Relaxing

Mary and I are definitely enjoying Palm Springs. Today we went for a one hour walk again, then went for lunch with four friends at a great golf course...made me wish I golfed...for about 10 minutes. The casino yesterday was fun but I lost $80.00 which made it a lot less FUN. We went out for an awful dinner at the Olive Garden that cost us $50.00. I would have had more fun at the casino with the $50.00. I need a pedicure, and now have to do it on my own due to all the money I lost...damn!

We went to the Palm Springs Museum tonight which was ok...a whole room of swimming pool photos just didn't inspire me. Then we looked at Mexican art, which I got my fill of in Mexico. There were about six things in the museum of interest, but, it was free to get in to the museum. Then we went to a street fair which was also ok. I got that, been there, done that feeling while walking down the street fair.

Our friends, Mel and Gilbert have been very gracious hosts taking us everwhere we want to go. When we got back from the street fair, Gilbert had dinner made for us! He is an amazing cook! We were planning to go to LA this weekend but have decided to stay put to lay out in the sun.

All is well and we are still enjoying life!

Palm Springs

We are definitely enjoying Palm Springs and the days are flying by. Everyday we go for a long walk for about an hour, then go and do something. Today we are going to the casino. Yesterday we went to an outlet mall and shopped for a few hours. Things are less expensive here and food is in some cases three times cheaper than in Calgary. For example, for a large flat of chicken breasts with about 8 breasts, it is only 7.00 here. In Calgary it is 21.00.

Here are some photos I took on our walk this morning. Everything is in bloom here and when you walk out the door you can smell the blossoms of the grapefruit trees.

 This was taken on Sunday night. I'm so relaxed...does it show! Crash's eye is doing much better.

Female impersonators

Last night we went to a bar called Toucans. Every Sunday night they have a show where men dress up as women and perform. What a fun time we had!  Check out the photos. Imagine how long it must have taken to apply all that makeup. Luckily Palm Springs has lots of stores here that have the Holleywood Glamorous clothes that these fellas can get.

In Palm Springs

We arrived in Palm Springs Wednesday night after a very long day of flying. I had these long legs crammed into a small place for a total of almost 7 hours of flying time.

It is so nice to be back in North America. We are enjoying:

• cooler temperatures (35 degrees day after day is hot)
• washing our clothing in a washer instead of the kitchen sink
• speaking English to waiters (it took me a few days to stop ordering food in spanish)
• watching TV in English
• being able to phone people in Canada without it costing a fortune
• walking down the sidewalk without worry about breaking a leg in a hole
• eating gluten free food like pizza, bread, and muffins. I had a lot of problems with buffets being laced with flour

We may take a trip to San Diego, but other than that, we are going to have a low profile for the next few weeks before returning to Calgary.

Mary's eye

Mary is sore today from all the tumbling around on the rocks in the river. You have to give her credit for trying the adventure, like I said we were the oldest people there. Here is a photo of her eye this morning. I now call her Crash!

 When I got up this morning she was sitting outside with a t bag on her eye.

Here is a photo of ants moving a big bug. I counted 15 ants all working together to move the bug up the wall.

Final Adventure

Today we went on our final adventure for Costa Rica and wow was it ever an adventure. We drove for an hour and a half, most of it over a very bumpy road to get to this place called Aventura Tour. This is the one tour that Mary and were skeptical about and our intuition turned out to be correct.

The first thing to do was go horseback riding. I've been  on a horses back exactly once which was 30 years ago. Mary has about as much experience as me and likes horses about as much as I do. So we get up on these horses with help and both of us felt like we were going to fall off the horse. Off we went for what seemed like a lifetime trek through the forest. It wasn't bad until the horse started to gallop. Every single part of my body was tense.

We got off the horse next to a place where we were going rafting down the river. Both of us got our helmets, tubes and signed waivers. We were thinking it would be a nice float down the river! WRONG. Just before we got into the river the guide told us it was 2 miles long with 20 sets of rapids. Mary and I both looked at each other, but thought, "how bad can it be". Ohhhhhhhhhh it was bad. Mary fell off her raft and was immersed in water, not once, but twice. I told her to wear her sunglasses as they are perscription and she can't see much without them. She told me if she lost them I had to buy her a new set. Well, she lost them on her second flip! But I think they may have saved her eye. She is quite scratched up with a black eye, several cuts and her knuckles and knees are red and swollen.

