Arriving in Costa Rica is so easy and relaxed and everyone is so friendly. The airport has everything we need to set ourselves up before we even walk through the exit and the trollies are free! Although we are all really tired from the night in the airport in New York, we have arrived at mid day which gives us lots of time to get organised.
Roger and I generally get a sim card each so that we always have some kind of wifi and communication with each other, although coverage is not always the best.
There is a no commission money changer and several transport and car hire agencies. Within about half and hour, having checked out the price of buses and local vans and concluded that the price is the same as hiring a 4WD for the month, we have organised a car and are ready to go.
We have noticed a pattern that coincides with our arrival in a new country. Louie goes into ‘New Country Psychosis’ which usually concluded with a full scale physical fight and us leaving him and eating dinner while he locks himself in our room for a bit of time out.
His mood is often brought on by Jasper who bugs him incessantly until he can no longer stand it. The customs line is the perfect place for Jasper to work on Louie’s patience; perhaps that is why, after a long flight and in this case, an overnight delay, Louie usually arrives in a new place in a rage.
We drive from the airport into central San Jose to our hotel, the Don Carlos. It is the perfect place to begin our month in Costa Rica and luckily, they were able to change our booking by a day after the Volcanic ash delay. It is rustic and homely and we are given a welcome cocktail on arrival which helps to dull the stress of the arrival meltdown.
The best thing about the Don Carlos, is that we can store luggage for $1 per bag. After offloading two lamps, a suitcase full of ceramics and a large duffle bag full of things we don’t need in Costa Rica, we are able to pack the car quickly and easily and travel without any bags on our laps.
We are heading for Montezuma, on the Nicoya Peninsular, which is on the Pacific Coast.
From San Jose, it is easiest to take a car ferry across to the Peninsular from the mainland. Whilst there are enormous heavy clouds in the sky, it is very hot and humid and it is nice to sit on the open shaded deck of the ferry and spot birds and animals. The boys are looking for crocodiles, although we don’t see any. There are however, flocks of brown pelicans everywhere.
The roads from the ferry landing to Montezuma are very rough and we are pleased to have hired a 4WD even though it seemed a little unnecessary at the time. Costa Rica is very beautiful and the landscape reminds us of my sister Ruth’s farm, in Northland, with densely forested hills behind lush farmland. Instead of giant puriri dotted around the paddocks, there are other types of tree which are very large and tropical. The cows are similar to the ones we saw in India, called Zebu cattle, with a large fatty hump on their backs and large droopy ears.
Google maps tries to lead us down a number of very questionable looking roads but we eventually arrive in the small hippy surf town of Montezuma. Our beach front family room is just $70 per night, which for Costa Rica, is very cheap. The room is very basic and doesn’t have mosquito nets but this is exactly the reason we have been carrying around our pop up mosquito nets all this time. Zika Virus and Dengue Fever are fairly common in Costa Rica not to mention a large number of other very intimidating insects.
We have a little table on the shared balcony and we can sit and look out to sea. I find it quite difficult being in close proximity to other people. Living directly above and beside other travellers is difficult when there are five of us but at least our kids sleep in these days and don’t get up and start fighting at 6am. They usually wait until 8am for a fight.
Our first night is rather torturous as it is extremely hot and humid and the local nightclub next door, plays music with a live MC until 3.30am. We are reminded of our four nights in Koh San Road in Bangkok but then, there were four nightclubs in operation simultaneously so it could be worse.
Our first full day is spent watching animals from the balcony whilst doing school work. We start with brown and black striped squirrels who run up and down the trees, jumping from one palm frond to another, then visiting magpie Jays who are a bit like raptors with their head turning and clicking.
We then have a white headed capuchin monkey visitor who looks very interested in jumping from the palm tree on to our balcony, but luckily stays put. We’re not so keen on close up monkey encounters anymore.
When the school holidays came while we were in Morocco, we took the opportunity to have a little break; not that anyone deserved one but school work gets difficult when we are moving around a lot, or have bad wifi. We then had our whirlwind tour through Paris, the UK and New York and got nothing done then either.
