Weight and Speed Limits, Or Not

Tweet

I didn’t have time to be melancholy about our tranquil vacation concluding— I was too stressed over not exceeding the baggage weight limit. I had known about the weight limit—20 lbs for checked bags and 10 lbs for carry-on— since before our departure, and worked to reduce our weight load from the get go. Unfortunately, I didn’t account for the natural weight gain of luggage in transit.

So there I was the night prior to departure eliminating shampoo and sunscreen bottles, magazines we’d read, extra plastic bags and even 2 pair of worn out sneakers and setting out the heaviest clothes for my family to wear.

Getting dressed in the a.m. my husband thought I was kidding as I handed him heavy cotton pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a thick sweatshirt and his windbreaker to wear.

“Do you know it’s 80º out?” he commented dryly.

Sweat poured from his brow the moment my husband stepped outside. Perhaps having him suffer from heat exhaustion was not a good trade-off for our luggage accompanying us. He shed the sweatshirt and jacket and climbed in the cab and we were off.

Literally it seemed—the cab wheels nearly left the ground as the car hurtled towards the airport, or so we supposed.

We saw a sign pointing toward the airport and surprisingly, the cab driver turned the opposite direction. Could there truly be a back route? We had our answer soon enough as the cab pulled into the bus station. None of us opened a door.

“Bus station, yes?”

“No! Airport,” we responded in unison.

The driver peeled out of the bus station and now we truly were hurtling along the road. I turned to my daughter hoping she had learned a few necessities in her middle school Spanish class, such as, “please slow down, I don’t want to die on the way to the airport this morning.” No such luck, we flew along, tightly hugging the shoulder-less curves.

We all let out our breath as we turned into the airport, thankful to still be in one piece. Actually airport is a bit of an overstatement—it was more a large, 3-sided room beside a landing strip. Two pleasant surprised greeted us. First, thanks to our Mario Andretti driver, we had arrived before any other passengers; even before any airline personnel for that matter. And standing on the unattended check-in desk was a small sign stating:

All checked baggage shall not exceed 30 lbs.
“Well that’s good news,” I said turning to my husband, “You can pack the sweatshirt and windbreaker!” He and my daughters had already broken into peals of laughter.

At the airport early and underweight my worries ceased, but with my husband and children standing there laughing at me, my melancholy was not likely to return.

Taking up Surfing after Kids

Tweet

Taking up new active sports successfully keeps me feeling young. Unfortunately the converse is also true. I tired snowboarding for the first time in my late 20s. Looking back it seems I was pretty young at the time, but I can tell you that 2 hours into my first snowboarding experience I was sitting by the side of the bunny hill, my tail bone bruised so badly I couldn’t stand up telling my boyfriend, “go on ahead, I’m just going to sit here and cry.”

This crystal clear memory came to the forefront when I was asked if I wanted to try surfing while in Costa Rica. Surfing? Isn’t that like snowboarding? I was asking three young, experienced female surfers who assured me that falling off a surfboard is far less painful than falling when snowboarding. Perhaps I should have located someone who wore a rash guard primarily to cover stretch marks rather than to actually fend off a surfing rash. However, I decided that like a canopy zip line this was not an opportunity to over-analyze—better just to give it a try and see what happened.

Well that was pretty much the strategy of the surf instructor as well. He introduced me to my surfboard and we headed out into the surf to see what happened. The only technical instruction he gave before getting in the water was that I should push up with my arms from my paddling position right up to standing, no kneeling in the middle. With that piece of instruction, I caught my first wave. Okay, so technically, he caught the wave for me—giving my board a push at precisely the right moment so the wave’s momentum and mine were aligned. I won’t pretend to know the correct terminology here—no lesson time was wasted on terminology, this lesson was about creating a feeling of success—just what I was looking for. Well success wasn’t my primary feeling on that first wave. For such a simple process —standing up— in a fairly forgiving environment (water is indeed a much more forgiving landing than packed powder) I certainly made it look difficult. Suffice it to stay that if I went through the standing up stage, no one noticed.

