Visiting the doctor in Costa Rica

As I have mentioned, I have been battling an outer ear infection for the past few days. When the Witwers were still here Brian hooked me up with and antibiotic and a recommended ear drop concoction that the pharmacist gladly sold me. But, two days later, my ear was worse, I could barely hear and it felt like water was permanently trapped in my ear. I decided to go to the doctor, a first for me in foreign travels. It was easy. I knocked on the door that said Doctor and was immediately seen by Doctor German Enrique de Jesus Moreno-Rojas. Upon looking into my ear he said "this is very bad" and started speaking to his assistant, who was a teenage boy with presumably no medical education whatsoever, in Spanish. He explained my ear was badly infected and that if I didn't get it taken care of asap, a part of my ear may form a hole in it, which did not sound good. $200 later I was out the door of the doctor's office and the pharmacy with 5 prescriptions including twice daily antibiotic shots one of which he would administer to me and one of which I need to administer myself at 3 am this morning, in the buttocks. First I need to mix the antibiotic cocktail consisting of a glass vile of liquid which needs the top broken off before it is mixed with a powder. Next I need to make sure that I don't hit an artery (didn't know there were any down there) and inject myself in just the right place. All this in the middle of the night. Wish me luck, I am totally nervous. I should be better in 2 to 3 days and back in the water to continue my surfing lessons.

Dangerous driving in Costa Rica

Anyone who has been to Costa Rica knows that the roads leave much to be desired. Most roads are unpaved and filled with potholes and deep trenches created by the torrential downpours of tropical storms. It is especially bad after rainy season, which is right now. The Witwers and I decided to go with Richard, our surf instructor / real estate agent / home builder / farmer / smoothie king, to look at some land for sale in Santa Teresa. About a quarter of a mile past Giselle's house - yes, I mean Bundchen, wife of Tom Brady - the edge of the dirt road fell out from underneath us and the back passenger side tire fell into a hole leading down into a deep ravine with vegetation being the only thing that might slow us down if we rolled to the bottom. I was in the back passenger side, so I slid over. This prompted Richard to get out of the car, quickly. Stephanie, who crawled into the back seat to exit the teetering car, and I, followed him. As soon as we got out we realized the car was balancing on the rear license plate and this was not going to be an easy fix. Brian asked if he was safe and Stephanie replied that she wasn't sure, but she wanted him to hand her the camera. How can you miss a photo opportunity like this?

Knowing that if Brian got out of the driver's seat, the car would likely fall into the ravine, he stayed put while Richard called over two locals clearing a nearby hillside and a neighbor driving home. I stood on the door frame next to Brian and the guys pushed us from behind while Brian gently tried to use the two wheels remaining on the ground to drive the car out of the hole. At this point I was calmly (at least that's how I remember it) calling out explicatives indicating my fear of being launched into the ravine. But in a few short seconds Brian was driving up the hill, the locals were back to clearing their property and we all signed in relief that we were still breathing. Richard asked if we wanted to keep going to the property, to which we replied "no, since we are definitely not buying anything up there." We had, after all, taken out a quarter of the road.

The Witwer's have left and I have settled into my new home at Pacifica Surf School, it is great; $40 per night for a large room with kitchenette, bathroom, AC, pool and steps to the beach. I am out of the water for a few days due to an ear infection, but hope to be back in soon.

Surfing Mal Pais

After a couple of days of playing around on a small board, I moved to a table; this giant 8'-8" board could keep everyone in our house safely afloat and it is perfect for this part of my surfing journey. I struggled to my feet on the table for a few surf sessions, getting there only because of the massive floatation device I was riding, but knew that I wasn't getting it quite right. My pop up was forced and clumsy and I knew this would never work on a respectable board. My next step was to take a lesson.

Richard, our surf instructor, is from Canada and has been living here for 20 years. According to Aaron, the guy who rented us our boards from the outside of a Jui Jitsu studio, he is the best teacher in the Mal Pais / Santa Teresa area. Although I have nothing to compare him to locally, he is the best teacher I have had. Before we even got into the water, he fixed my pop up and I knew it was going to be a great day. My mistake was in the way I was pushing my upper body off the board. Instead of pushing it up like a traditional gym pushup, I needed to push up and arch my back (similar to a cobra position in yoga) then jump up into a crouched stance on the board. The first time I tried it was an effortless jump to a standing position on the board and I spent an hour doing it over and over again in the white wash. Stage one of my surfing conquest is complete and I have a renewed energy and excitement for surfing. It's amazing how a small adjustment can change everything about a sport. Today I took my new skill into the big waves. Most of the 2 and a half hours I was out there was spent watching the waves trying to determine how to tell when a good one is coming (still unsure) and paddling my you-know-what off trying to catch a wave but missing it. However, on my way in, I paddled into the perfect spot on a giant wave, popped up perfectly and glided all the way to the shore. It was incredible and I can't wait to do it again.

