41 degrees in the shade doing my best pommie on tour impression

So we've now confirmed that we don't get to take home the personal concierge. Chris is OK with this, but is a little disappointed that the little waiting boys also aren't a permanent part of the package.

This is a fourth night at Gaia (www.gaiahr.com) and it is also confirmed that this is one of the best hotels I have ever stayed in and thats saying alot when I am spending my own cash!

We started off in a 'Studio' - which was a beautiful room. Everything in the hotel is white, white, white... and having only been built 18 months ago has none of the tropical faded glory that most of the buildings get here after a few years of heat and humidity.

After a couple of nights in the studio (and we had originally planned to stay here only two nights) we decided it was just too nice to leave and went to see reception if we could extend a couple more nights - we justified this on the basis that we came to this town to go to Manuel Antonio National Park, which is open from 7am to 4pm. As we arrived on Sun afternoon it was too late to visit the park, and unbeknown to us the park is closed on a Monday. Therefore it only seemed right to carry on the the lap of luxury a couple more nights.

Anyways, our kind receptionist informed us that our studio room was already let out, but that we could upgrade to a suite for one more night, and that sadly the hotel was fully booked with the exception of the 'Gaia Suite' for the fourth night. He did a little sad puppy dog stare and waited for us to say "What the heck, we'll stump up the $600 for the room". At this point the hotel owner happened by and introduced himself and asked if we were enjoying our stay. Crispy as she so elegantly does, said "We love it here. Its so sad that you don't have a room for us for one more night - we'd love to extend our stay". Slightly baffled, the owner asked the reception guys something in Spanish and then said to us, "hang on a second let me go talk to central reservations", well bless his little cotton socks if he didn't come back and say "Hey, if you guys don't mind changing rooms you can have the Gaia suite for your fourth night at no extra charge". Well my mother and father didn't raise no fool so I was very prompt with the "You betcha".

The last part of this happy tail has a slight twist.

Sometime in the last couple or three days Chris developed an allergic reaction to something, we know not what. Could be the heat (it hit 41 degrees at the time of the very flattering picture above), could be the new and tasty fruits - Guanabana, which when mixed with rum makes a oh so tasty Daquiri, could be the vast consumption of hot and spicy mixed nuts, or more likely the doses of anti-malarial medication.

In any event, for the very first time in her life she was hot and itchy, and ironically our air con went out late last night. The poor lumpy, itchy girl tried to ice her sore paws, tried a shower, tried various medications from the three toilet bags a doctor always travels with - but at the end we called the front desk and asked them to come take a look. The local version of the cable guy arrived at our door and after 30 minutes of fluffing about admitted the system was poked and called the front desk for us. The (again) nice man at the front desk told us that the air con was poked (doh...) and could not be fixed and would we mind terribly, and if it was not a major inconvenience, if we could more into the Gaia suite early. Well my mother and father didn't raise no dummy so we replied with a quick "You betcha" and walked across the path to our new, enormous, many bathroomed, private swimming pooled, very own piece of heaven.

So in order to celebrate our new diggs, today we did... nothing. It just seemed a darn shame to have such a nice big pad and not lollygag around in it all day.

So thats the story of how we (very undeservedly) snagged the presidential suite - and enjoyed it immensely.

So back to our regularly scheduled program.

We got up early on Monday and took a tour of the private reserve with the hotel's guide. This is a pretty big chunk of land that the hotel has committed to keep in its natural state. As with everywhere in Costa Rica, you never know what you will see but your are pretty much guaranteed it will be stunning. The highlight was getting to understand more about some of the little things we have seen but not understood. For example, we have seen a truckload of these big spiders with colorful, golden bodies. Turns out they are called golden orb web spiders (http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/inverts/nephila.htm). We had been looking at the females who like all good spiders eat the males as a tasty snack immediately after mating. The female then goes on to build a rather large web make out of iridescent greeny-golden silk. This is also apparently ridiculously strong to the point where it can be woven into fishing line and, as with all good things in nature, the US military is looking at it to make weapons of mass destruction. Anyways, your truly got to hold the beast of a thing as apparently they wont bite unless provoked and they will only kill you if you are allergic (and you only really find out if you're allergic after the biting). At the end of the tour, and alot of chatting the guide offered to take us over to his ranch to see the real Costa Rica but we declined, as at that point we hadn't figured out how long we were staying and wanted to see other parts of the local area. We did ask him if he would guide us around the park the next day as its become pretty obvious that unless you really know what to look for, you can miss almost everything in the parks.

