No hayride problems, Clark

A friend of mine here in Mexico City recently asked for a recommendation for a place to stay in Costa Rica. I gave her my favorite and she booked it the same day. I tried hard to fight the jealousy wave that threatened to overwhelm me when she later sent a few, "Yay! I can't wait, this is going to be amazing, thank you!" messages.

Jealousy won. And now -- well, she and her husband are just going to have to deal with the fact I'm tagging along on their romantic getaway. You can't stop me, people, I am freakishly strong and not worried about losing friends.

Given my feelings, I suppose today is as good a day as any to begin my voluminous love ode to Costa Rica. It will take a long time to write all of it but I don't have anything else to do today besides send incomprehensible text messages to my housekeeper. Paulina and I often communicate by text but my auto correct enjoys changing all of my Spanish words to English words and I rarely notice before I hit "send."

Instead of the fairly straightforward, "Si, claro, no hay problema. Hasta luego. Gracias!" Paulina often receives something more alarming to her, such as, "So, Clark, no hayride problems. Has taken luge. Gracious!"

Anyway, we went to Costa Rica last month.

Our first stop was San Jose, which I'd been warned beforehand is not the most interesting spot for sightseeing. Alex had to stay in San Jose for a few days for work meetings but the kids and I spent one day touring San Jose then bounced to the north.

San Jose does have a gorgeous old theatre --

And an impressive gold museum --

There are many heavy doors in the gold museum to keep the gold safe and unstolen at night. I have no idea what Lucien is doing to those doors above. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was hilarious.

We had lunch in San Jose with one of Alex's friends. A sharply dressed man appeared at our table towards the end of the meal and began asking questions about our coffee preferences. It was explained to me by Alex's friend that the man was "like a sommelier for coffee" and takes coffee as seriously as a good sommelier takes your wine pairings. Coffee is serious business in Costa Rica.

The coffee sommelier chatted with us some more about our ideal brews then returned with several different contraptions, one for each of us. As he ground beans and sifted and poured, I learned the shape of the container matters, the material of the filter matters, the time it's allowed to sit matters, etc. etc. I'd never seen such an intricate coffee set-up nor met a person with such an incredible breadth of coffee knowledge.

As he poured three different cups of coffee, each one perfectly synced with our personality quirks, interests and hobbies, I asked the man what his job was called. I was hoping there was a more precise title for him than "a sommelier for coffee." The man stood up straight, puffed out his chest with obvious pride and said, "I am called a 'barista'."

Oh dang. I didn't have the heart to tell him we've bastardized that word and made it quite plain back at home.

The next day, the kids and I left Alex in San Jose for work stuff. We were picked up by a driver and taken to our lodge up near the Poas Volcano, about an hour north of San Jose. The drive was stunning as we climbed out of the Central Valley and up into the mountains. We had our heads hanging out of the windows like happy dogs.

The Poas Volcano Lodge is the definition of "cozy" with its relaxing piano music playing in the lobby and its fire crackling in the wood stove in the library. It was the perfect place to return to after a day of sightseeing. I'd play a game with the kids or read a book in the library and enjoy the view of the valley while staff brought me beer. You cannot convince me it gets much better than that.

A hummingbird got into the lodge our first evening, spotted first in the hallway by Lucien, who ran to get a staff member. The staff member he found came calmly down the hall, watched the bird for a few minutes, then reached into the air and grabbed the bird with his hands. He just plucked it right out of the air. He then walked to the door and released it outside, where it quickly flew off with no evident injury.

My mouth agape, I was like, "How did you do that, magic hummingbird man?" and he said, "Oh, it's easy, you just have to watch the bird's flight pattern, wait until it starts to get tired, then grab it when it dips."

I appreciate your humility, magic hummingbird man, but it's OK to admit you've got crazy animal whispering skills. I don't think it's as easy as you say. I'm pretty sure if I tried, and "just watched the bird's flight pattern" or whatever, I would end up with either a handful of air or a handful of crushed bird.

