Beer O'Clock: Florida Stole My Parents

My parents never took me to Florida. As a kid, I think that would have been a great vacation but today, you couldn't pay me to go. And though I've been to that messed-up state a couple of times as an adult, my parents have never gone.

I have such distain for Florida, these days, that I almost passed on this quirky-labelled can when I saw it on the shelf of my friendly neighbourhood LCBO. But my eyes also fell to the large-printed OJIPA and I had to look closer. Was this an orange-juice-infused IPA?

The ingredients list says different: barley, wheat, and oats. But surely, there must be more to the contents? I mean, what about water, to start? Elsewhere on the label, I learned that this strong beer is also brewed with Comet and Eclipse hops, and is a "fresh squeezed delight."

Did they simply not list all of the ingredients?

I also learned that this ale is made by a brewery that I like, so I grabbed two cans and made my way to the cashier. At home, I'd determine if orange juice is included in the can.

Florida Stole My Parents (6.5% ABV)
Refined Fool Brewing Company
Sarnia, ON

Appearance: pours a hazy, deep orange (almost matches the label) with plenty of sediment and an off-white head that comes out thick and remains a solid, foamy cap.

Nose: more of lemon-lime citrus than oranges and slightly dank.

Palate: bitter orange and pineapple. The hops are there but aren't overpowering and blend well with the fruit. The alcohol is noticeable on the medium-length finish but again, is not overpowering.

Overall impression: it's a solid, full-bodied ale with the right balance of bitterness and fruit. There's not much that can be compared to a traditional IPA and I can't even say with any confidence that there's any orange juice added. The name confounds me.

It is a good beer, though. Worth trying, and I'd have one any time it was offered. But there are so many hazy, fruity ales out there that I find there's nothing that would urge me to buy this one over one that I truly love.

If you like hazy, fruity, and hoppy ales, this OJIPA is worth trying.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺

Cheers!

Light Trails from 1986

Back on the Juice

I'm starting to believe that, yeah, caffeine is addictive.

Almost a year ago, I swore off my favourite hot beverage because I felt that the ill after-effects of drinking it weren't worth it. I had developed a racing heart rate and started feeling exhausted after as little as two cups.

So I went for many months in 2023 without touching coffee. DW, who is equally addicted to the stuff, continued to drink it at home and whenever we went for brunch, while I moved onto tea, something I used to drink at home, as a youngster, before I discovered the wonders of the roasted bean (I was about 13 when I had my first cup at a greasy spoon, just down the road from my high school).

Last September, when DW and I were visiting Toronto, we ducked into a coffee shop in Cabbagetown, delightfully called Jet Fuel. The aromas were intoxicating so I caved, ordering an espresso. I hoped that the small cup, which is generally lower in caffeine because of the preparation process, would have little effect on me.

I was right.

Where past cups of coffee would have my heart pounding against my chest in minutes, this espresso did nothing for my heart rate. I had no jittery reaction and didn't feel as though my day was done, that I needed to lie down.

Victory.

I still kept my consumption of coffee to a minimum but when I craved the flavour, I'd make myself a small espresso at home, would occasionally order one to finish a meal when we dined out.

When DW and I visited Costa Rica, a few weeks ago, I knew I'd be tempted to have a full cup of coffee. How can you not in a coffee-growing country? But I paced myself: I didn't have a cup every day and would limit myself to only one small cup at a time. I wrote about my experience here.

Naturally, DW and I wanted to bring some coffee beans home, and we bought as much as our carry-on luggage could fit (though, we gave half of it away as gifts to friends). And as much as I was interested in having the coffee in our house, I knew that my consumption would be at a minimum. Or so I thought.

In the past couple of weeks that we've been home, DW has started each morning by making a small pot of coffee from the production facility/restaurant that we visited in Santa Maria de Dota. And the smell was so tempting that on the second day that she made a pot, I asked her to make enough so that I could have a cup, as well.

I used my mug that I used to keep at the office, but now that I worked from home and wasn't drinking coffee, had gathered dust at the back of our cupboard. I expected that this cup would get my heart racing but even an hour after consuming it, I felt fine.

Not wanting to push my luck, I waited a couple of days before having another cup. And again, I was fine after drinking it.

I now have a cup almost every day. I'm wondering, is it the type of bean or the roast? Has whatever caused this reaction (which only developed a couple of years ago, only to peak last April) run its course?

Time will tell. When we've used up the current bag, we have another bag from another company in that region. I'll see when we start making coffee with it. And after that, we'll see what happens when we return to buying beans that are sold locally.

It was really hard to give up my favourite hot beverage and it's with caution that I return to drinking it. Perhaps the magic number of cups is just one per day, though that wasn't the case when I gave it up. As I said, time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy every sip.

Feeling Old

In just over a week, I'll be starting my final year of being in my 50s. Yet, these days, I feel much older.

It's hard to believe that less than two years ago, DW and I were walking all over Portugal, climbing the stairs and steep streets of Porto and Lisbon, and hiking over a small mountain in the Douro Valley. We'd be tired at the end of the day but felt ready to do it all over again the next day.

In 2021, I was in better shape.

In 2022, I was on my spin bike almost every day and when I wasn't riding it, I'd be on my road bike, covering even more kilometres. So, yeah, I was pretty fit and feeling good.

On our most recent trip, I was winded just climbing a single set of stairs. Hiking through cloud forests and through jungles, I was constantly out of breath, required many breaks, and was out of energy by lunchtime.

Thankfully, we often had days in between our mountain treks, where we'd either be driving to our next destination—in which case, I was sitting behind the driver's seat—or we'd relax on a beach.

But our last excursions got me thinking: I'm out of shape and it's important that I change that situation. As I head toward my 60s, it's even more important that I take care of myself.

