Recently in Costa Rica Category

The way you spend your money on vacation says a lot about your travel style.

I'm the type who:

*Will suffer a few hours of an airport layover for a cheaper flight. I look at it as time to catch up on reading, journaling and browsing in the bookstores.

*Seeks out lodging that is basic and clean with only the things I need (hot water, decent water pressure, doors that lock, private bathroom, decent mattress) After all, the only time I plan to spend there is bathing and sleeping.

*Usually prefers public transportation over pricey tours and cab rides because it's cheaper and gives you a window into the local culture. (Although there are definitely cases when I think it's better to ditch this philosophy -- such as when traveling long distances rather than within a single city)

*Tends to splurge on food and activities. When else but on vacation can you walk on hanging bridges through a rainforest canopy, soak your weary bones in hot springs or stuff your face with fresh seabass and passionfruit juice?

Here's the spending breakdown for my week in Costa Rica:

My name is Jen, and I'm addicted to artesanias, which is the Spanish term for "locally-made handicrafts."

When I travel, I have no problem walking right past kitschy T-shirt-and-keychain souvenir stands selling snow globes and goofy pens, but I cave when it comes to beautifully painted ceramic pots, plates or canvases.

I can't withstand the pull of a Mayan calendar made from beautiful bits of wood or a polished jar with the most beautiful swirls of natural wood grain.

I know I don't need a leather purse or the funky jewelry made by the woman at the street stand in Buenos Aires. But I have a hard time stopping to appreciate and admire someone's handiwork and then not following through on my comments by purchasing. Somehow, I feel obligated.

Strangely enough, I don't feel buyer's remorse or guilt at these purchases, even as it becomes more difficult to find a place for them in my house. (I don't like clutter.)

Instead, I feel proud for supporting the local artists wherever I'm visiting.

Does anyone else have this problem? What is your weakness when traveling?

At first glance, you might be wondering why I snapped this picture of the ground and branches and leaves. Look closer and you'll see why.

Anyone know what kind of animal this is? It's much larger than iguanas I've seen while traveling in Mexico. Looked a bit meaner, too.

One of the best things about travel is discovering new foods.

I love fresh fruit, fish and seafood, but all three are hard to come by in Pennsylvania. (Well, inexpensively, at least.)

Costa Rica -- and much of Latin America, actually -- have plenty of each.

During past travels, I've discovered the wonders of arepas and mamones (Venezuela), maduros (Ecuador), pernil with rice (Puerto Rico), jicama, queso blanco and real pico de gallo (Mexico).

In Costa Rica, I discovered palm hearts, or palmito, as they're called there.

Lots of travelers just think in terms of things they want to see during their trip.

I'd encourage you to expand that to include the other four senses.

It can help you experience a place more fully if you also think about what you want to hear, feel, smell and taste.

For instance, while in Costa Rica, I saw the beauty of an unspoiled night sky with more stars than I'll ever see here at home. I marveled at the way the "golden hour" of sunset bathed everything in a true golden light unlike anything I've seen here. I sat in awe of the majesty of the mountains, making cows and humans mere fly specks on their sides.

I listened to the songs of unfamiliar tropical birds, the soothing hum of crickets, the white noise of a waterfall and the rustle of the wind in the rainforest canopy at night.

I tasted flavors and textures I wasn't accustomed to at home. Fruits I didn't recognize and dishes I want to try to reproduce.

I felt the smooth and ribbed leaves of tropical plants, the warmth of hot springs, the film of dust and salt that covered me during travel to the beach. The silky blue bath that was the Gulf of Nicoya.

On different bus rides, I got whiffs of lemon, cocoa, soap and other less-pleasant things that I didn't try to hard to identify because I didn't want to mar my already-upset stomach.

What are some of your most memorable sensory experiences while traveling? Post a comment and share.

Whenever I'm traveling, I run across things I just want to know more about. But I don't want to waste precious vacation time in an Internet cafe looking them up. So I make a list called "Things to Google" when I get home.

Of course, by the time I get home, I'm usually overwhelmed by the demands of daily life and don't get around to doing this. (I still haven't bought books from amazon.com about Tulum and Chichen Itza that I swore I would after my April 2007 trip to Mexico).

