Legal-ese. . .

I got a first-hand glimpse of a small slice of the Costa Rican legal system the other day. . . Nothing that involved handcuffs, pepper spray, accusations or lewd behavior. Rather, one of the ladies who worked here at the hotel decided it was time to move on after a few years here. . . Back in the States, it's not a problem when someone quits: Thanks for the time and the memories and good luck in your next endeavor. . . Here, it's not quite so simple. This involved a visit by the employee to the Ministry of Jobs to fill out paperwork, and then a visit by me (on behalf of the owners) to the hotel's lawyer. . . The whole process took several days and about 90 minutes with the lawyer. . . When all was said and done, the employee received severance (calculated by how long she had worked here--part-time and full-time and how many vacation days were due, as well as the year-end bonus, which was pro-rated) and we all had to sign a document saying that she had resigned on her own and she cannot come back to the hotel for any future claims. . . Pretty binding and a lot of hassle, in my opinion, but nothing out of the ordinary here in Costa Rica. . . The lawyer, a very nice fellow who speaks excellent English (a huge benefit for me), was joking around has he did the hunt-and-peck through 1.5 pages of Spanish legal-ese, that this must be driving me crazy, i.e., the ins and outs of the Costa Rican system. . . I didn't mind it, to be honest. . . Everyone left happy, which was the main thing. . . The lawyer did tell me that to do just about anything in Costa Rica, you need a lawyer--including selling a used car to someone. . . Don't think we're going to have to test that out, but who knows? A good and personable lawyer can be worth plenty here, I'm starting to realize. . .

Aluminum or glass?

Now, if you guessed that this is about beer, then good for you. . . Personally, I've always been a fan of a bottle of beer over a can. . . Can't give you any scientific or emperical reasons why, it just seems to taste better coming from a frosty bottle, with droplets of water streaming down the side. Sure, aluminum is supposed to keep things colder for a longer period of time, but there's just something about a cold bottle of beer in the tropics that rings more true than a can. . . The other day, we were shopping and I was going to pick up a six-pack of Imperial, the most popular beer here in Costa Rica. I noticed that a can was 550 colones (about $1) while a bottle was 435 (I even went to one of the scanners scattered about the store to double-check on the price, and it was 435) . . . Bonus -- cheaper and a bottle! -- I thought. . . I grabbed six bottles and went up to the cashier thinking of happy thoughts of cold beer from a bottle . . . She rang them up, and it came to over 1,000 colones ($2) per bottle. . . Hmmmm, something's amiss, I thought. . . Luckily Lucy was there and asked the cashier what the problem was. . . There's about a 500-plus colone deposit on each bottle. . . A serious metaphorical and reality bites buzz-kill . . . Back went the bottles and out came the cans. . .

Going postal

My folks and other people have asked about sending stuff down here to us in Costa Rica. . . We tell them, don't bother, we're fine. . . In reality, though, we're just not sure that we would get something if it were sent down here. . . Our friends in London, Simon and Erika, sent us a postcard when we first started from merry old England. . . It took six weeks to get here. . . There are no street names or numbers here in Costa Rica, and they are just starting to implement zip codes. . . The mailing address for the hotel is: Costa Rica Tree Houses Hotel, 300 metres Norte de Cemetario el Santa Clara, San Carlos, Alajuela, Costa Rica. . . That basically says (and I'm sure I mangled the Spanish) that the hotel is 300 meters north of the Santa Clara cemetery. . . That's it. It's the same in San Jose and other cities. . . The places of business, or residences, are given in meters from a landmark. . . The landmark can be a cemetery, a church or even a Burger King. . . The mailman comes to the hotel about once a month, and just brings the bank statements and the odd letter or postcard. . . Bottom line, don't count on anything important getting through. . .

The downside of dogs. . .

Since we have lived in Hawaii . . . in a condo. . . 22 stories up. . . with not much in the way of parks or greenery really close by. . . we haven't had many dogs. . . Now here at the hotel, we have two. . .
We love them, they are great companions, and they provide endless entertainment and companionship. . . Bejuca and Mini-b are great, house-broken and very well-behaved. . . The sole complaint that we can muster up is. . . gas. . . Particularly Mini-b, but Bejuca has joined in the parade of noxious fumes as well. . . You will be rubbing a belly and playing with them, or it can be the middle of the night when they are asleep, or they can be looking up at you with big, watery expectant eyes, and -- have mercy -- it will curl the nose hairs worse than any gym locker room that you can imagine. . . We do not feed them a lot from the table (hardly anything as we don't want them to get into the habit of begging) and they have been on the same food for a while, but any suggestions, thoughts, would be much appreciated. . .

Food on the Caribbean side. . .

We like to eat, that's for sure, even though you wouldn't know it by Lucy, who has lost 15 pounds since we've been here. . . We had some good eats down on the Caribbean side in Puerto Viejo and Bocas Del Torro. Surprisingly, the seafood was a bit expensive, even that close to the ocean, and sometimes we couldn't get what we wanted as they didn't have it in stock. . . We had some great Caribbean jerk chicken, some ribs, spicy wings and a volcano pizza that had just about everything you could want on it, served right on the water by an Italian lady in Bocas. . . A good portion of the restaurants in Bocas are on the water, and they all have docks that you can boat up to and tie up for your meal. . . The water around the docks is crystal blue and you can see the fish darting around while you eat. . . I expected the usual oil slicks and detritus floating about, but that wasn't the case there at all. . .
When we went snorkeling, we went to a restaurant about 100 yards off the beach on a small island. . . There was no way to get to the restaurant except by boat, even from the island, where it looked like 2-3 families were living. . . It was about a 20-minute boat ride away from Isla Colon, and very isloated. . . They had a trap full of live lobster, which I sampled (not a whole one, just some lobster meat with rice) while Lucy had the shrimp, which was cooked in a sweet and spicy sauce. . . Very good stuff. . .