I slowed down on spinning and cycling, last summer, because I had appendicitis and needed to address that issue. Because it was a complicated issue, it wasn't the standard removal operation and the month-long recovery.

When DW and I decided to renovate our second floor and replace our carpeting with hardwood floors, my spin bike, which occupies a corner of our bedroom, became surrounded by the furniture of other rooms while we laid down the hardwood in those rooms. And when we did our own room, things got rearranged and my spin bike was never accessible.

With the flooring finished, my spin bike is back in its spot and I thought that there was no excuse not to use it. Except, we discovered, that the bike could leave marks on the wood and we didn't want to ruin our new floor. Plus, DW didn't want me sweating onto the hardwood.

Excuses, I know.

But returning from Costa Rica, I knew that I had to get myself back into shape. Since we've been home, I've felt joints stiffen and I get tired walking up the stairs. Less than a week after being back, I hurt my left hip and experienced acute pain just climbing up a single stair.

I've been doing some stretching and strength-building exercises, and my hip hurts a lot less. I've decided that getting back on the spin bike is the best way to get me back to where I was before my appendix knocked me down. But I still had the issue of how to protect the floor to solve.

Yesterday, DW made me go with her to IKEA. I hate shopping in that monstrous, labyrinthine store. It's crowded, everybody has to navigate the same aisles to get anywhere, and it always takes us longer to get out than we expect.

But DW had a purpose, knew exactly what she wanted, and said we could go straight to the warehouse section to pick things up. She needed me because she feared some items would be too heavy for one person to lift.

She was right.

We got what she needed and we were through the checkout in no time. But when we were approaching the elevator to get our items to the main floor and out to the car, I saw someone carrying one of those thick, plastic sheets that you place under an office chair to protect a floor, and it was if a light came on.

I pointed to the person and to DW, said, "I can use one of those protectors for the spin bike. I'll take our cart to the car and load it up: you run back and grab one."

It's in place and fits well. Enough coverage, not only to protect the floor from the bottom of the bike but lots of coverage to catch anything that drips from my during a workout.

My return to the spin bike starts today, after work. I'm not going to sign up for a Conqueror virtual challenge but I'm going to turn on the television in our room and watch a one-hour show while I work out. I imagine it'll go slow, at first, as I get used to working out again.

But I'm determined to be in shape that, come spring, when the roads are clear, I'll be able to ride like I used to. And I only have one more year in my 50s. I don't want to hit 60 and feel like I'm 90.

Wish me luck.

Best Sunsets

There are lots of things that I will hold in my memories of Costa Rica: the landscapes, the people, the food, and the fact that you can't flush toilet paper.

But one of the things that really comes to mind are the gorgeous sunsets that we witnessed.

There are only a couple of times when DW and I didn't actually witness a sunset: our first two evenings, in La Fortuna, when the clouds covered Arenal Volcano and blocked out most of the sky; and our first night in Monteverde, when we were in the woods, participating, in a night tour. Every other evening in the full two weeks that we travelled the country, we saw a Costa Rican sunset.

And they were spectacular, even when we were witnessing one from the pool area of our San José hotel.

But when I think of Costa Rican sunset, only four places feature prominently in my mind: Monteverde, on our second evening, when the clouds were moving over the mountains but were light enough to let the sun penetrate them; Playa Santa Teresa, on our first evening; Santa Dominicalito, on our first evening, as seen from a restaurant that faced slightly away from the actual sun and looking along the coastline; and Playa Santa Dominicalito, looking straight out to the Pacific Ocean.

I don't often share different photos for Photo Friday but these all capture one theme: the best Costa Rican sunsets.

This post ends my reflections of our vacation. Plans are already underway for our next trip. May we also get the chance to witness brilliant sunsets in that country.

Happy Friday!

Beer O'Clock: The Taste of Costa Rica

Typically, when I find myself in the Caribbean (and by that, I mean the only other two Latin-American countries I've been to: Mexico and Cuba), I don't reach for beer. I'm usually at a resort and tend to opt for easy-to-drink cocktails, like a margarita or a Cuba libre (rum and coke), with the occasional piña colada thrown in.

Cuba is where I discovered the mulata and made it my own when I returned home.

But in Costa Rica, signs for its national beer, Imperial, were everywhere. And in the videos that I watched while researching my trip, people tended to go for this cerveza. Naturally, I'd have to try it.

On our first full day in Costa Rica, we drove from San José to La Fortuna. It was a nearly three-hour trek that had us climbing up mountains and literally into clouds before we descended again and ended up in this popular volcanic town.

Our first goal was to find a place to eat, and we quickly found Pollos La Familia, not far from the centre of the town. I ordered a place of rice and shrimp, and of course, a glass of the flagship lager from Imperial, which was on tap.

It came in a large glass mug and tasted exactly as I expected it to taste: it's an American lager that smells grassy, tastes of grass and corn, and goes down easy. But there's no character to it. Think Miller or Blue or Canadian or any other macro brewery. They all taste the same.

Later, that evening, as DW and I were enjoying a meal at Soda El Turnito, where I had an amazing chifrijo meal, I tried another Imperial brew, Silver. It was lighter in body than their classic lager and had a bit more citrus flavour to it, and I actually enjoyed it. In some ways, it's more like Corona but more flavourful.

Not surprisingly, when I was offered a choice between the classic Imperial and Imperial Silver, my server would acknowledge that the Silver was their preferred choice, too.

But I really strove to find local craft brews from Costa Rica and I actually was quite successful. Some were offered on menus of upscale restaurants or in grocery or liquor stores.

In Uvita, when we were grocery shopping, the store had a huge liquor section that had several microbrewery offerings and I happily filled my shopping basket. I also visited a couple of craft breweries around the country and had some good success.

