My Costa Rica

What can one claim to know about a foreign country after a ten-day tour? A few place names. Ten days worth of climate. Cultural expressions as shown by public displays and decorations. Some of the wildlife. Some of the accommodations. Several of its people. It is not a comprehensive understanding of anything, except, perhaps, the discomfort of tour busses. Yet I feel that the vacation tour Michael and I took to Costa Rica over the Christmas holidays gave me something more profound than an assortment of facts or impressions.

I own a small piece of that lovely country now. I own a small piece of its verdant jungle, populated by creatures as familiar as the Houston Zoo, yet completely unknown to me. My first day in Tortuguero, a place you can reach only by boat or by airplane, our tour guides pointed out barely distinguishable animals in the trees that towered over us. Like the moose pictures my father took on every camping trip it seemed, there was something back there in the trees, but you could never prove it from the photographs.

The next morning the raucous screams of howler monkeys startled me from sleep at dawn and hustled me outside for a look. I did not find moose-picture monkeys that morning, I found MONKEYS in the trees right over my head. Monkeys that were kind of scary, busy with their own lives, and totally unimpressed with human beings. I own a piece of those monkeys now. I own a piece of their wildness, a piece of their self-absorption with the daily business of staying alive, and a piece of their loud, challenging howl at the world.

I own a small piece of the Caribbean people who live in Tortuguero. Not a piece of the old fellow bored by his duties at the cash register of the gift shop in that tiny town, but a piece of the young man who pushed the coconut cart through the village. The occasional coconut was an odd treat that my family enjoyed in North Dakota, so far from   the thought of palm trees. Dad would pound a nail through the three little circles at the top of the coconut and pour the milk out for whoever was lucky enough to get it that day, then smash the hard shell with a hammer, letting us gnaw the white fruit off the pieces that resulted.

When I realized that the young man sold coconut milk from his cart, I went over immediately, clutching two dollar bills in my fist like a child. I really only wanted the coconut milk, the elusive sweetness I remembered from childhood, but the young man expected me to choose a flavoring for two dollars more. In my practically non-existent Spanish, I tried to tell him that the plain milk would suit me fine. Perhaps he understood me, perhaps not, but I understood his Spanish when he told me that I reminded him of his mother and that he wanted to add the strawberry flavoring to my coconut milk at no charge, an offer I graciously accepted. I own a piece of that young man's shy courtesy and generosity.

I own a small piece of the artisan crafts of Costa Rica. Not the mass-produced, made for tourists knick-knacks available in every shop we visited, but the handcrafted glass frogs and dragonflies offered at a restaurant where we ate lunch on one of our travel days. The woman artist melted and spun the glass from rods of varying colors, creating the tiny creatures as we watched that her son sold and packaged from a table nearby. I own a small piece of her artistic pride and satisfaction in conjuring such tiny beauties with her own creative hands.

I own a small piece of Costa Rica's much touted educational system. We did not visit a local school, as our itinerary said we might, because our trip coincided with summer vacation and school was out. Nevertheless, our tour guide, Aaron Salazar, demonstrated its efficacy every time he spoke to us about the natural world of Costa Rica. Aaron has three college degrees. One is in theology and one is in taxonomy, the study of scientific classification. (The third I never learned.)

Aaron did not share theological information with us, although his reverence for the natural world bespoke a deep, personal spirituality. However, he did explain complex layers of animal and plant relationships and symbioses. In fact, he explained some scientific principles better than any of my science teachers ever had. Aaron imbued the relationship between the three-toed sloth and the moth that lives parasitically on it with soap opera-like details. He illustrated species classification by building us a town with his words and creating neighborhoods, streets, and houses with many rooms to organize and define the occupants. Standing over a large anthill, he told us as much about the anteater as about the ants.

Aaron's lessons for us clearly exceeded anything he had learned from rote. It was an unanticipated bonus. I own a small part of Costa Rica's educational system, the part that trained this young man in science and taught him such good English one could scarcely call it a second language.

