HOMELESS

After accepting jobs with the Washington School, Brett and I had to shift our focus from job interviews to apartment searching. We were super excited about finding our first apartment and we had an idea of what we were looking for; location close to the school, furnished apartment, and internet access.

Saturday morning, the day after accepting our full-time teaching jobs, Brett and I sat on our all-too-familiar bed at Gaudy’s hostel and began looking on recommended websites for somewhere to live for the next five and a half months.

“This looks nice! Oh, they only accept year-long leases... never mind.”
Apartment hunting is hard work. 

When we finally started finding some potential apartments to go check out, we wrote down the important information in our little notebooks. Some of the ads said that they usually require a year-long lease but that they may make some exceptions. The first few contacts we tried said that the apartments were recently taken. We were pleased to notice that 95% of the other ones we liked had the contact information of the same lady.Thinking it would be easy to set up appointments and kill a few birds with one stone, I called her provided number on my little yellow tracphone. 

A secretary answered the phone and I began to inquire about the handful of apartments we were interested in and told her about our situation. “We only lease to year-long tenants”, she told me. I pointed out that it says on the website that they sometimes make exceptions, but she was SURE that my request was out of the question. I asked to speak to the lady herself but she wouldn’t let me. We were back to square one because that single phonecall eliminated everything else on our list.  

We sat on the bed allllll dayyyyyy lonnggggg. I don’t think we even took the time to shower. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, hungry, and frustrated.

The next day, I decided to make a post in a Facebook group called “Gringo Expats”. We needed all of the help we could get. One lady messaged me back and said that she had a fully furnished apartment with internet but that it might be a little farther away then we wanted. I clicked on her FB page and saw that she attended the SAME medical school that Brett is going to in the fall! I was sure that it was a sign. I messaged her and let her know we were interested in coming to visit the place. She was happy to invite us over to the “finca” the following day, but she kept mentioning that it is probably a little different than we might be expecting…

We were able to schedule two other appointments so that we could see two different apartments while we were out and about. After sitting in the hostel all day the day before, we were feeling excited to be going somewhere.

First stop, the finca! The lady told us to take the bus into a town called Ciudad Colon and to call her daughter when we got off of the bus so that she could pick us up and drive us to where we needed to be. As some of you may know, Brett and I tend to get lost. We stayed on the bus too long and ended up in the middle of nowhere next to an old bus station. I called the lady’s daughter and she thankfully knew the area I was talking about. She and her dad had to come get us.

As we got closer to the finca, we quickly realized that this apartment was in the jungle. We drove down a long dirt road to where the lady (Sharon) was waiting to meet us. Trees surrounded us from every angle. “THIS is what Costa Rica is supposed to be like”, I thought.

Sharon talked to Brett about Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences and told us that she graduated as an OB/GYN. She also talked to us about her apartments there at the jungle and asked if we minded if women had their babies there. She is now in her 70’s, but she use to deliver babies there on the finca regularly. She doesn’t really do it, now, but when she was showing us the apartments she would say things like, “one woman had her baby here in this shower. She named her Earth… we just smiled”.

As we moved through the tour, she told us that rent with all utilities and internet would be only be $350 a month. We looked off the back porches into the jungle and were told that (1) there is a gardener that would bring us fresh food and that (2) if we didn’t like bugs then the finca wouldn’t be a good place for us. She also mentioned that (3) we should be very sure to keep the doors and windows locked up because the monkeys will get into the apartment. Apparently they had one tenant who left a yellow folder on the table and a monkey ripped through the screen because it thought it was a banana.  

After the finca, we were on our way to the second apartment of the day. Finding the place was so difficult. We ended up getting a taxi, giving the driver the directions we were given, drove around asking people on the street how to get there, calling the lady who was going to give us the tour, let the taxi driver talk to her, and STILL got dropped off at the wrong place. We had to hike up this huge, steep hill to where the apartments were.  Unfortunately, the apartments were about $900 and didn’t include utilities. We couldn’t live there.

One more stop. The apartments in a little town called Pozos was only a 10 minute bus ride to the school. Surprisingly, we made it there without too much trouble. The apartment was in a beautiful gated area; air conditioned rooms, modern furniture and a beautiful kitchen. There was even a maid that would come twice a week to clean. The downside was that it was over our budget and didn’t include utilities, either.

