a bus back to Trelew to fly back to Buenos Aires. I still wasn't feeling very hot, so I stayed in the hostel (not nearly as nice - I had a top bunk b/c everyone was afraid of falling off, and everytime I moved, which was frequently b/c I was so uncomfortable from the abdominal discomfort, the whole thing swayed) while my friends explored the city. They booked all of us to go see a tango show that night at the Cafe Tortoni, assuming I'd be better by then, so I hobbled my way the 8 blocks to the restaurant, through some really unpleasant smoke in the air (turns out the farmers outside Buenos Aires decided to try to clear land by burning it, it got out of hand, and Buenos Aires ended up filled with smoke for days) to watch the show. Had my first real meal in days there - a beef steak with salad - and watched a rather amusing show that started off with all this drama we didn't understand b/c it was all in Spanish, but finally went into entertainment we did understand - singing, tango dancing, band playing, and these two amazing dancers with these long cords they whipped around themselves and struck on the floor to make noise, creating some elaborate rhythms and neverending movements of their arms. That was pretty neat. The walk there and back not so fun, but at least I got to see some genuine Argentinian *something* in Buenos Aires, having missed all the other activities of the day.

That night we were rather concerned about how long the pain was lasting and I found my ER doctor sister online, so there was medical consultation late into the night. Having ruled out most urgent things, we decided to just manage the pain and hope it went away.

Thursday we traveled to Iguazu Falls - that was a pure travel day b/c we left too late to really do much in Buenos Aires (we walked to a nearby mall where I once again parked myself in a chair while everyone else wandered around) and got to Iguazu too late to actually do anything there. We checked into our rather cutely rustic little hotel - the Riotropic - that was way off the main drag (as in, through the red unpaved mud roads), asked our very nice hotel owner for info, and then took a taxi into town for dinner. After making stops to get money from the ATM, we wound up at the El Quincho del Tío Querido which was really good. We all really enjoyed that restaurant. Three of us got dishes with the local river whitefish, the surubi, which was tender and yummy. One of us was smart and got the Lomo Michael which was a beef tenderloin cooked to perfection in a delicious sweetish sauce that we all sopped up and kept eating long after we couldn't eat any more meat. There was live music and a nice waiter, as well as fresh blended fruit drinks, and we were all very happy with the restaurant. After dinner, my friends went souvenir shopping while I found a stump to sit on, and then walked to buy us more water from a supermarket while I...found a bench to sit on. The same taxi driver took us back to our hotel, where we hit the sack so we'd be rested for a long day exploring the falls the next day.

Or at least, I tried to hit the sack. Intensely uncomfortable all night long (the pain wasn't very severe but it was persistent whenever I lay down in any position, so I had to sit up), I couldn't sleep until like 4am, and everyone was waking up at 7am so I decided to try to sleep longer and meet them in the park at noon. I actually felt better after sleeping, took a cab to the park (where I discovered I didn't have enough Argentinian pesos to pay both the entrance fee and the cab driver, so I ended up getting slightly ripped off paying him with US cash) and actually got to see a large portion of the Argentinian park. I missed the Isle de San Martin and most of the Lower Circuit, but I did the Devil's Throat circuit, the Upper Circuit, one of the Iguazu Jungle Explorer tours where we took a 4x4 into the jungle (saw a toucan or two), then a boat down the river to the falls, including a dousing under the San Martin falls, and part of the Lower Circuit in order to walk back from the boat dock. That day I only needed to sit from time to time (like on the train to the Devil's Throat and maybe twice on the walk there) but was able to climb the stairs out of the boat and actually run to the trailhead before they closed it of the upper circuit. So that was a good day. Dinner was at El Charo in Puerto Iguazu, where we each got a tenderloin (lomo) steak with a different sauce. Not as good as El Quincho but decent.

Our last day in Argentina was again a travel day. We weren't flying out until 2pm from Iguazu but no one wanted to hit the park again (they saw all the trails) and the intense rainfall from about 3am until 9am completely obliterated any thought I might have of trying to do the remaining trail in the park myself. Instead, we just bummed around the hotel until noon, and then took a cab to the airport. I wasn't feeling stellar, though nowhere as bad as Monday, so I was still sitting a lot in the airport. From the local airport, we cabbed (long ride) directly to the international airport, and then did some duty free shopping there. Dinner was some fairly lame sandwiches at the only restaurant inside security - overpriced and undertasting, oh well. The plane ride back was unpleasant and long (11 hours to Dallas, 2 hour layover, then another 3 hour flight) but finally I was home, where my bf was happy to see me and alarmed to see me sit almost immediately on the floor after seeing him at the baggage claim.

Sunday I slept much of the day and hung out with my bf, feeling not great but not totally in pain either.

Monday I had an appointment scheduled for a physical already, rather conveniently, so I ended up spending the day in the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF), getting tests (ultrasounds, urine test, blood draw) and bouncing around the center. I felt ok that day - able to walk around, go to downtown Mountain View for lunch, etc. No tenderness on exam, pain levels were low, so my doctor wasn't overly worried (though she did make sure to get a thorough history and do all the appropriate tests). She thought it was probably an ovarian cyst and ordered the ultrasound to check, but cysts are fairly typical and get reabsorbed without intervention so there wasn't too much concern.

Tuesday I felt ok - went to work, walked to get a burrito (and then sat down when we got there), but then left early b/c I wasn't feeling stellar.

Wednesday I woke up in severe pain, worst pain so far. Like, sobbing pain. That wasn't fun at all. However, it took until my sister got off work at the ER and came by to see me around 2pm before I actually did anything about it - she made me go to the ER. There was tenderness definitely when she tried to do a belly exam, and the pain got really bad at one point while she was there. She thought at the time maybe it was diverticulitis b/c it wasn't presenting as she'd expected for an ovarian cyst, and we still hadn't gotten results back from my doctor. We got to the ER at the hospital closest to my house, and only after we had been admitted did we finally get a hold of my doctor (she only works MWF) and find out the results of my ultrasound on Monday. I apparently had a 9cm solid mass on my left ovary with some complex free fluids in my pelvic area. They weren't sure what it was. Hearing these results, the ER decided to do another ultrasound, this one with flow (to see if there is blood flowing to/from the ovary) b/c the concern was about torsion - that the ovary would have twisted on itself and cut off the blood supply. They also found a 9cm solid mass which they couldn't really tell what it was, but they thought there was flow to an area they thought was my ovary. Consulted over the phone, their gynecologist on-call (who never saw my ultrasound or me) said he wanted to go in with open surgery and remove the ovary. Whoa there. Neither my sister nor I liked the sound of that, and my sister was particularly concerned. After talking to various gynecologists she knew and trusted, who all said they'd go in laparoscopically first and try to save the ovary before resorting to removing it or open surgery, we decided to check out of the first ER AMA and go to UCSF.

At UCSF, they looked at the ultrasound that the first ER had sent along, but said that it was really hard to tell what was what, so they tried another one. The gynecology resident in the ER was really nice with great bedside manner (and her ultrasound skills really impressed my sister). She did the ultrasound and found that it was really hard to determine exactly what was what - she saw the mass but wasn't convinced she saw an ovary, so she wondered if the mass *was* the ovary. She wanted to get a better picture, so she ordered a formal ultrasound with a non-portable machine and an ultrasound tech. In the meantime, I had taken a couple vicodin I had leftover from a gum procedure, and was feeling a lot better (but also, the pain seemed to subside b/c there was less tenderness). So we sat around the ER for quite some time until I finally could get the ultrasound after midnight, and some time after that until they could come consult with me. After much consultation with various residents, radiologists, etc, they decided that I definitely needed surgery but they didn't want to do emergency, middle of the night surgery if they didn't have to. In the middle of the night they're understaffed, the people working have been doing long shifts are tired, they're calling in people who were asleep at home to work... better and safer if they can do it during the day. And after the last ultrasound and given that some 12 hours after I took the vicodin, the pain still wasn't too bad, they decided to send me home and try to get the surgery done on Friday.

So, Thursday morning. I wake up feeling much better and refreshed after the first real night of sleep I think I'd gotten in a week and a half (every night in Argentina I basically woke up every hour or couldn't sleep). I was happy b/c there was essentially no pain - my bf was immediately concerned b/c they had said no pain = ovary dead. But after poking around some I decided there was still tenderness and standing still had pain, so I must be ok. But I was being lazy and poking around my computer - I showered, made some phone calls, etc, but never got around to having breakfast. Good thing. At 11:30, I got a phone call from the gynecology resident on the morning shift, who had reviewed my films with their sonographer, and they were very concerned about torsion and asked me to come in right away. You're not supposed to eat or drink for 8 hours before surgery (which is why I didn't get to eat or drink basically from 2pm onwards the previous day) but I had had a bit of Gatorade after waking up, so there was some concern about that. We went through all the pre-op stuff, I got everything explained to me (and asked of me) by a whole bunch of different people - the residents, the attending, the anesthesiologist, etc and finally, around 3:30PM, I went into surgery. Laparoscopic surgery, with the intention of saving the ovary if possible.

