Well, I made it back in one piece. Mostly. Either airline travel or airline food gives me the squirts, something that I suspect will please AndyTV. And Costa Rican airport security (leaving the country) makes the TSA look downright lackadaisical. We got put through screening after checking bags in, then they checked our luggage, too. As we were getting onto the plane, they had two more checkpoints. Apparently they heard about our little incident on Sept. 11, 2001, and they don't want their tallest buildings (all three floors) taken out in a similar attack. This, despite the fact that I had enough money in my pocket to rebuild most neighborhoods should such an attack happen, resulting in tens of dollars in damages.
The screening nazi took my $2.97 Wally World lighter. OK, so I was thrilled as a pig in **** to get that one through, especially since parts of the country can be pretty windy, and lighting cigars with matches would have been a bitch. I'll gladly give up the three bucks on the way back. I have like a dozen more of them at home.
But she also took all my CI match boxes, about a dozen (well, she missed two). Had I known they'd be more strict that the TSA, which allows those, I'd have stashed them all. The capper, however, was the "No paso" sternly hurled my way when she caught me with a *gasp* $1.52 bottle of saline solution nasal spray, 1.5 ounces total, chiding me for not having it in a plastic bag. She told me all of this in Spanish, of couse. I was so ticked at the ridiculousness at that point that, even though I had some CI zip locs, I told her in Spanish to f**king keep it.
I was still ticked about this run-in by our stopover in Houston (OK, so the douche nozzle in the reclined seat in front of me repeatedly getting in and out of his seat for no reason, repeatedly jamming my knees and the magazine I was trying to read, wasn't helping...nor was a late flight--Costa Rican immigration authorities delayed us nearly a half hour at the gate before finally giving us permission to leave, and don't blame me, as I offered in both Spanish and English to get a map out and show them where Los Estados Unidos was--might have had something to do with my foul mood, as did being in the very last row while losing time to get my connecting flight to SeaTac).
We were joking about this with CBP in Houston, and I admitted that Costa Rica had cleverly thwarted my plane to squirt saline spray on the side of the 737 we were flying to possibly cause catastrophic failure of the aluminum on the side of the aircraft, hopefully within the next 60-70 years. At least they had a sense of humor and waved us through...
...to go wait for our bags at a luggage carousel, then take them over for yet another inspection (where we were asked approximately zero questions and they conducted approximately zero minutes and zero seconds of checking our luggage, after which we had to re-check them for yet another inspection, then go through yet more screening, this by the TSA...
...where an attractive young black woman working for the TSA announced that she was going to re-run my carry-on backpack through the xray, at which point I nearly **** myself laughing. When she gave me an odd look, I asked her to tell me if Costa Rican authorities had actually left anything inside of it.
So, by the time we got onto the plane to SeaTac, we'd been through five inspections, carried our bags from one 737 to have them checked onto another for no apparent reason, we had walked a total of at least five miles, and through all of that, no one seemed interested in the possibility I might have Cuban cigars in my bag or that I might have illegally entered into Nicaragua a few meters. But, by God, they got my saline spray. Cunning bastids.
Oh, and for whatever reason, this computer isn't reading my 8GB HD card. Could be that the hardware or software for the cardreader is too old. No biggie. If the computer at work doesn't work either, I'm 99.9% sure the A/V cable supplied with the camera will allow me to unload pics. I just haven't had the chance to view them except on the LCD screen on the camera, and I was breaking in a new Nikon CoolPix. Since the 8GB card would hold over 3000 hi-res pics, I shot a lot of pics and I'm sure there is plenty of junk in there. Damned monkeys move pretty quickly, too, and some of them and some birds I could see with my eyes probably won't show up in the pics, even with full zoom, as a small percentage of what we saw was pretty high up in the trees, and some animals have pretty good camoflage. Should be some decent pics in there, however, and I suppose I'll finally have to break down and download a pic re-sizer. I suspect the pics are all more than 100kb.
The food...if you like beans and rice, plus fruit and veggies, this country may be to your liking. Ever hear of a good Costa Rican restaurant in the U.S.? No? That's because they don't really have an indentifiable cuisine as far as I can tell, beyond beans and rice as well as the produce, much of which is grown in Costa Rica. Saw banana (banano)plantations, pineapple (pina)plantations and coffee plantations.
Also saw a couple of giant aranjas (spiders) in one place we stayed, the place that was open to the jungle day and night, the biggest damned cricket I've ever seen, and a few hormigas (ants) in the place from where I launched the original post. Given that we had been shown "bullet ants" on the air tram ride and a subsequent guided hike, and that these ants looked quite a bit like the bullet ants (allegedly so named because for five hours after they bite you, you feel like you've been shot), they all got squished. Well, the cricket was given a reprieve and turned loose.
Nothing like waking up to the sound of howler monkeys barking away just a few feet from a cabin, BTW, separated only by screen that would barely slow down one determined to enter the place.
We did see a lot of cool stuff. Got to see plenty of animals, birds, plants, etc. that we'd never see where we live. It was also quite hot and humid most of the time, although we did get some cool weather at night in San Jose. One night it snowed back home, and we were out wandering a beach on the Carribean, where it was 88 degrees and over 90% humidity. You know it's humid when condensation is forming on everything, and it's still 90 degrees out, something we saw in Tortuguero (out on the Carribean side).
Did some hiking in this heat, which is just what a man of 6'3", 300 lbs, smoker and taking Lipitor needs, I'm sure, but I've hiked much tougher trails in my life and refused to bitch or hold anyone back. I am surprised that Costa Rica allowed the shirts I was wearing on those occasions to pass through security. Those had to be considered hazardous materials anywhere.
Overall, a very good trip. We covered most of the country, getting to both the Carribean and Pacific coasts. We got close to the Panamanian border and right up to (wink wink) the Nicaraguan border.
You can get by without being able to speak Spanish if you visit, especially if you have a guide as we did (although she got days off in three different places, leaving us with other experienced local guides). However, being even slightly fluent in Spanish was a huge help to me and Mrs. Pacman at times (and between her not speaking Spanish and me killing some BSF's---Big Farking Spiders--she owes me). I worked at getting more proficient in Spanish while I was there, too, and there were times when Mrs. Pacman and I were on our own where my being able to speak enough Spanish to be able to converse pretty well saved us enormous hassles.
Now if I could just figure out what cruel power seated me between my wife and a stunning French blonde girl flying out of Costa Rica, and then an attractive brunette flying out of Houston, I'd have the trip pretty well wrapped up. Well, that and trying to figure out how to download the Costa Rican midget p0rn of of an 8GB SD card.
