My Birthday Adventures!

My wonderful wife set up a day of exploration and adventure for me to celebrate my 51st birthday.  It's difficult being so far away from family and friends for all the special days and holidays, so a day spent visiting some cool local attractions definitely helped make the day special.

Birthday morning started with hopping the bus to downtown San Jose and walking to the rental car office.  We rented one of these bad boys -



- a Daihatsu Bego.  Okay, so it's no Hummer or Escalade.  Really more of a small SUV, so not all that macho.  Never heard of this particular model.  Turned out to be a nice ride.  We decided on four wheel drive because we didn't know where the day might take us or how the roads would be once we turned off the Pan American Highway, which runs…

…well, it depends on who you ask, I suppose.  Theoretically, it runs from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuala.  The entire US interstate system is unofficially designated as part of it, as well.  Canada wants nothing to do with it, so won't admit their roads are included.  Anyway, we would only drive about 30-40 kilometers of it, so it doesn't matter how long the damn thing is.  

We did the pre-drive inspection, made sure the tires looked good and off we went.  Morning rush hour in a Central American city of 3+ million people = awesome, with lots of honking!

We made our way out of the city and headed toward the town of Cartago, which would be the jumping off point for the days adventures.  Surprisingly, there were adequate road signs indicating we were heading in the right direction.  Then, of course, the signs dried up and we found ourselves driving in circles somewhere near Cartago but not quite in Cartago or maybe we were in Cartago.  It was hard to tell.

One good thing about almost every town down here is that if you can spot the church, you can figure out where you are and where you need to go.  Churches are at the center of most towns, so once we spotted the steeple and made our way to it, we were at the parque central - the center of town where the street numbers are Avenida 1 and Calle 1.  Once we figured out which direction we needed to go (we weren't as far off track as we'd thought!) we drove up, up, up, up, up to the top of Volcán Irazú, Costa Rica's highest ACTIVE volcano. To give y'all back in Portland a reference point, it's just about ten feet taller than Mt. Hood.

Throw the ring in, Frodo.

Who knew it could be in the 40's in the tropics?!  Not us - we found ourselves completely unprepared for both the temperature and the rain.  It was damn cold, especially considering we'd been topical beach bums for the past few months.  Even with the rain and clouds, it was still an incredible experience.  We had glimpses down into the 1,000 foot deep crater. Pretty epic and a little creepy.

Look out!  There's a volcano behind you!!

The smart people started packing out.

Manly moonscape - or Moonly Manscape?

I told her not to go past the sign… did she listen?!?  Nooooooo!

For something truly creepy, next we explored the Sanitorio Duran, a former prison and insane asylum.  It’s just off the road that runs up the volcano so getting there was no problem.  This place was featured on 'Ghost Hunters International' and is considered to be the most haunted location in Costa Rica. Even in broad daylight, we were a little freaked out.

Rich and Aiden, this stop was for you guys!

How the tour works:  
1)  Pay the caretaker $2;
That's it.  After that, you have the run of the place.

From the hill overlooking the Sanitorio Duran

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!

But it wasn't all scary.  Some of it offered artistic opportunities.

This shot is through six windows of three separate wings of the complex.

And some of it was silly, handsome, and big.  In that order.

OoooOOOooooOOO, a ghost.

Ghost Hunter's has got nothing on us.

We didn't stick around to wait for the dinosaurs.

There were a few other tourists visiting the site.  Aaannnndddd… there was an entire busload of trainees from the Academia de Policia.  It appeared they were there to do some sort of bonding field trip-py training.  From what we saw, however, they mostly scattered around, hiding from one another in all the alcoves, hallways, bathroom shower stalls, little rooms and closets, lying in wait making ghost noises and scaring the crap out of each other.

One officer was wandering around, walking slowly, eating marshmallows out of a bag, a big smile on his face.  As we passed him in one of the spooky hallways, he offered us a marshmallow.  I took a pink one.  “Gracias!”  It seemed a little out of context, exploring these haunted premises, on edge the entire time – and having a friendly policeman offer me a marshmallow.  Hmmm…

In addition to marshmallows, police down here carry guns – lots of guns.  Sidearms.  And shotguns.  The fun short barreled models that hold lots of shells and quell riots.
When they broke for lunch they:
a) secured their weapons by locking them in the bus
b) kept their weapons with them in case Belize invaded
c) assigned one person to watch over the neatly stacked weapons
d) piled them haphazardly on a bench outside so they could eat lunch in the building, on the steps or under a tree

If you guessed (d) you would be correct!

