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.

Shuli and San Jose

After leaving Puerto Viejo, we were planning on making a straight shot to our next destination - La Fortuna.  Unfortunately, we didn't check the bus schedules to make sure that plan would work and we ended up getting in too late to catch the last bus to La Fortuna.  Don't worry, though, that's all part of the no-plan plan! 

As you can see, "settling in" looks more like moving in!

Luckily our cabbie knew a clean, cozy, and affordable hotel right across from the bus stop to La Fortuna, so we got settled into our room and then headed out to explore San Jose with Shuli.
































Our past experiences in San Jose weren't all that exciting, but this visit was very nice.  It was a rainy day and we enjoyed seeing the various outfits the locals had put together to brave the elements - this little guy was our favorite! Funny how he's so protected and his mom is so... ready to get wet.



















We walked through the central market where Shuli found a beautiful hand-made purse and I got a not-so-fashionable but very functional sun-hat, with buttons on the side to convert it into a cowboy hat.

 Not sure how often I'll take advantage of that, but it's nice to know that I have options.  

That food transporter

While we were at the market we decided to go for the full Tico experience and eat at one of the little restaurants inside.  After we placed our order for guacamole and a banana milkshake we were surprised to see our waitress yell it out, seemingly to no one in particular.  As we sat people-watching, we noticed that food was being lowered down on a pulley system, and realized that our waitress had called our order upstairs to the kitchen that we didn't even know existed above the bustling marketplace below.












After our snack we walked the promenade, stopping for an hour or so to watch the Ticos walk by and discuss the various styles of dress. It is very intersesting to see the way the Ticas (the Costa Rican ladies) dress especially because the trend seems to be quite matchy-matchy. They always seem to pick a color and go for it, making all their accessories match and add a certain touch of style to their outfits. It was a great time to really observe the culture and feel the heartbeat of the city. Most of the young, well-dressed ladies that walked past us were accompanied by their gentleman partners. All held hands but no public displays of affection were seen. 

After enjoying our people watching session, we continued up the promenade and headed towards the Teatro Nacional (National Theater). It is a main site to see in the city and we observed many young people congregating in front and socializing. It is a beautiful sight to see and we enjoyed another people watching session while sitting in front. The theater is mainly a tourist attraction but also lends itself to various shows about twice a week. 

After observing the locals, we decided it was time to intermix. We had to head back to our hotel to eat and change but then we headed right back out into the city to hear some music at a bar we discovered called The Lone Wolf. 

Although we were tired it was really interesting to be out in a local young peoples hang out spot. All around us were people around our same age, dancing, talking, socializing with their friends and enjoying the band. I really felt like we were at home with how hip the scene was, all the young people dressed so stylishly. Aside from the language people were speaking it really was like we were in a local hipster bar in Los Angeles or New York City. There were even extra points of interest to watch from our seats at the bar, with the eccentric flute player with an afro that would dance in front of the band while he played and another man who tried with all his might to get the crowd going with his own interpretive dance moves.  

After a long night of taking in the sights our little eyes were tired and ready to head back to our little hotel room. We had to wake up early to catch our bus to La Fortuna so beauty rest was necessary. 

After the many visits to San Jose throughout our travels, this day and night proved to be the best. We really got a feel for the city and enjoyed immersing ourselves a little more in the Costa Rican culture.