Post-op, I took longer waking up than anyone expected (on my side, I felt like I was getting a really good nap and was super-reluctant to wake up b/c I was so comfortable). I have vague memories of the doctors saying stuff about it going well and saving the ovary, but I really was out of it for quite some time. By the time I "woke up" enough for them to move me from a bed into a chair and get my bf in, my sister had to leave. I ended up having to hang out there for another 2-3 hours because they want proof you can urinate before you leave and I was so severely dehydrated I basically went through like a liter of water and 2 liters of IV fluids and still barely could produce any urine at all. So I just dozed in my chair while my poor bf sat there and watched my pulse drop as I fell asleep and then spike up again as I woke up. Finally, they sent me home.

I didn't really find out until the next day when I was really coherent what had happened. Apparently they went in and discovered that the 9cm mass *was* my ovary, filled with old blood and blood clots. Seems there had been a hemmorhagic cyst which burst, which is why my ovary was so large and where the fluids all came from. The ovary was twisted twice on itself (they kept giving me the example of a kinked garden hose) so they untwisted it, sucked out as much of the blood and blood clots as they could, and checked out my other ovary and other organs to make sure they were normal. They got the ovary back down to around 5cm, which is still larger than normal, but they left it in b/c even though it was still "purple and angry looking" by the conclusion of surgery, recent literature suggested that leaving it in, it should recover. They don't know how long the blood flow was cut off, they don't know when the hemorraghic cyst burst or the exact pathology of what happened over those 2 weeks and why I got pain when I did. Seems likely that the bulk of the twisting happened that Wednesday - hence the greater pain - and that maybe the cyst burst on the Monday in Argentina, which is why it hurt more there. The persistent pain was due to maybe the fluids from the cyst irritating my insides, and maybe from intermittent torsion of the oversized ovary. At any rate, we won't know for several weeks whether everything is ok or if the ovary was too damaged to recover. There is still some chance of it torsing again, so I'm being rather psychosomatic about every bit of pain I feel, but for now I've just felt normal recovery pains.

The team working on me were really great at UCSF - the recovery nurse followed up on me the next day, the resident followed up on me the day after, the attending followed up a little less than a week later. They all explained everything a lot, were really kind, and worked hard to save my ovary and do as minimally invasive a surgery as possible.

So this is me now - back at work (been "working from home" for several days but not doing much b/c I just didn't want to or couldn't focus) writing long blog posts, able to be up and about, getting tired a bit more easily physically than usual, with some pain, but generally feeling much better.

And I'm flying off to New Orleans tomorrow.

Travelling girl...

One of my friends generally has a busier schedule than me, so I suppose mine is lame in comparison. But my travel schedule for April/May I'm finding a trifle overwhelming. I suspect I will be very tired and have gotten very little work for work done by the end of this time period...

In case you're wondering where I am...

April 12-20 - Argentina (Buenos Aires, Peninsula Valdes, Iguazu Falls)
April 24-27 - Toronto/Rochester
May 2-4 - New Orleans
May 9-11 - Boston (and possibly Ithaca)
June 5-7(or 8) - Boston

All that flying..on 3 different airlines so far. So much for my miles...

Whistling down Whistler

For several years, my bf has gone off to Whistler near Vancouver for multi-day ski trips, but I've never gone. He was unemployed and didn't have to worry about vacation days, whereas I couldn't justify using my vacation days on just doing a ski trip, especially since he favored going midweek to avoid crowds.

This year, though, one of my friends organized a trip over the President's Day weekend that would only require two actual vacation days to be taken, plus I have accumulated enough vacation days that I don't think I have to scrimp and squeeze to get enough anymore. So, off I went to Whistler while my bf, who is now employed and has no vacation days, stayed home. One of these days we'll get in sync and we'll go at the same time.

I'm really glad I went. It was really fun, Whistler Village is a cute ski town, and the snow was so much better than we usually get at Tahoe. My friend rented us a condo on the outskirts of Whistler Village, which was nice - especially nice was that we had 3 full baths for 6 people. Made the whole showering after skiing, getting ready for bed, and getting up in the morning thing so much smoother. We also had a kitchen, and were located almost across the street from an IGA, so we ended up cooking for 3 out of 4 dinners. There were pluses and minuses to this - there are a lot of restaurants in Whistler Village and we probably missed out on some nice nights out, but we also could shower and change into comfy clothes, and then just stay in the warmth of our condo and relax after a long hard day of skiing.

I do have to say, the weather conditions varied widely over the weekend. We flew in Thursday night (that's right, not only did I go to Whistler without my bf, I ditched him on Valentine's Day) and stayed the night at the Days Inn by the airport (thanks, GPS, for only kicking in after I made the wrong turn away from the hotel - or maybe really, thanks GPS, since turning the wrong way, I discovered a Chinese plaza that later came in handy). The next morning, we were up bright and early and off to Whistler. Almost immediately, our two cars (they rented us Jeep Patriots b/c they had no cars with ski racks, which only worked b/c there were 6 of us - with 8 of us we'd never have fit the people and the gear in the Jeeps) got separated. So much for caravaning. Armed with a GPS per car, though, we managed to meet up at the Squamish 7-11 to pick up discount lift tickets ($69 CAD + tax, as opposed to $83 + tax at the window). The drive up 99 was pretty, going along the edge of the water with great views of the Vancouver Islands, but it was also heavy with construction and slow. I think they're widening/modernizing the road for the 2010 Olympics.

The whole drive up, it was raining intermittently. One of the guys in my car was concerned about the rain, but as we neared Whistler, it soon turned to snow. We went directly to the first parking lot we saw (turned out it was the furthest lot from the lifts - oops), and got all our ski/snowboard gear out to hit the slopes. We didn't end up really getting up onto the mountain until almost 11, but we still had quite a good first day. We started off on Blackcomb Mountain, and the lines were pretty short. Visibility wasn't great because of the constant snow, so we were advised to stay away from the higher areas like 7th Heaven and Blackcomb Glacier. The snow was almost a wet, sticky powder - on the border of too wet but mostly quite nice b/c of the freshness of it. We stayed on blue runs that first day, which was probably a good idea b/c it seemed like a lot of the blacks were covered in moguls. I'm a pretty limited skier - I do blacks fairly regularly, but I don't like moguls or trees. The kind of black run I like is probably considered an advanced blue at some resorts - long, wide, steep, and groomed. I did discover that I should have waxed my skis though - every time we hit a flat traverse, even if I started off passing all my friends, my skis rapidly slowed down and eventually I was barely moving while everyone else passed me. I kept saying I should wax my skis all weekend, but never actually did it. Ah well. At the end of the day, we made our way over to Lower Gear Jammer to do a long run all the way back to the base, but I missed the turnoff we were supposed to take to get there easily, and we ended up doing an annoying flat traverse on "Last Resort" to get back to it. Sigh. Map-reading.

Day 1 ended semi-late - one car had to figure out how to check in (the reservation didn't make it clear how to do this - turns out there was a property management company on Main St, a couple blocks from the condo complex, where you were to pick up the keys) while the other one went to fetch one person's shoes from the rental place (they'd done a 3-day rental and then unthinkingly left shoes behind, forgetting they wouldn't be back that night). Then, after 3 of the people had showered (including me), we headed over to the IGA to pick up supplies for the next few days. By the time we had the groceries bought and dinner (spaghetti) made, it was quite late. We basically ate and headed straight for bed where I, as usual for me in a strange bed, spent a very restless night.

