Sorry, I can't figure out how to move the photos yet, so I'll describe these, post it all , and try a new post. This is Joe and a friend at La Paz Waterfalls, also a waterfall from La Paz.


Welcome to the Kinczel's Costa Rican Adventure. It is so amazing to be here and a lot of folks asked us to make a blog, so I am learning. I hope that all four of us will write as we are here, so you will be able to hear all of our thoughts and voices.

From the beginning. We have this amazing life in Colorado. Our lives there are filled with joy, amazing friends, wonderful playgrounds of woods and trails year round and loads of love. That said, this is all our kids have ever known. We decided to shake it up for a year and go on a huge adventure. Costa Rica was our choice, because we had only heard great things about it, and it is a first world country, so they have great computer and phone access for Joe.( Someone has to keep working!!) We spent the year getting ready, physically as well as emotionally. I got a leave from school with the stipulation that I wouldn't work here ( not like they are paying me).

We visited Costa Rica in July 2008, and found a wonderful school. It is called The European School, or La Escuela Europea. (http://www.europeanschool.com). Then Joe came here in June and found us a house and a car.
After a wonderful going away party, we left on July 27th at midnight. This is our blog!

We arrived at 5:30am, and got a ride to our new home, pictured above. We are living in San Rafael de Heredia, about 11km from San Jose. The home is owned by a great family who have helped us so much. Victor is a triathlete, and is super sweet. He only speaks Spanish so we immediately began to try to speak it. Haidi, his wonderful wife, speaks English very well, so she helps a lot! They have two kids, Maria Jose, (Majo) and Alejandro. Majo is 19, goes to school in France and is totally trilingual. Ale is almost 8 and speaks a bit of English. Anyway, Victor and Haidi met us at the house, and began explaining everything to us.

The first few days, maybe even the first week was filled with all of us living outside of our comfort zones, really outside.Really, everything was different. Luckily for us, Haide and family took us to the store and we got everything we needed. Then we were on our own. We had no idea where we were, and there are no maps here. Everyone is happy to give us directions, like turn at the big tree, the pink garbage can and the spray painted wall and you'll be a the gas station, but I am realizing how map dependent we are as a culture. So little by little, the world of San Rafael de Heredia began to open itself to us.

I gotta tell you about driving here. It is crazy driving at it's best. There are no rules except go for it and beep. Stop signs and stop lights are optional, I think. My favorite one is a two holed hanging light on the way to Heredia, the bigger town near San Rafael. The top hole is a red arrow, pointing to the left. The bottom one is yellow. There is a stop sign and a line on the road that implies stop. Both lights are constantly blinking, and the funny part is that no one does anything at that light except zoom through it and beep. Alexander thinks this is the best place to drive in the world. Joe of course loves it too. It took me a bit, and I have to say, that I love it too. We are bound to get loads of tickets upon our return to the states.
It is so interesting how everything is expanding with increased information. For example,
we decided to take a trip to the La Paz Waterfalls during the first week, which we had been to last summer. Of course we hadn't driven, and our driver knew all about the pink garbage can and the graffiti wall etc. We didn't, but we went for it. We were following signs, Joe driving, me with my dictionary, trying to figure out where we were and why the road looked like a huge mudslide waiting to happen. It took us 3 hours to get there asking everyone for directions. One guy told us to go to the bombo blanco and turn right. Alexander and I thought it had something to do with firestation, cause bomberos are firefighters. It was a white gas station, but we found it It is a beautiful place with waterfalls, and tons of cool birds, see photo of Joe, and frogs (poisen dart frogs) butterflies and snakes. As we were leaving, I bought a MAP!!!! It was so great, although it isn't exactly the map that I needed, I was so happy to have one. And we found out that the area that we were driving through, the mud slide road, was where the earthquake had happened 9 months ago. Driving back through it, we had a way different perspective, for sure.