Fortunately we had a whole hour in the surf for me to figure out how to stand on the board and for my instructor to try varying approaches to describing what should or shouldn’t be done. Yes, take a quick paddle. No, don’t kneel. Yes, push up hard with my arms. No, don’t stand too far forward. Yes, stay in the middle of the board. No, don’t slip too far backward. Yes, just keep trying.

Okay, I won’t be catching in big waves in my lifetime, but by the end of half an hour I had paddled myself beyond the (small) breakwater, gotten turned around and with minimal assistance caught a wave and successfully ridden it in, in a standing position. And after a full hour I had ‘ridden’ several waves in, in what certainly seemed to me to be surfing.

Proud of my accomplishments I was met by a surfing friend on the beach at the end of my lesson. “Great job—you have a really interesting surfing style,” she called out to me. “Interesting? Is that a euphemism for wrong?” “Not exactly,” she replied, “I’ve just never seen any face forward while surfing before!”

Well sideways or not it felt like surfing to me!

Night Walk in Costa Rica

Tweet

A night walk in Costa Rica is a highlight of a trip to the rain forest. While spotting a sloth sleeping in a tree during the day is cool, seeing a sloth slowing gliding through the branches is a mesmerizing site—the sloth appears as a prehistoric creature; its furry body maintains a steady pace as it floats from branch to branch. Unlike trying to spot a sloth camouflaged among tree branches during the day, even an inexperienced eye can easily spot and follow a sloth on its nocturnal journey with only a minimum of guidance. In addition, differentiating the limbs from the body can be a difficult task for an amateur looking at a sleeping sloth, however, a sloth at night time becomes a recognizable form—furry backside and four limbs all distinguishable from one another.

Other nightlife to find includes sleeping animals like porcupines and birds. We spotted a porcupine resting in a hollow tree, somehow balancing on a rather precarious ledge. Equally intriguing was seeing three wood thrushes asleep, huddled against one another on a branch for the night and a chachalaca just settling down for the night. Fireflies sparkled by the hundreds in the woods, leaf cutter ants were staying busy after dark maintaining their constant stream of leaf cutting and carrying, raccoon eyes glowed in the flashlight beam as they paused in their trek along the forest floor—we actually saw much more animal movement during the night than during the day.

And no night walk is complete without the guide tempting a tarantula to come out of its home—large, furry, orange-banded legs crept out tantalized by the possibility of food creeping by. I was only a bit dismayed that the tarantula was being tempted from its home in the very same tree into which we had earlier ventured to peer up at the porcupine—sometimes its better not to know what lurks nearby in the jungle.

The Coati Ploy

Tweet

Biking near Lake Arenal, just my daughter and I, we encountered numerous gently rolling hills. On the uphill my daughter would easily pass me as she maintained a steady pace while even in a low gear I worked to maintain forward momentum. However, on the downhill my weight gave me a clear advantage, so I could easily overtake her light frame. Consequently, we serenely leapfrogged one another as we pedaled past jungle and lake vistas.

Along one relatively flat stretch we were nearly side by side when my daughter spotted a lone coati standing demurely by the side of the road.

“Mom, can we stop to take a photo?”

“Of course!”

So we dismounted off of our bikes, immediately forgetting the important safety tip when encountering wild animals (or even dogs for that matter)—always keep the bike between you and the animal. After all it looked so furry and cute and placid, what trouble could it cause? Boy did it have us pegged! No sooner had we set our bikes down than a dozen more of its family, neighbors and friends melted out of the dense undergrowth. They flowed toward us like an avalanche in the Rocky Mountains as we back pedaled on foot. I attempted to right my bike while urging my daughter to back up behind me. The coatis continued advancing en masse, my bike impeded my get-away and so I quickly discarded it in the favor of a faster retreat. Of course the coatis could run forward much more quickly than we could fumble our way backwards over the uneven ground.

Two events converged at this point—the coatis surrounded us just as a van approached from behind. Whether the driver pulled over to allow his tourists a view of the “cute” animals or to be entertained by the near hysteria of the surrounded mother (human not coati), I don’t know; but in any case he took pity upon our apparently misplaced frenzy and pulled over. When he got out of his van he told us in English there was nothing to worry about, “they’re just like raccoons.” Well I don’t know about raccoons in your neighborhood, but personally I don’t want to be swarmed by a pack of raccoons either. My daughter, on the other hand, maintained her calm and started taking photos.