Day 2 we were aiming to get out of the door and to the lifts by the time they opened at 8:30, but we ended up not really getting onto the slopes until 10, what with getting out late, rentals, figuring out where we were going, etc. C'est la vie. Day 2 was focused on Whistler Mountain and had its own set of weather conditions. The snow had stopped, but a big cloud bank hovered at mid-mountain, where it stayed for the rest of the day. As a result, the top of the mountain had beautiful clear skies and nice conditions, while the middle of the mountain was shrouded in fog, making it hard to see more than 10 feet in front of you. Trying to get away from that fog, four of us started trying to make our way to other regions of the mountain, and ended up spending the bulk of the morning just waiting in lift lines and going from lift to lift. Saturdays are just sucky ski days all around - long lines everywhere. We went to the Harmony lift area and discovered long lines, so we were aiming to try to get to Symphony Express. However, due to a misleading map, we kept missing the green trail that was supposed to take us into the area - the first time we found ourselves back in Harmony without any way to get to Symphony short of going over the side of a cliff. The second time, we missed the green trail again so we decided to take a single black - the Sun Bowl. Shouldn't have been so bad but it was mogully, fairly steep, started off a bit narrow, and my friend almost ended up going over the side of a cliff - it looked less steep down one side so we started going that way but then she discovered it was basically rock and a much steeper drop at the end of it, so she ended up taking her skis off and climbing out, while I, who was higher up, sidestepped my way back up to the beginning of the bowl. We eventually made our way down, only to discover that Symphony Express had been stopped for quite a while and a huge line had built up. After the line finally reopened and we got through it, we were already late meeting our other two friends for lunch, and didn't have time to ski Symphony at all. We had to make our way back to the lodge instead. Oh well. The afternoon went better, although we had hoped to aim for "Peak to Creek," a long run that went from the very top of the mountain to the very bottom, but discovered too late that the "Peak" lift closed at 3, not 3:30. We ended up having to go down from where we were, about 2/3 of the way up the mountain, though we discovered several runs we liked on the way down - the blue Crabapple, the black Dave Murray... We also got some nice photos up top, though I was really regretting having forgotten my camera that morning since the cloud bank made for some really funky looking vistas.

Day 2 ended with us making "soft tacos" (which were more like burritos/quesadillas, food falling out of a loose soft tortilla) and then playing games. I love Settlers, which one of my friends had brought, so we happily played that for most of the evening before heading off for an early night's sleep.

Two of our friends had to go back early, so they did their 3rd day of skiing on Sunday. The rest of us took the day off (turns out we should have done Fri/Sun/Mon b/c the lines would have been better, as well as the weather, but oh well). We got to a late start intentionally, and headed out to check out Whistler Village around 11am. We wandered down Main Street, going into candy shops, camera shops, and various souvenir shops, and then over to the Village Stroll, a winding path through the bulk of the shops and inns in Whistler Village. I was feeling fairly crappy that morning, but perked up when we hit Cows, an ice cream parlor where they made fresh waffle cones (smelled SO good), and sold all this super-cute cow-themed merchandise. Because my bf and I watch CSI and tend to go around singing "Whoooo..are you. Who who? who who?" (ie the theme song), I had to get him a T-shirt for "Cow Scene Investigation" with "Moo are you? Moo moo, moo moo" on it because it was just too funny. We each got an ice cream - I got two flavors in "one scoop" - a Peanut Butter Cup (I think it was like Peanut Budder Cup) and a super minty chocolate mint (forgot the name). Turns out the mint was so strong it overdominated the peanut butter, so I couldn't really taste the peanut butter. Oops. Still, very yummy. We *then* went to get lunch at a local restaurant (I forgot the name), which was pretty good. I just got a French Onion Soup (lots of effort to drink that, what with all the cheese). We then kept wandering and eventually ended up at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory where they made the chocolate fresh in the store. Feeling greedy, I ended up getting several chocolate bombs - a "Tiger" bomb which was like peanut butter, caramel, and some other stuff, an Oreo bomb, a chocolate/hazelnut hedgehog, two maple cream chocolates (one milk, one dark), and one smooth mint dark chocolate (sooo good, should have gotten another one), as well as a box of 1/2 off Valentine's Day chocolate for my bf, and a hunk of maple walnut fudge. Happiness. It's all about food. We also stopped by a bookstore where my friend happily found some Canadian and British books to buy, while I spent most of the time looking at Argentina guidebooks for my next big trip. We ended up having to swing through the brand new, pretty library they had there twice - the first time out of curiousity, the second time b/c I suddenly remembered I wanted to find a back issue of Canadian Living magazine, which had bought one of my photos but never sent me a copy like they had promised. I ended up photocopying the page with my photo and credit to bring home, which was nice. Yay libraries!

Day 3 ended with dinner at Bavaria Restaurant on Northlands/Main St, our one dinner out. We ended up ordering 2 orders of cheese fondue (every fondue had to have a minimum of 2 orders), 2 orders of the "Chinoise" fondue (basically like Chinese hot pot - chicken broth in which you cooked chunks of pork tenderloin, beef filet, prawns, and veggies), one jaegerschnitzel, and one beef rouladen, all to split. It was really good - the cheese was yummy (with decent bread to dip), and the meats were tender and delicious. I only really got one bite of each of the other entrees, but they were tasty. We ended with 3 orders of chocolate fondue for dessert - should have gotten 4 - which was delicious. Yummy belgian chocolate, and great fruit - strawberries, bananas, pineapples, ladyfingers... sooo good. Not cheap, but definitely a satisfying meal. The night ended on a somewhat less satisfying note, though, when I slipped and fell into a deep puddle. Cold and wet. Yay!

Day 4 was our last full day at Whistler and we were determined to do the Peak to Creek. The four of us remaining on the trip decided to do the "Fresh Tracks" breakfast - $17 to have breakfast buffet at the restaurant/lodge at the top of the gondola, where you go up an hour before the lifts officially open so you're at the top of the mountain and ready to go when the resort opens. That was nice - the food was fine, nothing special, but the views were great, and it was a beautiful clear day. Turns out the "Peak" lift didn't open until 9, so we got an additional run in before taking it, but we were soon at the top, where we busied ourselves taking a bunch of photos of both the vistas and the Inuchuk at the top of the mountain. Finally, we embarked on the "Peak to Creek" run, which ended up being one of my favorites. It was a blue run, very very long, and just a lot of skiing to get in on one pass. I kept stopping to take photos on the way down. We eventually made our way to the bottom, and promptly got back on the gondola (at Creekside, which was sort of a satellite village) and went to try to get on the Dave Murray, which we'd only done part of the previous day. Turns out part of this was closed for the Telus World Cup, but we were able to do most of it. The snow got really odd at one part of the run - very large corn that made for a very bumpy ride - but for the most part it was a nice run. That early in the day, the snow was actually very packed and a bit icy, but not bad. Having finished with the long runs on Whistler side we wanted to do, we decided to go back over to Blackcomb, which we thought we liked more.

We had also decided to skip lunch that day, so at Blackcomb, we just stopped for a quick bathroom break before starting up skiing again. This time we were aiming for 7th Heaven. That seemed like a nice area when we got to it, but it had gotten so warm at that point that the snow was turning into sticky slush. We quickly decided to try out the glacier to see if it was cooler and therefore less slushy. However, we discovered when we got there that the primary way to get up the glacier was via T-bars, which our snowboarding friends did not want to do. So we ended up just skiing down the glacier once from the 7th Heaven side. This is where things became a bit problematic - half of us wanted to go down a black face with lots of moguls while the other half of us did not. We split up, and ended up getting confused and never rejoining. So each pair of us ended up just doing a bunch of runs for the rest of the day and we met up at the bottom. It was still a nice end of the day - my remaining friend and I did a bunch of blue runs, and then got back on the Lower Gear Jammer via the correct route this time, and ended the day with very very tired legs, but very satisfied. Day 4 ended with lasagna at the condo for dinner, followed by 3 games of Settlers. A nice day all around.

Day 5 was supposed to be our visit Vancouver day, but things did not work out in our favor. We got out of Whistler on time, met up at the Squamish 7-11 to get a bit of gas and sync up, and arranged to meet at the airport where we were going to park one car in long-term parking while driving the other around, so we wouldn't have to coordinate two cars and worry about our stuff getting stolen out of our cars. However, to our dismay, we discovered that the Lion's Gate Bridge, or whatever it's called, the one that connects to downtown Vancouver, was closed. Apparently there had been a 3-car crash that closed the entire bridge while they cleaned it up. After consulting a map, we decided to take the long way around to the next bridge, but traffic was super-slow and super-backed up. Turns out not only was it backed up b/c all the Lion's Gate traffic was going to the other bridge, but *that* bridge also had had an accident in the center lane that was only just getting cleaned up. We ended up not getting to the airport until around 2pm (our flight out required us to get back to the airport around 5pm). Starving, we decided to find a restaurant in that Chinese plaza in Richmond we'd stumbled upon Thursday night, since we knew where it was. Ironically, it turned out that a lot of the restaurants were either closed on Tuesdays or closed for lunch on Tuesdays..of all days of the week to be wandering around..or were cash only (we had almost no Canadian cash). We did find a restaurant with an interesting mix of food - Chinese, Portugese, other Western-ish dishes - though, and were all reasonably satisfied with our food, so that was good. We then killed another couple hours just wandering around, going into and out of bakeries and tapioca tea places, and marveling at the number of hair salons there were in that one small plaza. We finally got in the car to drive around Richmond some more, and ended up at a small coffee/tea shop (Berry Good) where we each got something to drink and killed some more time before it was time to go to the airport. So much for Vancouver. Of course, at the airport we discovered that the weather in SF was bad so all the flights were delayed, so we ended up playing several rounds of "My Word" until we finally split to get on our respective flights. And thus, after a fun-filled several days of skiing and hanging out in Whistler, followed by a somewhat disappointing day in Richmond, we wrapped up a great vacation. I'd definitely do Whistler again..maybe next time my bf will come too.