Here are a couple of brews that stood out from my travels:

• 
  Segua, by Costa Rica's Craft Brewing Company (4.8% ABV; 0 IBUs): this Red Ale had nice malts and notes of caramel, mixed with fruit and floral aromas and a hint of spice. It went down surprisingly well as I sat on the edge of the pool in the pool of our Dominicalito Airbnb, soaking my feet in the cool water, at the end of a long day. I'm not sure I would have been so welcoming of this ale at the height of the heat, but with the sun gone and the distant sound of the Pacific Ocean with the gently buzz of night bugs in the surrounding jungle, it was perfect. 🍺🍺
• 
  Indómito, also by Costa Rica's Craft Brewing (7.6 % ABV; 70 IBUs): this was a heavy-hitting brew and also the best IPA that I had in Costa Rica (to be fair, I only tried four). It was unfiltered but not hazy, with a copper-amber colour that is traditional in a British-styled IPA. The nose presented citrussy hops and the palate was cleansing yet full-bodied, with a lingering finish. I also enjoyed this ale in the evening from our Airbnb, actually while writing a blog post as others went to bed. I liked it so much that I had two, and slept like a baby. I wish I could have brought some home. 🍺🍺🍺
• Tropical IPA, by Papagayo Brewing Company (6.2% ABV; 0 IBUs): it was hard to believe that his fruity, hoppy IPA registers at 0 IBUs, but it did give the impression of more sweet fruit than any bitterness. I ordered it from the patio of a soda on Playa Santa Teresa, on the Nicoya Peninsula, after sunset. Paired with shredded beef tacos, it was a great combination. Even though the IPA is fruit-forward, it did retain solid characteristics of a classic IPA. Unfortunately, because I drank straight from a brown bottle, I couldn't see the colour: I had to go to the Brewery's Web site to see that it was slightly hazy and more golden than a traditional IPA. It was my first IPA in Costa Rica and was initially my favourite beer thus far in our journey, and was only beaten by Indómito later on. I kept my eyes open for more but sadly never saw it again. 🍺🍺🍺
• 
  Murciélago, by Monteverde Brewing Company (5% ABV; 30 IBUs): we visited the brew-pub for lunch, after trekking through the Monteverde Cloud Forest and standing on the continental divide. Surprisingly, we were served by a man from New Jersey who has now made Costa Rica his home. I had started with a session IPA, which was light and refreshing and went well with my burger, but wanted finish my meal with this coffee stout. It was more of a dark-roast ice coffee than a stout: eye-opening on both the nose and the palate. There was also a creaminess to it, no doubt from the nitro infusion. Though heavy on coffee, the body was surprisingly light. It was delicious. 🍺🍺🍺
• 
  Botánica, by Calle Cimarrona (5.5% ABV; 20 IBUs): the last beer that I had in Costa Rica (in fact, the last beer that I've had, period!) was a perfect choice for the perfect end to a perfect vacation. Served at Café Rojo, which I've now mentioned in a couple of posts, this lovely saison had a classic banana nose, mineral palate, with an added flavour of tamarind spice. It was refreshing and matched my pork ban mi perfectly. 🍺🍺🍺

There are many more craft beers that I tried over our two-week vacation but these were the best. If you ever get to Costa Rica, I recommend that you seek these out.

Cheers!

Feeling Anti-Social Media

For those of you who know me not only for my blog but also for my presence on social media, you may have noticed that I've been a bit absent of late.

Or maybe you haven't noticed at all.

I've been reducing the amount of time that I spend on Mastodon and on Threads, and I've even given a rest to posting images on Instagram (mostly, because I feel that I've shared enough photos of Costa Rica and I haven't used my cameras since my return). I feel sort of burned out from the stream of information that comes not only from people I follow but mostly from the stream of people I don't follow, who simply show up in my timelines.

In Mastodon, I've placed filters on subjects that I don't want to hear about: Elon Musk; Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin, to name a few people that occupy too much space in my feeds. I also feel that I want to filter out Taylor Swift.

Don't get me wrong: I don't equate Swift with the vermin that the other three people are. Taylor Swift is a talented and successful icon who also seems to be a genuinely nice human being. It's just that her music doesn't speak to me (not that I expect her songs to relate to a man in his late 50s) and I'm generally not a fan of the genre in which she writes.

I certainly have nothing against her.

While I do respect her for the talent that she exudes, I'm just tired of hearing about her several times a day, every day. I think I'd also grow tired of hearing about any of my favourite artists with the same frequency.

I'm also tired of people who report about those who are anti-Swift. Yes, it's annoying how people have to hate out loud. It's also annoying to hear about people complain about the haters. It's as tiresome as those who complain about pineapple on pizza (just don't eat it and shut up, already!).

So far, I haven't found a way to filter posts on Threads or to exclude people that I don't follow from my timeline, so I feel a bit of a barrage of information that I've neither asked for nor wanted. I try to stay positive when I post anything to Mastodon or Threads, but sometimes it's simply exhausting.

I like interacting with the people that I follow on social media and sometimes respond to people that I don't follow but who are active in a conversation with the folks that I do follow. The rest, though, is noise.

And so I've toned down my presence on these social-media sites. I've stopped my morning greetings and my end-of-day farewells. I've stopped sharing random photos. I've stopped sharing my Wordle results (I've given up playing Connections because I wasn't finding it challenging enough).

Since last Friday, I've only posted announcements of new blog posts (that actually started on Monday because I didn't have a post for Friday). I've only spent a few minutes on Mastodon and Threads since Friday, and only occasionally like a post from those who I follow.

I've needed a break. At the moment, I've feeling anti-social media.

