News from the Campos home: January 2020

2019 was the year of surgeries in this household. Guillermo had 3 surgeries and I had two. In December, on December 2nd, barely two months after my hernia surgery, I had another surgery to have my gall bladder removed. That went well also and recovery always takes longer than I think it should. I actually thought I wouldn't be able to go to Costa Rica at the beginning of January because my recovery was slower than my expectations wanted it to be. But it was probably two and a half weeks after my surgery that I started becoming hopeful that I'd be able to make that Costa Rica trip after all.

So Fernando, Eva and Leo left for Costa Rica on December 27th. They left a week before us so that they could spend a little vacation time together before starting their actual work there. All the Christmas stuff came down on the 27th and 28th and on the 29th, it was all put away. Having to deal with putting all that stuff away after our trip was not something we wanted to do.

On January 2nd, Guillermo and I left for Costa Rica. Our flights there were really good and we were fortunate to have an empty middle seat on the Houston to Liberia, Costa Rica leg of the trip. Sure made for a more comfortable flight. We got our rental car and drove to our hotel (Boyeros) which is where we met Fernando and family. We had dinner at our favorite restaurant there in Liberia - Tierra y Mar. Their Patacones are just so delicious!

The next day, Fernando and Eva went to the park where they do field work and we stayed at the hotel with Leo. Fortunately, there was a kid in the room next to us so Leo and Joaquin played with toys together outside our room and splashed around in the pool for almost three hours! They played so well together. Joaquin didn't speak English but the two boys managed to understand each other very well.

The next day we drove to Cuajiniquil and checked into the Santa Elena Lodge. That night we enjoyed a good fish dinner at their restaurant. No hot water at this hotel so thankfully the weather was good and hot. The nights were a little trying at this hotel. The first night, a very loud alarm went off for several minutes from somewhere near the hotel. The following night, same thing - a loud alarm coming from somewhere that lasted way too long when you're trying to sleep. The third night, there was no alarm but the power went off during the night so there went our fan and the air conditioning. The worst part is that the power would come back on for a few seconds and then go right back out. So it was a constant hearing the fans shut off, then the power would come back on, manually having to turn the fan back on and then the power promptly going back out again. That probably went on for about two hours or so. Not much sleep that night for sure. The good part about this hotel, we had a good dinner that first night and it was right next to a grocery store. So it was so easy to just pop over and pick up whatever we needed.

So while we were in Cuajiniquil, we took Leo one day to the beach at Puerto Soley. My goodness it was windy that day and although we had fun at the beach, the wind whipping up the sand into the air was rough. When it was time to go, we barely had enough water to wash all the sand off of Leo, but we got him clean enough to put in the car.

The following day, Eva went with us to Junquillal Beach. Again, the wind was vicious but we found a better place to stay out of the wind so we weren't sprayed with sand as much.

Having lunch at one of our favorite lunch places after doing some exchanges with rental cars. After lunch, we were on our way to Bijagua with Leo for 3 nights while Fernando and Eva went to places that they needed to check out as possible research sites.

First night we spent at the Heliconias Lodge. Such different weather here than where we had been that last few days. After checking in, we decided to walk the trail to the first hanging bridge just in case it started raining or the weather wouldn't let us do it tomorrow. At first Leo was a little leery of being on the bridge but he did make it all the way to the other end.

By the time we finished exploring this bridge, we needed to head back because it was starting to get late and with no sun it was starting to get darker than we liked.

It started raining during the night and pretty much rained for the next 3 days.

Dinner at our hotel

Relaxing on the couches after dinner

Enjoying watching the exciting birds eating the bananas just outside the windows during breakfast.

We had to wait for the rain to lessen before we could leave our room to go have breakfast. Then we were pretty much "stuck" in the breakfast area because it just kept raining. Below is Leo taking advantage of a little window without much rain to get back to our room. You can't tell in the picture, but it was EXTREMELY windy. Leo had to hang on hard to that umbrella.

At around 10, the weather cleared and the sun actually came out so we took advantage and walked the trail again to the first hanging bridge. This time Leo loved being on the hanging bridge.

Having lunch in Bijagua at La Semilla. That cute little restaurant became our go-to restaurant for 3 lunches!

Lounging around after eating.

Then we went to a store for some food items to take to our next hotel, and Leo enjoyed an ice cream while watching all the big trucks drive by.

So this new hotel was a nice find. We actually met the owners of this place back in 2017 when we were walking down the road near Bijagua. We saw the property and wished we could walk around on it. As luck would have it, the property owners were also out walking and they invited all of us to walk around on their property. The lady walked around with us and we enjoyed her company and really enjoyed looking at all the plants on her property. The only structure on the property back then was their home. Back at home, I found her facebook page and enjoyed keeping up with her. About a year ago, I noticed on her page that they were building some cabins on the property! So we made a reservation at one of the cabins and what a gem it was!

They had a drawer full of games just for kids.

It had a well stocked kitchen with good appliances and cookware.

Each afternoon Eliette brought us a tray full of breakfast stuff for the next morning.

So many beautiful birds came to eat these bananas

The cabin had a wonderful deck but we actually didn't get to enjoy it much at all. It rained most of the time we were there with strong winds so the deck and chairs were always very wet. We did enjoy it for a little while right before we checked out our last day.

We took Leo to a park in Bijagua one afternoon.

He made friends with this little girl and they had a blast together.

Having lunch again at La Semilla. Leo's favorite part was when we were finished with our meal, they would bring out a little dessert for us. Free.

Having dinner in our cabin. We had just been out looking for frogs. Leo loved our little frog hunt. Unfortunately, I forgot my phone so didn't get a single picture. The frogs we saw were the Red-Eyed Tree frog. That was so exciting. We'd be standing out there by the pond, and we'd hear a croak behind us and we'd spin around and say oooh, there's one on these leaves somewhere. So we'd shine our flashlights around until we found it. Leo found some also and loved it when they jumped around.