I want to go to there

The next day, a cheerful Poas Volcano Lodge employee named Wilberth drove us to the nearby La Paz Waterfall Gardens. La Paz is part animal sanctuary (mostly full of seized animals once kept illegally as pets) and part waterfall heaven. The kids loved the animals, likely because many of them were accustomed to human interaction so lacked boundaries.

Just look at this crazy toucan --

Toucans be landing on people in Costa Rica like, "What's up, nerds?"

You can also get up close and personal with the scary waterfalls.

Coco jumped into her bed at the lodge later that night, happily exhausted, but immediately began screaming and jumped right back out. Her screams were nearly drowned out by Lucien, who had also begun screaming on the other side of the room. What the hell is wrong with these kids?

They both hopped around frantically, yelling something about animals being in their beds, big fuzzy things that had just brushed up against their legs.

That kind of stuff can really happen in Costa Rica so it's no laughing matter. We'd already had a hummingbird gain admittance to the lodge through its many open doors, who knew what we were dealing with now -- could be a puma, a howler monkey, or, if we're lucky, an adorable little sloth, coochie coochie coo.

Our room was gorgeous

but I was suddenly regretting leaving the patio doors open for fresh air.

I told the kids to get into the far corner while I confronted the wild beasts in our room with the only weapon I had at the ready, an umbrella. I took a leap towards Coco's bed and pulled back the covers in one swift motion, adrenaline pumping, ready to defend my babies against whatever animal had made the unfortunate mistake of wandering into our room.

Jesus. The "animals" were hot water bottles, apparently put there by housekeeping when they came to turn down our beds while we were at dinner. The Poas Volcano Lodge is so damn cozy, I shouldn't have been surprised they were attempting other cozy things. But maybe they should warn you there are unexpected furry things in your bed lest an entire family has a heart attack while fighting a hot water bottle with an umbrella.

 The kids with our new low maintenance pets

Wilberth took us on a couple tours the next day. The first stop was the Poas Volcano, a very active volcano crater that can, and regularly does, blow at any time. Wilberth told us we weren't allowed to hang around the area more than 20 minutes because we could get gassed and made quite ill by all of the sulfur rolling out of the crater. We made a quick stop, took some nice photos, then got the hell out of there.

As we walked away, Lucien said, "When I leak gas, I don't recommend anyone stick around for long, either." That made Wilberth laugh so hard he had to sit down on a bench for a minute. I'm happy we share an appreciation for eleven-year-old boy humor.

lookin' very Costa Rica up here, Poas Volcano

We had some time to kill before our next tour. We'd gotten to know Wilberth quite well by then, having driven around with him for a couple days, so we ended up just kind of hanging out. He had some suggestions like, "Let's go shopping for fruit" and "Let's go see my friend."

He drove us into the tiny nearby town -- where he knew absolutely everybody -- and bought us a bunch of odd looking pieces of produce. Then he took us to his friend's coffee shop where he showed us how to eat the things he'd bought because many Costa Rican fruits require instructions.

Lucien's favorite were the long green things called guaba.

I would not have known to eat the fuzzy white stuff out of the long green guaba
without Wilberth.

This is Wilberth poking his head around the corner of his friend's shop to yell, 

"Hey MJ, come here, my friend wants to make you guys smoothies!" 

Following Wilberth around his town, chatting up his friends, all of whom spoke English, and getting fed weird stuff was more enjoyable than our organized tours. I love getting a sense of the people who live in a place and what their daily lives are like. From what I saw and heard, I suspect Costa Ricans are happier than most.

Thanks for the watermelon juice, Wilberth's smoothie friend, but we had to push on. We had another tour, this one at a large dairy farm close to our lodge.

It was an interesting tour and a beautiful property but the only part that will stick with the kids is they had to milk cows.

The tour guide also made the kids taste the still-warm milk straight out of the cow. They balked at having a second sip until the tour guide stirred a little cocoa powder into it. It's further proof that adding chocolate to just about anything will make kids eat it.