Here was my "To Google" list from Costa Rica:

As you'll see in my previous post, I enjoyed a bit of water therapy Tuesday night at the Baldi Hot Spings in La Fortuna, Costa Rica.

Last night was the complete opposite. The place we were staying had an issue with the water -- as in, there was none.

The hotels on both sides of us seemed to be fine, but were filled to capacity, so we couldn't even pay them to use a shower. The guard at one offered one last resort of a suggestion: the swimming pool.

So we changed into our suits and at midnight, as the guard turned a blind eye, we slipped into warm water and gazed up at the stars (Stacy even saw two shooting stars!) while we tried to do what we could to feel at least a bit clean.

Hey, it worked when we were kids, right? :)

Last night, I spent three hours soaking my road-weary body at Baldi Hot Springs.

Travel within Costa Rica is a rough-and-tumble affair, one that jostles the bones, shakes up the stomach and leaves your head bouncing back and forth with every pothole. There are plenty of paved highway-type roads, but they mostly connect the main cities. If you want to go anywhere else, chances are you will be treated to an experience that can best be described as a poorly-designed rollercoaster.

So, by the time Stacy and I arrived in La Fortuna from Monteverde, we were ready for a bit of relaxation. The hostel where we ditched our bags for the night offered discounted tickets, so for $20, we got to sample more than a dozen pools of varying temperatures. The 113-degree one was too hot to do more than stick a toe in, but most ranged from warm bath water to sauna temperatures.

One had a waterfall that pounded the knots out of my neck when I stood under it. At another, I shot down two different waterslides. A third had jacuzzi jets that were heavenly on my still-healing back and achy feet. Some even had tiny cool-water pools within the hot water so you could have your body in 109 degree water and your arms dangling over into the cooler pool, which was a neat experience.

The food and drink there were outrageously priced -- and by that I mean $5 for a bottle of soda and $19 for vegetable fried rice!!! -- but luckily I had grabbed a bottle of water and some munchies at the grocery store before we went to Baldi. Nobody bothered me about taking them in, although Im sure it is discouraged.

I wish we had a place like this close to home. I would save all my extra money to go on a regular basis. It was heavenly.

Tonight I went for a walk in a forest after dark.

It was a transitional forest -- which means it´s the area between the rainforest and cloud forest. It was very windy, very misty and more stars in the few clearings than you have probably ever seen in your life.

If our tiny group hadn´t been with a guide, we would have never noticed anything. But he knew which holes to shine his flashlight into so we could see tarantulas, which branches held tropical birds tucked in for the night, beak in feathers, fast asleep.

We saw ant hills that looked like they might reach volcano size in a few more years (ok, maybe this is a slight exaggeration, but still.... I was impressed), ant highways and a tiny pygmy frog waiting for mosquitos to emerge from a bromelia plant.

The English couple in our group wanted to know what were the sounds we heard (crickets and katydids) and what the little blinks of light were that kept popping up everywhere. They had never seen fireflies before!

It´s amazing what you take for granted depending on where you grow up. For the kids here, tropìcal birds and olingos (kind of like a monkey) are no big deal. For my friend Stacy and I, they were exciting to see.

Actually, come to think of it, it has been years since I have seen a firefly in my backyard. I remember my sisters and I used to catch them as kids or sit on the porch watching them emerge on summer evenings. Why don´t I see them anymore at home?

Note to self: Must check into this to find out if it means I´m too busy to notice or if they´re disappearing.

P.S. I saw a North American wood thrush curled up on a branch sleeping. Our guide told us they come here to Central America to escape North American winters. I am slowly learning that these birds are wise creatures. Very wise indeed.

P.P.S. BEST MONDAY EVER!!

Oh, the things I did not know about my morning cup of coffee!

Today I spent the afternoon learning about how the popular Costa Rican coffee is grown, processed, roasted and exported.

We visited a farmer who grows the arabica variety on land mixed with plantain, orange, grapefruit and banana trees for best soil quality. He is one of 42 members of the Cafe Monteverde Cooperative who grow only organic coffee beans (no chemicals used).

Here is a quick list of things I did not know about coffee: