space.template.Cintorino

Kelsey: What was your greatest memory from the trip?

Tom: Oh boy! Uhh, there’s (short pause) wow, there’s so many uhh memories and highlights it is kind of like a... echocardiogram of a--- patient in trauma! You know the (slight laugh) geez! I mean the.. the ups and highlights, it-I mean there was some uhh what felt like near death experiences, which were very enjoyable, from the... zip-line.. to the uh-And I have a slight fear of heights, uhm..Thrilling-To feeling like we were going to be sleeping in the middle of a mountain-on a-kinda non-roadstuck in the middle of the night sort of thing (laugh) –that was, that was exciting!!- and uhh, but I mean some of the amazing animals we saw and nature.. and.. scenery and, the people we met! Uhm There were just a lot of uhh I guess, I know I had certain expectations but then there was a lot of.. really pleasant surprises! And I think the people were one of those surprises, they.. (gasp) they were wonderful! And it was just great meeting them along with all-you know their-their land, their country and all the things we got to do!

Kelsey: So, what you were mentioning about the roads sounds kind of interesting, would you like to---explain that a little bit?

Tom: Oh! Yeah! You know, I heard so many stories about Costa Rica-if it takes you an hour at home to go..you know, so many miles-that the same distance in Costa Rica would take you- four or five times-and I was trying to picture what that meant and im thinking.. oh okay they-they talked about maybe you’d get stuck behind a dump truck. You know-maybe a construction vehicle would pull out in the road and you’d be going very slow-So I understood that! Uhh I heard about pot holes you had to navigate, and I understand some of the roads may have been a bit rough, and not as smooth, you know-fresh asphalt as we have on a lot of our roads and all-here in the US- but what I didn’t anticipate is that there are a lot of unpaved roads I would say their primary roads are like our secondary roads, their secondary roads are like our side streets that need repair. And then they had a third level-a tertiary level-of roads that were –uh-you know- not as good as gravel! Kind of like-like rock.. and dirt.. and rutts.. and pot holes.. and puddles!-And that was the road. So uh..I don’t know.. I think that the experience that comes to min-aside from driving on some of those roads just from point A to point B was when we –on a map which looked really uneventful and fairly easy, we’re driving from Jacó to MonteVerde- uh which was fine – you know we had some non—what I call non-road that were rocky and bumpy and pot hoely and then we were going from monte verde after we did some zip lines from the day, to Arenal! and it wasn’t that great of a distance.. but we left monte verde right around dusk, and.. the directions, at least when we asked directions and looked at a map, seemed very clear. But once we got onto this trip. It became a journey of what was almost gee how do we survive it rather than how we actually get there! And it uh felt like what we laughed about it together as a family, good thing we’re laughing because it was a little scary!! Uh we laughed about it, it was about a video game, and there were ten levels! And the first level was the rocky roads, and the second level was the pot holes, and the third was throwing in the dark because it was night time and then it got very mountainous. You know, yet another level. And we’re up and down-AND THEN-there were forks in the road and turnoffs with zero signs! Like no signs! You had to like pick one, and some of them we kinda took a family vote, uh and with four people we could have had a tie vote, fortunately, at least three people voted either left or right at a time. We were kinda analyzing where the ruts were stronger, in one direction versus the other, maybe that was a main road so we’d take that, or maybe the other one was a mile long driveway which exists there, up to somebody’s ranch or farm. So we worked our way through. And then there was another level! When we were at the top of the mountain-and since monteverde is a cloud forest-and going beyond that to aranol, is all cloud forest! We put two and two together when we ended up in a cloud on the mountain and we could not see-you know-the front of the car, as we were driving and uh, we’re like-Oh that makes sense! It’s a cloud forest! So, hence the clouds! So here it was, getting later at night and we were going at 5 kilometers an hour, to insure we didn’t drive off a cliff (because it was very mountainous) and uh Nancy, uh mom, my wife, was starting to do the math, saying, hmmmm I think we have about seventy kilometers to go.. and if we’re going five kilometers an hour.. how long would it take us, a simple math equation, and if you do the math on that you realize that it’s going to be daybreak by the time we actually get anywhere! Should we actually survive. Well.. of course we did survive, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking right now, but! Uh we were stopped, looking at a fork in the road and there was a car that passed by, stopped, and we were able to communicate, even though they didn’t know much English, and we, we know basically the Spanish that uh, you and your sister know. And we were able to communicate, and they were very helpful! Very, very helpful! And uh, we made our way to a-uh town, and we were thankful enough that we could get to the town, fill up with gas, we went to the grocery store, and we hadn’t had dinner, we bought rations as if we expected to be going back out into the non-roads, the mountains and had food for like days! Cause we never knew if we were going to arrive in Arenal or not. And then, the roads got better! Andd we started going faster, we were on kind of secondary roads, but again, we hit another stretch where the (trails off)-where it kind of teased us, because the roads were smoother, allowed us to drive faster, but then they would throw in these—what I would call graves! I mean, they’re like enormous potholes but essentially it was pre-dug graves because you could just drop in there and disappear. And we had to like navigate around these, and not be fooled by the roads allowing us to go faster and actually kinda throttle back. And every time we hit a stream, which of course we’re going around a lake, know-a big lake! Lake Arenal I believe it is. And uh, there was a tremendous amount of tributaries, uh-a-streams, and all sorts of shapes and sizes flowing down in there. And every time we crossed one of those, it was one lane. And I assume it’s one lane because it was easier, less expensive to build a bridge that was only one lane versus two! So every time you came up to one of those—you had the fear of—well first of all the road was always in ill repair and there could always be a car coming from the other direction. So anyway, we did uh survive, we made it, but uh that kind of paints a picture of how the roads are! I think we went maybe 70 kilometers, and it took us.. Four and a half hours. So there you go! That’s the roads of Costa Rica!