Have you ever felt this way? Have you taken a break from these or other social-media sites? For how long did you stay away, or have you given them up altogether?

I don't know how long I'll stay away. So far, I honestly don't think anyone has noticed, so if and when I do return, I won't start back by writing, "Sorry I've been absent."

There's nothing more humiliating than saying that and having no one respond.

Good Eats

DW and I had budgeted so that we'd be eating out most of the time that we were in Costa Rica. Some of our lodgings included breakfast, while others did not. But we were able to check out typical restaurants and small dining spots, called sodas, online before we left, and so we had an idea about how much each meal would cost.

Our first lodging, just a short distance from the San José airport, included a light breakfast of warm croissants, fresh fruit, and a carafe of coffee. It was the perfect start to our first full day in the country and set us up for our trek to La Fortuna.

Wherever possible, DW and I chose sodas for our meals, which were typically the least expensive of restaurants, charging between 4,000 and 5,000 colones ($10.50 to $14 CAD) per dish. We also preferred typical Costa Rican dishes, which gave us an authentic taste of the country and also tended to be less expensive than going with more North American-styled dishes, like burgers and pizza (though, I did have a few burgers over our two-week stay).

I'm not going to share every meal that I had during our vacation, though I did photograph almost every meal so that I could share it in a Google review. But what I would like to do is share the best meals that I had on our trip so that if you ever plan to visit this beautiful country, you'll know what to expect.

Typically, I started off my day with the traditional breakfast of eggs, rice and beans, fried plantains, and fresh fruit. But one morning, in Dominicalito, when we stopped at a café at the bottom of the hill from our Airbnb, I had one of the best breakfasts I have ever had, period. At Kunjani Café, I had a skillet meal that consisted of homemade chorizo in a tomato sauce, onions, and beans, with a fried egg on top. The flavours were incredible and the meal was filling.

I washed it down with a smoothie made from mangoes, collagen powder, avocado, and peanut butter, that made me not even think about food until the late afternoon.

The best typical breakfast, gallo pinto con huevos, or rice and beans with eggs, was served at a restaurant just to the west of La Fortuna, at a place called Red Frog Coffee Roasters, in the community of Zeta Trece. It was so good that we returned to Red Frog for dinner, later that day.

The rest of my breakfasts were fine but no other stands out like these two. Most mornings at our Airbnb in Dominicalito, I would make a fruit smoothie for all of us. I'd use pineapple, papaya, mango, avocado, ginger, carrot, and orange juice to make a thick, tasty treat. We'd have it with eggs, toast, and coffee.

When I think of places where we had lunch, three places stand out. When DW and I first arrived in Santa Elena, in Monteverde, we were a bit early for checking in at our hotel, so we sought out a highly rated place, Stella's Monteverde. It was a small café/bakery with a lovely garden patio in the back, and I had a wonderful chicken and bacon sandwich on fresh bread. Served with fried wedge potatoes and an herbed cream dip, it wasn't exactly traditional Costa Rican fare but it was exactly what I needed.

The next best lunch came in Dominical, after we had spent the morning hiking to Nauyaca Falls. We were hot and we were hungry. And, as luck turned out, it was Taco Tuesday at Del Mar Taco Shop. This meant that all tacos were half-priced, as were bottles of Imperial beer, the national brand.

I ordered shrimp tacos and learned that I'd have to wait, as they had just sent someone to the fish market to buy the fresh catch. I sipped an Imperial Silver, a lighter ale, while I waited. To make up for the delay, the owner stuffed my tacos to bursting with shrimp, and the taco was already generously filled with fresh guacamole  and veggies.

And with their house hot sauce, it was a perfect lunch.

Another great non-traditional lunch but one that hit the spot was from a place that we discovered in San José, on our last full day in Costa Rica. I mentioned this spot, just outside the crowded central shopping district, in a previous post but it bears mentioning again.

Café Rojo serves a fusion of Asian and Costa Rican food that was worth the extra walk to get to. And even though DW was a bit nervous about the neighbourhood to start with, the food gave her the energy to venture deeper into it afterward, as we tried to find a good spot from which we could order an Uber ride.

That ban mi and pork meatball sandwich is still on my mind.

Of notable mention is the Café Kahawa, at the bottom of a deep valley near the Quetzal National Park. We never thought our RAV4 would be able to climb back out so I went for a great meal, if it was going to be my last.

Also not a traditional meal, it was at least made with an ingredient that the area is famous for: trout. I had a spaghetti bolognese dish that was loaded with fresh trout, instead of ground beef. Served with two mini paninis that were stuffed with melted cheese, this was a tasty meal, for sure.

There are very few dinners that stand out as exceptional. We had lots of rice dishes and I ate a bucketload of shrimp over the two weeks. But there are a few dishes that will stick with me for a long time.

The first was the very first dinner that I ate in Costa Rica, on our second night, in La Fortuna. DW and I had spent the late afternoon soaking in the hot springs of Tabacón, relaxing after a harrowing day of driving through clouds at the tops of mountains.

Driving back toward La Fortuna and our hotel, we stopped in Zeta Trece and found Soda El Turnito. Lots of other sodas along the main strip seemed to be closing but this one was hopping.

Always a good sign.

When we got our table, I ordered a dish that I hadn't heard of before but whose description sounded perfect. It was a chifrijo.

The photo isn't the sharpest but I was tired and hungry.

Basically, this dish is filled with cubed pork, rice, fresh veggies and avocado, and is surrounded by tortilla chips. I squeezed fresh lime over the whole thing and tucked in.

Fresh flavours exploded in my mouth. I shared a bite with DW, who told me that it was one of the best dishes she's ever had, too. I saw chifrijos on menus at other restaurants throughout our travels but I didn't want to jinx this perfect experience. But if I ever see them on a menu in Ottawa, I'll be sure to give them a try.