Brett and I were running out of time and were struggling to agree on which of the two would be the best option. He wanted the expensive one with a maid, I wanted the jungle house with huge bugs and monkey thieves.
 

The next day, I decided to give one more look on the various websites to see if anything recent came up. That’s when I saw it. Our first apartment. Right way I showed the page and pictures to Brett and all he said was “call her, now.” Sure enough, it was everything we hoped it would be and Maria wanted to show it to us the very next morning. We couldn’t have been more relieved.

La Paz Waterfall Gardens (Part 3 of our 3-part tour)

Our final stop: La Paz Waterfall Gardens! By now, we and the other five tourists (3 girls our age from Mexico and two middle-aged men from the U.S.) were getting to know each other, making the tour experience even better. 

When we first got to the gardens, I expected to see a bunch of beautiful waterfalls and have a nice lunch. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that we would be walking through a wildlife refuge as well. We saw hundreds of hummingbirds zooming from flowers to feeders, jaguars wrestling, snakes slithering, butterflies fluttering, and red-eyed leaf frogs snoozing in the sun. Brett and I even made friends with a toucan!

 

After walking through the wildlife refuge, it was time for the lunch that was promised to us. There was a delicious buffet which included pizza and garlic knots. Of course, there were chicken, rice, and beans options, too, but I was ready for some cheesy pizza. The food was great and so were the BATHROOMS. Hah. I walked in and the sinks were waterfalls. It took me a while to find that to turn the waterfall sink on, I had to twist a rock. Brett even said that he didn’t pee in the urinal because even though he was "pretty sure" it was a urinal,  it was so pretty that he wasn't positive and didn't want to be that guy that peed on a decoration.

Finally, it was time to walk the two-mile paved trail through the waterfalls. Between the five different waterfalls, we were able to stand in front of them, see them from behind the falling water, and look down onto them.

At the end of the tour, we waited in line for a bus to take us back up to where we started. In the meantime, a man’s vehicle broke down and people started jumping up to help the guy get off of the dangerous, hairpin-turn road on which cars and large semi-trucks were driving way too fast. My superhero fiancé jumped up to join in the rescue.

Once we loaded up into the van, our tour guide, Milton, noticed that we had a flat tire! He was sure that we would be able to make it around the tight turns for the next 10 minutes until we got to the nearest gas station. Luckily, we made it safely and had a new tire to replace the flat one.

The entire tour from getting picked up at Gaudy’s for the coffee tour in the morning to returning back to Gaudy’s after the waterfalls that evening lasted about 12 hours. We were able to see so much and we would recommend this tour to anyone. It was a long day, but so worth it!

VOLCÁN POÁS (Part 2 of our 3-part tour)

After leaving the coffee plantation, we drove a good half hour to our second destination of the three part tour: Volcán Poás National Park. Volcán Poás is an active volcano that had its last huge eruption in 1953, resulting in the crater that we see today. 

We made it to the park around 10am, just like the tour guide, Milton, had hoped we would. He said that if we would have gotten there too much later, the crowd would have been coming in and the clouds would have been starting to cover up the incredible view of the crater. It was the perfect day and the perfect time to go. It wasn’t super hot and there was still shade on the path during our 15 minute walk up the hill to the overlook. It wasn’t a steep hill to climb, by any means, but it made the walk really enjoyable.

When we reached the overlook, we wiggled our way to the railing and let our mouths hit the floor with how beautiful it was. According to Lonely Planet’s book, the crater measures 1.3 kilometers (4,265 feet) wide and 300 meters (984 feet) deep. We felt so tiny standing there looking at the miles of the volcanic landscape, so foreign to us.

                                   

Since 1953, the volcano’s crater has filled with light-milky-blue water and gives off steam because of the hot air building up underneath it. They say that because of the water that filled the crater, when it erupts now, at least with the mini eruptions, it isn’t a lava spewing machine like you would normally think. Instead, it sends a geyser into the air, shooting as far as a mile high. I believe the last geyser was in 2011 but don't quote me on that.

 

After spending our allotted 20 minutes there, we walked along another path towards the lagoon. The path was covered in an enchanting archway of trees. This walk should last about 25 minutes, but we were taking in the view of the trees and decided to slow down our naturally fast-paced walk instead.