Costa Rica - Day Nine/Ten

Combining day 9 and 10 since 10 was just a travel day.

Our last real day in Costa Rica was day 9 - like I said before, this is really an 8-day tour with 2 days of travel. Since the hotel was so large, we were supposed to get our bags outside our doors an hour and a half earlier than departure time, but since our room was so close to the front door, my bf and I opted to bring our bags out ourselves. Sergio told us it was ok as long as we made special care to make sure our bags ended up in the right pile, since two different Caravan groups were loading simultaneously. This gave us a bit more time to pack, which was nice. After breakfast, we finished packing, took our bags directly to our driver, who was in the process of loading the bags, and went wandering around the property for our typical morning-of-departure-photo-opportunity. One place we hadn't visited on the hotel property yet was the pier they had that extended out into the gulf, and gave a nice view of the area. Apparently, the day before, a lot of the tour people could be found there around sunset, enjoying cocktails (there was a bar out there) and sitting and watching the water. The pier also gave a good view of the resort itself. After snapping some photos out there, and snapping photos of the restaurant, bar, and pool area, we were about ready to go.

The actual distance between Dona Ana beach and San Jose is smaller than the distance travelled on our previous travel days, so we had more, and longer stops. First stop was in Sarchi, a village which is apparently well-known in particular for the ox-carts, or carretas, that are still in use in some areas. We first drove around the central square, which featured a pretty church on one end, and a giant ox-cart on display in the middle. We then went onto the ox cart factory where we watched a couple of artists at work painting ox carts (they have intricate, detailed, hand-painted designs all over them). The actual ox cart construction wasn't visible anywhere, just the painting. The main attraction here was a large tourist store, with all sorts of souvenirs - lots of various items made out of wood, ox carts, etc. The prices here, except for the postcards, seemed to me to be on the high side so I refrained from buying anything. There were two more stores obvious across the street - one was a souvenir shop with lower prices, and one was a furniture shop. At this point, my bf had pretty well convinced me that we wouldn't do anything with any of the wood products so we didn't buy anything. What I didn't realize until I just read the Lonely Planet entry on Sarchi two minutes ago, is that Sarchi is apparently a crafts center, with over 200 workshops in the area, and a ton of artists, with lots of different crafts and wood products available for sale and to just look at. We didn't have that much time here - maybe 40 minutes to browse the stores (much of which was spent looking for postcards for me) - so I never got the chance to look beyond the little region of street we were on. Oh well.

Lunch was at the restaurant Las Carretas, right next to (I think probably associated with) the tourist shop and oxcart factory. It was another of the buffet style meals set up in a normal restaurant. Pretty good food, as I recall. Soon after, it was time to load back on our bus and take off to our next destination. We drove through a number of small towns but ended up at Grecia, the "cleanest town in Latin America," famous for its metal church. We originally weren't supposed to be able to stop there, but both our bus and the other Caravan group made a 15 minute stop for us to get out, look around the pretty square in front of the church, and gawk at the Catedral de la Mercedes. This cathedral was made completely of metal, and painted red, presenting a surprisingly pretty sight at a distance, and a pretty unique one closeup where you could see the rivets and joints. Apparently the cathedral was special-ordered from Belgium and shipped in pieces to Costa Rica, where they eventually decided to place it in Grecia, transporting the pieces in carretas all the way through the countryside to its current site. It's a fairly impressive sight - not a Notre Dame cathedral by any means, but far larger than most of the countryside churches we'd seen, with a beautiful altar inside.

Back in the bus again, we wound through the picturesque countryside some more until we reached Cafe Britt, in Barva in Heredia. This coffee plantation had its products all over Costa Rica - every tourist shop we stopped in had Cafe Britt chocolate-covered fruits and Cafe Britt coffee. Apparently, they also have shops all over Latin American in airports, etc. We were here for the coffee tour, but for some reason they had us shop in the store before going on the tour, which meant that we were quite limited in our shopping time and hadn't had a chance to actually see anything before buying their products. Didn't stop us from going crazy on the shopping though. We were greeted as we walked in with small cups of an iced coffee drink that was quite delicious, even though I don't like coffee (tells you how much sugar/cream was in there). In the middle of the store was a large stand with shelves and shelves of Cafe Britt's various varieties of coffee (some from specific regions, like Volcan Poas or Tres Rios) and insulated containers of the brewed coffee in the corners for people to sample. On two sides of this stand there were also bags of various chocolate products, with samples in bowls underneath. On the side were samples of their coffee liqueur. Not surpisingly, there were throngs of people gathered to try the samples. Cafe Britt had specials for buying multiple products as well - each bag was something like $4.50 individually, but if you bought 8, you'd get some discount, and if you bought 20, you got an even larger discount that made each bag come out to something like $4 or $3.50. As a result, my parents were stocking up on coffee and chocolate, my sister was stocking up on coffee and chocolate, and my bf and I both had our small collections of coffee and chocolate to give coworkers or friends. We ended up pooling all our purchases together into one large purchase (along with another couple's stuff) in order to maximize the discounts, but then were so rushed we had a hard time getting them to bag them correctly, and I'm not sure we got the full discounts we should have had due us. Oh well. We rushed to load our purchases on the bus, and then went to gather for the coffee tour.

The coffee tour at Cafe Britt was the most unique such tour I've ever been on. Rather than a dry recitation of facts, delivered by an employee, they seem to have either hired three actors, or gotten three of their most charismatic employees, to conduct this tour. This wasn't clear at first - at first we thought we were just getting a normal general manager guy who led off the tour by telling us about coffee growing, and how some coffee grows really well on volcanos, and then indicating in which direction Poas and Arenal (I think) were. Another "worker" stepped up to tell him he was all wrong, and when the manager went to look up the volcanoes, he told the worker to take over the tour. The worker was all "oh boy, do I get a raise too?" They acted like it was a temporary thing, and it was the worker's first time giving the tour, but this turned out to be very not true. The tour started like a normal tour - we were led into what seemed to be an area of the plantation, filled with coffee plants. We were shown the beans growing on a tree, and then came to a stop in front of a platform where a woman stood waiting for us. Both the woman and the "worker" acted as if English was difficult and they'd try their best, but both were super-fluent. The woman and the worker talked about the process of growing the plants and how they need to be harvested - how one 25lb basket only resulted in something like 3lbs of coffee (or 4 of the vacuum sealed bags they sell). As they talked, the two traded practiced and humorous banter, making fun of each other and themselves as they dropped facts on us. The woman claimed the two of them had been dating for 10 years (the guy: "they don't care, honey"), etc etc. Then we moved on to the next station, where a genial man was waiting - he claimed to be a manager of sorts, and they went through with demonstration pieces telling us how the coffee bean/fruits we saw growing on the plants around us were reduced, layer by layer, into the coffee beans sold into coffee. Also how there are two varieties of coffee - robusto and arrabaciata (??), and how arrabaciata was the best, and the only kind allowed to be grown in Costa Rica (b/c they're no dummies - there was more money to be made off of that). We then moved onto into an auditorium to learn more about the history of coffee, including an opportunity for two audience members to go up and learn how to taste coffee like the quality control coffee tasters did. Then we were to learn more about the history of coffee, which turned out to be an amusing mix of video and stage acting by the three of them, who quickly flipped in and out of silly costumes to go through an array of characters who may or may not have been involved in the development and spread of coffee through the ages. This culminated somehow in the man and woman getting married, with help from audience volunteers, and us leaving the auditorium as if we were leaving the wedding. I can't explain it well at all, but it was highly entertaining, made us laugh out loud several times, and was an enjoyable way to learn about something I never drink myself.

