Well, I intended to continue (or start) my "impressions" series, but the Costa Rican Independence Day this last weekend afforded us a chance to travel, and we too advantage of it. Suzy organized a trip to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific Coast. Here's something of a travel log:
Friday. The adventure started with traffic, a lot of traffic. Warnings were missed (Suzy), or went unheeded (Joe), and the next thing we know our three-hour drive to and down the coast wasn't half complete three hours later. We left right from school, roughly 3:00, and then finally acquiesced and pulled off the road at 6:00 to eat dinner and wait, uselessly, for the traffic to die down. Back into the traffic by 7:00, and, long story short, we arrived at the hotel at 10:00, kids tired, but still more or less rolling with it (--I'm proud of those guys, to tell you the truth--they're actually a lot of fun to be stuck in traffic with).
Now, Didi's Hotel is the place Katy and Martha found and stayed at when they went to Manuel Antonio a month or so ago, a nice affordable place, owned by Ezio from Turin, Italy, located only a couple of miles from the beach, and right next to Angela's Gentleman's Club (--oh yea, that really helped the kids take the edge off). Anyway, after a cold shower (--until I figured out that the electric heater's controls were the opposite of the one we have at home), and after blowing up an air mattress--oh, and after emptying the car of anything remotely worth stealing (everything, that is--the children's car seats included), we crashed hard, and slept in (--to the ripe hour of 6:00, the time the kids wake up regardless of every imaginable circumstance). But the scarlet macaws that also seemed to know the sin of sleeping in swooped and squawked in groups right pass our window in the morning and were reward enough for any travail. I even started to write a poem about them--but I'll spare you...
Saturday was whale watching day. Our landlord Francisco and his daughter Mariola met us for the tour (he booked it for us, in fact) and, life jackets on, out to sea we went. It was great.
A mother humpback whale and her two calves seemed to welcome us to the sea, waving to us with their side fins; and she even once lifted her great mouth out of the water. Our pictures don't do it justice, but Francisco also had a camera, and if he gets around to sending his to us, I'll post them here later.
Scout became Scoot because, perhaps sensing the immensity of these creatures, she always scooted to the side of the boat they weren't on, either to Mommy or me. The boys couldn't get enough though, refusing to turn around for pictures. While we sped this way or that, they would dip their hands or hats in the water and get their hands and heads all wet.
No sickness--not from us. Some woman puked right in the direction of all our bags and stuff. "Really?" thought Suzy. (Suzy is the kind of person who wants to puke when others are puking around her, so she had trouble sympathizing. I didn't, but I also lifted my feet high off the floor while they were trying to wash out the woman's vomit. She probably preferred Suzy's reaction).
Now, note in these pictures, the gathering storm.
Well, it ended the tour. I was more than satisfied, but we had just then situated ourselves right next to two brother humpbacks. The rain was literally coming sideways, and pelting us--pelting my eyeballs as I tried to catch the last glimpses of the whales--rain doesn't kid around down here. I could hardly make it out, but again, the whales' fins were lifted out of the water and they seemed to be waving specifically to us, as though to say, goodbye. I turned back around to my guys and Scout was almost completely in Mommy's jacket, Charlie had his Batman cap down over his face, and Kiefer had pulled his rain jacket hood completely down over his entire head, looking less like a person than a coat rack. The tour was over. Thanks to Mariola and Francisco, we disembarked and trucked it all the way back to the cars through the deluge, kids, again, more or less rolling with it. Kiefer, whom I was trying to carry, kept telling me "jokes" while we ran through the rain, like: "If someone was trying to play soccer right now, he would be all wet!!!" Hilarious.
Goodbyes, showers, dinner next to the beach, and bedtime was upon us--and this time, would you believe it, we all slept 12 hours, from 7:00 to 7:00 (yahoo), despite a brief nap in the car.
Man, were we zonked--wet and zonked!
Sunday. Now, Charlie had been having kind of an unlucky weekend--bad things kept happening to him, like slipping down or biting his tongue or bumping his head. But the worst of his luck came on our way to the bus Sunday morning: he fell into a hole big enough only for his little leg--a plant or leaf was covering it. Oh, did he scream--mostly scared, but also scraped up a bit. He recovered, though, by the time we were on the bus, and when we were walking though Manuel Antonio National Park, he was sharing with his brother the method he had devised for getting the lining of his swim shorts "out of his butt crack": "Pinch and pull, Kiefer, just pinch and pull." In the park, we saw sloths, a long-tailed monkey, an iguana, and hermit crabs, and we went to two different beaches, setting up finally at the second one because of the smaller waves.
