Twentieth Anniversary Vacation

Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:39:00 +0000

I uploaded our pictures to Flickr

Back home

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:16:00 +0000

That was one of the best vacations we've ever had. We got home this morning around 11:30 or so, and took a nice long nap to shake off some of the jet lag.

When I have a chance, I'll upload all my pictures and videos I took.

In the meantime, I uploaded my video of Donovan's penalty kick equalizer against Honduras last night.

Well, that's it folks

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 05:48:00 +0000

Great win tonight. So glad we came back from a 1-0 deficit to win it.

It's not going to be easy to go back to work on Monday. I better get to bed, because our flight tomorrow leaves Midway at 7:20 AM, which means we need to get to Midway by about 6:00 - 6:15.

Up early, and it's already almost 1:00 AM.

I'll try to fill in all the holes to our awesome vacation Sunday after we get home. Maybe. Have to see how that works out. :)

Game day

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:11:00 +0000

And I'm nervous. The US pretty much has to win.

In flight WiFi

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:07:00 +0000

We're on Delta flight 2076 from ATL to MDW. They offer in flight WiFi for the price of $9.95. Pretty cool.

I do not like ATL airport at all. What a mess.

I just checked the status of our flight while we're actually on the flight.

At the airport

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:16:00 +0000

We're checked in and waiting for our 8:00 AM departure for Chicago by way of Atlanta.

Robert and Amy have both been upgraded to first class, on both legs. Jan and I will be stuck in coach with a bunch of college kids who are currently annoying the heck out of me.

I never really did write a whole lot about our game day experience. Which was pretty amazing, in spite of the fact that the USA played like crap. The Ticos fans were fantastic, and gave us a bit of a hard time but in a joking fashion.

As for the game - I did expect us to lose. After all, we've never won in Saprissa. But I did not expect the team to play like crap and just crumble. Giving up a goal in the second minute certainly didn't help. They had to chase the game after that. Unfortunately, even down a goal the US didn't really attack, and had far too many back and square passes. I thought Beasley was pretty bad.

Tomorrow against Honduras is a must-win.

Yikes!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:07:00 +0000

Well, that was a terribly played game by a woefully unprepared team.

The Costa Rican fans are pretty amazing though.

I'll fill in more details later. Off to get some breakfast and do a little sightseeing.

Our newest souvenir

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:34:00 +0000

So we all went over to the team hotel, and met up with Michael Kammarman, who is the team's press officer. We had lunch and were getting ready to leave when we saw him again in the lobby. He said "where are you going now?" and I said "we'll be heading back to our hotel. We don't want to bug the players before the game." He said "well, don't leave just yet, I need to run upstairs and grab something."

While we were waiting, Landon Donovan walked by and we said hello. He thanked us for coming. Then Frankie Hejduk came out of the elevator, and we said hello to him. Mentioned to him that we were celebrating our 20th anniversary, and he said "wow, that's great. Wait a second, let me go grab you a shirt."

In the meantime, Michael, a cameraman and a videographer came out of the elevator. I saw Michael give something to Frankie, who then came over to Jan and me and handed us a jersey that was folded up in a plastic bag. I saw number 20 on it, and thought, "wait, is that McBride's number? Who wears 20 now?"

Then I opened it up, turned it around and saw that "LASTORT" was on the back. The #20 was for the 20 years that we've been married. I got pretty choked up (yeah, I'm an emotional guy) and Michael interviewed us. I figure they'll probably have something up on the US Soccer web site later today or tomorrow.

That was pretty awesome.

Oh, and as an aside - a guy in the lobby was offering round trip transport from the hotel to the stadium - for FIFTY bucks each! Hell, you can take a taxi all the way from the airport to this hotel for $25.00 total for all four of us, and that includes all our luggage! So, yeah, don't think we're going for the $50 round trip deal.

Back in San Jose

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:09:00 +0000

We just checked into the Radisson Europa again for our San Jose part of the trip.

When we were in the taxi from the airport to the hotel, I noticed that I had a text message from US Soccer. We're supposed to head to the team hotel around 12:30 so they can wish us a happy 20th anniversary. Jan has no idea. She's taking a nap right now.

And I forgot to mention - when Jan and I were out to dinner last night to celebrate our anniversary, Robert popped the question and asked Amy to marry him. For some strange reason, she apparently said yes. :)

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:54:00 +0000

Game day! Oh, and our 20th wedding anniversary too!!! Our flight to SJO leaves in a couple of hours.

