May 25, 2008

Dear Dad,

It has been more than a week since we got home.  It is hard to adjust after being gone for 24 days.  Luckily, the employees did a wonderful job and everything is and has been kept in order.

It was an adventure getting home.  We were delayed in San Francisco one hour and arrived just in time to miss our connecting flight because although the plane was still at the gate and the departure wasn’t for another 156 minutes it wasn’t enough time (according to the authorities) to board.  Rules.  I think the real reason was that our seats were given away to standby passengers. What irks me is that the delay was fault of AA not us.

Well, what did AA do for us?  We flew from Dallas to Miami, they gave us a room (no luggage however, it had been checked through to Costa Rica when we boarded in San Francisco)and credit for some food.  We arrived late, about 10:30pm and waited for the hotel bus that never came and went instead with a private van that had been busy picking us stragglers.

We got to the hotel, went to sleep and woke up early to catch the flight to Costa Rica.

We took a hotel bus to the airport and the driver said, as he was pulling out, anyone missing a portfolio?  It was my laptop, sitting on the sidewalk where Bryan had left it.

Thank god that the driver was paying attention.

We got to the airport, checked in and then sat on the plane for 1 ½ hours, got off the plane and waited another 3 hours until a new plane arrived and finally got home at about 6:00pm only about 6 hours late.

All three of us were glad to get home even if it as without luggage, since we had been in the same clothes for two days.  I may through out my anchor and stay home for a while.

Our luggage didn’t arrive with us; but the following day all 5 pieces arrived.  To compensate for our delay, AA has given us 4000 air miles in a letter apologizing.  It is a nice gesture and I am not going to complain since our luggage didn’t get lost – always a bummer and was only one day delay at the end of our vacation and not at the beginning.

Since there were no clothes to unpack, we ordered a pizza and relaxed in front of the TV.

The two cats were so happy to see us.  Maybe they were just hungry, but we were glad to see them too.

Boomer, one of my cats, was so glad I was home, he curled up beside me when I was sleeping and when I opened my eyes during the night I saw he was watching me and purring.  He really thinks I am his mother.

There was one mishap the day we got home.  Delfina cut herself badly while trying to use the new knife sharpener I bought last time I was in Miami. She was using it wrong and managed to make a deep cup in her thumb. 
One of the crew took her to the clinic to get it sewn, and they sewed a vein back together but for some strange unknown reason didn’t see that the tendon had been severed too.

We pay a fortune to the caja/social services; that is supposed to provide free medical services for the employees, but it is always the same story.  The money we pay in goes out to pay the interest on the outstanding loans Costa Rica has and very little goes back into the medical services.

If you do have the misfortune to go into the hospital, for whatever reason, they only medicine for pain is asprin.

Tomorrow, after more than 2 weeks, Delfina will go to a hospital in San Jose for surgery on her thumb that could have been prevented if the doctor on duty had been paying attention. Now, Delfina has been on medical leave for 2 weeks, and who knows how long she will be out after the surgery tomorrow.

In the office, while the two guys in reservations were cleaning the pool where my Feng Shui fish live, they put the fish in a bucket.  Since it was crowded, when it was time t place the fish back into the pool, I noticed that the fish poop is white. Fish poop a lot. I looked up on the internet to see what or if there was a problem and do you know what I learned?  The fish are constipated. Who would have guessed it? I had Mario touch their stomachs, like the site recommended, to see if they were hard and yes they were. We had to not feed them for two days and put special pills in the water. Or I could have peeled a pea and put a grain of Epsom Salts in the middle for the fish to eat.

David and I went to Punta Coral this last weekend. We have not been there since we left on vacation and we needed to go.  I wanted to do an inspection on Tortuga Island, but the groups are too big.  I never want to break the routine of the crew, who work like robots.  Why change it if it works?

The new well was almost finished and we both wanted to see it. We had a new guest this time. We brought a new member of the family with us; a cute little orange kitten that Bryan surprised me with last Sunday. Bryan has a friend who just got an orange kitten and he asked where it came from.  He went to the house and bought home two little kittens so I could choose.  One had more white on him but when Junior (the female cat) came to sniff them, the one with the most white flattened his ears but the other one didn’t seem to mind.  I chose the braver one.

