We arrived at Jeffrey´s place yesterday. He is the cousin of a friend of a friend in Chicago. Nice guy and amazing place he has here. Here´s a video of my arrival.
Breathtaking I promise. I explained yesterday that Tilaran is a small town like 15 minutes from San Luis, where the house is where we are staying. I am REALLY loving speaking Spanish. Everyone gives me great hope and they swear their English is worse than my Spanish but I beg to differ. They are just being nice...jaja. Pero es posible que mi espanol es mas bueno tan como el tiempo pasado cuando fui en Costa Rica. Es posible que enseno ingles en este ciudad pequeno. Es muy tranquilo aqui. I am loving this region of Costa Rica. Its perfect weather. Nice and cool at night and in the morning when you want to sleep and hot and humid and gorgeous during the day. The lake is amazing. A few facts about Laguna Arenal:
One of the top 5 best spots for windsurfing in the world!
Average year round temperature is 76 degrees fahrenheit (PERFECT!!!)
Humid and hilly of volcanic origin
More than 1000 species of plants
500 species of animals incluye jaguar, puma, hummingbird, toucan, bass fish
Laguna Arenal generates valuable benefits for local communities such as water, energy
production (they have hydroelectric dam to use the lake for electricity for
surrounding communities....the neighbor works there and is going to take us
there Saturday) conservation wild life, research, education and cultural.
Waterfalls 45 minutes away by bus
Monteverde only 2 hours away by bus
Volcano about an hour away by bus
Lake is 30 kilometers in length (18 miles)
Width is 4 kilometers (roughly 2.5 miles)
It is the largest lake in the country and the 2nd largest in Central America
Some photos
Just a shot on our walk down a gravel road to Laguna Arenal
Taken standing on the shores of the lake
Another shot just on the walk to the lake
This is what the road and some of the houses looked like on the walk down to the lake
The three stores in the village
the central square and park in Tilaran
A view of next door to the house we are staying in
the street we are staying on down the dirt road across the street from the church in San Luis (literally the directions we were given to get to the house.)
View from our front room window
Shot on the walk we took to the lake
Painting on the wall in Tilaran...see the wind mills?
Church in city central
While it is a nice sleepy village, there is also the presence of money or tourism or both. When we took walk to the lake we found a yacht club that offered services like a pool, jet skiis, windsurf lessons, trampoline on the water, kayaks etc...and a fancy hotel that probably costed about $150 a night. In the distance we could see a community of BIG homes, either vacation homes for foreigners or rich Costa Ricans. We wanted to see if we could take a boat to the volcano but it would have been like $300 and we were like ok, going back up the walk to our little abode. But yea, there were a couple more stores and a bar down there but seems like property right on the lake is more expensive. I just need to befriend someone with a boat....would be amazing to take a boat ride on this beautiful lake!!!!
It is very cool to see the people here care so much about the environment. Even in San Jose there are recycling bins everywhere. And like this area of the country the industry is renewable and sustainable energy. They have windmills and hydroelectric dams and such. Costa Rica wants to be the first carbon neutral country. Although it is not without its problems and I will have to get into that in another post, they certainly are doing a good job with the environment.
Despite fears of foreigners to drink water in central or south america...costa rica has some of the purest water in the world. It´s MORE than ok to drink the tap water.
The people in this small town are SO incredibly nice, but I guess you get that if you venture into small town Wisconsin as well. In fact, it reminds me of a Central American Wisconsin where I am right now. Cows, plants, rolling hills, lakes, friendly people. Aaahhh...my own slice of the Midwest in Central America.
We are headed to the Cloud Forest in Monteverde tomorrow and I am SO going to take a tour of the cheese factory. The Quaker community from USA moved to Monteverde in the 50´s to avoid being drafted into the war. They put down roots and created farming communities and now they produce local cheese, meets and vegetables. See what I mean about it being like the Midwest. ha ha.
I continue to learn new things about myself...every day. Every day is an adventure. We opened a wine bottle with a screw and (thanks to Andy Crowe) a screwdriver on my Swiss Army knife. And took ingredients that were "available" and made a wonderful dinner. Sat on the porch at dusk and focused my curiousities on the two people outside. One a teenage boy next door jumping to hit the roof of his house and periodically leaving on his motorcycle to who knows where and then a little boy across the street playing on a pole and jumping on stairs while his family was inside the temple. That is the ONLY action on this street, aside from the goings on of the local pack of dogs and the four or so cows that were next door and across the street. We also imagined shapes in the big tree across the street. Whilst sippin on some Merlot. The country life. Can u dig it?
Hopefully Ill make it to those waterfalls today. Love u and miss you all. Sending postcards soon. Adios!
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1 comment:
My bro got bedbugs in Panama which is just a hop skip and a jump away from where you are. However, it might be sand flees, or something with a name like that. They would attack all the gringos in Venezuela. They are similar to chiggers and they appear on the gringos because they are usually allergic to them. Is it like a little bite, that is raised, with a tiny dot of red in the middle? In that case, it's the sand flees. I'm not sure what you can do to get rid of them. Showers and bug spray?
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