Our last day in Quepos

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:54:00 +0000

After yesterday, we just chilled at Tulemar and didn't do a whole lot. Beach and the pool. Oh, and Robert and I saw monkeys at the beach. Jan and Amy hung around the pool.

Tonight Jan and I are going out to celebrate our anniversary, which is actually tomorrow, but we figure tomorrow will be a little crazy with the game. We're going to check out a place named "Mar Luna," which we've been told has great seafood.

Tomorrow is a flight back to San Jose, very early in the AM, and then off to the game that evening. David, one of the waiters at the hotel restaurant, is going to try to meet us at bar Bugaloo.

Monday - Monkeys and Medusa

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:06:00 +0000

We woke up bright and early Monday morning to have breakfast before our journey into the jungle with Leo. I had a quick Spanish lesson from the waiter who taught me how to say “scrambled eggs” in the Costa Rican dialect – huevos patiatos, I think.

I told Jan, Robert and Amy about my nightmare from the night before, which involved us on the river in some sort of outrigger canoe carved from a tree trunk. In my dream, the canoe capsized and all of us were tossed into the water and we were chased by crocodiles. Fortunately, I woke up prior to getting chomped.

Leo showed up right on time – 7:30 AM. We got into the van and met the driver, Roger (pronounced “rrrroh-hair” (have to roll those R’s). They joked that he was Roger Moore, and I joked back that it would be fun to be driven around by double-o seven. Leo told us that when he and Roger and his other friends were younger that they all used to go out and party a lot, and that Roger was a very good DJ, and asked if it was ok to turn on the stereo. So I’m thinking, “cool, some good music coming up.” Roger cranked it up and we were treated to really bad CD mix that skipped quite a bit. Yikes!

After a quick stop in town to buy bananas, water, batteries, and some sort of ointment for blisters, we were on the road to the boat. We turned off the main drag onto a pothole-filled little dirt road which made me happy yet again that we didn’t rent a car.

We got to the dock, and a bunch of guys were just lounging around, taking it easy until customers arrived. It seemed like we were the first of the day. Another friend of Leo’s was “el capítan” and we headed off. Apparently, one of the captain’s greatest skill was the ability to find crocodiles, because after about 10 minutes he spotted a pretty good-sized one swimming off the port (is that left?) side. It was probably about 3-4 meters long, and from what I could tell, it looked hungry.

From there we turned around and went to a man-made canal that Leo told us would have quite a few monkeys. He hit the nail on the head with that one. There was a big tall mangrove tree full of at least 20-30 little capuchin monkeys, who at first seemed pretty timid, but after a lot of cajoling with whistles (and bananas) they came down the tree to the roof of the boat, and we all had a chance to feed at least one of them. I shot a lot of pictures and video of them scampering around. It was fantastic.

After that, we were on a quest to see anteaters, but none were spotted. However, we did see two more crocs in two different locations. Each of them was sunning itself on the river bank. We got really close to the second one, and I got some good shots and some video of it before we headed back to the dock to end the tour.

Got back into the van, listened to Roger’s mix tape again which was back to repeating the same songs, and then back to Queops, where we paid Leo and asked for some restaurant recommendations. We also told him that if he comes to DC that he should give us a call and we’d try to show him around. I hope he does – you could tell from just talking to him that he’s good people.

We did a little shopping in Quepos and had a nice lunch, then caught a cab back to Tulemar. Jan was pretty flaked out and decided to take a nap. Robert and I were going to grab a couple of Imperials and head to the beach and Amy was talking about hitting the pool and then taking a nap herself. However at the last minute she changed her mind and decided to head down to the beach with Robert and me.

Apart from the Tulemar guys who work there, the beach was completely deserted. We went into the water and I mentioned what I read in the eyewitness guide about Costa Rica’s snakes – of the 165 or so species, of which only 22 are poisonous, that there are also a couple of species who live in the sea. I joked “great, that’s all I need to know – there are sea snakes floating around in here with us.”

We kind of floated around for about 10-15 minutes, when all of a sudden Amy started screaming “something’s biting me, something’s biting me!!!!” I thought “oh no, shark, snake, something deadly!” and both Robert and swam over to her to help.

