A New Perspective and a cool breeze

A fresh breeze is always lovely

Watching the green of the leaves change as the sun moves from directly overhead, as we’re so close to the equator, to somewhere very slightly west… the steamy heat of yesterday’s jungle hike softened by heavy overnight showers. The pathway outside is a mass of fallen flowers, frilly white ridiculous wedding decor-type flowers that fall from the leafy canopy above with a surprising whomp onto the path ahead of you, and a shocking bang should they land on the corrugated iron roof of the casita during the night.

Www.iguanalodge.com

I’m working from the principle that today is always the first day of the rest of my life, and so taking each day very seriously!! I arrived in Costa Rica a week ago, and it’s been a series of firsts ever since…

Arrived in San Jose, the capital, late, having successfully avoided the icy airports in New York and elsewhere in the US although my connection In Houston was totally delayed.

no card with my name and lots of taxi drivers yelling in broken english and spanish, sounding like their brethren in india at the bus and train stations. I kept repeating the hotel name so they soon realised I wasn’t a potential customer, and instead called over the sleeping hotel driver… who had stayed at the airport to meet me even though his shift was well over by the time I arrived.

He arranged another driver who drove through the completely sleeping streets, between car repair places, warehouses, empty lots full of trees, and simple ranch-style houses all scattered together, apparently urban planning has another aim in CR – to have people and work next to each other.

The distances are not enormous as CR is quite small, so it only took 10 minutes to reach my semi-rural stop for the night. the driver told me had driven for 14 plus hours the previous day, dropping a woman who missed an internal flight, and the start of a retreat, in the same town I was headed towards, Puerto Jimenez.

Stayed that night at a great family run b&b, Hotel Robledal, their lovely (flirty!!) father was up at 12pm to show me my room – surrounded by tropical gardens, airconditioned, huge hot shower, seriously comfortable. {$80 the night}
http://www.hotelrobledal.com

Eating breakfast of tropical fruit jugo (juice) and amazing banana pancakes the next morning, I met the 2 brothers who manage it, they moved to the property in 1999, and are making a good living. The property is across a potholey road from a large empty property destined to become townhouses but currently utilised by the hotel for birding tours, the local wildlife is so dense.
Saturday I flew down to Puerto Jimenez on a tiny plane, (Sansa Air – $135 for a 40 min flight which took the taxi driver 7 hours in his car the night before and cost his client $350).
reservations@flysansa.com
http://www.flysansa.com
Quite comfortable for the price, we were 2 pilots, and just 2 passengers in space for 16 … such a great way to see the shape of the land. Amazing flight!!!

Cemetary alongside landing strip at Puerto Jimenez

When you land in the remote southern Osa Peninsula (my location all this week) the plane taxis in alongside the local cemetary, which being very low lying construction-wise (!!?) makes for efficient use of space.

william the taxi driver collected my bag off the tarmac where one of thw captain/pilot/airsteward/baggagehandler people had dropped it, the ease of disembarking (climb out the plane – that’s it, you’ve arrived!!) -a reminder of how simple life can be when there are less people, and more time.

I’m going to end up in some sticky situations without Spanish as I could not even ask about using a bathroom before we went to the hotel, but in this case was rescued by lots of friendly voices translating and directing me to a local restuarant (have been hitting the Spanish beginner books most afternoons!!)