When the raft trip was over, we were just shaking. We had lunch and told our guide to take us back to the hotel. There were more activities we were supposed to do such as zip line, rock repelling, and mud baths but we were done! Mary and I were the oldest people on the tour and we just couldn't do any more.

Enjoy the photos of our day. We could have bought photos of us going down the river in the raft, but frankly, we couldn't wait to get out of there.

 Mary is so excited to be on the horse!

 I'm smiling but I'm not enjoying this. My arse hurts.

 These oxen or whatever they are were at the resort.

Almost all of Mary's knuckles are red and swollen and so is her knee.

 Her eye keeps getting blacker by the minute. It should be a real shiner by tomorrow.

Back at the hotel safe and sound!

Just a few examples!

 This is a golden orb that Mary saw in the bathroom on the door while she was peeing.............yikes, It is the size of an orange.

While I was peeing I saw this in the shower and screamed for Mary to come and get it out!

Ants...not Aunts

Mary says we all live on one big ant hill. I'm beginning to believe her. Since we have been in Costa Rica I have seen ants of every size and color...and the spiders are unbelievable. I saw a centipede in our room which was no less than three inches long. I friggen hate bugs!

Things we've learned

When you go on a trip, one week is not long enough. That is what we found most people take and they are never ready to leave. Two weeks is a bit more than enough as we have been ready to leave every time and have stayed at each place for two weeks except for Puebla. I think the ideal time is 10 days.

There is something wrong with the plumbing outside our room and it stinks when you walk by. The plumbers are working on it. In Canada we pay plumbers, electricians, mechanics etc. an insane amount of money. Here it is considered low class work and they are paid very poorly. Any kind of manual work is considered low class. Education is highly valued in Mexico and Central America. In Nicaguara only 67% of kids that start grade one actually finish grade six. In Costa Rica they have a much better literacy rate.

In Mexico when you go to work, all people must have pressed clothes, neat hair, and make up on (if you are a woman). If you don't you most likely will get fired even if you are a teacher...perhaps expecially if you are a teacher because you are supposed to be setting an example. In Alberta, a lot of teachers don't wear make up, and some don't iron their clothes. We certainly accept a lower standard of dress than they do elsewhere.

It costs only $350.00 per month for a two bedroom house and utilities in Costa Rica. A person could live here quite comfortably on a $2000.00 per month pension. Most people make between $500.00 and $800.00 per month. Despite how cheap it is to live here, we have no desire to ever live here. We haven't found a place yet that we've been that we would like to live other than Canada.

The curriculum is much more advanced in Mexico than it is in Canada. Children are also much better behaved which is something Mary and I noticed right away. I've seen a class of kindergarten kids stand for 30 minutes during an assembly and hardly move. When you visit a house where there are children, they are expected to come welcome you to the home with a kiss on the cheek and they better dam well do it or their parents would be upset.

Finally it is really neat to be exposed to another language every day. Mary and I had some Spanish lessons in Puebla which helped. I had the neatest experience the other day. I was listening to two people speak and I understood what they were talking about. I don't know how it happened, it just happened. And I am finding words in my brain that I didn't know were there when I have to explain myself to a non English speaker. I guess that's how learning a new language is.

Rainforest

Yesterday we went on a tour to a waterfall, wildlife rescue center, and the rainforest. We had our camera charged when we left but must have left it on in the camera case, so the battery was dead when I went to take photos. So we wrote down everything we saw, then went to the internet to get photos. I guess it's kinda the same thing only someone else took the photos. Today is a day of rest for us because tomorrow we are off on another tour...the last one before we leave here. The animals at the rescue center were animals that were pets at one time or rescued cause they have an injury (like the 3 legged doe).

 Scarlet macaws

 A jaguar

 Ocelots - they are nocturnal cats

 A toucan

 This is one of the hanging bridges we walked over. There was a total of four bridges and I was so nervous going over them. It didn't bother Mary at all. Mary said you can see a lot of neat things from the hanging bridge. She said you see all the trees coming up and the orchids and bromolades that are living on the trees. The trees were covered with a spaghum moss. All I could see was the other end of the bridge.