After Cafe Britt, it was time to head towards San Jose to go to the Barcelo Palacio for our final dinner. On the way, I managed to give myself a headache while trying to distribute the coffee back to the right people, and got quite cranky in the process. I do remember that somewhere in the drive that day, Sergio was telling us how the principal industries in Costa Rica were technology, tourism, and agriculture, and how they used to be in the opposite order. Later, we drove by I think Intel's offices where they manufactured microchips. At any rate, we eventually found ourselves back in San Jose, back at the familiar Barcelo Palacio. I ended up taking a nap (we had a 6th floor room this time, which was actually one of the "special" floors with its own lounge and staff and food) because of my headache, while I guess my bf went to hang out with my family. After my nap, we got ready for dinner.

The last dinner was our one "formal" (ie, no shorts, no sandals) dinner, in the nicer restaurant at the Palacio. We all gathered to take group photos before going in, and then were seated in various tables around the restaurant. Our table was my family, my bf, myself, and the other family my parents had befriended, whose son had been hanging out with us for most of the latter part of the trip. We were eventually joined by Sergio, who got peppered with questions by us. We asked him about his history as a tour director (apparently he's been doing this for like 15 years, and fell into it by mistake), his past travels, his views on Costa Rica and the region, etc etc. He's very much enthusiastic about his country and loves to share it with people, and it's very apparent. He also would like countries like the US to invest more in Costa Rica and its conservation efforts, rather than things like war efforts. It was an interesting conversation, though I do think we didn't let him eat very much b/c he had to talk so much. The food was pretty good - we were able to pick from filet mignon, fish, chicken, or pasta. Most of us went with the filet. It wasn't the very best filet I've ever had (my bf has spoiled me with his cooking of the Costco choice tenderloin pieces) but it was quite good and a nice change from the more homestyle food we'd been getting all trip. After dinner, everyone was running around taking photos of each other and sharing contact info. We got the cards of a few people, and got our photos taken with a few people, including Sergio. Finally, it was time to disperse since many of us had a very early morning shuttle to the airport.

The next morning, for an 8-8:15ish flight, Caravan had arranged us a 5:30AM shuttle to the airport. The Barcelo opened the restaurant especially for us, so we did get a breakfast before departing, and Sergio got up to see us off, but it was a rather sleepy two bus-fuls of passengers who departed the hotel that morning. A lot of people were on the same two flights to either LA or Miami, since those were typical stopovers going to Costa Rica. We all had to get in line at the airport for the exit tax - $26 USD per person - and then we got in line to check in. It turned out to be a bit confusing because American had actually created two separate checkin lines for the LA vs Miami flights, but we didn't realize it, and got in the wrong line at first. After a long wait, we were able to check in, where we learned that the LA flight was overbooked, and they were looking for like 8 volunteers to take a later flight to LA, spend the night, and then get booked to their next destination. American would pay an $800 voucher, pay for hotel, transportation, and food. It was a really good deal, but initially we weren't tempted because it seemed we wouldn't be able to get in until the next night, and would thus miss a day of work. As they kept asking for volunteers later, we actually thought maybe we'd try it - you can't make $800 in a day and it was a good deal, but by the time we asked about it, they'd found almost all the volunteers they needed. Oh well. Those vouchers would have been really useful.

There was a bit more drama since the flight from San Jose didn't leave on time, and then when we got to LA, the customs line took forever, they didn't have a carousel for our luggage, and the line out of customs to go through and recheck your baggage was huge. By the time we were able to get through all that, a few of our fellow tour members were convinced they'd missed their connecting flight to SF, since it was supposed to be at 2 and it was 2:10 when we picked up our luggage. As it turned out, their flight was delayed until 3:30 so I think they ended up being ok. After a meal at Chili's Too, and a bit of a wait at the gate, my bf and I were finally on our flight home to SF. I really don't advise flying through LA for international flights. The only amusing part about going through LA was that they had these new 24 color LED displays as you waited in line for customs, and they were playing with them to display random stuff. The one that really amused me was a "Don't Drink and Drive" display - a little martini glass, and then a car comes along and runs into it. Smash! The car sits with its front end all dented, and two stick figures come flying out of the car to land on the pavement - one on its head, with its legs waving in the air. Serious message, but a seriously funny way of delivering it.

A long travel day to end what turned out to be quite a fun and interesting trip. Yay Costa Rica!

Costa Rica - Day Eight

The history of Manuel Antonio National Park is kind of interesting. It was originally slated for development into a beach resort, and was turned into a national park kind of at the last minute before they were about to start building. The park is very popular, and has been receiving all sorts of pressure from too many people and too much development nearby, so the park has started limiting the number of visitors to the park per day. As a result, it's important to get there early - get there too late and they may have reached their daily quota and you won't be able to go in. Sergio was well aware of this and therefore said that we had to leave early in the morning in order to ensure that we'd be able to enter. Breakfast was thus at 6am - an hour earlier than the restaurants usually open, so the hotel set out a "continental breakfast" for us which actually had a fair amount of food...after a while. They were still bringing out food as we arrived. We were on the road by 6:30AM, with a much diminished group of people on the tour bus. So diminished that we were able to spread out and put our bags on seats with no problems.

From a distance perspective, Manuel Antonio wasn't actually a 2 hour drive from the Doubletree's location on the Dona Ana beach in Puntarenas. However, there were two old bridges along the way that were one-way, rickety, weight-limited bridges, which severely gated the amount of traffic that could pass through. Both bridges were in the process of being replaced - we saw the construction on the neighboring bridges, but both were still the only bridge in use over their respective rivers at this time. Apparently these bridges were originally built for the railroad. Sergio said that, depending on traffic, you could get held up half an hour waiting to cross the bridges, which added considerable amount of time to the trip.

As we drove south, part of the time, we were driving right along the Pacific coast, giving us a beautiful view of the gorgeous blue ocean, starting first with the Golfo de Nicoya (which was where our hotel was located) with the Peninsula de Nicoya opposite. At times, we went inland where we could see the hilly countryside and the mountains in the distance, plantations with all sorts of fruits and plants, etc. Our drive took us by the Carara Biological Reserve, apparently, where there was supposed to be a huge variety of tropical birds, particularly the scarlet macaw. Apparently this is one of the few places in the world that the scarlet macaw nests. I'm not sure if we were by the reserve at the time, but we did get lucky enough to see (thanks to either Sergio or Marcos' eagle eyes) two scarlet macaws in a tree by the road. Marcos stopped the bus so we could gawk at the beautiful brilliant red birds for a while - really pretty, and really neat to see in the wild. We also crossed over the Rio Tarcoles, or the river of crocodiles, where you can often see crocodiles sunning themselves...and sure enough, as we crossed, we saw a group of 8 crocodiles, lying on the banks or partly submerged in the water. Then, as we kept staring, we noticed another crocodile closer in the water...and then another pair swimming practically under the bridge. That was neat.

We got lucky on the way there - the first bridge hardly detained us at all, and the second only a little longer, so we arrived in Manuel Antonio after only about an hour and a half. Sergio had to get our tickets, but he managed to get us all in. From the park entrance, we had to cross a short expanse of beach, and then climb up a path over a hill well-worn by people's feet, before emerging on a beautiful beach on the other side. We then had about a 15-20 minute hike over the first beach, through the forest a bit, and down a path to I *think* the second beach (possibly the third) where we staked out a picnic table on which we put our stuff, while Sergio kept an eye on it for us. Apparently the danger here wasn't human thieves so much as monkey thieves. Sergio emphasized we shouldn't bring food in because the monkeys would be bold enough to run by and steal bags up into the trees to get at the food. Before we could get to the picnic table, though, my family ended up lagging rather far behind as we took photos of the beach. My little sister got distracted when she noticed that each time the tide went out, there were distinctive little marks on the beach that would suddenly suck in and disappear, like something was pulling in. Remembering when we'd gone clam hunting on a beach elsewhere, where you could tell where the clams were by the air bubbles they let up as they burrowed into the sand, she started digging to try to find the clams. Feeling bad because Sergio was trying to get us to move while keeping an eye on the rest of the group, way ahead of us, I started moving before she found anything. Turns out the depressions in the sand weren't from clams, but from snails. My sister has pretty sharp eyes - she also spotted most of the wildlife in Tortuguero, seeing monkeys even before the guides did.

On my way to the picnic area, I saw a group of people staring up into the trees, and found out they were looking at a night heron of some kind up in the trees. I'm not sure I ever actually spotted that one. Moving on, I saw another group of people gathered (there were rangers carrying telescopes everywhere, and tours being conducted) and got a quick glimpse of what they were looking at as it ran by - I think it was an agouti or something like that. Further down the path, a family of raccoons were nosing their way down the path - in fact, they got to the picnic area not long after me, and spent some time poking around the area. There were two main choices for the Manuel Antonio area, as far as activities went - lounging on the beach/playing in the water, and hiking on the trails around the beaches. Since I'd heard there was a lot of wildlife in the area, and since I'm not huge on the beach lounging, I really wanted to try the hiking out. I should note, though, that we had been advised to wear hiking boots if we wanted to hike, but we'd only brought our sandals...definitely not the right shoes.