The Poas Volcano Lodge is also a working dairy farm, though much smaller than the one we toured. Wilberth took us on an impromptu tour on the way back to the lodge building but stopped short and turned around when he unwittingly led us into the butchering room.

Coco was very excited

until she saw the dead cow

I then dropped down before them and had an honest talk with my children about how it's good to know the reality of where your food comes from. Wilberth nodded vigorously behind me in support because what else could he do. 

Alex joined us that evening at the lodge and was very impressed with our tales of farms, fruits, hummingbirds, volcanoes, toucans and scary hot water bottles. The next morning we all took a long walk through the farm portion of the lodge's grounds before being driven to our next stop on the itinerary. We had all fallen in love with Costa Rica's mountainous region and wanted to spend a few more minutes enjoying its beauty and tranquility.

Can you see the man walking up the path in the above photo? He was a farm worker hustling up the hill fast as he could go. As soon as he saw us, he began to wave excitedly. A cow was in labor up at the barn, he said, and he was on his way to help her deliver. Would we like to come along and see the birth?  

Would we ever! Who doesn't love watching birth? Nobody can get enough birth.

Bam. Cow coming out of a cow vagina.

My blog posts don't do pretty scenery for long.

The whole birth lasted about five minutes which made me wonder why we don't use the same procedure with humans? Why don't we just tie a rope around their little baby hooves and pull hard? Seems it would save everyone a lot of trouble.

Happy Birthday, little Costa Rican calf.

It's too bad you were born a boy on a dairy farm.

We hope you have stellar genetics so they keep you around 

for breeding purposes.

Sorry to be a downer,

but I've seen things

and I'm just laying some dairy farm truth bombs right now.

We were sad to leave our new friend, Wilberth, and the cows, and the perfection that is the mountainous region of Costa Rica and the Poas Volcano Lodge. But it was time to move on. We had an appointment with another volcano, and the rain forest, and some horses.

This is only about four days into our seventeen-day trip.
Thankfully, everybody loves long vacation posts.
I SAID EVERYBODY.
MJ

Mario, Paulina, and Leon Trotsky

The people of Mexico City are very cold today but I'm not even wearing a jacket. I went downstairs this morning to wait for Lucien's school bus wearing only a long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of jeans, True, I was also clutching a cup of very hot coffee, which may have had some impact on my temperature tolerance.

But you'd think we'd walked out into Siberia. The people on the street wore heavy winter coats with their chins tucked down inside. They looked miserable. I re-entered our building after Lucien's bus had carted him off to school and Carlos, the smiley doorman, asked, "Oh no, aren't you cold?" He blew on his hands to warm them and hopped a little from foot to foot to make sure I understood he was worried for my health. It's 58 degrees out there, Carlos, I think I'm gonna survive it.

We've hired a housekeeper. I was reluctant to hire help because I like my solo time when the kids are in school. I admit I'm a very strange person when I'm alone at home. There is a lot of talking to myself and some very odd outfits indeed when I don't need to go outside. My favorite pairing is my rainbow sundress with a bathrobe and Ugg boots. Cozy yet colorful. I also eat weird things when no one's watching, such as "sugar bread," which is exactly as it sounds -- butter and sugar on bread. I know, I'm an animal.

If someone were to be in the apartment with me all day, my concern was I would be more self conscious and could no longer be my strange self. I would have to get dressed for real, maybe even shower god forbid, and sit around looking proper and drinking tea or whatever when I really just wanted to crank some Metallica, sing into a cucumber and practice my rad spins.

I was quickly told by the Mexico City ex-pat ladies I was dumb for not taking advantage of what is very much the norm here. There's little downside to the housekeeping win-win. It's giving someone a well-paying job and freeing yourself up to focus on your interests. It would mean I could write pretty much all day, sitting in the sun with my laptop until my fingers fell off.  Heavenly.

