Omitepe Island

Usually when I think of islands I think of beautiful aqua waters, white sand beaches and palm trees. We blew that whole picture out of the water, literally, when we visited Omitepe this week. It is the only island in the middle of fresh water, a fresh water lake no less. There are actually two volcanoes and they are in the middle of Lake Nicaragua.


When we visited Tamarindo last month we left a couple of hours before a big earthquake hit. Today two hours after we left Nicaragua Costa Rica "troops" or I guess we should call them "pretend troops" since Costa Rica does not have "real troops", moved into the border town.

Apparently a bad guy is messing with the river dividing the two countries and dredging in the river and even threatening a kid and cattle. This of course calls for some pretty drastic measures.

So this afternoon the "pretend troops" moved in to restore order and strike fear into the Nicas. The real problem here is they have real troops! Just waiting to see how long it takes the U.S troops off the coast to mobilize and help out, since that is what they are there for right?

Anyway just glad we escaped with our lives and don't have to worry about leaving for a few months.

Now the thing about Omitepe. If you have not been there I would just recommend you check out my pictures and experience through them. In other words it was a little boring. There are of course some cool places to hike to, if you want to spend a lot of money and fall in with the other tourists.


The most interesting part was the guy who owned the hotel we stayed at. He had this cool beaver tail and some great stories. One rainy day we just hung out with him and listened to him talk story and looked at his pictures. This guy had been all over the world as a peace ambassador for the Native Americans.

He is a true blue headband wearing Indian. He and his tribe actually live in teepees on Omitepe, pretty appropriate ha?

Gringa Feo?

We were invited to a friends birthday party this weekend. It was very nice and we enjoyed the company, well most of the company.

For some reason from the moment we moved here to Costa Rica three and a half years ago, there is one family in our circle that really does not like us. Actually they are racist and don't like anyone that is gringo or nica.

The thing is they don't even try to hide it. They will say really rude things to our family all of the time. Now these are not young people acting out of ignorance. They are the supposedly educated ones that should know better.

We are very good friends with their son-in-law and have complained to him several times of various offenses. O.k. for instance one time the "dowager" or mom of the clan, came up and started looking through my dreadlocks like she was looking for bugs. Her daughter laughed and told her to stop.

Think the really mean step mom and her really mean daughters in Cinderella.

In fact my daughter and her family will not even go to church with us or to any activity where this family is going to be. Which would be all of them.

For this birthday party I had brought a very good thai peanut noodle salad. Really good if I must say so myself. Hubby was in the dining room getting another plate of food and the dowager did not realize he was in the room. One of the other women in the room asked what the salad was. She responded that it was something the "gringa feo" brought.

Once she realized hubby was standing there she started back pedaling. For the first time she probably wished we did not know any Spanish. I walked in as he was questioning her about her comment and she was denying it. He just looked at me and told me what she had said. About this time someone had tasted the salad and they were all raving about it.

I have to admit it was weird they ate it on corn tortillas, but hey tortillas make everything better eh?

Back to my story. I was mostly just mad, but a little hurt. I am not used to grown women being so mean. Maybe I have been out of the loop too long and have not realized that people act like that. Please tell me it ain't so, people really don't act like that do they?

If so I will not go to anymore birthday parties for sure!

Oh Yeah Beach Time

Last week I declared tomorrow beach day. I have to do that or I can't get anyone to go with me. I also had to remind the girls that the bus goes on the super highway now and the trip is half the time. And the clincher? Milkshakes before we head home. It will be hot in Jaco tomorrow, but the water should be fine.

There is a lot of bad press for Jaco, but for a day trip you can't beat it. Sure it is like a little San Diego or something, but hey just hang out on the beach and a beach is a beach. My daughter found a twenty floating in the water there after all! It can't be all bad.

I do have to admit when you are walking through town the prostitutes and drug dealers and transvestites are a little interesting to say the least. It makes for some awesome people watching to be sure. Hubby was propositioned by a Dominical prostitute there one day. That seems to be the majority there by the way. He just freaked out. Mostly because he was standing right next to me! His reaction was pretty funny though, kind of looked like he saw a ghost or something, poor innocent thing!