Official Costa Rican Gun Storage Protocol in action.

[I wore my Contour video camera while we wandered the grounds.  I need to edit the footage and I’ll post that at a later date.]

Even though we felt well-protected by the police and even though we toured the place by the light of day, we admitted to each other that the ol’ spidey sense was tingling the entire time.  You can’t help but get a little tense wandering around this place.  It wasn’t just the thought of the ghosts that are rumored to haunt the place.  There are stories about weird experiments-on-humans stuff that happened while it was a mental hospital.  (shudder)  And you can just imagine how wonderful prison life here must have been.

Imagine being crazy… It's easy when you're here...

After being on high alert while touring the sanitorium, we drove to Cartago to see the Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles, a magnificent Byzantine-style church built in 1635.  It's considered to be the most revered church in the country, mostly because it is the home of the Virgen de los Angeles.  Because of the dark color of the stone, it's also called La Negrita and it is a stone likeness of the Virgin Mary.  La Negrita was found on this spot in 1635.  It’s said that the woman who found La Negrita took it home - twice - and each time it magically appeared back at its original location.  The story is that there were five attempts over the years to move it and each time it was found back where it was discovered.  A miracle, indeed.  Rather than trying to move the unmovable, either to an existing church or to the mother ship in Europe, they built a shrine around it, and then the church around the shrine.  Regardless of your beliefs, the shrine and La Negrita was quite stunning - and humbling - to see.  It was truly amazing.

Gray church, gray sky.  Today's show is brought to you by the color gray. 

But the gilt paint inside created a nice warm glow of color.

See the Jesus Beams shining down!

Not the greatest picture - La Negrita and the shrine - and lots of gold.

Worshippers walk to the shrine on their knees.

Also found in Cartago are La Ruinas (The Ruins).  The remains of a church that was never completed, it’s now been turned into a park.  It’s fantastic!  Why was it never completed?  Good question!  Because earthquakes kept collapsing the roof, that’s why.  But the walls remained and so at some point the city planted trees and grass, put in a pond with fish, lighted walkways and benches, a few garbage cans.  Tada!  It’s really gorgeous and it was packed when we visited.  It’s well used and a great repurposing of a beautiful old building.

A wonderful full city block refuge.

There is another story about La Ruinas and why it was never completed.  You see, this site is also considered to be quite haunted, the ghost at this site being a priest!  During the construction of the church in the 1500's, it seems the priest was having a rather torrid affair with the mayor's wife.  Upon discovering this infidelity, the mayor flew into a jealous rage and killed the priest.  Soon after, an earthquake caved in the roof of the church.  This happened not just once but several times.  Each time the church was nearing completion, an earthquake destroyed it, always leaving the walls standing.  Locals claimed it was the spirit of the priest – and his BFF, God – that were causing this.  Eventually, they gave up and built the church at a new, less haunted location.

But to hell with volcanoes and ghosts!  The craziest, most courageous and most daring thing I did on my birthday was - I DROVE IN SAN JOSE RUSH HOUR!  If you've ever experienced driving and/or drivers in Central America, you'll understand the epic-ness of this.  Ask my son and daughter-in-law.

After getting back home and cleaning up, it was time to get some food.  We had a great dinner at Product C, a high end restaurant in one of the swankier areas of San Jose.  A play on words, Product C has cultivated a sea to table supply chain for itself and other Costa Rican restaurants.  There was a time when even on the Costa Rican coast, it was hard for restauranteurs to buy fish - it was all for export.   Fish that were perfectly delicious but not on the target export list were discarded, being tossed back rather than sold to eager locals.  Too much hassle, I suppose.  Now, thanks to Product C, excellent local seafood is available to chefs and to the public (the restaurant has a retail fish counter inside).  For more on the back story, check out the New York Times.

I had oysters on the half shell, we had an excellent bottle of wine and wonderful meals.  It wasn’t until part way through dinner that we remembered that Product C serves locally produced micro beers.  Gasp!  We finished dinner, went for a walk and then returned to Product C to sit in the bar, where we tried a few different brews.  We enjoyed Segua Red Ale and Libertas Tropical Golden from CRCB (Costa Rica Craft Brewery) and an excellent sour and samples of an intriguing brew in development from Treinta y Cinco (Spanish for '35').

It was a great day, full of adventures, exploring, new experiences, great food and drink.  My wife spoiled me!

I suppose I deserve it.