We more or less dragged her to the shore, and tried to figure out what was going on, and I saw a nasty red welt on the back of her calf. Robert helped her hobble over to a lounge chair and I ran up to the “lifeguards” and said “something bit my friend.” One of the guys said “a jelly fish” and brought down a spray bottle and some calamine lotion. He sprayed the bottle onto the red marks, and then coated it with the lotion, and said “it should be ok in about 15 minutes.”

It wasn’t. She was still in a lot of pain, so we told them to call the car back so we could go back up to the rooms. From there we called a cab and went town to see the local doctor, Carlos Zuniga.

Wow, what a trip. Doctor Zuniga was right out of a Fellini movie, complete with hospital scrubs that looked way too big (and he is not a small man) and flip flops instead of regular shoes. And it was hot as hell in his office. He kept asking Amy a lot of weird questions, like “Honestly, tell me, have you ever had a reaction to a bee sting, a skin infection, or a personal enjoyment of gladiator movies? On a scale of 1-100, how much pain are you in? If you were a tree, what kind would you be? If an east-bound train left Quepos at 6:00 PM and traveled at 34 MPH and a west-bound train left San Jose at 5:22 PM and traveled at 27 MPH, at what time would they meet each other at Puntareynas?" Weird stuff.

Then he decided to give her a shot of some sort of anti-biotic and/or pain reliever. Not sure which, maybe it was both. He decided to write a prescription, and I told her to keep all the paperwork in case she got questioned by US customs on our return back to the States, to which he mentioned that he could prescribe 90 days of any prescription, including morphine, and it would be no problem. In fact, it seemed like he wanted to prescribe morphine. Very strange dude.

Back to the pharmacy to fill the scrips, then back to Tulemar to just sort of chill and tell Jan of our awesome adventures.

A bit later we headed out to a fantastic restaurant named "Agua Azul" (blue water) which was the best meal we had in CR.

All-in-all, a very stressful but fun day.

Or was that fun but stressful? Whichever.

El Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:59:00 +0000

This morning, we went to Manuel Antonio National Park, considered to be one of Costa Rica's most beautiful national parks. It lived up to the hype.

We took a taxi from Tulemar to the park, which is about 15 minutes or so away. When we arrived, we were more or less accosted by one of the "tour guides" who works there, who talked up taking a private tour for $25.00 each. At first, I admit that I was a bit dubious, but figured, what the hell, let's give it a go. And I am so glad we did.

His name is Leo, and he showed us things we would have never noticed without a guide. Odd little red crabs that live on the jungle floor, howler monkeys in the trees, a three toed sloth, fruit bats hanging from trees, lizards, birds, leaf-carrying army ants, and assorted flora used for medicine (we tasted quinine directly from a tree - that would make a great garnish in a G&T), food storage (giant leaves that felt like Saran Wrap), bandages (small plants leaves that will stick to a cut when it gets wet, and will actually infuse the cut with vitamin K).

The walk lasted about an hour, after the tour we went back to the Manuel Antonio beach and just kind of floated around in the water for a bit to unwind. Caught a cab back to Tulemar, where we had lunch that Amy got together with the groceries we bought yesterday. I made us mojitos made from local limes, mint and Costa Rican rum.

After that, Jan went back to our bungalow for a nap, and Robert and I each grabbed a beer and walked up to the lobby to hop on Blogger. Still have a nice buzz from the mojito. I think we're going to head back into Quepos a bit later to grab souvenirs.

There's another Stanley Cup game on tonight and the plan is to be back at Tulemar before the puck drops at 6:00. I'm hoping we eat dinner in town somewhere afterwards - the Tulemar restaurant is good, but it would be nice to eat somewhere more "local" and less expensive.

I figure we'll play it by ear.

Sunday morning

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:39:00 +0000

First, quick recap of yesterday. We had breakfast at the hotel, checked out and caught a cab to Tobias Bolaños "International", the smaller airport in the middle of San José for our flight to Quepos. Poor Jan was absolutely terrified of the flight, which only lasted about 25 minutes, but she kept her eyes closed and shook the entire time.

While were still at Bolaños, we met a nice family traveling to Quepos, and we ended up sharing an 8 passenger van with them on our way to Tulemar.

We checked in at the main desk and caught a little van to our bungalow. All I can say is WOW!!! The place is incredible. I'm going to try to upload pictures later, but I'm sure they won't do the beauty of this place any justice at all.

We unpacked, then the four of us walked down to the private beach, which was also amazing. We basically relaxed on the beach pretty much all day, which was a great way to decompress after our long travel day on Friday.