I found a great place to stay after the Witwer's leave, Pacific Surf School. It's in Santa Teresa, which is the name of the beach town where we've been staying. Pacific Surf School is about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) north of Playa Carmen. The main intersection of town is at Playa Carmen and the Town of Mal Pais is a south and Santa Teresa is north. Mal Pais and Santa Teresa run together as if it's one town. Generally speaking, the waves at Playa Carmen are friendly and gentle, versus fast and steep at Santa Teresa. From my new house at Pacific Surf School, it will be a hike each day to get to Playa Carmen to surf, but the room, the pool, the ambiance and price is too great to pass up.

Another adventure...to Mal Pais Costa Rica

The saying ‘life is a journey, not a destination’ could not be more accurate. Traveling to and from international destinations offer some of my most interesting memories. To get to Mal Pais, Costa Rica I flew from San Diego to Atlanta then Atlanta to San Jose, Costa Rica, both flights being uneventful. My third and final leg of flying was on a small Costa Rican airline, Sansa. We were scheduled to fly for about 23 minutes (the trip taking 6 to 8 to 12 hours by land) on a small propeller plan from San Jose to Tambor. About 30 minutes before our scheduled departure, it started to storm. Thunder and lightning accompanied the torrential downpour. As soon as there was a small relief in the buckets of water raining down, we grabbed a partner and an umbrella and ran to the plane. On the way out, my umbrella mate asked if this was really safe. I responded with my only thought…. they wouldn’t let a plane full of tourists go down, that would be really bad for the economy. The flight itself was minimally turbulent and the terror of taking off in the middle of a tropical storm turned out to be unnecessary. The landing however, was insane. From my seat (one of 12 on the plane), I could only see a strip of sand where the ocean met the rain forest. I thought we were going to fly over the tree canopy and was shocked when we landed in the middle of the rainforest. The landing strip was a narrow space of cleared jungle with a thin layer of asphalt used to ease the plane in. There were about a half of a dozen people waiting at the landing strip, one of which was an employee of Sansa airlines who took me to my final destination, Mal Pais, in his small car that looked like it had been retrieved from the junkyard partially into the crushing operation. But it was dark, there were no buses and his orange vest made me fell like he was safety conscious. Mal Pais is wonderful. It is a small surf town with miles of beach breaks and yoga everywhere.

For more detailed travel information, see my article on the examiner website.

The End of the Road

It's the end of the road.  For now at least.  My time on Caye Caulker was amazing, I went kiteboarding, fishing, to private islands and passed some parts of days playing dominos.  I fell in love with the island and am looking forward to going back someday soon.  Since it was too difficult to make it to Mexico to fly out (OK, not that difficult, but something I wasn't looking forward to), I decided to fly out of Belize City.  I am back in the states and on the East Coast for the next week.  It's going to be difficult to process what's next.

Caye Caulker, Belize: Out on the Sea!

The Raggamuffin one-day snorkeling trip to the Holchan Marine Reserve site of Shark Ray Alley is one of the best day trips I have ever done and one of the best days I have had for a long time; and I've had some pretty great days in the last few months.  We took out a small sailboat and sailed our way to a variety of snorkel sites.  The ambiance on the boat was amazing.  There was food, drinks, reggae music, sun and lots of relaxing as we made our way through the Caribbean sea to our destinations.At our first site, Jermain, the captain, said we would be looking for Manatees.  I didn't even know they were in season and I immediately thought to myself, yeah right.  But we saw two Manatees playing around in the water as soon as we jumped in. They kind of remind me of giant, graceful, underwater blobs.  