Sand sculptures, and a castle again, and the boys made a new friend while they all played in the shallow surf; and Scout learned what fun it was to catch a wave--I would hold her while she swam, but I would honestly let the wave carry her as it could. Actually, I got a bit banged up because I couldn't spare a hand while I was swept a bit across little collections of coral on the shore.
We grew hungry, and walked back to the main beach and settled for a terribly overpriced lunch--well, "settle" is not quite the word for a hungry Suzy, but you get the picture. Then we lathered up again and hit the main beach. Boom. These waves were not little, and, man, did I have the best time in them. I was having so much fun, in fact, that I had no time for any fear of sharks (--a liability of mine when I am at the beach). The kids were having a ton of fun too, whether watching me get crushed by waves, watching para-sailers take off from the beach, or running back and forth with the wash of the waves. At one point Suzy and I were both in the waves together, looking back and watching them, while the guy we paid for our umbrella and beach chair helped watch the kids and our backpack.
And then it happened, the worst moment of our young parenting lives...
Suzy had gone back to our umbrella, feeling, in part, that the waves were a bit too crazy for her, and, more, that she saw that I was having so much fun, she wanted me to just keep having it. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Yes. Have fun," she said. "Okay, I'll come back in 40 minutes (at 4:00)," I half said, while turning around to meet the biggest waves of my sea-cautious life. Man, was I having fun, waiting for and catching the best waves, getting carried in the arms of the sea to the shore a hundred feet at a time, if I was lucky...
Eventually, I thought I heard Suzy call me. I turned back to the shore, and sure enough, she was waving me in. I looked at my watch: 3:50. I checked Suzy again. She was kind of scrambling, and then she turned and waved me in, frantically. I rushed to the shore as quickly as I could, my imagination starting to run wild. Charlie at the beach chair, digging in the sand, Scout a few feet from Suzy, and Kiefer--Kiefer?, where was Kiefer?! I had felt the powerful undertow of the sea while I was in it, and was a bit startled by it myself while I played. Now, I could only imagine that grip upon my boy--imagine seeing his hat or even him being tossed around in the waves, helplessly, lifelessly... "Kiefer!?" Suzy called, almost cried. "Kiefer!" I barked. The beach was crowded. What if it wasn't the sea that had him?! What if... "Kiefer," Suzy screamed! She was becoming hysterical. She darted off to the right, and I turned to the left, Scout and Charlie, still pretty much oblivious, and come together at the beach chair, our paid help standing there like a sentry over them. "Kiefer," I yelled. The beach was a blur of people and colors, danger everywhere, the sea, roaring indifference, the sky, starting to collapse...
Then the guy standing at the umbrella pointed in the direction I was starting to go, and in his limited English, yelled out, "There...Red hat."
...Kiefer was walking back in my direction, one sandal in his hand, the other on his foot, his red cap titled unevenly on his head. My heart flooded with instant inordinate gratitude. I dissembled, and walked calmly up to my sweet boy, my third, my baby, my Doo, who was as carefree as he was defenseless. "Kiefer?" I said quietly. He looked up at me, and matter-of-factly said, "I can't find Mommy." Apparently, he had become disoriented and walked off in the opposite direction to try to find her, and he was now doubling back. "She's over here, buddy. Right over there."...
We tipped our sentry largely. He did not want it. Suzy and I both said, "Take it. Just take it. And thank you so much." He took it--almost a favor to us. "You're okay," he said, "Be calm."
That night, we ate a delicious, four-course Italian dinner, made by Ezio from Turin. Suzy had two glasses of wine. I even had one. The kids, insouciant and beautiful, couldn't get enough of the fish, much to our surprise--ate mine and Suzy's entire third course. Kiefer and Scout even passed on the fig and ice cream--yes, Scout was too full...
Monday. We left relatively early, but not early enough to avoid two or three detours (whole towns--small towns were closed down for Independence Day parades). Nevertheless, the weather was perfect, and our time together, in the car, heading home, and yet still exploring, was precious. We gobbled up every minute of the return trip.
Monday night, before she went to bed, after planning for the next day's classes, Suzy stole into the children's room and held Kiefer while he slept.
*Well, since this is also the place where I am keeping our travel notes, here is the finished macaw poem I referred to above:
Seven Macaws
Seven macaws flying by,
seven, and not one failing to try
to get to some beyond—
some perch or lookout—
some full-fruited seed—
some waiting other—
yes, together
is always beyond.
They acted, that is all: seven macaws
squawking and swooping before the trees,
before the sky and the sighing seas,
red-breasted, -winged, white and blue,
without a thought of me, without one of you,
seven, just doing what they do,
that is all.
We spied them from morning’s balcony,
and you looked back in sudden awe.
I smiled, “(Yes), Yes, glorious child,
it is beautiful—life is beautiful
(become what you are, what you alone
can be, and not for me, not for me).”
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