Tropical Thanksgiving

Me, Kirby, Mario, and our new friend Kai enjoying a very non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Would have been nice to cook something, but we were hiking all day.  We sent out thanks for all our family and friends several times throughout the day and we're excited to be home for the next holiday!

Back in San Jose once again.  This time it's on our way from the Osa Peninsula up to La Fortuna.  We're here at Galileo but we're actually not staying here tonight.  They have gotten so popular that they've been full to capacity the past couple times we've visited and are now setting up extra beds in the hallway to accomodate everyone. We narrowly escaped having to sleep in the hallway last time - as Kirby mentioned, we actually got a serious upgrade to The Tiger Suite because the people who had reserved it canceled at the last minute. No such luck for tonight, so we're having to set out into the unknown - a hotel across the street.  It feels strange to think of sleeping in San Jose and not being at Galileo, but on the plus side we will get our own room and not have to deal with other travelers harassing us for being online instead of getting drunk with them in the bar.  One time there was an especially agressive guy who kept repeating "you shouldn't be on the computer, you're in COSTA RICA! Now come on down to the bar!!"  We didn't quite see eye to eye on the necessity of drinking vs. writing, but luckily after several polite refusals from me and several more drinks for himself he accepted the fact that I was happy sitting in front of the computer instead of the bar.

Tomorrow we're leaving for La Fortuna to pick up our stuff, do a little souvenier shopping, and hopefully go on a hike to the top of the dormant volcano there.  It's right next to the active volcano and apparently has a lake in its crater and a of course great views from the top.  We wanted to go on the hike while we were living in the House of Dreams, but the rain and our cozy home made the all day hike seem like a little more of an undertaking than we were ready for.  Hopefully in a couple days we'll be looking back down at the House of Dreams from the top of the volcano, having made it to the peak at last!


We're still trying to catch up on our blog, and both of us are in the middle of posts that are turning out to be more like mini-novels, but we're tired from our long day of travel and have decided to call it a night.  The hotel we're at is very charming, feels like being at your friend's grandparent's house.  Our room smells amazing and we even have a couch!  Now we're off to dreamland. 

La Laguna Apoyo

So here we are once again back in San Jose. This time we have a little private room that I have named The Tiger Suite (due to the tiger print blanket on our bed and the jungle feeling bamboo on the walls). We just got settled back here at Galileo Hostel and are happy to be back somewhere familiar. The rain is coming down and we are relaxing on our bed getting straight to work on some blogging. We had such a great and busy time in Nicaragua that we didn’t get a chance to put up any blogs and now have some catching up to do! 

Sad to leave!

We headed up to Granada, Nicaragua after leaving the House of Dreams on November 11th. It was a sad day leaving our wonderful cabin and we were both a little nervous about our upcoming border crossing into Nicaragua. We boarded the Ticabus to Granada feeling a little sad and tired but we were pleasantly surprised by the plush condition of our bus! The Ticabus had extra comfy seats and they even played us a movie. Once we made it through all the border check points with no problem we began to stare out the window into the new unknown territory. Getting off the bus, it was nice to know that we had a friend waiting for us upon our arrival in Granada.

Getting bags checked at the Nicaraguan border

Katie’s friend Hobie, who she met last year at Burning Man, has been living in Granada for the past 5 years. Hobie has quite the life in Granada and owns a wonderful yoga-spa-gym named Pure. Pure is a wonderful tranquil place for people to go and enjoy a yoga class taught by Hobie himself or one of his great staff members, up their moves with a Salsa dance class, or relax with a massage while taking in the scenery of the garden courtyard. People aren’t the only ones enjoying this serene setting, there is also Snoopy, Hobie’s resident desert tortoise who likes to wander around spreading his tranquil vibe among all the guests. Katie and I really loved taking yoga classes everyday at Pure and loved how great our bodies felt with the daily meditation and stretching. 

The Entrance into Pure

Hobie and Snoopy

We stayed with Hobie at the fabulous Monkey Mansion right in the city with his two awesome roommates. We were lucky enough to show up at a time when we were not only able to stay in this great place but also have our very own room! The Monkey Mansion is a great open space complete with pool and garden courtyard. We were very excited to be invited to stay and felt very lucky to meet Hobie’s nice roomies, Blake and Alba, and get to know them a bit better. 