The absolute best dinner I had on the entire trip came from the family-run hotel, Belcruz, in Monteverde.

The son of the family had training at the Cordon Bleu cooking school and put his knowledge on display. We had to order our meals by 2:00 on the day of the dinner. I ordered the Tamarind Pork, which was served with a sweet potato purée and a grain and rice muesli.

The pork melted in my mouth. I would swear that we were in an upscale restaurant. I sent my compliments to the chef and the next morning I told the owner of the hotel just how wonderfully talented his son is.

The man beamed with pride.

That meal is one of the reasons why Monteverde is one of my personal highlights of our trip.

DW and I can't really say that we're foodies. We like a lot of different types of food but dislike many types as well. I can be an absolutely fussy eater but Costa Rica always offered something that would send me on a happy dance.

I can't really comment on the food that DW ate because I only took a few photos of her dishes and she would have to rate her own experiences. But in addition to the beauty of the country, the friendliness of its people, and the wonderful food, there are many reasons for us to want to return.

Happy Tuesday (hey, it's Taco Tuesday at Del Mar!).

We're Not Birders

DW has said that birders would laugh at us while non-birders would simply laugh at us.

Whenever we've gone for hikes, one or both of us would bring a camera. When we've seen birds, at Mud Lake or in the Gatineau Hills, we'd naturally capture them, or attempt to capture them, through our lenses.

When we got into kayaking, we'd often see or hear birds that we don't normally see on trails. DW, with her Canon camera and zoon lens, would listen for these birds and try to photograph them, if possible. She's captured some amazing shots.

Last year, we both downloaded a birding app, Merlin, so that we could identify the sounds we heard while hiking or kayaking. Merlin has been pretty accurate and has helped us identify so many birds.

But still, we don't consider ourselves to be birders.

When we left for Costa Rica, last month, we knew that this mountainous country was full of diverse wildlife, including myriad birds. We were excited to think that we'd see and hear birds that we've never even heard of, in addition to toucans and parrots. So, when we arrived in La Fortuna, we downloaded the Costa Rican bird pack onto Merlin and put it to work.

It didn't disappoint.

Buff-throated Saltator

There were so many bird species in La Fortuna that at times it felt hard to keep up. Though we hadn't intended to spend much time watching and listening to birds, we couldn't help ourselves.

In Monteverde, it was the same, as we wandered the cloud forest. We even ran into some young birders, with their binoculars, looking into a dense patch of woodland. Faster than Merlin, they'd identify the sounds and point the birds out to us.

Of course, the one bird that we thought would be great to see but didn't think we'd actually see it was the Resplendent Quetzal, which is a sacred bird and is rare to spot. And we were lucky enough to see several, in both Monteverde and in the Quetzal National Park.

Sitting on the patio, outside our Airbnb house, in Dominicalito, we'd hear so many different birds. I would activate Merlin, set my phone on the table, and in a few seconds the app would pick up half a dozen different species. It was hard not to be fascinated by the songs surrounding us.

Though we're not birders, we were certainly excited.

Upon our return, I started listing all of the birds that DW and I either heard or photographed, and I was shocked to discover that we saw and heard at least 70 different birds. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

• Acorn Woodpecker
• American Redstart
• Bananaquit
• Black Guan
• Black-hooded Antshrike
• Black Phoebe
• Blue-and-white Swallow
• Blue-black Grassquit
• Blue-black Grosbeak
• Blue-gray Tanager
• Boat-billed Flycatcher
• Bright-rumped Attila
• Brown Jay
• Buff-throated Saltator
• Chestnut-backed Antbird
• Chestnut-sided Warbler

• 

  Clay-coloured Thrush

  Clay-coloured Thrush
• Collared Forest Falcon
• Collared Redstart
• Collared Trogon
• Common Pauroque
• Common-tody Flycatcher
• Crested Guan
• Crimson-fronted Parakeet
• Dot-winged Antwren
• Gray-breasted Wood Wren
• Great Crested Flycatcher
• Great Curassow
• Great Kiskadee
• Great Tinamou
• Green-crowned Brilliant (hummingbird)
• Hairy Woodpecker^*
• House Wren
• Indigo Bunting
• Keel-billed Toucan
• Laughing Falcon
• Lesser Greenlet
• Lesser Violetear (hummingbird)
• Melodious Blackbird
• Montezuma Oropendola
• Mountain Elaenia

• 

  Northern Emerald Toucanet

  Northern Emerald Toucanet
• Orange-billed Nightingale Thrush
• Orange-billed Sparrow
• Piratic Flycatcher
• Red-billed Pigeon
• Red-crowned Woodpecker
• Red-lored Parrot
• Resplendent Quetzal
• Ruddy Gound Dove
• Ruddy Pigeon
• Rufous-browed Peppershrike
• Rufous-collared Sparrow
• Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
• Scaly-breasted Hummingbird
• Scarlet-rumped Tanager
• Social Flycatcher
• Squirrel Cuckoo
• Summer Tanager
• Three-striped Warbler
• Townsend's Warbler
• Tropical Kingbird
• Violet Sabrewing (hummingbird)
• Western Flycatcher
• Western Tanager
• White-fronted Parrot
• Yellow Warbler
• Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
• Yellow-headed Caracara
• Yellow-throated Toucan

Keel-billed Toucan

We may not be birders but we're bird admirers. Which reminds me: I've got to replenish the seeds in our backyard bird feeder.

Happy Monday!

^* We get these birds in the Ottawa area. Maybe it was on vacation, too.

Completing the Circuit

I'm not a fan of San Jose.