He came to us full of fleas and I gave him a good spray with flea stuff and immediately washed him off because he is too young and the spray is very strong.  The quick spray was good enough to get rid of the fleas.  Where did they go? I have no idea.

The weather and season has changed.  It was really hot the first few days we were home, but now it is raining.  We have a lot of rain here in San Jose, but luckily it rains a lot less in Puntarenas and the outside islands. 

We had the Amapola – the Captains’ launch - come in to pick us up at the Calypso dock.  It was a quick ride across the gulf and we just managed to get inside when it began to pour. It never gets really cold, even in the rain.

Crossing the beautiful Gulf of Nicoya, it amazed me to see the change on the islands.  When we were there last, in May before we left on vacation, the islands were dry and the trees were bare of leaves.  On Friday, it amazed me to see that the islands now look like a broccoli forest, a beautiful green, thick and peeking through the tree tops are the beautiful white five petal flowers that now cover all the wild plumeria or frangipani trees.

When we arrived the unmistakable intoxicating smell from the Myrtle Tree that grows outside our bedroom window, filled the air making me dizzy with the strong fragrance. 

The little kitten didn’t seem to mind the car ride or the panga/dingy ride.  Since I brought his bed and his food he was comfortable.  We kept him inside because he only weighs 1 ½ pounds and I didn’t want him to be someones’ lunch if he got lost outside the house.  He followed me everywhere.  His name is Dexter, a name Linda picked out.  I have forgotten how much fun a little kitten can be.  

 

Saturday morning we woke to the sounds of the jungle.  There was a symphony of music from lots of different birds at different locations around the property.  It sounded like an angel’s chorus and then the base sounds of the monkeys talking back and forth to each other was wonderful entertainment. A breeze moved the leaves on trees and bushes in the garden for another sound and together the sounds heard were those of an orchestra conducted by Mother Nature.It went on all day long and I wanted to record it.

I was so happy to be at Punta Coral.  I told myself that the Tropical Dry Forest of Punta Coral had given us a welcome home salute and party.  It really felt like the birds singing and the clouds of multi colored butterflies dancing around the trees, a woodpecker keeping time – tap tap tapping on a tree, cinnamon colored humming birds – humming to the music of the jungle, the ocean waves hitting the shore in our private beach was a tribute to our return.

I went outside the back door of the casona and I saw a giant 18 inch long Iguana at the same time he saw me.  He scurried away, his long tail swishing back and forth slowing the pace of the get-away and then expertly climbing the giant mango tree at the back of the casona his coloring matching completely the bark of the giant old tree. I watched as he held his head high, motionless and thought I could not see him

Walking back to the grove of mango trees so I could hug my majestic Royal Palm tree, I saw another Iguana, much smaller in length, only about 10 inches long, but this one was bright florescent green.  He thought himself hidden under some leaves and I was able to get close, maybe a foot away, and I stopped to watch him. 

The arrival of Iguanas could explain why there are no amapola/hibiscus flowers anywhere on the property. The flowers are a favorite treat for lizards, iguanas and turtles; the petals are also good in a salad.

I was in heaven, I could feel my body and soul respond positively to the sights and sounds that I heard while Mother Nature was conducting her magic symphony.  I love this place. 

 

David and I were both happy and surprised to see that the new well, two years in the digging and finishing, is now completed.  It has been dug by hand with a depth of 8 meters and we have lots of water.  It just might be our best well out of the five we already have.

Digging a well that deep can be dangerous and lots of precautions were taken to insure that the person at the bottom of the deep hole was always spotted/watched in case of a cave in and had to be pulled out.  We were lucky that although the digging and finishing (pouring cement to make walls around the edges) took two years, we have a great finished product.

Since the mango trees are full of ripe fruit, Punta Coral is full of monkeys.  We had at least three troops of monkeys on the property at once.  The greedy monkeys take one bite out of a ripe mango and toss it and go for another.  The grounds are covered with the fruit.  Leaving the fruit on the ground is a problem if the fruit is not collected and thrown away.  Mosquitoes and flies like to lay eggs in the discarded fruit and then we get plagues of both nasty insects.

There seemed to be a lot more bugs this time.  David and I are used to them and not all of our guests can take their presence in stride.