The View from our room at the Monkey Mansion

After getting settled in the Monkey Mansion, we got some rest and looked forward to our first full day in Nicaragua. Hobie and his roommates ended up taking us up to La Laguna Apoyo the next day instead of to the beach as we had discussed because we had gotten a bit of a late start. This change in plan ended up being a blessing because our day at La Laguna ended up being one of our best days in Nicaragua. The drive up to the Laguna was fun and I enjoyed riding in the back of the truck letting the wind blow in my hair. La Laguna Apoyo is a lake located in the crater of a dormant volcano and it was a breathtaking sight to see when we arrived at the lakeside hang out spot called the Monkey Hut. 

The Monkey Hut Dock

The Monkey Hut offers everything you need to make this perfect setting even more perfect with great homemade pizza, cold beers, docks to swim to, and a cool grassy area where we could lay in the shade and enjoy the view.  

Enjoying a sunscreen massage in the shade

Our day at La Laguna Apoyo couldn’t have been better! We spent almost the whole day swimming in the warm clear waters and taking in the beauty of the forest surrounding the lake from all sides. The water felt so good we never wanted to leave and ended up staying through the evening enjoying a night swim out to the dock to take in the view at night. Katie relayed what stories she could remember of the constellations and we all took in the starry night from the dock wishing our moment in the warm waters could last forever. 

As we all know, all good things must come to an end. But as we drove home to the Monkey Mansion, the cool night air against our skin, we smiled... knowing that we would always remember our day at La Laguna Apoyo. Now as our trip is coming to a close within just a few weeks, we are really cherishing all the great memories we have been making along the way. It is nice to know that even though this trip will soon be over we will always have this time that we spent together along with so many other great friends old and new. 

Feasts at the House of Dreams

A poolside snack on a bright sunny day!

Sitting here in San Jose catching up on blogs, my stomach is starting to rumble. The prospect of another peanut butter sandwich or some Costa Rican ramen noodles makes my heart sink a little and makes me miss the House of Dreams. We really treated ourselves and became a bit spoiled with our eating habits while living in La Fortuna in our fabulous little cabin. Everyday was a new food adventure and it was rare for our fridge to not be completely stocked with anything our little hearts desired! Since Denise was visiting and sharing in our expenses and since she brought us an assortment of gourmet cheeses from Costco we were able to step it up a notch from our typical everyday meals of rice and beans. 

Our kitchen was fully stocked with all the appliances and utensils we could need including toaster, blender, oven, and coffee maker! Katie has written many times about the joys of waking up to hot coffee and her favorite Nutella and Toastlettes however I wanted to also share about some of the many great meals we prepared in the House of Dreams.

Our days were nice and relaxing and there was always plenty of time to discuss what everyone felt like eating for dinner that day, grocery shopping for the ingredients and taking our time preparing each dish. Katie took care of our morning/afternoon meals creating an assortment of potato mash-ups, trying to perfect the crispiness, adding in whatever fresh vegetables we had picked up at the fruit stand in town.

Shopping for fresh fruits and veggies at the stand in town

Katie also became quite an expert on preparing us delicious smoothies. She used a large variety of fruit, including papaya gathered from the farm across the street, passion fruit which added an interesting crunch to some of the smoothies, and pineapple which we could always find fresh at the fruit stand. Our favorite ice cream, Dos Pinos, made here in Costa Rica was also a yummy addition to Katie’s smoothies. Their creamy vanilla flavor is to die for! Almost as good as gelato from Italy!! 

          

I took care of our dinner meals exercising my love for cooking and the freedom to create my own menu and recipes. I have been cooking a lot for The Pauls over the past 3 years and my culinary skills have really grown. I have been thinking a lot over these past months of applying for culinary school upon returning to the US. Cooking is something I have always really enjoyed. I love watching people take that first bite of my cooking and seeing their faces relax with the warm tastiness. I hope someday to be able to open my own restaurant. I know it will be a lot of work but it feels good to be excited about starting something that I am truly feeling passionate about. I am excited to get going with culinary school and see where this new path can take me. 

Some of my favorite meals to cook at the house of dreams were....

Lasagna fresh from the oven! 

Chicken Curry

Chicken Tacos- I marinated the chicken for a whole day with limes and cilantro from our own backyard! Yum!

Dessert with our favorite cookies and ice cream!

A Day in The Life

David with us in front of our House of Dreams

 I'm laying in bed in my cozy little room here at the house of dreams.   It's a gray morning, the sky is covered with clouds hanging so low that only the foot of the volcano is visible.  Looks like our last day here at the house of dreams might be a rainy one.  Good thing we did all our laundry over the past few days.

 

My room, so bright in the morning!

Kirby's room, the cool dark cave of sweet slumber

My room is upstairs and has windows on 3 walls, 2 of which have no curtains, so I'm usually up pretty early.  Downstairs, Kirby's room stays dark much longer, so she is usually up a little later.





