Now wait just one minute. A hangover? Come on. I’m no biology buff, but it shouldn’t take my liver 12 hours to metabolize the alcohol from two (rather girly) drinks from the night before. Even if it wasn’t a hangover, it sure felt like one. Why did I feel like such crap?

Maybe it was dehydration. Or lack of exercise. An omega-3/omega-6 imbalance? Rolling out of the wrong side of the bed. The possibilities were endless less than dramatic and all remediable in one morning.

My grand solution? Eat something. And get some fresh air.

I wanted to find breakfast with a view. For a town that’s built on the edge of the ocean, this should’ve been easy breezy. Not so. We drove up and down the main road from one end to the other, but nothing was open. Manuel Antonio caters to backpackers, and that means a hoppin’ night life. Not exactly the place for early risers.

Just as we were about to give up, I saw a small sign for a restaurant at the Costa Verde Hotel: Breakfast * Lunch * Dinner.

Breakfast, we found you!

And View, we found you too.

The plan, after breakfast, was to get to the beach and rent a surfboard at high tide. Kirk kept an eye on the waves between each bite of his pancakes (courtesy of our amazing view).

Now, for some photographic evidence to justify the title of this post:

Kirk’s done this a few times before.

Me?

I still use the knee approach.

Nevertheless, I made it onto two feet. Don’t you love the intensity?

This is the “I got-up! Twice!” smile.

After our surf session, we showered, checked-out, and scoured the shops for souvenirs.

Then, all too soon, we had to wave adios to the beach and the little town. See you next time.

We had a date with Rocky at noon. It was time to head home. ☼

…and then promptly ended at 6:30 p.m.

Really. The two of us razzy youngsters were tucked in our motel beds (yes “beds” plural – twin beds on opposite sides of the room) and asleep by half past 7.

It doesn’t sound razzy or young to be already snoozing around the time old folks are finishing supper. Come to think, Kirk and I are more dorky than hip, and mathematically closer to thirty than twenty. Eeek.

That morning, back in San Jose, we had loaded the car, dropped Natalia off at work and hit the road. By mid-afternoon we had arrived at the cluster of shops, backpackers and motels that is Manuel Antonio. With no hotel booked (we live dangerously), Kirk and I split up to inquire at various front desks about nightly rates. For a mere $38, Hotel Vela Bar gave us a small cave of a room with a pair of twin beds, a fan, and two — count them – one, TWO — complimentary bars of soap. But we could care less about all those luxuries. All we needed was a place to sleep. After moving our bags from the car to the room, we walked to the beach and went for a swim.

Which, after a shower and a change of clothes, brings us back to happy hour at the Marlin Restaurant. And back to that margarita. Which has now turned into a piña colada.

But never mind all that. Who, on their vacation, goes to bed before prime time TV even starts?

We do. We did. (I shouldn’t rob the future us of potential coolness.) More importantly: Why? I’ve chalked it up to a combination of the following:

• Drinks. One too many, one too few. We unfortunately consumed the magic number of happy hour beverages that puts one right in between ‘Taking the Edge Off’ and ‘Starting to Get Trashed.’ Rather, we were right at ‘Damnit, Now I’m Just Sleepy.’
• Budget. We didn’t have the budget to save ourselves from ‘Damnit, Now I’m Just Sleepy.’ Nor did we necessarily desire to move into ‘Starting to Get Trashed.’ Personally, I prefer to reserve that category for special occasions.  (An hour before TC & Michelle’s wedding reception had even begun, for example.)
• Lack of Electrically-Powered Stimuli. Have you experienced a power-outage in the last half-decade? Isn’t it amazing how everything seems to grind to a halt? You can’t watch TV. You can’t use the internet. You probably can’t use your computer at all unless your laptop has a bit of battery left. You can’t read a book because you keep burning the pages on the candle flame. Kirk and I felt stonewalled by the darkness. (Our electricity wasn’t actually out. We did have lights.)

Maybe we could…

Talk. This was unfortunately thwarted by the ramifications of bullet #1.

Go for a walk. Check. Didn’t last long.

Lastly, Head to a bar/restaurant. Thwarted by bullets #1 and #2.

Final option? Crash early. Oh so early.

Check. ☼

~ ~ ~

Next up: Two Gringos Go Surfing

And the motorcycles. So many of them. Splitting lanes like reverse tight-rope walkers.

“Good lord! That guy almost lost his left arm,” I said cringing. Near-amputee experiences were happening all around us.

“They drive here like how you’d want to drive back home, but would get pulled over and ticketed for reckless driving if you actually did,” said Kirk.

“Ya, maybe how you’d want to drive,” I replied.

The night before, two very trusting Ticos graciously offered their only car – their uninsured car – to a couple of gringos who wanted to take a trip to the ocean. A trip to the ocean was no afternoon jaunt; it was 350km there and back to the our desired destination: the beach town of Manuel Antonio. And since Natalia and David’s short vacation time was up, Kirk and I were going it alone.

“Don’t stop for nothing,” David warned us the night before. “Keep your camera, your phone, hidden. If the guys see that, they run up to your car and point a gun at you, and say ‘Give it to me.’ You can’t do nothing.”

“Make sure you check the tires after you park somewhere,” advised Natalia. “If they see you are a tourist, they slash your tires, and when you come back and try to leave, they rob you.”

“And the police,” David continued, “if the police stop a Tico, they just let ‘em go. But you, they see you a gringo. They say, you pay a fine. $100 maybe, maybe more. In cash. They pocket it. If the police stop you, say you speak no a Spanish.”

Feeling significant elevation in our personal threat levels, we remained on edge even through San Jose’s suburbs. Finally, after passing the third and final toll booth, the highway thinned down to two lanes and the traffic lightened up. We relaxed and absorbed the passing environment.

We admired the fence-building practices of Tico farmers. Why use dead wood that needs to be replaced over and over when you can grow your own live fence with a handful of seeds?

We drove for another hour or so, passing miles of palm tree farms hanging in the sky like rows of green fireworks.

A semi-truck heading in the opposite direction flashed his headlights. “Was that meant for us?” I asked Kirk. “Maybe there’s police up ahead?”

Rounding the bend, we saw the reason for the warning.

Loose livestock frequently roam New Zealand roads too, but instead of cows, the runaway culprits are sheep.

It was nearly noon, and even with the windows rolled down, the car was heating up. We longed for cool sea breezes and a bathroom break. Some food wouldn’t hurt either. Preferably casados from a soda, a Tico diner, near the ocean.

We turned off the main highway a few kilometers before Jaco – the big tourist-saturated beach town we visited the previous week – in favor of Playa Herradura, which turned out to be a bus stop and a few sodas settled on the edge of a dark-chocolate beach, with fishing boats floating in a bay the color of liquid peacock feathers.

Just perfect.

Seated at a table just across from perfection, we enjoyed a cold Fresca while we waited for our order to arrive. ☼

Next up: Two Gringos in Manuel Antonio…

Next week, we’re going camping. And I don’t have a sleeping bag.

How strange. We humans can’t venture into the outdoors for even one night without dragging along a truckload of man-made contraptions.

Without sleeping bags, we’d be cold.
Without tents, we’d be bug-bitten.
Without groceries, we’d be hungry.
Without camping chairs, we’d be uncomfortable.
Without sleeping pads, we’d be sore.
Without lighter fluid, we’d be frustrated.
Without ice, we’d have warm beer (heaven forbid)!
Without… you get it.

We bring everything we can into the wilderness to replicate the standard of living we enjoy in our “normal” paved, painted, smoothed and sanitized world.

Now, what if we were snatched from our running water, our temperature-controlled environments and – gasp! – our refrigerators, and dropped in the middle of nowhere? Let’s say, the middle of the jungle. Could any of us survive?

These were my ponderings as I bounced around in the back of Rocky over the severely uneven Costa Rican dirt roads, trying to keep a hold of the lunch in my stomach.

It took us four hours of driving deep into the middle of the jungle to get to our destination. And even then, we didn’t quite make it.

We crossed a one-way bridge with a maximum capacity of one vehicle. The guy behind us was pushing his (and our) luck:

After driving a few hours, we stopped on the side of the road to eat the sandwiches and watermelon we had bought that morning from the grocery store. Sofía was happy to get out of the car.

She helped David and Kirk clean up the impromptu picnic.

After some more bouncing around, we made it to a cool, clear river, just asking us to stick our feet in.

Naturally, Kirk needed to go conquer the boulders.

And by the way, see that waterfall in the background in Kirk’s photo? It was actually our original destination. Since it was already late in the afternoon by the time we arrived at the river, we decided to turn back before it got too late.

We had no plans to camp or stay out in the jungle through the night, but as I watched it grow dark on the car ride back home, I wondered what I would have done if I was somehow left out there. I think stranded situations like that occur more on TV (Lost) than in real life, unless of course you go out asking for it. But there’s always “what if…”

I mean, I don’t even think I can start a fire without a match. If I had to forage for berries, I’m sure I’d pick the poisonous ones. And hunt? HA! Yeah right. Even a sloth could evade me.

I’m putting “learn survival skills” on my To Do list.

In the mean time, thank you Rocky, and thank you groceries, you made exploring the Costa Rican jungle just lovely.

And thank you REI, because you make the outdoors fun for those of us who weren’t raised by wolves. (And my new sleeping bag [bought just in time for next week when Kirk's sister Maureen comes for a visit to SoCal] is gloriously warm, and even a pretty color too.) ☼

All five of us (David at the wheel, Kirk riding shotgun, and me, Natalia and Sofia [in her car seat] squeezed three across the back) took off for a day trip to Cartago. Our first stop: Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles.

Every August, over 1.5 million people make a pilgrimage to this Catholic church in celebration of Virgen de los Angeles Day (The Day of the Virgin).

According to Wikipedia, the story behind the construction of the basilica goes like this:

In Cartago… [a] little girl found the small statue [of the Virgin Mary carrying the infant Jesus] on a rock and took it home. The next morning she found that the statue was not there but back at the rock, so she took it to the priest and he locked it in a small box. The next morning the statue was back at the rock. During the construction, the church was destroyed by earthquakes so many times, it was finally decided to move it to the location where the statue was found and they were able to finish construction. Many people think that the earthquakes were signs that the Lady of Los Ángeles wanted the basilica built there.

The original statue is kept in a golden shell inside the basilica. An official decree declared the Virgin of the Angels the official patron of Costa Rica.

In the picture above, you can see the statue encased in an elaborate display.

Venturing down into the airy basement of the church, we found many display cases full of tiny metal hands, noses, ears, hearts, pelvises and every other body part and organ. When struck with an ailment, a devout Tico Catholic may leave here a tiny metal likeness of his or her afflicted organ or limb in hopes that God will soon heal it.

One need not be a Catholic or even have the slightest religious inclination to appreciate the beautiful architecture of the Basílica.

Finished with our exploration of the church, we all piled back into the mini-SUV. Next stop: the jungle. ☼