When the trees cleared, we say the people huddled up against the rail and couldn’t actually see Laguna Botos until we got closer. The water in the crater was milky-blue but the water in the lagoon was like a sapphire-blue I had never seen before. My new favorite color? (okay, purple is still my favorite but this made me second-guess it for a minute).

P.S.
There is no filter applied to these photos. See what I mean about that blue?!

 

Alas, it was time to meet the group back at the bus. Brett and I took one last look and headed back down the beautiful trail of trees. Half way down, we started to smell something that we hadn’t noticed before.

                                     

The active volcano was a little more awake than it was earlier. I was glad to be leaving – sulfur isn’t as smelly as the garbage on the road in San Jose, but it wasn’t overly pleasant, either.

Back at the van, we loaded up and were ready for our third and final part of the tour: La Paz Waterfall Gardens.

P.S.S.
I didn’t take this last picture, but I wanted to share it anyways. This is an Ariel View of the Volcán Poás and Laguna Botos.

                           

http://costa-rica-guide.com/nature/national-parks/poas-volcano/

DOKA COFFEE PLANTATION (Part 1 of our 3-part tour)

Before school started on January 13^th, and before we had an apartment,  we thought it might be a good idea to do something over the weekend before things got really busy. Andrés, the one man behind the desk at Gaudy’s, set us up for a tour that he recommended. It was a one day trip that stopped at three different locations AND included breakfast and lunch. First thing that Saturday morning, January 9^th, our tour guide, Milton, picked us up right at the front door of Gaudy’s and took us off to stop number one: Doka Coffee Plantation.

Brett, myself, three girls around our age from Mexico, and two older men jumped out of the tour van to be led to a delicious breakfast buffet right at the plantation. They had three different blends of coffee there for us to drink with the traditional gallo pinto and fried plantain meal. Brett tasted all three coffee blends. I had a sip of his, but I’m not a big coffee fan so that was enough of an experience for me.

I am a very slow eater, I always have been. Brett finishes his plate and it doesn’t phase me that I still have ½ of my plate to go. When this happened at our breakfast buffet, I was quickly reminded just how slow I eat when Milton came over to me and said, “ I’m sorry you eat slow, but we need to start the tour now.” Brett laughed and I took one last bite before walking out to the coffee fields.

Milton started the tour by showing us what coffee beans actually look like when they are picked. To our surprise, they have a light green shell and then turn a beautiful red color when they are ready to be picked.

Milton also explained to us what a “peaberry” bean looks like. Peaberry was one of the blends that Brett had tasted during breakfast. Only 5% of all of the coffee that grows is considered to be a peaberry bean. It grows on the same plant as other coffee beans, but because of a mutation, it grows differently than the rest.

After that, we all walked to a nearby building where all of the magic takes place. There are many different “stations” needed for getting the coffee ready for your mug. Many of these involve machinery.

Once the coffee bean makes its way through the stations, it is sorted into different bags. Milton showed us three different bags, each with a different quality of coffee. He said that a lot of the time, the lower quality coffee is used for the lattes and flavored drinks.

We finished walking through the building in about a half hour and ended up out back where the millions of beans were spread out on the ground, drying in the sun. The workers rake out the beans with a long wooden rake and let them partially dry. As long as they do this for a little while, they can mark “sun dried” on the package and save time by drying them with more machines later. Sneaky, sneaky.

The last part of this tour was in another small building along the coffee bean stamped sidewalk. There, Milton showed us the machine that is responsible for the roasting, aka adding flavor, of the finished product. He told us that one worker’s recipe might be just a tiny bit different that the other, but that’s all it takes to create a new taste.

Here is a picture of different roasts – dark roast, medium roast, light roast. 

When you order decaffeinated coffee, the picture below of the small one is what it looks like before they grind it up. Apparently, they can sell the coffee beans to other parts of the world where they decaffeinate the bean and then send it back to Doka to use for making their decaffeinated coffee. Those who then have the caffeine are able to use it for their own products, like soda!

Once this part of the tour was over, we walked through the gift shop and Brett bought a bag of their “Breakfast Blend” coffee. Within 10 minutes, we were back in the van and ready for part two of the tour: Volcán Poás.