When DW and I first arrived in Costa Rica, we landed in darkness. The only thing I could discern from the port side of our craft, from the window seat, was that we were landing on high ground, with some small valleys and more hills surrounding the Juan Santamaría International Airport.

We were met outside the arrivals area by the owner of our hotel, who drove us through darkened streets. Once in our room, looking off the balcony, we could see only darkness, as there was only jungle before us. It was only after looking at Google Maps, to find our location, that I knew which direction we had headed from the airport.

Basically, it was north, just northwest of the town of Alajuela, which itself is to the northwest of the greater San Jose area.

Leaving Alajuela, we got onto a highway and headed north, and then west, to La Fortuna. On the route, we saw no urban buildup and, as soon as we reached the mountains, we were immersed in jungle.

Our first taste of a sizable city was on our last full day, having left the Quetzal National Park, winding our way down the mountains to the city of Cartago, Costa Rica's first capital city. Almost immediately, we were caught in traffic and construction. Even on a Saturday morning, we moved at a snail's pace.

Every once and a while, Highway 2 would pick up and we'd move at a decent speed. But as soon as we entered San Jose, our GPS mapping system took us off the highway and through congested roads. And we were back to a crawl.

Looking around the city, while stopped in traffic, I was initially reminded of some South Korean cities that I had driven through in the late 90s. Buildings of all sorts, surrounded by mountains, with really crappy drivers who were more interested in getting ahead of you than in following the rules of the road.

I was never happier than I was at pulling in to our hotel and parking the RAV4. We had arrived at noon and couldn't check in until 2:00, but the hotel let us park the car and keep our luggage in safe keeping. Though the vehicle had served us well in the country, I was happy to know that I'd never drive it again.

To kill time before check-in, DW and I hailed an Uber cab and went into the heart of San Jose. It was great to let a native driver worry about traffic but the car had no air conditioning and we had to keep the windows down, which meant that we had to endure smoke and exhaust from other vehicles. Throughout our time in the country, we had seen so many vehicles that seemed desperate for oil changes.

In San Jose, a haze of black smoke seemed to hang in the air (again, reminding me of South Korea in the late 1990s).

We were dropped off outside the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum. This is a highly recommended stop in the heart of San Jose. It was interesting to see life in Central America before the conquistadors: I was surprised to see so many gold and clay artifacts that were in pristine condition. One can only wonder what this fascinating civilization could have grown to be if not for the Spanish and Portuguese invaders.

The museum took about an hour to go through, and by the time we were done, we realized how hungry we were. We hadn't eaten since we had sat with our friends, for breakfast, at our lodge, nearly six hours earlier.

We walked westward along Avenida Central, looking for the San Jose Central Market, a tight, crowded, labyrinth of a market that offered just about everything you can think of. Again, I was reminded of the Namdaemun Market of Seoul or the Nambu Market of Jeonju, South Korea.

DW was looking for a plush toy of a quetzal bird: something that she had seen in the gift shop of the Cafetería Don Cayito, the day before, and had wanted to buy as a souvenir but decided to hold out. Walking almost every corridor in the market and visiting several gift shops, we saw lots of toy parrots, toucans, monkeys, and sloths, but no quetzals.

The plushy, it seems, is elusive as the real bird (she finally found one in the Duty-Free section of the airport, the next morning).

We found the market just a bit too claustrophobic for lunch so we made a Google search for the best non-chain restaurant in the area, and found Café Rojo as the highest-rated. And it was only a seven-minute walk from the market.

As we left the core of Avenida Central, DW became nervous. There were fewer people on the streets and the buildings became less commercial. When we were walking along Avenida Central, which is a pedestrian street, closed to vehicles, I was hounded by someone who was begging for money. When I told him that I didn't have any money (which was true: DW and I tapped with our phones at almost every place we had visited on our vacation), he became more animated more desperate, and kept trying to touch me (he was also speaking in English).

DW was worried that he would try to grab my camera, which was hanging off my shoulder, and when she spied a shop with a security guard at the entrance, she grabbed me and led me inside. The security guard, seeing what was happening, shooed the man away. When the coast was clear, the security guy nodded to us and we continued on our way, but still had others begging for change or trying to sell us trinkets (but not as aggressively as the other guy).

DW was about to suggest heading back toward the busier streets when we spotted Café Rojo. It was tucked away but had a nice, gardened patio, which hid patrons from the traffic. The staff was friendly and greeted us immediately, in perfect English, and had us sit on a picnic table.

The food was exactly what I needed. They even had local craft beer and I had an excellent saison with my pork meatball báhn mí sandwich. DW had a chicken salad and a tasty red gin cocktail. For a short time, it made us forget about the bustle of the downtown core.

We didn't have a lot of time left to get back to the hotel, where our car-rental agent was to meet us to retrieve the RAV4. We wanted to leave a buffer because we knew that the traffic was bad and that estimates of travel time were incorrect, based on how long our GPS told us it would take to drive to our hotel, and how long Uber said our ride into town would take.

We arrived at our hotel around 4 and immediately checked in. DW carried our luggage to our room while I went to the RAV4 and started emptying it of our non-valuables and garbage. When I thought I had retrieved everything, I had DW come down to the vehicle for one last look, to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

On this trip to the Toyota, we saw a man in a blue t-shirt near the car, watching us approach. Though his shirt had a logo from some other company, he was holding papers from our rental agency, with my name on them. He didn't speak English but we were able to communicate with our limited Spanish and Google Translate.

He already noticed the small scrape on the front-passenger side of the vehicle. When DW and I took the ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya, one of the attendants in the car port kept guiding me closer and closer to the side wall. I trusted that he was watching closely, even though I thought I was getting too close to the wall, and when I felt the RAV4 make contact with the wall, I knew that I should have trusted my own judgement.