I claim ownership of a small part of Costa Rica, the part where Michael and I enjoyed each other's company without giving a thought to the details of travel. The part where I spent an entire day lounging poolside on a beach chair without thinking about how I looked in my bathing suit or feeling guilty about monopolizing a scarce commodity. The part with buffet tables groaning under the weight of delicious foods. The part where the server asked us, "Coffee or chocolat?" after every meal, delighting my non-coffee drinking self with plentiful and scrumptious hot cocoa. The part where we swung gently in hammocks while reading our Kindles. The part where we both received a long, relaxing massage with wonderfully scented oils and Enya playing in the background.

What can one claim to know about a foreign country after a ten-day tour? Enough to treat my experiences like treasure, to cherish the small pieces of Costa Rica I have stored in my heart.

By the way, Caravan Travel organized and supervised our wonderful trip to Costa Rica and I recommend them highly to anyone who wants a trouble-free tour experience.

Anticipation

At Christmas, a year ago, Michael and I had an epiphany: we were free at last. We no longer had children at home on Christmas morning. This is more significant than it might seem to casual observance. When we married, on December 21, 1976, I already had a child, Alexandra, who was two and a half. Our first Christmas together, four days later, focused primarily on her, on the wonderful, magical elements of wrapping paper and bows, stockings and their stuffers, and toys.

And that has been Christmas at the Devereux home for all the years since. Because I love Christmas, the elements of magic remained long after our children could have given them up. And we adopted Victoria when Alix and Nick were essentially grown, giving the magical a new lease on life. For thirty-three years, a child woke us up on Christmas morning, anxious to see what loot awaited under the tree.

Last year, our 34th together, we awoke late in a childless house. No one cared if we got out of bed. This is not to say we awoke to a home devoid of Christmas magic. Santa had come in the night, proved by the stockings brimming with stuffers, and our gifts, those opened with the kids the previous evening and those from each, other lay scattered under the tree.

As we celebrated, low-key and relaxed, the epiphany struck home. We could do anything we wanted at Christmas now that all three children were grown and gone. It was at that very moment that we conceived the idea of going on our dream trip to Costa Rica in 2011 to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary.

Michael and I discussed the idea on and off for a couple of months until a chance conversation with a friend over lunch revealed the fact that she and her husband, as well as two other couples we knew, had gone to Costa Rica the previous year on a wonderful tour they highly recommended.

The rest of that story is pretty straightforward. I told Michael about it, we did our research, and, by March, we had reservations for a 10-day Christmas-time tour to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Deposits were made, plane reservations were made, a Fodders Guide to Costa Rica was purchased, and we started getting excited.

The excitement has built in the last nine months, our trip anticipated like the birth of a child. We had many conversations about what we would see, where we would go, and what clothes we would need. We talked about finally using our passports, applied for several years ago in the hope of overseas travel. We talked about how to conserve luggage space so we could bring back gifts for our family. What didn't we talk about?

Now, the birth is imminent. On December 23, a mere ten days from now, we are boarding a plane for Miami, where we will board a plane for San Jose, Costa Rica. We will be leaving the country for a place that is not contiguous with the United States. We will be embarking on a trip we have talked about since George W. Bush got elected president the first time.

I have most of my Christmas shopping and wrapping done. Presents are in boxes waiting to be sealed and mailed across country. I am finishing up my Christmas cards and putting up a few Christmas decorations to give the place a bit of holiday cheer. Michael and I have a plan for making our traditional cookies. And underneath all this seasonal normalcy, is a buzz of excitement and thrill. Our trip is almost here!

In a perverse way, I would like time to stop right now, for this moment of anticipation to linger forever. In three weeks, our trip will be over. Yes, we will have memories and photographs, but the buzz will fade away. I love this buzz. I especially love the fact that Michael and I are sharing the buzz so intimately, as a kind of connubial bliss.