I found a beautiful large beetle, about 3 inches long on the shower curtain.  I have named him a longhorn beetle because he has feelers that are longer than his body and stick out both sides of his head, just like the Longhorn cattle in Texas.

I laughed out loud after watching a June bug or Kamikaze bug fly into the dining area and crash into the post.  They fly like drunk drivers drive. 

Ants are the big problem.  Some have set up housekeeping in the hollow of the bamboo furniture.  They think I don’t know they are hiding there, building nests.  I opened a drawer in the Captain’s bed to pull out the plastic bag with my sarongs and saw about 50 big black ants each holding an egg.

To end this ant problem isn’t easy especially since we are trying to only use products that are friendly to the environment.  Ants are very strong and always return.  The Tropical Dry Forest is their territory.  After one bit David – hard – and drew blood we decided to declare war.  Juan Jose, who keeps the casona and casita clean, is going to do a more thorough clean and see if he can discourage the ants from setting up housekeeping in my house.  I want them back in the jungle where they belong.

On Sunday, David and I watched a young wren try his wings for the first time.  At first we thought he had fallen from the nest because he was perched on top of a small tree in the flower bed near the palm tree where the nest is located. He had all his feathers and looked like an adult wren, only smaller.  The little wren’s parents were close and I thought they were scolding us for being so close to their offspring. 

It was almost sunset and getting dark and David and I worried that if the little bird didn’t make it back home it could be prey to an owl or other night dwelling creature.  To our surprise, after about ½ hour of what we learned to be encouragement, the little bird flew.

Another National Geographic moment at Punta Coral.  We were thoroughly entertained all weekend.

 

I am sitting on top of the bed upstairs in the casona/big house at Punta Coral.  I am writing here to stay under the fan to keep the mosquitoes away. Since there has been a lot of rain, there are a lot of mosquitos. It is Monday and time to leave paradise and head back to San Jose. 

It rained all night, poured really, until about 7:00am this morning.  The weather cleared and another beautiful day began.  Since we had 81 people on the tour, it would have been a real loss to cancel and I was glad the tour went on as scheduled.

All too soon, it was time to say goodbye to Punta Coral and cross the Gulf of Nicoya once again and head for home. 

As we got closer to Puntarenas and the point of the peninsula I could see the where the ferries are docked and the trash in the water.  It will be wonderful to have our own Casa Calypso again with our own dock.  Where we are leaving from now is run down and the owners won’t make any repairs.

It will only be another two months more and then we will be in the new kitchen.  We have a lot of work to do.

We need to install new bathrooms for the tourists and build bodegas for storage.  These are the two most important. I have no doubt that it all will get done.  We are a great team and have great employees and all we need is a formal architectural plan and away we go.J

 

Today is Thursday.  It is still raining and has not stopped since Monday evening.  At least now we know why – there is a hurricane on the pacific called Alma and caused a tropical depression off the coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica and this is why we are having so much rain.

Our history shows that this is the biggest storm to hit the west coast in 150 years.

In Puntarenas, the roads are flooded and invisible.  There is no place for the water to go at high tide and is causing problems with the houses filling up with a mixture of sea water and fresh water. 

The port captain is not allowing any boats, including ferries, to go out into the Gulf of Nicoya. The area is in red alert.

In the North, there is no bus travel as the roads are closed.  The roads are flooded there too and this is causing all sorts of mud slides.

According to the weathermen, the storm will continue until tomorrow afternoon.  Then we will see what the many rivers that run into the gulf will dump in the gulf.  Trees and branches have been falling and of course the garbage that always collects will be washed down river with the rains.  It is a big problem.

I am so glad we are in the new house.  The old house used to fill up with a waterfall of water in the laundry room.  The floors were sinking and the house crawling slowly towards the street.  Now, where we are we are safe and on sold ground.

It is so cold all of are wearing jackets to try and keep warm.  It is a wet cold that only a fireplace can cure with a warm fire.

 

The cats are still hissing at Dexter.  He is so cute and wants to be friends with them.  I hope that they all will be friends soon.

 

It is almost time to go home.  I am cold, wearing socks and a jacket trying to keep warm.

Thank goodness that normally we are with sunny weather.

 

Hope all is well with you. I love and miss you.

 

Besitos,  Cecs