I explained this to the rental agent, and he seemed sympathetic. He thought that it could be buffed out, but I doubted the plastic could handle any buffing. He didn't seem to care.

We signed off on the vehicle and he told me that his manager would assess the damage and contact me. We shook hands and he drove away.

"Did you check the compartment between the front seats?" DW asked as we headed to our room.

"The only thing I placed in it was the USB cable to connect my phone to Android Auto," I said, "and I removed that cable with my phone when I first parked the car."

"I kept snacks in it," she said, "and I had a cable for charging my phone."

"I asked you to double-check for me," I replied. "That's why we returned to the vehicle. I thought you would have checked while you were making a video."

DW and I always take a detailed video of a rental vehicle, both when we take possession and when we return the vehicle. It's our proof of the condition before and after. I saw that she was taking video but because I was trying to communicate with the agent, I never noticed if she had looked inside the Toyota.

"I was so focused on recording that I didn't look inside anything. Plus, I was listening to you."

The snacks were no great loss and the cable was purchased in La Fortuna when DW discovered she had left hers at home.

We headed to the pool area of the hotel in time for sunset. As the light waned, we felt a coolness settle in. I snapped the very last photo of our trip before we headed to our room.

Our flight to Toronto was for 8:50 the next morning, which meant that we had to be at the airport by around 6:30 or so. Because neither of us wanted to go to bed too early—we were always waking up between 4 and 5—we found a TV station that was playing old episodes of the original CSI, back-to-back, and we forced ourselves to stay awake until about 10:30.

We still woke up before 5.

With our shuttle to the airport, our circuit of Costa Rica was complete. We had made a good-sized ring route of the country and we decided that there were areas that we hadn't yet seen but would like to see, as well as wanting to return to some of our favourite spots.

Screen capture of Google Maps.

We'll have to return some day but who knows when? We're already in the process of planning our next vacation.

Where to? I'll let you know when we've made concrete plans but we're aiming for September.

And I've already started work on upcoming YouTube videos from this trip. Stay tuned.

Hummingbirds in a Cloud Forest

Coffeetime

As some of you may know, I love coffee but it does not love me.

A year ago, I had to give up my favourite hot beverage because it does terrible things to me; number one, being that it raises my heart rate to workout levels, even when I'm sitting down and relaxing. It sometimes gives me headaches and generally leaves me feeling jittery and without energy.

Not good.

When DW and I planned our trip to Costa Rica, we had coffee on our agenda. After all, it's one of the best producers of coffee.

I knew that I wouldn't be able to drink coffee the way I had, in the past, but I was hoping that I'd get to enjoy a cup or two during our travels. I'd limit myself to a small cup in one sitting, making sure to add milk and sugar, which seemed to lessen the effects of my caffeine reaction.

DW, on the other hand, was able to enjoy coffee every day.

I had my very first cup in Monteverde, at our hotel, I started each morning with a single, small cup of coffee. The coffee was excellent but that was no surprise, as this hotel was family owned and operated, and the son was a graduate of the Cordon Bleu cooking school, and all of the ingredients in their kitchen were of top quality. Their morning granola and their marmalade jam were homemade, and it stood to reason that they'd only have premium coffee.

As tempted as I was to have a second cup, I stuck to one.

Because we were on the move immediately after breakfast, I didn't notice an increase in my heart rate other than from the exertion I was already placing on my body. We had hiked through a cloud forest on the first morning and drove windy, narrow, and often steep dirt roads on our second morning, which raised my adrenaline anyway.

I had coffee with breakfast in Montezuma, but again we went straight from the café to a hike up Montezuma Falls, so my elevated heart rate was attributed to physical exertion.

That was my last cup of coffee for about a week, when I had breakfast at our lodge after having gone quetzal watching at sunrise. The coffee at the lodge wasn't great, and the cups were small, so I had two of them, even though I knew that we had more coffee on the day's agenda.

Around lunchtime, we paid a visit to the town of Santa María de Dota, in the mountainous region outside of the Quetzal National Park, about a 20-minute drive west of our lodge. This town is known for its coffee production, and as part of our last day in this region, I was going to have more coffee, dammit!

We drove straight to a co-op, Cafetería Coopedota, where they had beans from several coffee growers, all under one roof. Though they also offered food, DW, our friends, Kat and Jim, and I just wanted some coffee.

We were hoping that they'd have a sampler of different roasts from various roasters, much like you can order a flight of different beer at a brewery or like DW and I sampled various wines, in Gigondas, France, but that wasn't the case at Coopedota. They simply listed myriad ways in which you could order a cup of coffee.

I ordered a flavoured iced latte. I was given the choice of adding vanilla, caramel, or peppermint syrup, and I chose caramel. The drink came in a handled mason jar, with the three layers of beverage, which I stirred into a delicious, homogenous beverage.

Lovely.

We bought a couple of bags of beans, to give as gifts, and moved on.

We searched for a proper restaurant and found one, up in the hills to the east end of the town, that had excellent reviews on Google, and as an added bonus, it was also a coffee production facility.

Cafetería Don Cayito is right on a slope that overlooks Santa María de Dota and the mountains that surround it. We pulled up in front of a large shed that was taking what appeared to be washed beans and depositing them in a pile in this shaded area. The moment we stepped out of our vehicle, we smelled what almost seemed like some fermentation process was going on. There was a sourness to the air. A brownish liquid was also running from the mound and moving down a drain that ran under our vehicle.

A large open area also had beans of various shades of colour spread in rectangular piles on a concrete floor. A person was running a rake-like tool over the piles, turning the beans in a process that looked like he was drying them.