 Bird of Paradise

 The trail we walked on. There were two other people with us on the tour from Oakville Ontario. Both of them are 72 years old. The walk was two hours up and down and both of the seniors stayed right up with us. They are in amazing shape for their age. I hope to be that way when I am 72.

 This is called a hanging lobster claw.

 This is the view of the volcano we saw. There are two volcanoes and the rainforest is between both volcanoes.

Llama del Cortez Waterfall

 The waterfall we saw...nothing like Niagara Falls.

OMG it's hot

Check below, we have made lots of posts today.

Just sitting on the terrace listening to the howler monkeys. Costa Rica is soooooooooooo hot. It has been 33 - 35 degrees every day. The trade winds off the water make it a bit cooler but it is very warm. We went shopping to Coco Beach yesterday, which really doesn't have that great of a beach, and it was so hot there I think that I got some heat stroke. I would not recommend Costa Rica for Spring break for teachers because by April it will be so hot here.

I did a lot of swimming in the pool the first five days we were here and am now suffering from a chest cold. It could be the air conditioning too. Mary and I rested most of today after our 16 hour tour yesterday.

The monkeys are sounding awfully close and Mary is getting nervous after the monkey attack yesterday so we'd better go for dinner. lol.

Lovebirds

After doing some research, we have found that every evening around 5pm the hundreds of parrots that come and sit on the tree in front of the apartment are really lovebirds and they mate for life. They only sit in this tree for 1 hour and off they go. While they are here, they sit in couples in the tree and preen each other and feed each other. Every day we look forward to listening and watching the birds with the howler monkeys howling in the background.

Nicaguara

Yesterday we got a wake up call at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am for a 5:20 am pick up to go to Nicaguara. The first stop was for a traditional breakfast which consisted of rice, beans and eggs, which I've been eating every day since I got here so that was no big treat. We drove for an hour and a half to get to the border. Never have I seen such a primitive border crossing or so much money, and extra treats crossing hands to get across the border quickly. Lots of Nicaguaran men were standing around the border and there were lots of people trying to sell stuff. There was a line up of semi trucks about a mile and a half long. It can take up to three days to get your truck through the border.

Following are some photos of the day with explainations below them.

 A woman making cigars at the cigar factory we visited. They use 4 different types of leaves to make
one cigar. Some leaves for the cigars take up to 3 years to mature. 

 The cigars that they have for sale. They sell for about 10 times more in Canada.

 A view of the street outside the church. The street looks really clean here but there is so much garbage laying on the side of the road. There is garbage and poverty everwhere.

 A church that does not look even close to what you what see in Mexico.

 A house on an Island which is made of vocanic rock from the volcanos in the area that we went by. This place is actually very luxurious compared to a lot of the houses we saw. Most people live in shacks with dirt floors. There are bikes everywhere. I would hate to ride a bike on the roads there because vehicles just whiz by and if you get hit, too bad for you.

 We visited an island by boat that had spider monkeys on it. In Costa Rica it is against the law to feed the animals but not in Nicaguara so the guide was feeding them.

 One of the monkeys jumped on the boat. Here is a photo of him with her hand on Mary's leg. She started to unzip her backpack and Mary zipped it back up again. The monkey grabbed at Mary and showed her teeth and started to unzip the backpack again. The guide told us the monkey would take things from you and run, so Mary tried to stop it again. Well, the monkey got really mad at Mary and was going at her with her teeth about to bite her when she stood up and said NO. The guide jumped in and hit the monkey with the life jacket. Mary was ok, with just a few red marks on her arm.

 A nice house on a very small island.

 These are birds nests.

 Mary's new boyfriend, our Costa Rican guide Santos. He is a real sweetheart...too much for Mary to handle.

This is a paraket with her spouse in the bouganvilla behind her.

 This is a buggy and horse on the street. Many people still use horses and carts here.

 We went to see the Masaya Volcano and basically walked right up to the edge of the crater. Most countries would never let you get so close to an active volcano. It had steam coming up from the middle and you could hear the sizzling below the surface. There was a strong smell of sulfur and other gases. You can see the sulfur where it settles on the edge of the volcano. This was really interesting to see.

 Mary and I standing at the edge of an active volcano.

This used to be an active volcano but eventually filled up with water from the lake.