One of the best parts was when we were sitting on a patio having lunch, and a huge iguana decided to show up and check us out. Amy was pretty scared, and jumped up on to her chair so the lizard couldn't get to her. Pretty funny stuff.

Around 3:00 we went back to the bungalows, but this time we decided to call for a shuttle - to the beach is pretty steeply downhill, and I don't think any of us were prepared to try to walk that.

Robert, Amy and I headed in to Quepos to do a little grocery shopping while Jan took a nap. Then we went over to the Tulemar restaurant and caught the first game of the NHL finals on the big screen TV while we had drinks and dinner.

Fantastic first day. Now to figure out what to do on day two.

Another travel day today

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:20:00 +0000

But this one won't be near as long as yesterday. We're going to go meet Robert and Amy for breakfast in a few minutes, then come back to get our bags. Taxi to the other airport, which is in the middle of town, and then a very short flight (25 mins) to Quepos on the Pacific side.

Our flight is at 9:00. We should be at Tulemar no later than 10:00 - 10:30 or so.

We're here!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sat, 30 May 2009 05:33:00 +0000

Well, that was a long day, but we finally arrived. We got to BWI airport around 2:00 or so, and could see the sky darkening, which was kind of scary considering that our flight was scheduled to leave at 3:17.

As we started boarding, the skies opened up, thunder and lightning, a real mess. Needless to say, we had to wait for things to clear up before the flight crews could come out and service the plane. Took about a half hour

We taxied to the runway around 3:45 or so, and finally took off at 4:15. That was one of those rare occasions when I'm happy that we had a two hour layover. We got to Atlanta around 6:00 and had plenty of time to get to our flight to San Jose, which left on time, but arrived late.

We finally got through passport control and customs, and made it outside around 10:15 or so local time. And what chaos. Taxi cab drivers all over the place, sensing an easy mark, asking me if we needed a ride. I had already arranged a pickup from Inter Bus, and there was a guy waiting for us holding up a sign with my name on it.

Had a nice chat with the driver on the way to the hotel. He warned us that many of the "ladies of the evening" were not in fact ladies. :)

Got to the hotel, Robert and Amy had left us a note that they had already gone to bed, but to call when we got in. I did, spoke to Robert, and the plan is to meet for breakfast at 6:30. Our flight on Nature Air is at 9:00 am

And that, I'm off to bed. Very very tired.

Trip Advisor web site

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:09:00 +0000

Fantastic site, with great info for travelers. I asked about cab fare in San José and the location of the bungalows we rented in Quepos, and had answers from people within minutes.

I also setup my "travel map" with the places I've been. Not complete, but I got tired of filling stuff in.

View my profile

Create your own travel map or travel blog

Travel Info at TripAdvisor

Tomorrow's weather - afternoon thunderstorms in Baltimore

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:00:00 +0000

We're supposed to leave BWI at 3:17 PM, and Accuweather is showing partly sunny at 3:00 and thunderstorms at 4:00.

Hopefully we'll take off before the bad weather rolls in. This is one of the few times I'm happy we have a nearly two hour layover between flights.

The Atlanta forecast looks good for 7:00 PM - we're supposed to leave at 7:04

Well, if there are any delays at all, they'll hopefully be mitigated by the fact that both of our flights are on Delta.

Getting closer

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:57:00 +0000

Our flight is scheduled to land in San Jose in around 50 hours. Woo-hoo!!!

Mmmm, coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:22:00 +0000

The following review is from a San Francisco Chronicle "Follow the Reader" column a few years back. We're staying in the same place.

Private bungalows in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica for a brief getaway, we decided to stay in one area: Manuel Antonio National Park, which has nearby rain forest, beautiful beaches, snorkeling, lots of animals and a good tourist infrastructure.

Because it was low season, we were able to stay in our own glass-walled, one-bedroom villa at the luxurious Tulemar Bungalows. Besides a kitchen and living room, it had a wonderful, large deck in the treetops, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, bay, Manuel Antonio Peninsula and all the animals that live in the trees, including sloths, coatamundis and two types of monkeys. It was a thrill to leave a banana on the porch and wait for a shy squirrel monkey to find it.

Room rates range from $150 to $180 US per night, plus tax, depending on season, and bungalows are $178-$270. Breakfast, and the use of kayaks and snorkeling equipment, is included.

Contact: Tulemar Bungalows, Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica. (800) 948-3770 or (888)-535-8832, http://www.tulemar.com.