When we have guests we always take them to Jaco for a day trip. We do advise them to clear out before night fall, it gets pretty crazy there at night. My son 21 yrs. old lasted about a weekend there and swore he had lost about five years of his life, crazy place like I said.

So up and early and off on another exciting adventure. Maybe next time we will even get hubby to go with us. He is just wrapping up his time in Nicaragua and would not really be interested in more beach time. If I was not soooo pitta I would live on the beach.

Home Sweet Home

Be it ever so humble there's no place like home! We are always very happy after a leave to return to kith and kin, and of course our own house. Always a little anxious about whether all is well, especially when we leave the 21 yr. old here alone. I swear you would think he was a 21 month old, in fact that would probably be better. Looks like we will have to hire a babysitter next time :)

I never thought when we moved to Costa Rica three and a half years ago that I would ever feel so at home here. I have the same feeling I used to get when we returned home to Flagstaff from the Valley. We would feel so good to get out of the oppressive heat and get into the clean cool air of Flagstaff. Now we are in the same boat. In San Rafael where we live it is about ten degrees cooler than the beach. It feels literally like "a breath of fresh air" when we return to our mountain home.

Not to mention cooking our own healthy foods and the hot instead of cold shower! Early this morning as we were driving through Nicaragua back to the border on the bus, I spotted an old lady taking a cold shower outside her house! She lived in a shack and was dumping a tub of cold water over her head! They are actually used to that here and think we are the crazy ones because we like hot showers.

Never Ends

Since returning from Nicaragua for our 90 day leave, we have not stopped. We have a class to prepare for, as well as just generally putting the house back together. You know you leave a 21 yr. old alone with a little dog, and you never know what you will come home to. Actually he, the 21 yr. old, was trying to clean up. We just arrived before he expected us to and he was in the "pile" phase of cleaning. So we spent the day finishing that up.

Of course we are also in the middle of preparing for class in ten days, so that means more mess of course. Our little classroom needs to be walled in and readied for our students. That is the fun part of course.

We spend six weeks teaching and the rest of the time prepping. It is fun though and we are always excited to welcome and show new students around Costa Rica, as well as massage.

TAXI DRIVING JERKS

I have to say that most of our experiences with taxi drivers have been very positive here. In fact we have quite a few funny "pick-up" stories about taxi drivers. One time when we were in Nicaragua a cute young guy gave us a good deal on the long ride to the beach town of San Jaun del Sur. We got in the car, the girls in the back and hubby in the front. As soon as we got in he adjusted his mirrors so that he could see the gorgeous teenager in his rearview mirror the whole two hours there. But he did make one stop in town to buy a new cd, an English love song cd! It was freakin' hilarious.

The other funny one was when the old toothless guy picked us up. I was in the backseat this time and he kept looking in the rearview at me. He asked my daughter how long we had lived in Costa Rica and how our Spanish was. He told her that if her Mama had a Tico boyfriend she would learn Spanish really quickly. I may not speak good Spanish, but I understand it, hello! As he kept talking and looking I asked my daughter if we should get out of the car. She said "no I think I'm good, but you may want to get out anytime now." Funny.

Tonight we went to the mall to meet the tall one and have some ice cream. We got in the taxi van to head home. Now we all take taxis together all the time. They do sometimes tell us no if there are all five of us, insisting they only take four at a time. In that case we usually just find another driver who will take us. We thought good tonight because we got the taxi van. A little more expensive because of the extra gas, but no hassles. Boy were we wrong. He started in right away talking to my daughters boyfriend about how they charge more when there are more than four people. Lie number one. Then he kept talking about it all the way up to the house. The meter read 1900 when we got home. Tall one went to hand him a 2000 bill and he said no it was 2800, because of the extra person. We said no we only pay what is on the meter. He started giving us crap and hubby came out of the house, that was when he sped off and threw the 2000 out the window, cool free ride!