I know already that one result from this trip will be the planning of another trip or event of comparable magnitude. It is way too much fun to be a one-time deal.

Travelin' Times

2011 has been a year of traveling times for me. In February, I went to Omaha, where my brother Mark and sister-in-law Judy live, to visit while my mother stayed at their home. The cold weather and snow didn't bother me too much, but they did make me happy to live in Houston, where really cold days are rare and snow even rarer. We spent most of our time in quilt-talk and quiltwork, since Mother, Judy, and I are all quilters. And we spent time with extended family, too, including the energetic young sons of my niece Jenny.

In May, Michael and I traveled to Brooklyn to spent a long weekend with our son, Nick. We had the pleasure of meeting his special friend, Kate and revisiting a college friend of mine, Greg. Our days were filled with simple, but satisfying activities. We spent a morning at the Cloisters, a place I've wanted to visit sine the first time it figured in a novel I read. We walked across Central Park and to the MET, then cabbed our way to Times Square for a meet-up that couldn't have been more surprising - my niece Leslie, from Wisconsin and her husband were also visiting New York City that weekend. What are the odds? We also saw the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the Brooklyn Bridge, and spent lots of time walking the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. Discoveries there were primarily culinary and delicious, most notably The Chocolate Room. I had the best dark chocolate sorbet there imaginable.

Two weeks later, we jetted off to Huntington Beach, CA for Luisa and Derek's wedding. The wedding itself was a delightful harbor cruise and dance party that lasted for hours, thank you L&D, but the weekend offered ample activities for quiet old folks like us. Beach walks, exploring Huntington Beach, drinks and meals with other wedding guests, and a spectacular dinner at Rockin Baja Coastal Cantina in Newport Beach. They served the best seafood dinner I have ever eaten in a tin bucket and, when the food finally ran out, I wanted to put my head in the bucket and lick the sides!

In July, we drove to Grapevine, Texas for the Mayborn Literary Non-Fiction Conference, an annual event that feeds the body and the intellect. We listened to good writers and great writers talk about their craft and bought book after book, providing ourselves with lots of wonderful fall reading material. Most recently, I finished The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman. Excellent!!

In October, I flew to Helena, Montana by myself to visit my Mother and the large contingent of extended family I have there. Mother and I had a lovely time, mostly visiting with each other and being entertained by the great-grandchildren who seemed to be everywhere. We took a side trip to the Archie Bray Foundation where extraordinary potters pursue their passion and the gardens are littered with pottery "libraries." We also drove to Bozeman for another family visit. Altogether, I have eight adult relatives in Helena and eleven child relatives, making it the single most populous locale for descendants of my parents!

Two days after I returned from Helena, Michael and I left again, for Portland, this time to see son MG, daughter-in-law Shannon, and grand kids Olivia and Mackenzie. We're staying at the fabulous, funky Kennedy School Hotel. It has a heated, outdoor, salt water soaking pool that we braved this morning despite chilly weather. Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous! Steamy clouds drifted overhead as we sank into the warm embrace of the pool. We wondered if anyone else would try the pool out and discovered that it is popular meet-up spot for hotel guests and neighbor folk, too. If my bathing suit weren't still wet and cold, I'd go back now. Exploring the neighborhood this afternoon, we found the best gyros either of us has ever eaten, and we have eaten gyros in a lot of different cities, at a restaurant call The Blue Olive. Retail explorations took us to Monograph Bookwerks, a fine art books and objects store, where we found a lovely book on Wabi-Sabi, and to Six Days Art Co-op, where we saw many intriguing and beautiful art pieces, although we bought only two items (for gifts, so sshhhhh!).

Tonight the Portland Devereuxs join us for dinner and together we plot the rest of our weekend. Can't wait! And it is also hard to wait for the BIG trip in December, when we go to Costa Rica to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. Like I said, 2011 has been travelin' times for me. I wonder how 2012 can possibly compete!