Costa Rica 2

So it's the internet in the area, not specifically my place.  We'll see how this goes.  It's been better over the last hour or so.

Wednesday some of the folks went zip-lining but I went off exploring.  And I'm a beach person - I wanted to grab some more time there.  We were up in the hills a couple miles from the beach, so I walked.  The area isn't a packed area like our resorts, but a lot of interesting-looking restaurants and bars line the road.

 

Note to travelers:  the national beer of Costa Rica, Imperial, SUCKS.  Tasteless with a nasty metallic back taste.  Bleh!  Bleh!

 

There is some hope, though, and micro-brews are beginning to get a foothold there.  At the end of the week, my sister and I found a nearby bar run by an American ex-pat that had a few on tap.  

Can't remember what they were, though.  Except one was a coffee IPA that wasn't particularly hoppy and had the mouth feel of a stout.

Our daily monkey visits were from capuchins, and we could hear howlers in the jungle below us, but squirrel monkeys only visited once.  They had a favorite spot on the road down, though, where they could always be seen.  Cables have been strung above the roadway so they can have a safe crossing.

Despite lack of sidewalks and occasionally scary drivers, a nice walk down.  I took the bus back.  It costs about 70 cents (315 colones, I think - I just handed him a $1 bill and he handed me Costa Rican change) and it was hot and humid and a bloody steep walk in some places.

A note about the public beach (as opposed to the ones in Manuel Antonio Park itself) - people are hustling to make a living and you will be offered, repeatedly, all sorts of things, most of them made in Nicaragua.  You have to get hardened to just shaking your head and not engaging them.  And things there are very expensive - more so than if we had gone to, say, the Outer Banks, as far as food and drinks.  Which is how we saved money by having a chef and by buying all our hard alcohol from the duty-free shop at the airport in Miami.  Sometimes it seemed like there were more sales-people on the beach than swimmers.  But I feel sorry for the locals - American and European tourists have driven their costs up, but there are only so many jobs in the area and they pay poorly.  So they try to sell tourists cheap stuff for not cheap prices. 

Thursday was Manuel Antonio Park itself.  We scrounged up a tour guide cheap and he spotted some things for us: both kinds of sloths, howler monkeys, two kinds of tropical bats, Halloween crabs, helmeted iguanas.  I didn't get many good pics there.  I only had my cell phone rather than a camera.  The guide did take a pic of one of the sloths through his telescope for me, and I got one of the iguana.

The beaches in the park itself are also spectacular.  And full of monkeys and racoons determined to take your stuff and completely unafraid of you.

The others headed back but I hung around the beaches for a while, swimming, admiring the green and flowers, and poking around in tide pools.

Then I went off to explore and almost got myself in trouble.  I'm overweight and out of shape and it was hot and humid under the tropical canopy and I decided to take a trail that involved a whole bunch of up.  Very up.  By the time I got to the overlook I was having chills, meaning heat exhaustion.

 

I never did spot the birds I was trying to find in the canopy, but I took it easy coming back and just admired the fact that in Costa Rica if it isn't green it's blooming.

That night I stayed vertical just long enough to eat dinner and then headed for bed.  The one complaint I had about the villa is that the mattresses are old inner spring and you can tell it - they need replaced.   But that affected me all of about 10 seconds every night and this was no exception.

Friday was a putter day and arrival day for more guests, including one who flew in from China: 36 hours one-way to act as usher. My sister and I walked up to do some souvenir shopping, then lazed around the pool until time for the rehearsal dinner.

Saturday was the same for those without specific wedding jobs, and then, finally, they were Mr. and Mrs.

 
Then Sunday it was back on the road home, leaving the bride and groom and a few of the new guests to continue sunning, dirt biking, rappelling through waterfalls, zip-lining, and all the other stuff that most excellent vacation spot offers.  I rolled back into WV Monday afternoon, having had the most fabulous vacation of my life.

Wedding Trip

So after finally getting my suv back on Wednesday afternoon, I pedaled over to Baltimore to spend the night, since three of us were driving to Niagara Falls together.  In my Sante Fe, which was why not having it was becoming a concern.

Thursday dawned a sterling Fall day, and we were on the road by 8:30.  I wasn't looking forward to the drive itself - 8 hours on the road just doesn't appeal.  But it turned out that the route is beautiful, with the leaves pretty much at peak, and I never got to the book I'd brought because I was too busy loving the scenery that rolled by hour after hour.   We pulled into the Four Points Sheraton at 4:30; the groom rolled in from St. Clair Shores shortly after, having been delayed an hour at the border crossing into Ontario as he left Michigan.

In the midst of all this, my sister and my nephew and his girlfriend were trying to fly up from Raleigh.  Due into Buffalo around 9 pm.  Yeah, well.  They spent the night in a Dulles Airport hotel outside of D.C.  And then spent the morning watching their flight get pushed later and later.  They finally arrived Friday afternoon, but I doubt any of them will use that airlines again.

First order of business after breakfast Friday was to obtain a marriage license.  Easily done, then another beautiful day before us.  So up to Fort Niagara, located at the mouth of the Niagara River where it empties into Lake Ontario, a site of much history and magnificent views.

We all love learning history by visiting sites like this.

I did spot something that took "concealed carry" in an unexpected direction.

Canada is right across the river, but I failed to get my passport in time so I just admired the view.

Sister and company finally got in around 2, so we grabbed lunch and then headed to the Falls.  Dwight was the only one who had been there before.  And yes, it's a serious "Wow!"

I'm assuming this is an old power station in the cliff across the river.

Hard to believe that the water flow here is only about 30% of what it was originally due to diversion for hydroelectric power.

Canada sparkles at night. Not sure what it looks like coming from the other direction. We found the tourist section of the NY a tad sketchy.




The morning of the Big Day required a trip to the spa at the Indian Casino for hair and makeup.

Then back to my hotel room to get dressed.

The weather had decided not to cooperate on Wedding Day, so it was the Falls Chapel instead.

The minister did some last minute groom spiffing.

Then my nephew Greyson walked the bride down the aisle and gave her away.

The ceremony was relatively brief, but I thought the minister did a lovely job.  Dwight started to giggle when she got to "until death do you part" - he said afterward that what popped into his mind at that moment was "Zombies".  When he started to giggle, Bronwyn started to giggle too, because she thought he was thinking of a comment he had made earlier about loving so many different cuisines that he'd be easy to poison.

And then they were man and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Dwight Johnston.

Of course, there were the obligatory staged photos afterward.

Poor Josh - always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

The sun had come out in the interim, so we dashed across the street for a couple falls photos.

It was cold and windy, though, so that didn't last long.  We headed back to the hotel, changed, and spent a couple hours in the lounge, enjoying the river view and the sunset, rehydrating, and killing time until time to go to the reception dinner.

 

Time to go home the morning after, but Megan had not gone with us to the Falls on Friday, so we made another stop there so she could oooo and awww too.

Windy and seriously misty at the edge.  And spectacular.  The Maid of the Mist seemed to be looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

And then it was time to head back to Baltimore.  Vibrating all the way because an axle had started to go.  Then a crawl directly back to the shop Monday morning as it got worse and worse.  But many happy memories and hopes for the future of the newlyweds.