Golden orb spider - BIG

Going back up the hotel driveway one of the staff pointed out a sloth sleeping in tree about 3 metres off the driveway and a hummingbird (How you zey in englich? ah hooming-birt?) nesting in a palm frond right beside the drive.

"Hooming-birt" nest on hotel driveway

The rest of the day was spent nosing around town and the hotel, swimming, reading and sampling the many fruity delights of the daiquiri.

View from the top of the Hotel reserve

View of the Gaia hotel from the top of the reserve

Quepos marina

Pelicans in the estuary by the marina

Tues morning came and our guide came back at 9am to take us to the park and mentioned that he had seen a Jaguar and cub on his property the previous day and it was a shame we hadn't come along. No Kidding! He told us he has been a guide for 15 odd years and its only the second time he has seen one himself...

The tour through Manuel Antonio was superb. Its a very small park that you can get through in a couple of hours, but is incredibly dense in its animal population. now you need to know that this is a very popular place, with Disneyland type lines to get into it, people without guides can wait and hour or more just to get into the place.

So over the course of a two hour walk we had pointed out to us numerous birds, dozens of bats, a caimen, crocodiles, many sloths, white faced monkeys, a coati (think part racoon, part possum, part rat), a basilisk lizard (also known as the Jesus lizard for its ability to run on water), nests of angry wasps (used in Columbia as weapons between warring drug lords. Take one hive of angry wasps. Carefully put angry wasps into glass jars. Throw glass jars at your enemies. Trust the angry wasps to sting faces). And many, many, many more generic lizard things.

6 inch long grasshopper

Coati

Coati

Bats, about a dozen of them

"White faced" Capuchin monkey

Three Toed Sloth

Green Basilisk lizard

Green Basilisk lizard

Caimen

YAI (yet another Iguana)

Miscellaneous small bug

White moth on white wall... local version or polar bear in smow storm

YAI

They day ended with the required fruity daiquiris and the most stunning sunset I have ever seen - Yes I know that everyone claims to have seen the most stunning sunset but this one actually was.

Gaia Restaurant

One strawberry, one guanabana

Surely an award winning sunset...

Tomorrow we leave heaven and drive up to the central plateau to an old cattle ranch were there is another active volcano, and other interesting stuff.

As some of you have asked, here are some random facts about Costa Rica
- Costra Ricans are called Ticas, Nicaraguans are called Nicas

- There is tension between Costa Rica and Nicaragua as Costa Rica's economy has boomed relative to Nicaragua in the last 20 years - mainly due to Noriega's spending on military.
- Now, many Nicas make it illegally into Costa Rica and take jobs
- North west Costa Rica was the setting for Ollie North's ill-fated weapon running into Nicaragua.
- Over the last 100 years, Nicaragua has 'invaded' Costa Rica a number of times, once in 1856 by an American named William Walker who attempted to put together a united Central America, and more recently in 1955 by some Nicaraguans in a couple of tanks.
- Both invasions apparently lasted less then a few hours.

- The average wage of a white collar office worker is $300USD a month. A laborer makes around $1.50USD per hour.
- A suburban house in a tourist town like Quepos is worth around $70K. Think Tauranga with less paved roads and only a few 1000 people.

- The government is democratic and currently very bio and culture aware. Recent laws have been passed that all restaurants need to have a certain percentage of indigenous dishes on the menu, that hotels must protect land and meet pretty strict recycling and eco friendly operating rules.

- The country is very very clean. There is almost no litter and very little in the way of pollution on the beaches.

- The general state of cleanliness and hygiene is very high. At least in hotels and restaurants there is little fear in drinking the water, or eating fruits and salads. We have yet to meet anyone complaining of illness due to poor hygiene.

- The weather is typically tropical. Hot and sunny in the morning. Highest we have seen is 41 degrees, but typically around 32. It reains pretty much every afternoon starting at 4 and the temperature drops to around 25 degreed at night. It must be humid with the heat and rain but doesn't feel oppressive like I have experienced in Hawaii or Asia.

written by  REB on August 8, 2007 from Quepos, Costa Rica
from the travel blog: Welcome to the Jungle...
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Wow ,glad you are having such a interesting experience
keep the pictures coming, all our love mom

written by  Lise on August 10, 2007

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The sunsut pictures are glorious - make a great painting eh?
Thanks for the broad picture of conditions Ralph...gui=ines us a fuller picture of real life there - glad to hear the water is good, altho i dont see many clear drinks in your pictures....!Pa

written by  ellie on August 10, 2007

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