So now, it is imperative that we get on and at least submit the beginning of term ASTLE tests that are required for maths and english.
It is a pretty amazing place to do school work, especially when we see a fairly rare Agouti running across the garden, followed by a Coati (more like a badger) which looks as if it would also like to join us upstairs.
There is a pretty amazing beach around the corner although the sea is quite murkey which I suppose is a rainy season thing, but it looks as though it could be harbouring crocodiles. Crocodile attacks are uncommon on the Pacific Coast but there was one was recently as July. For some reason, I don’t feel particularly keen to swim!
We have all discussed our desire to make our last month of travel, really count, but it seems that we really are on our last legs.
We have survived most of our fourteen years of parenting so far, on bribery and incentives. It seems this is no longer working. Having moved on more recently to threats and punishment has proved pretty ineffective too. It seems that in waiting for Jasper to grow out of what seems to be a twelve year stage of obsessively bugging other people, he has passed into early adolescence with a rush of testosterone that is now playing havoc with his emotions.
I’m bored…..stupid family…..yeah i’m just your stupid kid…………fuck you mum……….. you’re abusive parents………… do you love me?………….ding………….do you even love me?……….why don’t you just send me to a foster home then…………..I’m already a failure……………stupid dumb bitch cow sister…………….I love you Louie………….I hate you Stella……………I love you mum…………..ding…………..I hate this………………I might just go and hang myself………I hate all these stupid insects……….I miss my lego……………I miss cousin Chris
The moods in the family are very up and down and soon there is a battle over the door of our room, with Jasper locking us all out and laughing maniacally from behind the door. There is perhaps nothing more frightening, other than you’re children being in actual danger, than having lost control as a parent.
A friend of mine recently pointed out that ten months in the family pressure cooker was a personal choice and one that we get to experience in exotic places with a different view everyday. This is true and I try to feel comforted by the idea that we are still in control of our own destiny in a way that perhaps other people sharing a room for months on end, are not.
It does not lessen the fact however, that as five separate individuals, we are not all behaving in the way that we would if we were amongst other people more often. When Jasper starts punching me and walking away smirking, we wonder if it’s time to go home. I have been until this point, the last bastion of discipline in the family but I seem to have lost that position too.
We don’t seem to have many resources at our disposal for dealing with unruly kids. When you’re a family that trade in bribes and you’re already doing what you believe is the ultimate for your kids, i.e. a trip around the world, where do you go from there?
We take them to the beach and let them beat each other with sticks.
One morning, the guy who works in the garden, brings up a baby squirrel that has fallen from a tree.
We have arrived in Costa Rica at the end of the rainy season. At one stage, we were going to start our trip in Costa Rica and work around the other way, which would have seen us arriving when it was dry. It would however, have landed us in India during the July Monsoon which would have been worse. There have not been many sunny days here yet, although it is very hot.
When the sun does finally come out, we’re down at the beach in a flash. Stella and I swim while surupticiously maintaining a distance from Roger who is out a little bit deeper and therefore, the most likely to be eaten first by a crocodile.
We have a really lovely Spanish couple in the room next to ours who we get talking to after a couple of days. Sometimes, we get so absorbed with what is going on inside our room that I, particularly, shy away from befriending our younger travelling neighbours as I imagine they have already witnessed all kinds of bizarre noises and altercations. Of course, when we do get talking, it is such a relief and I think that people genuinely understand the concept of being sick of your family.
Louie and Stella are bonding a lot on this trip, which alienates Jasper even more. It is however, understandable as Jasper has very few moments in the day where he is genuinely himself. One of our travelling games is Monopoly. Of course, any family already experiencing disharmony, should never play Monopoly, but it seems that many of our days start off with an ill fated game which tends to set the tone for the rest of the day.
The fact that we’re supposed to be making up for lost time on school work, is a bit lost amidst the struggle to keep things on an even keel.
Stella, does still do some homework in the rain.
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