Kelsey: Soo, I-um-I know you had some amazing tour guides. I heard the locals were amazing! Uhm, The tours you go on, did you have tour guides for the whole thing? Or did you go through the forests on your own? Tom: Riiiiight-right. I know it’s highly recommended that when we go intoany of the National Preserves, uh and um that if there is an opportunity, to take a tour guide. And uh- we found it, that it was extremely helpful because they would explain ththey basically brought it to life! As opposed to just walking through it and really missing most of everything. So my favorite! Although I think that they were all really good, really just, well educated, having passion for-youknow-their country, and the rainforest, the animals, the life, youknow-the flora and fauna. Uh, you know, the trees. They described the primary forest, secondary forest, uhm. But I’d have to say that my favorite, waaaaaAAs.. Sergio! And Sergio told us right up front-what he was going to do and to make sure that we were interested in going through the rainforest the way he wanted us to, in the way that he was going to take us through it. He said: ”Listen, we may walk past through some things-we may slow down-we may stop for a while-or we may pass ahead and even miss a few things. Because what I want to do is/is tell the story of the forest, bring it to life for you, help you understand the complete picture in the cycle of things and uh just really get a feel for the wonder of this-this precious, uh earth that we have here. And he did it in such an engaging and quiet and passionate manor that we were just ah-excited about it! And then through the whole tour, which was supposed to last an hour and a half to two hours, we were out there four hours! And largely we were out there four hours because he realized how interested uh-both you and your sister, Kaitlin were in what he had to say in the forest, that he knew that th—to him it was important to take the extra time to give you more information because it’s your age group that is going to be the care takers of the Earth someday. And while he was older, I don’t know how old he was, he could have been uuh-seventy or something of that age, cause he knew his time would pass and you would be the new caretakers of the earth, so.. uhh, yeah! That was, just truly a beautiful experience.


 * 17:00 They enjoyed life. They know something that we don’t, they may have a lot more. **
 * 18:30 ** Howler monkeys **