The driver quickly picked up a seed pod and easily coaxed the coati away from us as they only were looking for food. Apparently these coati were quite familiar with the bait (cute coati) and switch (swarm of coatis) routine to encourage humans to feed them.

While the driver calmly held the coati at bay with his passengers laughing at my alarm, my daughter and I collected our bikes, stowed our cameras and thankfully pedaled on.
I am certain that the coati “plant” their smallest and cutest member by the roadside as a lure to tempt gullible tourists to stop. Needless to say we passed up a stop the next time a coati stood cutely by the roadside.

Monkeying Around on a Canopy Tour

Tweet

Strapped into a harness, I soared 200 feet above the jungle treetops from one precarious platform to another. My feet had but a moment to pause on the 4 x 4 foot platform before I was clipped onto the 2nd cable and sent whizzing along an even longer ride.

Canopy zip line adventures are a well known tourist attraction to all who have visited Costa Rica. There seem to be two extreme reactions: terror and exhilaration. Signing the release form requesting blood type definitely could have ignited feelings of terror. One fellow traveler made it past that hurdle, but after climbing to the top of the first ladder and glimpsing the first platform without any railings, safety nets or steel reinforcements in sight, she had her fill of terror for her for one day and climbed back down.

However, if you get past those two small obstacles, you are likely to experience a wonderful sense of exhilaration. Much of this is not only due to soaring over the green expanse of jungle below, but also, I believe, a direct result of having few, if any, redundant systems in place. The adventure brought to mind the metal jungle gyms and wooden seesaws built on hard top of my childhood. As children we would play king of the jungle gym, daring one another to stand on top of the jungle gym. Common sense then, as now on the canopy zip line, was paramount. We felt powerful as kids. Even if we didn’t formally calculate the risk of slipping on the metal bars and cracking our skulls, we had an innate understanding that our actions were directly determining whether we crossed the line from play to the emergency room. I feel exhilarated in a new environment, knowing I am responsible for keeping myself safe by using my common sense—no leaning over the edge of the platform, no unhooking from the safety rope, no monkeying around.

And speaking of monkeying around… as 10 or so of us patiently waited on one platform for the guides to get in place, we noticed 4 monkeys in a tree next to us pause as they swung through the trees and give us a most curious glance. I can just imagine what they were thinking as they saw humans like fish out of water huddled on a tiny platform at their eye level. I am certain we provided them with good stories to share over dinner.

Biking in Costa Rica

Tweet

Our first day biking in Costa Rica made several characteristics immediately apparent regarding Tico drivers: they drive fast, they hug the (non-existent) shoulder regardless of what or who may be occupying the (non-existent) shoulder and they are friendly. At least I think they are friendly. A quick "beep, beep" accompanied every passing car, on-coming and headed our way, that I took to mean hola.

Thankfully the friendliness was enough to diminish the fear that came over us the first few times a heavily loaded sugar cane truck roared past us without the slightest movement across the mid-line of the road. Instinctively I would ride behind my youngest daughter and keep a foot or two outside of her rear tire in the hopes of providing her with a buffer against any passing traffic.

Fortunately the roads we traveled were not heavily trafficked, unfortunately, my parenting skills couldn’t process this information and so I continued to suggest/request/admonish my daughter to ride further to the right of the road. The friction between our tires and the road had nothing on the friction between my younger daughter and I biking together.

“Please ride closer to the grass sweetie, I don’t want you to get hit by a car.”
“I am, stop yelling at me.”
“You’re drifting to the left again”
“You’re further out than I am!”
“That’s because I want to protect you from any cars sweetheart. If a car comes from behind and doesn’t move out it would hit me and not you.”
“Well if you got hit by a car, I’d ride in front of one and get hit too.”
“What a nice sentiment,” I mused, “you’d want to be with me in the afterlife.”
“No, I wouldn’t want you to get your dying wish,” she responded.

Well, there’s a touching mother-daughter exchange to bring tears of joy to your eyes, or maybe not. We made an unspoken decision that I would ride with my older daughter and let my husband bike along with my youngest.