 I've been using my early-morning time to try and catch up on our blog and it's been working out pretty well.  Once I hear Kirby stirring around downstairs I'll make my way down to start the coffee, spread the nutella on the toastlettes, and then bring everything (including Kirby) back up with me to the balcony.  There won't be much volcano action today because of the rainclouds, but we have plenty to keep ourselves entertained with watching the birds in our front yard and the horses in their field across the street.  And, of course, the toastlettes!

Our last morning at the house of dreams

 After breakfast we're planning on pulling out our suitcases and preparing for tommorrow morning's departure.  We're not looking forward to living out of our bags once again, but at the same time we're excited to be moving on from La Fortuna to explore something new.   Before we move on though, I wanted to write about what life has been like here. We've been so busy catching up on writing about what we've done that we haven't written much about what we're doing.  So here it is -  a typical day at the house of dreams.

 Coffee and toastlettes start off every day.  When Denise was here, backgammon was a very popular addition to our morning routine.  Sadly, she and her backgammon board are back in California.  It's not the same here without her here, but we're so glad she got to come visit for so long and share this experience with us.  Denise, we miss you! It's lonely living upstairs without you.

After breakfast on the balcony, we mull over our options for how to spend our day.  If it's rainy, perhaps a movie or gin rummy.   Our rummy games got pretty heated at some points because we're all pretty competitive, especially Denise and I.  Luckily we each had days when we really kicked butt, so we all got to have our own little chance to shine.





Our rainy day entertainment options were widely expanded by Denise, who brought us down a mini laptop loaded up with hundreds of hours of great music, TV shows, movies, and music videos. Our favorites have been The Boondocks, an adult swim show based on the comic strip.  It's hilarious and we highly recommend it for the adult audience.  Curb Your Enthusiasm has been a big hit as well, and even though I used to think Larry David was a total jerk, he's slowly worming his rude, insensitive way into our hearts.

If it's sunny, maybe a trip to the swimming hole, laundry, or a photo session of the flowers in the front yard or the farmers (or us) in the papaya farm next door.  

Kirby's V for Victory after her goal

Sometimes we opt for games in the front yard like soccer (Denise bought a ball while she was here that we're planning on bestowing upon some lucky little tico) or bacci ball (played with coconuts we harvested from the front yard).

Denise emailing, Kirby blogging, and of course I'm taking pictures of it all!

Relaxing by the pool or in the mini-pool is also an option, or if we're feeling really ambitious we could make the trek into town to blog, check email, and visit our friend David.

The biggest cell phone I've ever used!

Denise relaxing by the pool with her favorite beverage - coconut juice straight from the source

 Luckily yoga is always an option, rain or shine.

My trusty camera set up for yet another time lapse project

Kirby and I are also undertaking a massive photo organization project so that when we get home we won't be as overwhelmed by the thousands upon thousands of pictures we have taken.  At the same time we're whittling down our photo collection, we're adding to it with various time lapse projects of the clouds making their way across the sky and interacting in various ways with our beloved volcano.



Once the sun goes down, we head up to the balcony to watch it set behind the volcano. 


If it's rainy, we head to the kitchen to help/watch Kirby prepare the night's feast.

Some of our favorites have been her delicious chicken tacos, made with her homemade marinade and perfectly fried taco shells, lasagna, chicken curry, or whatever else her culinary inspiration produces.

She's not the only cook in the kitchen, though - during the day I usually make a fruit smoothie or a potato mash/egg scramble, or sometimes both!!!










To finish off our day, if we're lucky we go outside for a lightning show or make our way back up to the balcony to watch the moonlit clouds swirl their way over the volcano. If there is no action outside we resort to the previously mentioned TV shows, movies, or more gin rummy.  Then back to bed to rest up for our next dreamy day at the house of dreams.

Time is Flying!

It's hard to believe that November is already coming to an end!  It feels like just the other day we were moving into the house of dreams and looking forward to a whole month of being unpacked, having a fully furnished kitchen, and gazing out at the volcano from our balcony.  Now, we're back on the road again.  We're actually on the move right now, as I write this.  Kirby and I are on the TicaBus, on our way from Nicaragua to Costa Rica.  Surprisingly, it's the most comfortable bus either of us has ever been on.  Plush seats that recline, big windows, hot empanadas and cold drinks for sale, and the best part: on-board entertainment in the form of random music videos and movies.  Some of our favorites from this morning included: "Forever Yours" by Journey, "Take Me On" by ?, and the always entertaining "Whip It" by Devo.  What a strange world we live in - a public bus from Nicaragua to Costa Rica offers more to its customers than a domestic airline flight in the US. 

