Packing up in the Villa Caletas.
The following morning, we got up at 0600, primarily because the sun was shining directly into our bedroom. We began the process of packing up although Mr. Lubin’s things appear to have expanded two-fold as he used the huge zip-loc bag to hold his dirty laundry, yet his carry-on looks packed also. All my stuff is packed back into my bags.
We tottered up the stairs to the restaurant with stiff legs to find Leo and Judy bird watching. We spotted a western taniger, and a pair of macaws flying by in the distance – their brilliant red contrasting with the green of the forest and the blue of the ocean. After breakfast, we returned to our room to finish our morning ablutions and packing for check-out and the ride back into San José with a stop in Orotina.
We retraced our route northward to highway 27 where we turned eastwards towards Orotina and San José. It was a bright clear day with few clouds in the sky. Looking north to Monteverde, the clouds were stacked on top of the ridge by the easterlies off the Caribbean. Southward were the high peaks of the Carara National Park – no clouds over them as they rose deep green into the sky.
The highway, under construction, ends at Orotina, and we exited to find the city’s park where owls are known to roost during the day. After much looking, no owls were found, but a two-toed sloth was visible in the branches. From the park we stopped at a fruit stand for coffee, a look around, and the baños before taking to the “Avocado Highway” to the capital.
Packing up in the Villa Caletas.
Two-toed sloth.
Fruit stand in Orotina.
Door to our hotel room in the courtyard (Grano de Oro, San José).
The (out-of-focus) view out of our hotel room.
Rearranging stuff for the trip home.
The Avocado Highway crosses the ridges between the coast and the central valley so the road is curvy and occasionally very steep. There was, as Leo had promised, a steady stream of traffic the other direction as residents of the city headed west for the traditional holiday trip to the beach. As most of the bridges on the highway were one lane, we had no problem crossing them when we had right-of-way. However, one bridge we did not and the line of traffic the other way showed no sign of a break long enough to cross,. Fortunately, the local police were there to stop traffic to let us and other east-bound traffic through.
We stopped first at the Cariari Doubletree, and said goodbye to Sean and Lin and Joan there. From there it was on to the Alta where we bid farewell to Judy and Neal. And finally headed into San José towards our hotel. This was the day of the “horse parade” down the central avenue and on our way into the city we were passing men and women on horses frequently. Even on the highway from Orotina, we passed a number of horse-trucks, apparently on their way to the festivities. Although the parade route was two blocks from the hotel, we opted not to go.
Arriving at the Hotel Grano de Oro, we offered our thanks and appreciation to Leo and Sergio for a wonderful tour. As our room wasn’t quite ready, we adjourned to our lunch, and then to the gift shop to get the ceramic frogs for the girls in Greene RI. Alas the frog I wanted had been sold during the week of our tour, but there was still an ample selection to choose from.
Getting to our room, our bags had already arrived and we commenced to reorganize our bags in anticipation of our flight home the next day. We cleaned the mud from our boots and walking sticks, sacrificing one of Mr. Lubin’s toothbrushes to the task. We laid down for what turned out to be a 3-hour nap. Some more packing and rearrangement was done before we headed to the bar and dinner.
Getting up and having breakfast the next morning (the 27th), we put the finishing touches on our packing. We also found out about the terrorist attempt to blow up an airliner approaching Detroit. I checked the LA Times website at the hotel’s computer to find out a bit more about the security implications, and decided that it made the most sense to check as many bags as possible, and carry on as few as needed. So we tweaked our packing a bit before the taxi came to collect us at 0900 for the flight at 1240. It only took about 20 minutes to get to the airport, and the other tasks, paying the exit fee, getting boarding passes, checking luggage, clearing security, didn’t take very long.
We wandered about the airport, stopping to get a copy of the latest Economist, and ended up sitting with Lin and Sean at a quieter end of the concourse to wait. Joan was seated nearby. After a while, Lin and Sean had to relocate due to a gate change, but we stayed put waiting for the previous flight at our gate to clear. Boarding of our flight from San José to Houston was delayed somewhat, and once we did, security agents opened and inspected our bags and we each received a pat-down prior to stepping onto the plane. We sat at the gate also waiting for our pilot to arrive on another flight. All-in-all we were delayed a little more than an hour leaving San José.
This delay ate into our two hour connection time in Houston. As soon as we landed I fired up my iPhone to check on the status of our flight to Los Angeles. As luck would have it, it was still on-time. We actually managed to navigate through immigrations, customs, and security and get to our plane about 30 minutes before they closed the door.
So we arrived at LAX on-time and got back home by 2130 that evening. The cats were “glad” to see us as they have kept almost continuous company with us that evening and the following day.
So now it’s onto processing the images, and the journal text into the travelogue.