Day 21 and Beyond

It's over.  I'm writing this from the relative comfort of my kitchen in New Hampshire after a grueling long day of traveling.  Despite the wealth of rich experiences we've had, the Costa Rica reality is already fading into the past.

We left Manuel Antonio midday after a last swim and some shell searching.  For the most part, there are not beautiful shells to collect on this beach, or any of the others we've visited here.  Mostly, there is a mixture of soft and coarse black to grey sand with stones of varying sizes.  There are some swaths of pebbles and small bits of stones where the high tide dumps them, and this is where I searched today.  I gathered some interesting stones and some colorful shell fragments perhaps for future jewelry making projects.  Then it was time to go.

Our destination was Juan Santamaria airport in San Jose.  We had originally planned to take the bus which would take 2  1/2 hours.  Our flight was at 1AM!  We wanted to have as short a wait as possible.  After a lot of hesitation, we decided to splurge and hire a private driver to take us there.  Unlike the bus, with a driver we could pull over whenever we wanted, and take back roads to find new things.  Carlos, picked us up at 3PM in a minivan and made it clear he was at our service.  He was in no rush, although he hoped to get back home before 11PM.  Our two requests were food related: to find some empanadas and some fresh guava.  We drove past a palm seed oil plantation and he told us a great deal about the company that owns the plantation as well as detailed accounts of how palm seeds are grown and processed for their oil.  I now know more about the life cycle of a palm seed oil palm than I ever knew was possible!


We saw some magnificent coastal views as we drove north along the ocean's edge..  After turning east towards San Jose, Carlos pulled over to show us some mackaws flying and a dozen or more HUGE crocodiles soaking up the sun in a river bed.  He jokingly told us that when his mother-in-law is being unpleasant, he says, "You should go swimming in the Rio Tarcoles!"   These were the largest healthiest crocs I have ever seen both in the wild and captivity.

A crocodile family

Immediately after the bridge was a soda, a family owned restaurant, where we got our last empanada fix! Yummy, greasy and filling before our flight.  We stopped 2 more times at fruit stands and got some mamoncillo or honeyberry, a member of the soapberry family.  They are different on the inside, but similar to the rambutan which is called mamon.  Kind of hard to eat because they get stuck in your teeth, but very sweet and juicy.  We also tried a fruit called Nancy.  They look like yellow cherries or tiny plums with a pink blush.  They taste like perfume.  Cloying and smelly. 

Mamoncillo

After a rambling drive through the back streets of a few San Jose suburbs we arrived at the airport at 8PM.  There was nothing left to do but wait.  It was too early for boarding passes and security.  We found a comfortable spot on the floor and rested and waited....until we were hungry.  Tim figured out that there was a free shuttle bus driving in a loop between the airport and some restaurants and hotels.  Having only 4 more hours to wait, we decided to try our luck at a nearby restaurant.  We ended up, of all places, Denny's.  As we sat in their closed-walled air conditioned building eating American food off of a menu written in English it was hard to tell we were even in Costa Rica. It was really an anti-climax. 

Jacob with flower

There are so many ways to explore and discover Costa Rica.  We had tried a few ways ourselves, and ended up likeing the rural way most of all.  But here, back near the airport,  the sounds of air-conditioning had replaced that of the cicada and cricket, the smell of ylang-ylang blossoms had been replaced by frying potatoes and the waitresses here automatically spoke in English despite the fact that I answered them in Spanish.   It felt as if the trip were already over.

At last we returned to the airport and the kids slept on the floor until our 1AM flight.  Both flights were uneventful except for the SLOW customs and security lines almost making us miss our connecting flight in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  But "almost" doesn't count, except in horse shoes, and at 10AM we were back in Boston.  We waited one hour for the Boston Express shuttle, drove an hour north to the park-and-ride where we found our car and drove the final 45 minutes home.  After three weeks of warm weather, our yard looked a bit like a jungle, but shorter!

So, Dear Reader, thank you for following our adventures these past 21 days.  Writing "to" the blog helped me pay closer attention to details, provided me with an opportunity to reflect on our experiences more than I might have otherwise, and electronically immortalized (another oxymoron?) the events of the Gibney Costa Rica Adventure.  We wish you all safe travels and hope that someday we'll have blogs to read about your adventures too!

And as the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean we bid you all Adios!