Visitors (You Could Be Here!)

3/9/05 - This week we had our first visitors -- my sister Karen and her husband Chris.
They came on Saturday & stayed until Wednesday.  On Sunday we all went riding up on the property and down to the village store (borrowed a fourth horse from our neighbor Domingo).  On Monday, Karen & Linda rode to Nauyanca Falls (Chris was too sore from the day before) and then we went to Dominical to have lunch at Hammerheads. On Tuesday we went into San Isidro for lunch & shopping.  

Wednesday we brought them to the bus station in San Isidro. They'll be taking the bus to San Jose, spending the night there, and then leaving on Thursday afternoon.



3/20/05 - Andrew & Janet Doran came to visit for a night.  

Now, let's talk about small worlds:
On Sunday 3/13, Jaime (from Jalapeno's) called & told us that Andrew & Janet were coming to Costa Rica and would be driving down to our area sometime that day.  

A few hours later we drove out of the valley on our way to Dominical for lunch.  About a mile down the road, we drove up behind a little silver car. As Jim passed the car, I happened to glance over at the driver. It was Andrew!  What a coincidence, eh?  

Anyway, we flagged them down & they followed us to Hammerheads for lunch.  
After they spent a few days down on the Osa Peninsula (south of us), they came back up & stayed with us on Saturday 3/20.  

Here we are having dinner Saturday night. That's Cory, our neighbor, in the blue shirt. (Actually it is extremely rare to see Cory wearing a shirt...things are kinda casual here in the valley.)





5/8/06 - My sister Nancy and her friend Dee came to visit.  
Mack was very happy to see his Auntie Nance.  
 She brought him a new baby.  He liked it so much he buried it and we haven't seen it since.
We did a lot of riding this week.  
On Sunday, this motley crew rode together up to our neighboring village, La Florida.
Cory, Jackie and Jay.
On Monday, we rode to Nauyanca Waterfall.  

5/15/06 - Deb Roth, whom I've known since community college days (in 1975), came down to visit last week.  
We went to Hacienda Baru, a national park near here.  We saw various critters, like this sloth.
We also saw some poison dart frogs.
And a lovely butterfly.
We also went on the zip line tour with Keith (Brian's cousin) who was also visiting this week. Here's Deb zipping in....
 |Getting closer...
And Keith...
OK, those of you who know about my absolute terror of heights are probably wondering if I actually did this too.  Well, as you can see, I did.  

However, on the highest and longest zip line I heard a small "oh oh" just after the tour guide pushed me off.  Seems he didn't quite hook me up correctly and therefore about 25 feet from the platform I got stuck, hanging about 200 feet above the ground.  (And no one took a picture!!) Well, my life really was in italics at that point as I basically freaked out.  They did in fact rescue me about 5 minutes later (which to me seemed like 5 months.)  No I didn't pass out, fall down and die but I was sure convinced I was going to...
I did get back on the zip, looked at death in the face and laughed (ha ha), and a good time was had by all.  
 Drinking to our new motto: "May you never get stuck on the zip line of life".
Deb and I having lunch at Baru.
Thanks for coming Deb!





4/19/07 - My sister Karen came to visit this week.  Karen, Richard and I have been doing lots of horseback riding to the various waterfalls and cool spots here in the valley.   












On Friday, we went up near Chirripo (Costa Rica's highest mountain) to visit the hot springs.  The drive up was absolutely gorgeous.  The hot springs are actually more warm than hot, but a really pretty spot to visit.




I got a kick out of this sign.  It basically says "acting all lovey-dovey is not permitted" nor is eating in the pool.  


Karen bought the horses a beach ball.  It was a riot watching them figure it out.












5/1/07 - My cousin Deb came for a week just after Karen left.  We went to the beach, of course.  See how crowded it is?  


Lara, Deb and I were the only people there on this day.


We also went up to the Baruca Indian reservation.  The road to Baruca is really spectacular -- it traverses the ridge of this mountain range, with valleys and views on both sides.
 

You can see a bit of the road, winding up the side of the mountain.  Yup, I drove there.


The Barucan Indians make these fabulous carved, handpainted masks.  Deb bought this lovely one.


I bought a little one. I'm going to collect these and put them around the top rail of my house.


And of course we went horseback riding.  This is Deb on BonBon.   


We had a great visit.  Deb's definately planning on coming back every year.   She's going to start a project with her Seniors in East Providence, and have them adopt our local village's elementary school.  For more info, see my new page "Adopt Our School" to learn about what they currently need and how you can help.



12/31/07 - This week I had some friends from the Gloucester area come to visit -- Debbie & Jim McNeil and their three kids Kaitlin, Rob and Leigh.  We had a very busy week. On Friday we went horseback riding for 4 hours, and then went down to Hacienda Baru to do the zip lines.  




On Saturday we went deep sea fishing.  This nice yellow fin tuna made for some great sushi that night.








March 2008 - Towards the end of my cousin Deb's visit this year, we went up to Arenal.  I've never been there before either, so it was fun for me to be a tourist, too, for once.  We stayed at Arenal Paraiso, a rather ritzy resort with great views of the volcano.  This was the view from our cabin.


The cabins were quite nice.


...but of course were built with the typical Tico engineering.....



And many individual thermal pools

which we enjoyed every afternoon, even in the rain....


At one point our guide Roy stopped and picked a pod.  He tapped it a few times, and it opened up into this beautiful flower.  


The little concrete marker in the middle of the picture is actually the Nicaraguan border.  Needless to say, we didn't really bother with Customs checkpoints.  


We had a great visit together.  Can't wait until next year!  


7/26/2008 - My niece Jordan just graduated from High School. For her graduation present, my sister Nancy brought her down to Costa Rica to visit Cool Old Auntie Linda.


It was Jordan's first time horseback riding.  She did great, once she got past that "deer in the headlights" look.  


We went to the beach, even though it was raining,    


and then went to Exotica for lunch.  


Nancy bonded with the puppies.  


We went down to Hacienda Baru to do the zipline tour.  


Of course, it wouldn't be vacation at Cool Old Auntie Linda's without a cocktail or two. (Jordan, being 18, is legal in Costa Rica.)   
All in all, we had a great time together.    Thanks for coming down!