Day 19
19. Yesterday we were hoping to stay in quaint family run hotel in the rainforest just outside of San Jose, but couldn’t find it. We have learned to read hotel review more closely. If most reviews say a hotel is difficult and early impossible to find, don’t think you’re more clever than the pack.
Our already hard to find hotel was made harder to find by the dark, huge storm, road construction and an accident. Here no matter how small the fender bender, you are not allowed to move the cars until the police come and take our their tape measures to document the situation. On two lane roads it means traffic will back up for miles.
Instead of quaint we ended up at familiar–the airport Holiday Inn Express with a Denny’s next door. We could have been anywhere in the states and it would have felt the same.
Since we ended up in a hotel so close to the airport, we took the shuttle to pick up the older girls. We got there a little early so we could see their plane land, when Cali says, “There they are!” We thought she was joking and she wasn’t. They had landed more than a half an hour early. So exciting! I love having everyone back together. These days that is getting more and more rare.
The first thing we did was take them to the Macaw sanctuary. Then we drove to Santa Elena, which was high in the cloudforest. It was rainy and the road was a little out of our Yaris’ league, but we made it.
As you can imagine, it was very wet, a little cool, and extremely windy, up in our little cloudforest in the sky. We stayed at a hotel run by a Swiss guy who knew many languages, maybe all the languages. Very welcoming fellow. He used to be a Swiss banker but somewhere along the way decided cloud-living was more to his liking, so here he is. Who can argue with a story like that.
He showed us to our room and pointed out the view from the mountains we had spent all day crossing by car. You could see clear to the ocean. I grabbed my camera and turned around,
the view was gone. The cloud waits for no one. He also showed us a tree full of parrots and said
to keep an eye out for sloth. Just yesterday one was passing across the wires.
For supper he referred us to a family run restaurant a few doors down. The owner was beaming about his restaurant and their signature dishes, turns out for good reason. He and his 4 year old were very attentive to us. Paul found a rare bottle of French wine that made him positively giddy. I felt the same way about the fish of the day. Everyone was thrilled with their food, yes, even Madi. With a splash of fancy French wine and some Coke Light we toasted being back together as a family, in this cozy family restaurant tucked in a Costa Rican cloud.
After supper Paul wanted to go for a walk through town. Even though none of us girls were in the mood to brave the wind and horizontal rain, we don’t like him going alone. Cali volunteered, as she often does. The rest of us donated our best protective rain jackets, shoes, socks, long-sleeve shirt and thanked her for manning up. While she was away we had a few spider incidences above the bunkbed where she was going to sleep, so it all worked out for the best.
That night I tucked in all three of my girls into one triple bunkbed. Even though they were fighting over covers or maybe because they were, I was feeling sentimental. These traveling days with the three of them are more rare than they used to be. It was a moment to savor.