Sergio directed us to a trail that led from our beach which I think led to the next few beaches (there are five total in the Manuel Antonio area, though I think only three or four are actually in the park), but also led to an overlook where you could see the cliffsides that had sheared off along fault lines. As we started up the path, we were quickly distracted by a group of people looking up into the trees - a 3-toed (I think) sloth, just hanging out in a tree fairly near the path. This one was fairly well-hidden in the tree. After gawking at it (and snapping some photos) for a while, we decided to move along since there was quite a crowd gathering and we didn't have all that much time to do the hike and enjoy the beach. Moving on, we next saw an agouti (now I'm not sure the first one I saw was an agouti) - kind of a cross between a rat and a rabbit - peering at us from between the trees above the trail. The next big brown mass we saw in a tree was a termite nest, I think, bigger than any animal we'd seen.

As we climbed the trail, we came across some people stopped and looking at the side of the trail. When they told us there were monkeys, I assumed they were high up in the trees or far off into the forest, and was quite surprised when I saw a couple white-faced monkeys sitting quite close in the trees, staring back at us. Initially, the monkeys we saw were just lounging on tree branches and the forks of trees, but then one crossed over to the other side of the path, and then started climbing down a tree trunk right next to the path. It was literally only about 3 feet away from us. There were a few kids who had stopped as well who almost went up and touched it, but it moved along and stared at us from another tree right next to the path. I had never been that close to a monkey before, but the path was getting a little bit crowded as other people stopped to watch, and we still had a ways to go to the lookout, so I reluctantly moved on.

Along the way, my bf spotted a beautiful lizard (possibly a gecko) in the leaves along the path (I am no good at spotting wildlife, someone else always has to see it and point it out to me). The path grew steeper and slippery, and my sister (who was wearing slip-on sandals without straps) and my parents eventually turned back. We went on, though, and finally managed to reach the overlook. In some ways, the overlook's view was a little disappointing because Sergio had made it sound like we'd see these amazing sheer cliff faces that were very obviously split along fault lines, but what we saw looked a bit more normal cliffs. However, it was a nice point from which to observe another couple of beaches to the south beyond the peninsula the overlook looked at, as well as to get a nice panoramic view of the ocean. It was also really hot, since it was out in the sunlight and we'd just been climbing for a while.

After enjoying the view for a while, the overlook was getting a bit crowded and we still wanted to hit the beach, so we turned and went back. The path was quite narrow so there was quite a bit of maneuvering and standing aside to let people pass as we passed people coming the other way. It was also worse being slippery on the way back - always more of an issue when you're descending rather than ascending - so we made very slow progress. We did spot the same lizard on the way back as on the way up, though it'd moved to the other side of the path. As we reached the area where we'd seen the monkeys before, we discovered that the dynamics had quite changed. I don't know if some of the other people (maybe the kids who were there before) had pissed off the monkeys or what, but they were definitely on edge. As we approached the area, two monkeys ran out on the path ahead of us to assume a defensive or threat/attack stance - one on top of the other, both facing us with fangs bared. This gave us pause, we stopped to take photos, but also because we weren't quite sure how to react. The top monkey got distracted after a bit and took off running down the path away from us, and the other soon followed. Turns out there was another hiker ahead of us - a lone woman - who had stopped to take photos, I think, but soon found herself accosted by several monkeys. The more we looked, the more monkeys we saw in the trees around us, all alert and working in concert. One monkey climbed out on a tree branch over the hiker, unbeknownst to her until it started throwing branches and things at her, baring its fangs and chattering at her. Another monkey started stalking down the path behind her as she stared at the first monkey, on all fours with back arched. Other monkeys started closing in on her. She initially stood her ground, looking at them like she wasn't believing what was happening, before she finally quickly walked out of the area. The monkeys looked quite angry and aggressive, and we looked around us to see more staring at us and climbing up trees. We each picked up a branch, just in case, and then moved quickly through the area, trying not to pose too much of a threat to them. Freaky. I'd originally thought it was really cool we got to see monkeys so close up, but I wasn't so sure after that!

As it turned out, my parents and sister saw even more interesting behavior from this same group of monkeys when they'd passed through the area earlier. One of the people on the path near them had a water bottle sticking out of his backpack, and one of the monkeys actually swung down and stole the water bottle, running away with it until everyone yelled and it dropped it. It sounded like the monkeys, when they saw them, weren't being quite so aggressive with their body language, but they were certainly being bold!

On the way back, my bf and I kept hearing a howler monkey that sounded really close, but could never spot it. We finally saw a group of people off the trail, on a side path that actually had a barrier across it, staring up into a tree. We joined them and finally spotted the howler monkey lounging on a tree above. As we watched, the monkey sat up and let out a big howl, maintaining that position for a while, before finally shifting back down until it once more lay along the branch. We kept watching it, hoping it'd sit up again and howl again, but a couple rangers came along and shooed us all out of the area. As we returned to the picnic area, we saw more people staring at the sloth so we stopped to look up at it, just to make sure nothing had changed, and finally got back to the picnic table. Here, we reapplied some sunscreen, stripped off our outside clothes, put away the camera, and went to the beach for the last 1/2 hour or so before we had to return to the bus.

The sand was white but not entirely clean and nice - lots of seaweed bits, coral bits, etc, that made it less pleasant to walk/sit on. The beach that we were on also wasn't particularly deep in terms of the amount of sandy area. Rather than trying to find a clear spot to sunbathe (it was too hot anyway), we plunged right into the water. I found it a nice temperature and quickly took to it, with the water helping to wash off the sweat and heat from our hike. It wasn't as salty as the water had been by Zihuatenejo in Mexico, where we'd gone the year before - not as buoyant by far - but it was mostly kind of nice to bounce up and down in the water, except when the salt overcame my contacts and I wasn't able to open my eyes for a while for the stinging. Our friend swam out further and ended up getting stung (mildly) by a small jellyfish. That guy got bitten by *everything* - he had more bug bites than anyone, and got bitten everywhere he went, even the ocean! My bf and I stayed further inland, where we could stand up if we needed to, and ended up chatting with one of the women from our tour group, a teacher who travelled a lot. This was a pleasant way to spend some time, but the 1/2 hour went by quite quickly, and we soon had to go back, dry off, and make our way back to the bus.

Before we could leave the area, we spotted another animal - this one a brown basilisk (I think) lizard. Quite a pretty specimen, sitting right on a wood pile next to the picnic area. We snapped a few photos of that one, and then started down the path back to the entrance. We were quickly distracted, however, by the discovery that a whole bunch of white-faced monkeys had come to the area, very likely to try to scavenge food from all the tourists. They were climbing the trees on the beach, walking down the paths, and going all over the place. One bold monkey jumped right onto a garbage can right on the path. The garbage can, which hung from a frame, was tied shut with a piece of string. The monkey was clever - it jumped straight up and down a couple times, and boom, the lid was open. It balanced on the swinging can, and obviously wanted to dig in and grab food, but everytime anyone came near (and it was right on the path so people were very close), it'd stand its ground and stare at the person, ready to defend its rights to the food in the can. In the meantime, other monkeys were overhead, dropping stuff out of the trees on people, helping to defend the monkey and his can. We didn't have time to stay and watch this play out, and continued on our way, though my bf did stop a ranger to let him know a monkey had broken into one of the garbage cans.

On our way from the entrance of the park to the bus, we passed by a bunch of stands selling all sorts of stuff - beach towels, dyed cloths, t-shirts, souvenirs, etc. One stand in particular drew our attention, selling meat skewers grilling on a bbq, but before we could decide whether or not to buy one, Marcos honked the horn and Sergio gestured for us to come back to the bus. Not quite sure why, since we were actually still a bit early. Instead of our freshly grilled meat skewers, then, we ended up with rather lame box lunches that they had brought from the hotel to the bus that morning - small ham and cheese sandwiches on crustless white bread, and a collection of fruit - half-green strawberries, a banana, an apple (whose sticker proudly proclaimed it to be from Washington state), and a kind of sour greenish orange. We were hungry enough to devour it, but the prospect of unlimited snacks from the snack bar sounded more and more appealing after we ate it.