In Quepos, we discovered Cafe Milagro Bistro Latino, serving excellent, creative food with local ingredients, which we learned was prepared by a San Francisco Chef, David Karlin, who moved to Quepos expressly for this restaurant. Cafe Milagro is also an excellent coffee house, and they roast their own beans.

There are two locations; the one you want is near the center of town, across the street from the waterfront (about 50 feet before the bridge on the oceanfront road.) We enjoyed our dinner of four appetizers plus two desserts, including a savory caramelized onion flan with pickled red onions and green onion oil, and a house-smoked trout Napoleon with cumin-grilled tortillas and chile-garlic aioli. This bistro is the dinnertime version of El Patio, a daytime coffee house, and its cuisine is called Latino fusion. The average entree is about $11 US.

Contact: Cafe Milagro, 011-506-777-4982, http://www.cafemilagro.com.

We leave in three days!!!

Putting us on the map

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:28:00 +0000

Google Maps, to be precise

BWI Airport

Atlanta International Airport

Juan Santamaria International Airport

Radisson Europa Hotel

Tobías Bolaños International Airport

Quepos Managua Airport

Tulemar Bungalows - well, near them anyway.

Saprissa Stadium

Midway Airport, Chicago

Hyatt Regency, Chicago

Soldier Field

Itinerary

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:01:00 +0000

We're flying out of BWI on Friday, 5/29, at 3:17 PM, and will arrive in San José, Costa Rica (after a connection in Atlanta) at 9:00 PM their time, which is 11:00 PM our time.

Then we're off to Quepos on the morning of 30th on Nature Air Costa Rican airlines. Four relaxing days on the beach, doing pretty much nothing!

Then we fly back to San José on the 3rd (our actual anniverary, and USA v Costa Rica game day), spend one more day there, and fly to Chicago on the 5th to catch the USA v Honduras game at Soldier Field no the 6th. Then back home on the morning of the 7th.

In fact, here's all our travel info (flights, hotels, etc) in one easy to find place, more for my benefit than anyone else's.

Fri, May 29, 2009
Flight: Delta Air Lines Flight 1889
Depart: 03:17 PM, Baltimore, MD (BWI)
Arrive: 05:10 PM, Atlanta, GA (ATL)

Flight: Delta Air Lines Flight 413
Depart: 07:04 PM, Atlanta, GA (ATL)
Arrive: 09:00 PM, San José, Costa Rica (SJO)

Check in at the Radisson Europa Hotel in San José after arrival

We'll be meeting Robert and Amy, our good friends from Detroit. In fact, they're the folks who found out about the resort where we're staying at the beach.

Sat, May 30, 2009
Flight: Nature Air Flight 5C-130
Depart: 09:00 AM, San José, Pavas (SYQ)
Arrive: 09:25 AM, Quepos (XQP)

Take a taxi to Tulemar for a stay at their bungalows.

Wed, June 3, 2009 (our anniversary!)
Flight: Nature Air Flight 5C-111
Depart: 07:50 AM, Quepos (XQP)
Arrive: 08:15 AM, San José, Pavas (SYQ)

Check in again at the Radisson Europa Hotel

The game is supposedly going to start at 8:00 PM local time (10:00 PM on the east coast). I called US Soccer and told them we're going to be spending our twentieth anniversary in a stadium in a foreign country, and that the team better win for us. Actually, I'm kind of hoping they mention that we're in the stadium on TV.

Fri, June 5, 2009
Flight: Delta Air Lines Flight 414
Depart: 08:00 AM, San José, Costa Rica (SJO)
Arrive: 02:12 PM, Atlanta, GA (ATL)

Flight: Delta Air Lines Flight 2076
Depart: 03:55 PM, Atlanta, GA (ATL)
Arrive: 04:56 PM, Chicago, IL (MDW)

Check in at Hyatt Regency Chicago
151 East Wacker Drive,
Chicago, IL, 60601
(312) 565-1234

Saturday is game day, USA vs Honduras, with a kickoff time of 7:00 PM Chicago time (8:00 PM on the east coast).

Then we fly back home on Sunday morning
Flight: SouthWest Airlines flight 368
Depart: 07:20 AM, Chicago, IL (MDW)
Arrive: 10:10 AM, Baltimore, MD (BWI)

A pretty busy trip, but it should be pretty relaxing on the Pacific coast down in Costa Rica.