The second site was in the Holchan Reserve, Shark Ray Alley.  We saw tons of Nurse Sharks, sting rays, spotted eagle rays and tons of other fish.  This is a picture of my Australian friend, Kirsty, holding a Nurse Shark.  That's my hand on the right touching it and yes, those are his fangs hanging out of his mouth.  The shark had a rough plastic-like texture that felt like a cross between a plastic cup and a miniature tile floor.  The third site was also in Holchan Reserve and there we saw more sharks, sting rays, turtles and a giant green morey eel pictured above.

On the trip back, we ate ceviche (which was delicious, as I helped prepare it - yes, they actually gave me a knife on a rocking boat) and drank some of the 5 gallons of Rum punch that was made.  We sailed through 'the split' (the split is the channel separating the two islands of Caye Caulker, formerly one island until a hurricane in the 1960s split the island in two), listened to reggae and danced.  We made friends the the captain and this turned into the first of a string of days on the water.  

The next day Jermain took us fishing on his boat.  At first I was afraid that it would be boring, fishing has never really been my sport of choice, but upon dropping our lines in, we got bites immediately.  We caught almost 20 fish through traditional fishing methods and a few by spear fishing.  We caught grouper, hog fish, red snappers, grunts, all delicious after Jermain and Patrick barbecued them up, whole, on the beach.  By whole, I mean the entire fish is cooked and served, eyes and all.  These guys know how to cook expertly on a grill of homemade coals lit by coconuts.  The guys used a nearby bar's oven to cook up rice to compliment the fish and the garlic bread from the grill.  The garlic bread was our idea, and Jermain and Patrick wondered, more than once, why we wanted it and initially cooked only half of our supply.  After Megan (a California/New York friend) requested the second loaf of bread also be cooked, she affectionately was called 'bread girl' the rest of the night.  

The next day we took the same small boat and a larger group of people to a private island off the coast of Caye Caulker.  We were going for a 'crab' cookout, but when we arrived on the island there were only a few 'crabs', not nearly enough to feed a dozen people.  I went with three of the guys in search of more and was amazed when they went directly to a spot in the middle of the sea, anchored and expertly hooked and speared about 20 more 'crabs' for dinner.  This whole process took under 10 minutes.  It was mesmerizing.  I wanted to help, but it all happened so fast.  By the time I asked for a spear (like I was going to be able to actually hit something while free diving and holding my breath underwater), dinner was caught and we were heading back.  The guys, lead by Jermain, again, cooked up a restaurant worthy meal of grilled crustaceans, rice, veggies and more bread for the Westerners.  What I find fascinating about cooking in Belize is that they have, out of necessity, perfected a method of cooking where you can leave food cooking, warming, etc for hours while you wait for other food to be prepared and people to arrive and it never gets overcooked or dried out.  Given the slow pace of life here, this is important!  The reason why 'crab' is in quotes will be revealed after June 15th.

Diving Turneff Elbow, Caye Caulker, Belize

We saw a Hammerhead shark!  It was amazing.  We went on a one-day, three tank dive on Turneff atoll, south side, known as the elbow. The corals were great and we saw a giant turtle, tons of snappers and jack fish.  I may be somewhat spoiled by having dove in Asia; while the corals here are fantastic, the fish life is, generally, not nearly as abundant. At the beginning of the day, we had a few minor equipment mishaps such as leaky BCDs, half full tanks of air and mouthpieces which were missing the grips you hold on to so you can breath.  Since nothing is a problem in Belize (the island mantra along with one love, mon and I gotta smoke me a spliff), we  just cleaned it up and headed out.  The boat ride to the dive site was a little over an hour and a half mostly inside the reef, therefore not too rough of waters.  Our first dive was great.  At the end of the dive, we saw a 10' Hammerhead Shark swimming about 20 feet below us.  It was amazing!  The second dive wasn't as good.  We had a new, inexperienced dive master leading us.  When one of our group members had problems equalizing the pressure on her ears during the decent the dive master went to hep her and never returned.  Three of us were swimming around for about 10 minutes before we surfaced to find our dive master had in fact forgotten where he left us.  He looked around, but couldn't get back to where we were.  Well, he says he went back to where we were, but since we didn't move, I deduced his inability to find us.  This particular dive didn't get much better and ended with us coming up from our dive early because our dive master was hungry.  He was such a small, skinny guy, I found it shocking he ate at all, better yet ended a dive because of hunger.  One the third dive, we were back on track and without our hungry friend who can't seem to find his way around the sea.