The trip back was fairly subdued - almost everyone was sleeping, worn out from the sun and the early start. I tried to stay awake and look out the window, at one point spotting a cone-shaped mountain that looked like it had smoke coming out of it (though from a different angle, it appeared to be more of a cloud that had drifted near the peak). I was really tired, though, and finally gave in and slept as well. On the way back, we saw how lucky we were - we were held up a bit at one of the bridges but the traffic coming the other way stretched way back - just stopped cars and trucks in a long single-file line, waiting for their turn on the bridge. The line entering Manuel Antonio Park was also really long, so we very much thanked Sergio for getting us there so early so we didn't have to wait in line and risk being turned away (he said it'd happened only once before to a group he'd led). This time, we didn't see any macaws, but did spot another group of crocodiles (or maybe the same ones, moved further down the river) on the Rio Tarcoles. Eventually, we arrived back at the Doubletree hotel.

Since we were all rather hungry, after putting our stuff down, we quickly met up at the snack bar to feed ourselves. The food ended up being just ok - burgers and hot dogs of indifferent quality, as well as a big bin of arroz con beef ;) - looked like arroz con pollo, except with beef instead of chicken. It was good enough for us hungry people though. We also grabbed drinks from the outdoor bar. This drink was the reason I can no longer say I've never had a drink - I got a Coco Amore, like the one my sister had gotten the other day, except without the vodka. What I hadn't anticipated was that when you ask them to leave out an ingredient, they double up on another one to make up for it, and my bartender chose to double up on the amaretto. The alcohol taste was almost too overwhelming and unpleasant for me, but just on the border...for the most part the coconut and almond taste were enough to make it taste good to me. I was jealous though, when my sister came by later and saw what I got, she asked for a Coco Amore without vodka as well but *her* bartender made her one with double the coconut. I would have liked that better. After the beach and the eating, none of us really wanted to get in the pool (which also wasn't that clean looking), so instead we found some lounge chairs by the pool (inadvertently sitting near some tour group members). We ended up chatting with the two women, finding that they were both quite interesting, and one really funny. This was a nice relaxing time - we occasionally ventured across the way to get stuff from the bar (I got a virgin pina colada for my second drink), but otherwise just chatted or read, or relaxed.

As it got dark, we stopped to look at the sunset (not nearly as spectacular because the sky was completely clear), and then wandered into the lobby, which was well lit and had a number of comfortable chairs and low tables. We ended up whiling away the next couple hours playing cards in this relaxing setting. None of us were particularly hungry due to our late snacks, so we didn't end up getting dinner until quite late, where we joined the same two women we'd chatted with by the pool. Dinner that night was supposed to be French-themed, but I failed to see the French - they had the same pasta bar again, though this time they also had "crepes", though not crepes like I'd ever seen before - I guess you got filling for the shells and then they would heat it up in sauce. What was good was that they had fresh grilled steaks cut into strips, so we were finally able to eat a lot of beef (there was almost no beef on this trip - always chicken, pork, and fish). That's what we ended up primarily eating that night. The beef was definitely not the best I'd ever had - kind of tough - but it was a nice change. After dinner, we decided to skip out on the cultural show, since it was the same as the previous night's, and headed back to our rooms to rest and go to bed.

Costa Rica - Day Seven

The funny thing about the mornings where we departed from a hotel was that we generally had to get our bags outside our door quite early - at least an hour or more before departure time. That meant that we had to finish getting ready and putting away everything - toiletries, pajamas, etc - far earlier than on other mornings, which tended to lead to fairly leisurely mornings after the initial rush. That last morning in the Arenal area, we had a leisurely breakfast (yummy syrup) and then I wandered around with my camera snapping pictures of the property. Less animals here than Laguna Lodge, but more of a scenic property with the terraced levels and cute bungalows, and cloud-shrouded non-volcano in the background.

Onto the bus and rolling down the gravel road from our hotel, when we came to a stop for an extended period of time right before the washout in the middle of the road (where a pond on one side overflowed into a waterfall right off the road into a creek). Eventually, both Marcos and Sergio got out of the bus and started poking around under one of the front tires as we peered out the window at them. Turns out one of the airbags that helps the suspension of the bus was refusing to inflate or deflate, or something, and Marcos was afraid the bus wouldn't make it over the washout. They asked everyone to move to the back of the bus to help put more weight on the back tires and take weight off the front tires. We did so, Marcos started things back up, and got us over the washout with no problem, to the cheers of everyone. We didn't suffer any further mishaps for the rest of the trip, so I guess either the air bag stopped being a problem, or it only was going to be a problem for big ditches.

As we drove out of Fortuna into the countryside, we were stunned and amazed by the extent of flooding there was everywhere. The first signs were rushing brown rivers, engorged by the rainfall of the last several days, but then we started seeing lots of standing water in fields and yards and around people's houses. Finally, we came around one corner to discover one entire field submerged in water, with a number of people standing on the road looking forlornly into the field. On the other side of the street, the ditches were full of water, and cows and horses stood on dry patches amidst marshy land. Sergio remarked that they were used to getting a few hours of a rain but that it'd rained steadily for something like 12 hours already, and the ground couldn't take it - it was oversaturated. All the flooding meant people's farmland was submerged and ruined. Who knows how many crops and how much of a setback that rain was to the people living and farming in the area? It was kind of sad.

As we continued driving, we passed through several smaller villages and some of the larger towns and cities. In every town, there was a church, a school building, and a soccer field, it seemed. In one field, we saw the biggest cattle I've seen anywhere - a big white monster with a huge hump, that dwarved all the other cattle in the field with it. Eventually, we drove into the Monteverde region, through the Children's Eternal Rainforest, which apparently was paid for by money from schoolchildren all around the globe to keep a portion of the rainforest preserved. This was rather like driving through the Braulio Cabrillo National Park early in the trip - everything was shrouded in dense fog, with a ton of moisture in the air. In fact, we even saw a number of waterfalls in one region of the preserve - waterfalls like the ones we were unable to see while driving through the Braulio Cabrillo park. I think all the increased rainfall helped increase the waterflow through the waterfalls. What was really striking was that one of the falls was bright white, but then another waterfall on the same cliffside was completely brown. Says a little about how much runoff there was from the rain, I think.

Eventually we drove out in a more open, hilly area, where the hills were covered with plantations and various cultivated plants, and the scenery was quite striking. Our only stop for the day was in this region, at a cloudforest reserve for a hike into the cloudforest. Cloudforests differ from rainforests in that they largely consist of regions of high humidity, but less rain. There was also something about how the winds converged in the region, but I don't remember the explanation for that. We were split into two groups, and each group was handed a bunch of bamboo walking sticks, and assigned a guide. I don't remember our guide's name, but he was quite informative and interesting. He showed us a pretty pink flower growing by the side of the path, the impatiens, and talked about how he'd heard it was a popular flower in the US, but in Costa Rica, it was a weed. Grew everywhere, and you couldn't stop it from spreading. He told us how the impatiens was like a natural repellent - and possibly also good for stopping itches from bug bites, we weren't entirely clear. Possibly good at both - repelling insects and helping heal the itches when you *were* bitten. In fact, for both the rainforest and the cloudforest hikes, our guides told us about the medicinal value of various plants, most of which involved boiling the particular plant and making a tea or something out of it, and then drinking it each day to help cure various ailments. Just like the various edibles of the rainforest, however, I've completely forgotten what the plants were or what they were for, so I'd just go on being sick.

Some of the highlights of the cloudforest hike were the feeding gallery where they'd set up a few feeders to attract the various birds, particularly various Tanagers, as well as a hummingbird feeder that attracted at least four or five varieties of hummingbirds in the time we stared at it (we passed it both coming and going). Our guide also told us about epiphytes, and how they weren't parasites, but then showed us a true parasite of the forest - the ficus tree which wraps around another tree, eventually strangling it to death until what remains is the ficus wrapped around a dead tree. He showed us one example where the ficus had completely killed the tree inside so that the middle was hollow and we could walk right through. Later in the hike, I spotted another one and asked him about it. In that case, it turned out, the host tree had not yet been killed but you could see places where the ficus roots or limbs had wrapped around the trunk of the host tree and penetrated inwards, thus beginning the strangulation process. Not only that, but there were actually two different ficus contending for that tree. Poor thing never had a chance. Our guide pointed out the red bananas which he said weren't really edible (which is odd b/c I see them sold at our grocery store, but maybe it's a different variety), another huge leaf-cutter nest (he told us some more about the leaf-cutter society and what they do with the leaves), and pointed out interesting facts about the various types of plants you find in the cloud forest. At one point, someone noticed a big black millipede on the path. When he saw us all crowded around trying to take photos, he went and just picked it right up so we could see it better. Apparently that kind of millipede isn't poisonous or anything, but will sometimes curl up into a tight little ball if frightened. I guess crawling around a guy's hand didn't frighten it at all since he even tried poking it a little to make it curl up, and it'd just unwind and keep crawling all over, until he finally put it back down. We eventually found our way back to the hummingbird feeder, where we stopped and watched for a while longer. I always thought that hummingbirds *had* to keep their wings flapping quickly to keep their hearts beating or their metabolism going or something to that effect, but that can't possibly be true since I saw several hummingbirds fly and just perch on a branch. And in a couple cases, apparently the hummingbirds at the feeder would get tired of beating their wings to hover in place, and just come to rest on the feeder, gripping with their feet while they greedily drank. Lazy birds =). It was pretty cool, though, since this second time by the feeder produced even more varieties of hummingbird for us to look at.