We're fast approaching San Jose and looking forward to another night in our home away from home, the Galileo Hostel.  Oh, actually we're here already!  To be continued...

Well, we've been at Galileo for hours now but our internet connection is letting us down.  It appears to be impossible to upload photos, so we're just letting you know what's been going on for the past couple weeks. We had a great time in Nicaragua and are looking forward to venture down to the Osa Peninsula tomorrow, home of the most biologically diverse rainforest in Central America.  Hopefully we'll be able to upload pictures soon.  Not sure how much internet we'll have in the coming week, but we are definitely hoping to catch up on our blog sometime very soon.   Just in case we aren't able to post anything else beforehand, hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.  We'll be missing the family, feasting, and festivities, and even though we won't be there to share this holiday with our loved ones, we are so grateful to have so many wonderful people in our lives.  We all have so much to be thankful for.  What a beautiful world we live in, full of so many amazing people and places.  We're so glad you are all a part of our experience down here and we're sending lots of love and thanks to have you all in our lives.

Livin' in Paradise!

Our first few days in Puerto Viejo, before Shuli arrived were very nice and relaxing. Katie and I had a great time lazing on the beach and enjoying the beautiful paradise surrounding us. While laying on the beach one day, Katie and I began to discuss the difficulties of living in paradise and pretty soon a song started to flow! So here is a sneak peek at one of our hit songs! We hope you enjoy it and even if you don't it is nice that it will be saved up here with our blog for all time for us to remember. 

Livin' in Paradise! 

Written by - Katie Wyles and Kirby Stevens

Its so hard to lead such a Costa Rican life,

Everyday we wake up and there is trouble and strife

We have to cook the beans and who will cook the rice?

Cuz its sooooooooo hard livin’ in paradise!

Hiking through the jungle, beach beyond the trees

Even if we tried to its impossible to freeze

Here at the equator the sun is very bright, 

we feel its rays so strongly, even in the night

Cuz its sooooooooo hard livin’ in paradise

We make it look so easy but everydays not nice!

If you wanna come and visit then you better think twice!

Cuz its sooooooooo hard livin’ in paradise! 

La Fortuna AND ANOTHER INTERACTIVE BLOG!!!!

Still trying to catch up on our adventures before we leave the house of dreams.  It seems a bit impossible, but we're trying!  

After taking Shuli to the beach and the city, it was time to head into the mountains.  We'd heard about a town called La Fortuna, with a volcano, waterfalls, hot springs, and some good nightlife, and we'd been saving our visit there to share it with Shuli.  We stayed in La Fortuna for a few days, went on the zip line and went camping near the volcano, then rented a car and took a road trip to the beach for a few days.  It was a very fun visit and jam-packed with things to do and sights to see.  We were so busy enjoying her visit that we didn't devote much time to writing about it, but our time at the house of dreams has been helping us to catch up.

Our view fom the bus

The direct bus from San Jose to La Fortuna leaves at 5:30am and 11:45 am.  Since it's around a 4 hour bus ride we opted for the early morning ride to leave us time to explore and hopefully settle in before the rain.   


When we got off the bus we were immediately ATTACKED by tour guides. They swarm right in as soon as you step off the bus, not even giving you time to get your bag, telling you they know where you should stay and what tour you should take and how they're the perfect tour company to make all your Costa Rican dreams come true.   It was very unsettling, especially for Kirby who had spent the last couple hours of the trip sleeping and was still half-asleep when we got off the bus.

We normally decline any assistance in finding lodging and especially packaged tours, but the prices they were quoting, of $7 or $10 per night, lured us in.  And guess where they took us? LUIGI'S!!!  Funny that was the first place we saw in La Fortuna and it's where we still go every time we want to use the internet.   Luigi's is actually a pretty big establishment - a large two-story hotel, a good-sized restaurant that is roofed but open on all sizes, a pool and jacuzzi, a casino below street level that we've heard is a haven for drunks in the middle of the night, and perhaps my favorite thing of all: a colorful mural of the Costa Rican jungle behind the front desk.

The tour guides turned out to be pretty nice and with Shuli's help they convinced the hotel staff to put a mini-fridge in our room since we wouldn't have a kitchen to prepare our own meals in.  Then they started to talk business.  Which tour did we want? What time? What did we want to see?  Then came pricing, starting at $45 and eventually working their way down to $25 (with a lot of help from Shuli the master negotiator).   We were all pretty tired and by now starving as well.  On our way to lunch we stopped by the tour office to pay and the boss was very upset to hear that we'd been quoted a price of $25.  He refused to honor that price so we gave up on tours and focused our attention on what had become our number one priority: lunch.