I thought hard about it. Why was I fighting to do my own laundry instead of learning how to get dressed like a normal person every day? Why was I more willing to do sinkfuls of dishes than surrender a small bit of Metallica? Was I really that attached to pouring sugar on bread or would it be worth it to shelve that recipe for a bit in order to have someone else cook dinner?  And bottom line, which was preferable: doing all the work around here by myself as usual or finally devoting all of my waking hours to finishing the Paris book?

The answer was clear, the ladies were right, I was dumb. After a few recommendations and a very awkward interview (Alex didn't know the questions to ask and I didn't know how to ask anything at all so just sat there and smiled to show her I'm friendly), we hired Paulina. Paulina does not live in the apartment with us, as many housekeepers do, because she has a teenage daughter at home. She puts dinner on our table, says hasta luego, and returns at 10:00 the next morning. It's a perfect situation for her and for me -- she gets to be home with her daughter evenings and mornings and sometimes when Alex takes the kids swimming after he comes home from work, I still get a little lampshade-wearing, robot walking solo freak time.

When Paulina is here, you would not believe what all she does. Our laundry basket is always empty now, anything tossed in there is dealt with immediately. She takes Alex's shirts to the dry cleaners. She goes to the grocery store daily and cooks us dinner. She goes into our closets and organizes our drawers, refolds all our t-shirts and sweaters. I have not seen any dust bunnies since she arrived and I do not miss them; they used to blow like tumbleweed through Banister Abbey, stopping only briefly to mingle with large clumps of dog hair.

Paulina cleans out the refrigerator and packs the kids' lunches for the next morning. She washes our duvet covers at least once a week which makes me wonder, have I ever cleaned our duvet covers at home? Because it's not ringing any bells. Paulina irons everything, including our socks. She's also agreed to babysit once a week, something we'll be trying for the first time this weekend when we go out for dinner with two other couples.

This all sounds like bragging but I don't mean it as bragging, I'm more processing all she does for us in an incredulous manner and wondering why I chose to live here a full two and a half weeks without her. I don't miss sugar bread at all so far.

Paulina and Mario, our driver, who also does many things for us including buying all of Coco's school supplies (Mario is now her favorite person because he bought her the notebooks with the sparkles and sheets of stickers inside) are hugely helpful but truthfully, it's very awkward as we get to know each other and understand how to work together. Paulina does not speak one word of English and my Spanish, well, estoy aprendiendo but it still sucks. This has made for some painful "conversations" and some inevitable miscommunications. For instance, I seem to have given Paulina the impression we require lactose free milk. I have no idea how I did that, must have strung together some words I didn't even know I knew. I can barely say, "I like milk" but somehow managed "lactose intolerance?"

Now our fridge is full of the stuff and I can't bring myself to tell her we don't need lactose free milk. She was so happy to find it, even sent Mario to a larger grocery store farther away to find a larger container. I can't let her know her efforts were for naught, as well as being very confusing.

Lactose free milk tastes terrible but I still hiss at the kids "just drink it" and they dutifully glug glug glug with grimaces. Alex keeps sighing at me and telling me we have to tell her, that she'll understand it was a miscommunication, but I'm biding my time and instead constructing a needlessly complicated plan. We'll keep drinking the gross milk then I'll tell her in a month or so our lactose intolerance has been miraculously cured, perhaps due to Mexico City's fresh air (that's a joke, we live in pollution city).

We took the weekend away from the gross milk

We spent the weekend in Coyoacan, a former village outside Mexico City now considered a suburb. Coyoacan is where Frida Kahlo's house/museum is, still one of my favorite places in the city.

This is Mario navigating the insanity of Friday late afternoon traffic 

on a three-day holiday weekend.
The 30 minute trip to Coyoacan took two hours.

Alex planned the weekend. He was excited to do so because he had accumulated points via his credit card and could get us a hotel room for free. The only hotel that qualified for the points in the Coyoacan area was the Holiday Inn.  Alex told me Holiday Inns are nice in Mexico and anyway, the hotel didn't matter because we planned on spending most of our time in the historic center of the town. As long as we could walk into town, we'd be happy anywhere.