Eventually, though, our guide herded us back to our bus since we were only supposed to be at the cloudforest reserve for like a 45 minute hike, and then we had to be on our way. We climbed back out of the cloudforest area and picked up the tour members who'd opted not to go on the hike (I guess maybe b/c it was once again pretty rainy and cold). We stopped at a cloud forest restaurant to get lunch - here was where I mistook cabbage salad/slaw for arroz con pollo, thus accidentally telling my bf not to bother with the white rice and ending up with no rice at all. My excuse is that the food was at a long cafeteria line type thing where you slid your tray down and asked them to add stuff to your plate, and so I was preplanning while craning my neck at the food from a distance, and trying not to take too much food. My bad. During lunch, there was a TV in the corner playing some really cheesy soap opera which had to do with angels and heaven and some girl who was dying, and some romance, and people in white outfits and fake wings, and lots of overdramatic acting. There was no sound (not that any of us understood Spanish), so we were having fun speculating on what was going on. We were among the last to get our food, and wondered where everyone else had disappeared to as we finished eating. Turns out there was a gift shop next door that was actually one of the best ones I'd seen all trip - large, with a huge selection of stuff - wood stuff, photo albums made of leaves and banana paper, banana/coffee paper pads, t-shirts, etc etc - and one of the cheapest as well. Since I'd already bought a lot of wood stuff, I had to refrain from looking too carefully at their selection, but I gave in and picked up a photo album to put some Costa Rica photos in, and at the very last minute as I went to checkout, found a wooden bracelet that I really liked for $4, so I had to pick that up as well. My bf got himself a Costa Rica t-shirt, and poor Sergio ended up standing by the cash register, trying to hurry us back to the bus, since everyone was taking so long. It must be a pain trying to get 44 people moving on schedule! Luckily, the rest of the tour group was in the store too, so it wasn't just us holding things up.

That was our last stop until we reached the Doubletree Resort in Puntarenas on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica (Arenal was somewhere in the middle). It was still quite a drive from the cloud forest restaurant to the Pacific Coast, so we didn't reach the Doubletree until late afternoon, after driving through several more towns and cities. Apparently the Doubletree/Hilton management had only taken over this hotel at the New Year, so they were still in transition, to a certain extent. Doubletree completely embraced Caravan - they had a special orientation set up for incoming Caravan groups in one of the conference rooms, where they gave us fresh-baked cookies and greeted us with information about their events, food, schedules, etc. We were given all-inclusive bracelets, which meant we could get unlimited food and drinks (including alcohol) at any of the bars and restaurants on the resort at any time. Of all the hotels we stayed at, the Doubletree was definitely the most resort-like - several pools, bars, restaurants, dance lessons, pool volleyball, beach volleyball, tennis courts, shows at night, etc. We were assigned our rooms (my bf and I discovered that the signage was very lame when we followed the signs and ended up walking down all four sides of a square to find our room halfway down the fourth side, instead of walking the short half-hallway from the front desk to our room), and went to settle in. We ended up having to wheel my parents' suitcases over to their room because they had sent all the suitcases with my last name to my room. Only such mixup all trip. The rooms were a bit disappointing - they had the Hilton/Doubletree bedding and amenities like nice thick towels and such, but they smelled musty and dank, and they were kind of dim and not particularly attractive. This seems to have been leftover from the previous hotel. While my bf and I had a room with a view of one of the pools, my parents' room had a view (almost) of the ocean - it actually was a view of the small hill between the ocean and the room, but if you walked out from their room, you were a short walk from a gorgeous view. We ended up staking out some lounge chairs facing the ocean along the top of the small hill. My bf went with the guy we were hanging out with to get some drinks, and brought me back a delicious virgin pina colada (I'm not a drinker, so that biases me, but I swear pina coladas are way better if you leave out the rum). I love getting that kind of drink in tropical areas because they use real coconut cream and it is so yummy. We all hung out, watching the sunset, which was really spectacular since the sky was quite cloudy, creating gorgeous patterns and colors.

After the sunset, the four of us young people went off in search of activities for the next day. On the schedule was a trip to the Manuel Antonio Park, which was supposed to have some gorgeous beaches and interesting wildlife, but it was a four hour roundtrip busride to get there, starting off at like 6:30AM or earlier. After spending all day on the bus, no one was looking forward to a four hour roundtrip bus ride, especially since we were only spending like an hour and a half at Manuel Antonio. I had originally wanted to go to the park, but it started to sound less appealing when people put it that way. Talking to the hotel people, we found an interesting looking ziplining company that involved horseback riding to the ziplines, ziplining over waterfalls and canyons, then rappeling down a waterfall, and swimming in the waterfall pool, which sounded fantastic. Unfortunately, they would only send transportation for a minimum of six people (plus it was $99 for the whole package, including transportation and lunch, per person). We spent quite a lot of time trying to find other people who would go with us, wandering around to see if we could find other tour group members, hanging out in central locations and approaching anyone who looked familiar, etc. We actually talked to several members of the tour for the first time that way. In fact, we got to chatting and meeting more of the tour members at the Doubletree than we had for the six days preceding. It was that kind of relaxing place. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find any takers - most people just wanted to relax at the resort. We eventually had to give up that idea (and also decided against a different "adventure park" whose highlight feature was a "Superman" zipline - a single line, 3000ft (I think) long, where you rode facing down in a "superman" position instead of facing up, like a typical zip line. That would have been neat, but we decided it wasn't worth the price). We went by the bar that was between the two sections of the buffet restaurant, started chatting with another few people from our tour, and checked out the interesting list of cocktails. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't drink, and am often quite proud of proclaiming that I never have had a drink, just a sip. Can't claim that anymore, though I didn't start that night. That night, I had a sip of my sister's "Coco Amore" (I think it was called) - amaretto, vodka, coconut cream, and evaporated milk, and it was yummy, despite that afterburn of alcohol I don't like. I do love the amaretto flavor - and the coconut cream.

Dinner at the Doubletree was disappointing. They were having an "Italian night" and the food was uninspired. Lots of it, yes. Chefs there to cook up your pasta concoction (you chose what you wanted to put on it, handed it to them, and they basically mixed it up and heated it on the stove, added sauce, and handed it back to you), a meat carving station, salad bar, etc, big dessert bar... but the food was pretty bleah. Actually, our assessment of the food at the various hotels was that Laguna had the best drinks (yummy different juices every day) and Lomas del Volcan had the best food (not that many choices but tasty, filling ones), while Doubletree had the worst food, and Barcelo was somewhere in between. The restaurant area was interesting though - it was this big high roof that didn't appear to have any supports in the middle, just crossbeaming up in the roof, and it was open on the sides to the pool. It was a cute area to eat, even if the food wasn't much good. Somewhere along the line here, we decided to go to Manuel Antonio after all since we'd seemed to exhaust a lot of the possibilities of the Doubletree already, and we didn't really want to just sit around all day. That meant we needed to get an early start, despite having had dinner around like 8pm. We didn't go to bed early though - we stayed up to check out the "cultural show" around 9:15PM, out of curiousity. This ended up being pretty boring. We'd been warned that Costa Rica wasn't long on culture (more on nature), but we thought it could be interesting, but the first three acts were just girls of various ages performing dances that seemed to largely consist of swishing their skirts. This could have been interesting except it felt a lot like an amateur talent show - varying degrees of talent, girls watching each other to see what to do next, etc. Then a moderately talented singer came on and warbled for a while. My bf had bailed by then, but we stuck it out until we discovered the next act was the skirt-swishing girls again, at which point we all left. It wasn't just us young people either - our friend's parents had left earlier, and my parents left shortly after us. We all decided to hit the sack, since we had to be up super-early for Manuel Antonio the next day.