Frankie and I out to find our new home (our as in me and Kirby, not me and Frankie!)

Afterwards, we were so tired out from all our traveling, negotiating, and foraging for food that we were very excited to return to our hotel room and just relax.  On our way back I got a little distacted by some amazing artistic creations being sold at a stand on the corner of the main road, that's when I met our friend David, the creator of the beautiful artwork I was admiring.   I was telling him about how we were a little overwhelmed by all the tour options in town (there are SO many places to book tours and they all seem the same but have different prices and guides).  After talking for awhile, he told me that he has a friend who could take us to see some sights if we paid for his gas, and I ended up making plans for us to go camping with them sometime in the next couple days. I also met his friend Frankie, a very enthusiastic older fellow who was quite excited to try and help us find a place to settle in La Fortuna. 

After lunch we took advantage of one of our favorite things about Luigi's - the free coffee! Paired with our little cookies, it was the perfect after-lunch snack.

When we got back to our hotel room, we were inspired by our room's interior design and a grand photo shoot commenced.  Don't we look like an edgy girl band!? Kirby's the lead singer, with a soft spot for jaguars.

This picture has nothing to do with what I'm writing, but it's a beautiful mural, huh?!

The next day we booked a tour for the zip line (with different guides than the ones who swooped in on us at the bus station) and we spent our whole day at the resort zip lining, hiking to the observatory where we had our first yoga session, and relaxing in the hot springs.  That day deserves a post all it's own, and will be coming up soon...  

That night we were pretty wiped out, but managed to get ourselves out on the town.  We meant to meet up with David at the Lava Lounge to listen to some live music, but we missed the show and ended up going out for a night of salsa dancing.  One of the guides from our zip lining adventure had invited us out to dance at what he said was his father's bar downtown, so we headed there and met him and some friends.  Unfortunately it seems that some ticos are very jealous and posessive, and our new friend couldn't handle the fact that we were talking with other people at the bar, but we had fun dancing anyways and chalked it up to a learning experience.   A learning experience that has stopped us from going to the local bars.

Camping with David and Hairo was quite an adventure.  We met up with them in the evening and after stopping by the Mega Super to get some groceries for our trip we headed out to the volcano.  We first stopped along the way at the lake for an impromptu dance party on the side of the road.  There is a road along the dam of the lake and it seems like a very popular activity for ticos to just park in one of the lanes and hang out.  After dark there is so little traffic here that no one seems to mind if you block half of the road.  

The tent looks bigger when it's empty!

We hiked a bit to our camp spot, a covered area about 1/4 mile into the jungle with a great view of the volcano and some benches to sit and watch for lava.  Hairo's dad owns the land and his sister lives in a little house nearby to take care of the property, and we felt very VIP getting our own personal tour of the area. Unfortunately it was a little foggy at the top of the volcano, so our only lava sighting was a little red glow in the clouds, but we cooked up a delicious pasta dinner with homemade red sauce and then talked with our new friends until bedtime.  The 5 of us squeezed into a little 3-person tent to go to bed, which wasn't so restful for Kirby and Shuli.  Luckily I always sleep like a little log, so I wasn't too affected by the lack of space.

In the morning we woke up incredibly early (6am!!) to go on a hike with the boys to the foot of the volcano and hopefully see some tucans and monkeys along the way.  The trail we took was called "the trail of the tucans" so we were hopeful for some good wildlife sightings, and we weren't dissapointed.  Shuli saw her first monkey and quite a few tucans, as well as some wild turkeys and an interesting bird with a call that I can't really describe.  It started off sounding like a scratched record and then worked into a very shrill,  high pitched song.  Unfortunately we didn't take any recordings of the bird calls, but of course we took dozens of photos of our hike!

The beautiful ginger flower, one of our favorites! Even though we already have lots of pictures of it, we can't seem to pass one by without taking it's picture!

Kirby and her new best friend Shuli - what an adorable pair!

Kirby and David making their way up the mountain

Shuli's first monkey sighting - a spider monkey

Hairo and David

After our hike we headed back to La Fortuna to plan and rest up for our next big travel day - our road trip! 

And NOW for the interactive portion of this blog!!!! Here is a photo of the curtain in our hotel room.  What do you see? To me, it looks like the face of an old man with a curly mustache and a HUGE curly hairdo.  Kirby sees an old chandelier that reminds her of the one hanging in her mansion back in Beverly Hills. If you're reading this, LET US KNOW WHAT YOU SEE!! You have no idea how much we love reading your comments! Seriously.