The Holiday Inn looked nice enough but things turned odd when the bellhop used the key given to us to enter our room and we walked in to find somebody else's belongings all over the place. Lucien was like,"this room comes with a lot of stuff" and then the realization dawned we were standing in the middle of someone else's room. We all turned and hightailed it out of there fast as we could. Thankfully the person whose room it was was not there -- or perhaps he'd heard us entering his room and was hiding behind the curtains with a sharp stick prepared to defend himself.

The bellhop stammered an apology and ran downstairs to straighten out the room situation. He returned and took us to a different floor. We entered that room and thought, "whoa, this is a really big room!" but soon realized it was because it was the handicapped accessible room and was meant to fit many wheelchairs. There was a large handicapped-friendly potty chair thing installed over the toilet, which I never did figure out, and the sinks were so low you ended up with a backache just for attempting a freshly scrubbed face.

Fine, the room was a little oddly sized for us and sure, we almost walked in on some other dude in the comfort of his own room but who cares as long as we could get into town.  Alex asked the person at the desk for the nicest walk route to the main square and the guy looked at him like he was crazy. You can't walk into Coyoacan from the Holiday Inn. You have to take a taxi and it's at least a fifteen minute ride.

Alex didn't make eye contact with me after that, just kind of repeated "but it was free but it was free but it was free" like a little mantra then said with a forced cheer, "OK, kids, let's go grab a taxi and get some food before your mother kills me."

Mariachi dinner

they were so loud we could not hear ourselves think.

Coyoacan, as always, is insanely charming. The best way to spend your time is to wander the Calle Francisco Sosa, a street full of historic old colonial homes. The sidewalk is so uneven it sometimes feels like climbing small rocky loose-tiled hills but it's worth the effort if you can survive the terrain. Aside -- I feel sad for those who need handicapped accessible hotel rooms at the Holiday Inn near Coyoacan because nobody in a wheelchair can come close to navigating most of those streets.

Calle Francisco Sosa

Alex has a co-worker, Eduardo, who lives in Coyoacan and after meeting for lunch, he and his wife invited us back to their house for tequila and coffee. Their house is one of the more unique homes we've visited and we were immediately informed by our children that our own house is "really boring."

there's a tree in their interior living space

and a hammock indoors

The Loosh is sneaking up the back stairs to the "playground..."

...said "playground" is the glass roof of the living room.

This is the slide they have on their roof.

We can't win.

Our house is indeed boring.

Our kids and Eduardo's kids acted just like kids, chasing each other around the house and laughing maniacally even though they speak zero languages in common. I wish I could run around and play tag with all the people I've met here with whom I cannot even remotely converse.  It would take so much pressure off the situation. "You're it, Senor Scowly!" *takes off running and laughing down the street*

I wish I could play with Senor Scowly, carefree,

on a set of aerial silks in the living room.

The next day our family visited the Leon Trotsky Museum, which is located in the home where Trotsky lived after being granted political asylum in Mexico. I wasn't very interested in the museum before we went but by the time we left I was on fire with the Bolsheviks and Stalin and Marxism and KGB assassinations. My favorite museums are the ones located directly where the history happened, or directly where historical figures lived.  I loved Frida's house for that very reason; you get to know people better when you're walking through their living spaces.

The same went for Trotsky. I got to know him better when walking through the heavily fortified iron doors of his bedroom and seeing where he was sitting in his study when he got an ice pick to the head. I understood how very afraid he was for his life, and also learned that when Stalin wanted you dead, didn't matter where you were, you got dead.

Trotsky's house, all windows and doors bricked up and a guard tower for his security.

It didn't work for long.

The study where Trotsky was sitting when he was assassinated.

Coco being very unnerved by the heavy iron doors to Trotsky's bedroom.

You don't come to Trotsky's house to have fun, little girl.

Pretty house, though, guard tower and all.

Lucien and Coco sit in the garden outside the guards' house and contemplate Marxism.

Paulina just placed a stack of our underwear on the ironing board.
The woman is out of control,
MJ