Dolphin Bay

On one of our days in Bocas, we took an excursion that took us around the sound. . . One of the first stops was Dolphin Bay. . . We floated around there for maybe 20 minutes or so and were lucky enough to spot some dolphins splashing about. . . Very hard to get a picture of them, as you never know which side of the boat they are going to surface on. . . It's a very pretty area, and you can see one of the islands in the background. . . Not sure if people live on the island, or if it's unpopulated. . . There are some areas that look just like islands, but are nothing but trees growing out of the water. . . They have very long roots, and there is no soil, dirt, terra firma, or anything but tree roots. . . Kind of misleading if someone were thinking they could land on one of the islands. . . After checking out the dolphins, we cruised around the area some more, went snorkeling (no pics, as our camera isn't waterproof), had some lunch and then hit the Red Frog Beach. A great day in Panama. . .

Bocas Del Torro Slideshow

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Here are a few pictures from our trip to Panama...we'd love to go back there again, but after Lucy developed an allergic reaction to the mosquitoes there and got bites up and down her legs, it doesn't look like we'll be getting back there anytime soon...

Red Frog Beach

This beach is on Isla Bastimento and you need to take a water taxi to get to the landing, then walk about a quarter-mile to get to the beach. . . Supposedly, there is a big, mega development for the rich and pretty of the world to come and take over, but it may not happen. . . The beach is a gorgeous stretch of white sand and there are allegedly red frogs littered around the place. . . The day that we went there, there was a storm blowing in, and the sand was really stinging as it peppered us from head to toe. . . It was kind of unbearable to lounge at the beach with the sand flying everywhere...Maybe that was why we didn't see many frogs, except for a small one that two lads from the island showed us wrapped in a leaf. . . Lucy tried her best to do a frog impression on the beach (as you can see in this picture)...this is definitely a place we would love to go back to and try to spot the frogs.

Excuse No. 227. . .

OK, we've been laggards when it comes to blogging this past month. . . Part of it can be explained by vacation hangover from Panama (Bocas was very nice) and we're going to put the rest of it on the rain. . .Yep, that's right, the wet stuff. . . I grew up in Western Washington, so I'm used to the rain. . . When it rains in Costa Rica, though, it rains. I'm not talking all-day drizzle like in Washington, I'm referring to wrath-of-God type rain, that bangs down so hard on the roof, that you cannot hear the phone ring, let alone talk to someone. And when the rain is coming down, it typically brings thunder and lightning, which means we shut down the computer and fax, etc., to avoid any fricaseed machinery from a strike. (The owners once went through two fax machines in three weeks because of surges caused by lightning strikes). Today, while it was raining so hard we had to shout to one another from about 3 feet apart (and missed two incoming phone calls), we noticed that one of the gutters on the side of the house was stopped up, and water was cascading down like crazy. . . Since we didn't want the gutter to collapse, I got out a ladder and shinnied up to clean out the crud . . . It took about 17.5 seconds before I was as wet as if I had jumped into a pool. . . It took another 2-3 minutes to clean the debris and gunk out of the gutter, and then the water shot down the drainpipe and flooded the porch area. . .

Most of the roofs here in Costa Rica (probably 95 percent or so) are some sort of metal. I don't know why, perhaps they last a long time? But when the rain hammers down hard, it's nearly impossible to hear anything. And it also plays havoc with the satellite reception, which is a major downer when we get a bit of a respite to catch up on news and television shows. . .

We're back. . .

OK, we've actually been back for a while now. . . Just had to play catch up on a lot of stuff here at the hotel and we're still in vacation mode, as least as far as the blog is concerned. . . We had a great time down on the Caribbean Coast. . . I got a little too much sun, and Lucy got attacked by sand mites, but all in all a very relaxing time. . . We didn't spend too much time on Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica, as we needed to get out of the country to renew our visa. . . We spent most of our time in Bocas Del Torro, Panama, and that's a great little place. . . There are 4-5 main islands that make up the area, and you have to take a water taxi to get to them. . . Isla Colon is the main island, and where most of the hotels/restaurants/shops, etc., are at. . . We ate some great meals there, including some great pizza with everything tossed on it. . . We relaxed a lot, took a lot of water taxis and explored the other islands and did some snorkeling. . . Neither one of us are big snorkelers. . . I was doing fine, until I actually stopped to think that I was breathing through a tube. . . Then I would suck up a lot of salt water. . . Lucy took some photos and we'll post those with more stuff on the vacation soon. . .

Gone fishin'. . .

Maybe not fishing, but we will be near the water. . . we are really looking forward to our much deserved time off from work...it's our first vacation since we've been in country...hard to believe it's already been 3 months...
So, we're heading down the Caribbean side for a week off. . . Will stay in Puerto Viejo for a night at a place called Cashew Hill Jungle Lodge; website link is www.cashewhilllodge.com...from there, we then head down to Panama for 4-5 nights in Boca Del Torro at a place called Hotel Lula's Bed & Breakfast; website link is www.lulabb.com. . . Looks pretty nice, and there will be opportunities for fishing. . . We'll post some vacation pics and tales of our journey when we get back around June 9 or 10. . .