ITS ALL ABOUT THE OUTFIT

It's all about the outfit,and this outfit is all about dancing. The only problem was they did the dance for their parents the week we were in Nicaragua. I offered baby to stay here and do her dance, but we were the main ones she wanted to do it for. I'm just glad looking at these pics that we bought the outfit, it was well worth it!

This is the traditional outfit for the Costa Rica celebrations. Last weekend they were celebrating the annexation of Guanacaste from Nicaragua. The girls all wear this and the boys wear white shirts, jeans and a bandana around their necks. They all look sooo cute.

GRENADA NICARAGUA

These pictures were taken on our 90 day leave trip to Grenada. It is a really fun place with lots of old, I mean old stuff. We did a little horse and buggy trip around all the old churches and checked out the place thoroughly. The top picture is a great depiction of how poor it really is here, poor thing was pretty well starved.

The other pictures are of one well maintained church and one that has not been taken care of at all. It is sad to see something so grand go to ruin like that. There was a tourist street about three miles long. It was a ghost town. I guess Grenada was a roaring place at one time. Now there are just a bunch of backpackers and hippies visiting, guess I know which one of those we fit under!

CREATING PEACE ONE MASSAGE THERAPIST AT A TIME

I am really excited about our graduation today, and not just because we got to eat at Inka Grill, Costa Ricas' primo Peruvian food eatery. Though that was a huge plus for the whole experience to be sure :) No actually what made the day extra special was the fact that there is one more massage therapist in our family now! She made it! I mean barely as she had 7 student massages to complete this time last week, but she slid under the wire and completed her work. As she has two clients already she should be able to pay off her student loan pretty quickly ;)

We were also very happy to graduate our other student who had his clinic hours completed two weeks ago and was able to skate throught he last two weeks. He is very excited to be done and off on his next adventure to Corocova Natl park and then off the Nica. We wish him well and tons of success on his life adventure.

I told both of them this was a huge step and a very life changing one. I know when I completed massage school it certainly changed my life as well as that of my family. No more payday to payday with hubbys checks. We were able to take vacations, and enjoy the joy of eating something besides beans and rice for the first time in many years.

Being a massage therapist has been a great job, as well as learning experience for me as well as hubby. I learned how to run a business, how to pay taxes, how to budget my own money as well as try to learn to say "no". All in all I have to say my choice to be a massage therapist was a great one that I am thankful for everyday.
I do hope they enjoy the success we have enjoyed with our massage careers and have a heck of a ride on the way!

TRANSPORTER

One of my favorite action movies is "Transporter". That guy is so hot and he did an awesome job in the fight scenes. Anyway the reason it comes to mind is because I have done a really bad job of transporting people the past couple of days.

Yesterday I had the idea to have Rick get a buddy pass from my brother the pilot so that he could go to a seminar for his business, Liberty League. I felt bad that he has ended up spending about 20 hrs. in airports the past two days.

The best part of course was the earthquake while being at the airport, but that just kind of broke up the monotony for him. I still thought it would of been great since he was at the counter being told he could not get a seat when it hit if he had acted like he was putting a voodoo spell on them or something, would of been a scream.

At any rate after two days he is half way there and if he makes it will be late for his seminar. Oh well live an learn. In the meantime I am trying to get our student here from Guatamala. He has been there studying spanish and was bussing it here for classes to begin on Monday. When I talked to him I asked him to tell the bus driver to drop him off at the airport instead of taking him all the way into the city.

He told the bus driver that as they left Nicaragua and the bus driver dropped him in Liberia, which is about 4 hrs. from us. In all fairness there is a small airport there also. He called us and said he was there and would take a taxi to the school. We told him yeah for 200.00 he would. About 8 hours later he finally arrived on what he called the slowest bus on the planet. Poor guy!

Needless to say I have been fired as the transporter and we will just hire my son-in-law to do this job. He is the hero who went and fetched everyone anyway.