The Jones Visit!

Melissa, Ethan and Adam Jones joined us for a too short visit in April. On their list of things to do were beach, rainforest, monkeys, ziplining, and hotsprings. In 6 fast days, we did it all. Natasha decided to skip school for two days, so the five of us headed off to Esterillos, our favorite beach.
Julie, of course, told Melissa that they needed to try pipa fria, which is cold coconut juice. It is Julie's favorite drink. We all love it too.


We stopped here at this fruit stand, and this woman gave us the coconuts, which she opened with a machete. Just so much fun to watch and to drink.

Then Ethan brought them over to another guy, who cut the inside out and we ate fresh coconut all the way to the beach.

On the way, we stopped to peer, carefully over this bridge. Carefully, because below it, live a lot of very large cocodriles, crocodiles , see below! Huge.


We arrived at the beach in time for sunset. The first time for any of the Jones at the Pacific Ocean, and sand dollars all around. Melissa has loved them for so long and found her first one here! Awesome.
Unfortunately for us, it was mating season for the manta rays and it wasn't recommended at all for us to go in the water in Esterillos Este. Fortunately this gave us the opportunity to go to a couple of spots that we hadn't been to before. Below is a pic of a statue of a mermaid out in this rocky area in Esterillos Oeste that we had heard about. We swam around and Ethan and Adam swam out to the statue. It was super hot there, like 97 % humidity, and 100 degrees or something. Anyway, it felt great to be in the water.

Then we decided to see if we could see monkeys, and headed to Manuel Antonio Nat'l Park, where Julie and I had had some luck with monkeys, and none of the others had been there. We stopped at this yummy typical restaurant. Ethan and Natasha are standing behind a photo op of traditional Costa Rican clothing.

As you know, coffee is a huge part of life here in Costa Rica. The waiter at this restaurant was pouring it the traditional way, at our table, through this hanging filter. They say that it maintains its flavor when you do it this way. Adam was our coffee drinker, and he loved it.

We got to Manuel Antonio at 4, and the park closed at 4, so we couldn't go in, but we did get to swim in some amazing waves. I wish I had a movie of the Jones guys in them. They were huge. We all had a blast swimming in them!


I love this apre wave shot, even Adam is smiling!!!!


Melissa and Adam looking for and finding more sand dollars.



There are a lot of different kinds of these guys who live in Esterillos. I think the people from there see them as we see squirrels, but for us, they are always cool.





Leaving Esterillos. I love this place. I love the colors. We had a very long drive that day, so we headed off. We drove to La Fortuna, where the Arenal Volcano are, and Tabacon Hot Springs, which we never tire of!

We ate lunch on the way, and the restaurant had an old coffee cart that Natash was posing with. They used to load these carts up with coffee and bring them into town, usually drawn by oxen or cows. You can still see them sometimes, but not very often.


Every town in Costa Rica has a central square, with a church, a park and a school. We drove through this town on the way to La Fortuna. I can't remember the name, but someone had decided to take over the pruning of these trees and it was incredible. We stopped to take some photos and chat with the people in the park.


A sweet shot of Arenal. We were lucky enough to see it. You can definitely be in La Fortuna and not see it.
We met Joe and Alexander at the hotel, soaked in the springs for a bit and then went to dinner.It was really nice to have everyone together. Here, Natash had 4 people trying to help her with her math homework. ( I really wasn't helping.)


Saturday was a blast. We soaked in the am, and then we split up. Melissa went on a very cool hanging bridges tour and really saw the rain forest. Natash and Joe soaked, and Ethan, Adam, Alexander and I went to the crazy zipline that we love there. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, I am not yet brave enough to bring my camera on the zipline, so no photos. It was a blast.

Melissa found this lovely butterfly garden at the hotel. The colors of the plants here are unreal.


Melissa enjoying the springs. It was a great trip, too short for me. So glad they came.

Clinica Cedcas

Last week, Alexander began complaining of a headache. He wasn't sure if it was a wisdom tooth coming in or what, but each day around noon, his head would really start hurting. He isn't a complainer, so on day three, I said, do you want me to call a dentist and he said yes. Hmmmm. How do you find a dentist? in a foreign country?I'm usually pretty picky about finding a good dentist. Well, I asked the people in the office of the kids school, and they gave us a number, of a clinic called CEDCAS. So, with a leap of faith, I called this clinic. They said that we could bring him in as soon as we could. Joe took Alexander to the clinic. They asked for ID, Alexander gave them his temporary drivers license, and they waited... for about 15 minutes. The Doctor came out, got Alexander, looked in his mouth, and told him that he had a big cavity. He drilled and filled it with a temporary filling and told them to return in 22 days for the permanent one. (Why twenty two days?) Then they gave Joe the bill, 7,000 colones. For those of you who only speak american dollars, this may seem like a lot, but it is about $12.00. Can you believe it? We are thrilled.

Today, I had to go. Three days ago, I noticed that I had about 6 raised, red spots on my leg. Yesterday, I found about 100, all over my body, on my face, in my mouth, on my eyelids, legs, arms, torso, palms of my hands... weird. And they were so itchy. I went to the pharmacy, which is the place you usually go here for medicine. Usually you show your symptoms or tell them, and they give you the medicine you want. Most of the time, they ask you how much you want. Amazing. You are like, what do you mean? My medical care in my own hands? Wow. Anyway, they had no idea what it was, so they gave me something, we decided for 5 days. Then today I woke up with maybe 200. So off we went to Clinica Cedcas, since it is the only place we know. They said they could see me in a half an hour, called me in early. I was weighed, my blood pressure checked, etc. The Dr. came , looked at the spots, talked to us. Super nice and unhurried. Then she said she was going to give me a steriod shot, take my blood and have the lab evaluate it and give me a prescription. The whole thing took about 45 minutes. And it cost 21,000 colones, about 40 bucks, including the blood and the lab work.

It is just interesting.

We are living in a LEDC, which I have learned from Alexander's World Geography class, is a less economically developed country. It is doing well for a country that isn't super developed, for sure, and there are tons of things here that economically and physically are absent. And at the same time, we are finding that medical care is not only professional, relaxed and easily available, it is not only cheap, it's worth it. It feels so appropriate on every level.

There are so many times that we have heard that people here think that the USA way is the ideal to hold up and aim for. And in many ways, you can see why. I think it would be amazing for our US Government to cast an eye this way when they are trying to provide good health care for all.