We went directly into the café part of the facility and found the inside hopping with business. People were sitting at tables, eating food and drinking various beverages. We noticed that doors led out onto a balcony and that's where we headed.

The view of Santa María, below, was amazing.

The large, whitish buildings to the right of the town are part of the co-op.

We ordered lunch and I was tempted to order more coffee, but I was starting to feel jittery from the large latte that I had at the co-op. I stuck to water. Even when we stayed for dessert, and DW had coffee with her passionfruit cheesecake, I stuck to water with my lemon pie.

We purchased more coffee, knowing something of their process, and also because the smell of coffee permeated the café and was intoxicating.

Leaving Don Cayito's, we decided to go in search of a waterfall that was supposedly just to the south of the town. We plugged the destination into the car and off we went.

The map had us climbing a steep hill in what seemed to be an affluent part of the town. The houses were large an pristine, and the road was perfectly paved.

But it was also extremely steep and winding. I had the RAV4 in first gear and would have my foot to the floor for a large part of it. I was firmly pushed back in my seat and could feel the adrenaline rush as we turned more and more tight hairpin curves, each one leading onto steeper sections of road. As we turned one curve, with my foot on the floor, the Toyota slowed right down and I could see the revs drop.

I was terrified that we were going to stall. We could have walked at a faster pace than the vehicle was moving. But it kept moving.

My ears popped. We were more than 2,000 metres up. There was nothing more that I could do with the vehicle except keep my foot to the floor and steer.

We reached the point where the GPS said the entrance to the falls were but we saw no signs of a trail or place to stop. We were still on a steep incline and I said that there was no way that I was going to stop the RAV4 here. We continued a few more minutes until we reached the top of the mountain, the road flattened out, and I could turn around.

My adrenaline, boosted by caffeine, was making my heart race. It was pumping at 124 bpm, according to my watch. My watch also measures my stress level, and it was maxed out.

"Screw the waterfalls," I said, "we're going back to the lodge."

Everyone agreed.

I kept the vehicle in first gear and rode the brakes all the way down to the heart of town. Heading back to our lodge, I discovered that we had to climb more hills to escape the valley where Santa María lies, but they weren't as challenging as the climb to the falls.

I love coffee but it doesn't love me. Back at our lodge, my heart was pounding in my chest and I couldn't steady my hands. I also had a headache. I needed to nap for a bit and when I woke up, I felt exhausted.

I was still full from the large lunch that I ate but still joined the others at the dinner table. We ordered a bottle of wine and that's all I had. With the bottle empty, I went straight to bed and had the lights out by 8:30.

Am I going to drink any of the coffee that we brought home from Costa Rica? Absolutely, but I'm only having one cup per week, and it'll be a half cup, at that. And I'm going to make sure that I'm active after having it.

The day after our quetzal and coffee adventures, DW and I said goodbye to Kat and Jim, who were heading back to the beaches, and we made our way to San Jose in what would be our final full day in Costa Rica.

I'll share my thoughts on Costa Rica's capital, later this week. Stay tuned.

Searching for Quetzals

We left the Dominicalito region, on the Pacific, and headed back inland, up in the mountains, driving over one of the highest points in the country, making a rest stop where a sign told us that we were 3,100 metres above sea level. We stopped for lunch in a village, San Gerardo de Dota, at the bottom of a valley, where the road to get to it was so narrow, so winding, and so steep that I didn't think our RAV4 would be able to get back out, but where we had one of the most enchanting lunches of our vacation.

Our ultimate destination was Copey de Dota, inside the Quetzal National Park. We booked cabins at a lodge that was popular for birders, not that we're birders. But we like to photograph birds and Costa Rica is a bird-watching paradise.

And if you want to try to capture a glimpse of Costa Rica's rare, sacred bird of the Aztecs and Mayans, going to a national park named after them seemed like the place to go.

After we settled into our cabins—our friends Katheleen and Jim had a cabin: we had our own—we booked a guided hike with a bird expert, who would take us to a spot where the colourful quetzals had been sighted. It wasn't cheap: at $40US per person, it was a lot to pay for having no guarantee of seeing anything.

We would set out the next day before dawn.

We awoke just before 4:30, but considering we were in bed by 9 on the previous night, it was no issue. We find that staying up past 10 is a rarity here. Once the sun is gone, you really don't want to be on the road, especially on these narrow, winding roads, and there wasn't much else to do.

We were on the road by 5, almost an hour before sunrise. We had a 5:30 rendezvous with a guide for a birding adventure.

The guide knew of a tree where a couple of the birds had been spotted on previous mornings. And he told us that around sunrise, the birds would be at their most active.

This was the place and time to try our luck.

It's surprisingly cold in this part of the country, at this altitude. At 6:00, standing at about 2,500 metres in the mountains, we were in layers, wearing the clothes that we had worn when we left wintery Ottawa. But we hadn't packed gloves, and never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I'd need them in Costa Rica. Holding onto my camera, keeping my eyes on the trees, I wished I had a pair on me.

It was about 11⁰C.

We stood in that spot for more than a half an hour, waiting. We could hear so many different species of birds coming to life but none matched the call of the quetzal. But then, just as we considered moving to a secondary sighting spot, both male and female resplendent quetzals came out of the dense woods and landed on a tree about 30 metres away.

They stayed in the area, fluttering from tree to tree, for about an hour. At one point, a second male came to the area but the first male chased him off. Apparently, these birds are territorial, especially now, during mating season.

It was a wonderful experience watching these beautiful birds fly over our heads in almost a dance as the first male made it clear that the second male was not welcome.

I'm not very good at capturing birds, especially ones that move a lot, but I got a couple of okay shots. I really need a better telephoto lens.

At one point, our guide had his spotting scope locked onto the male, and I was able to hold my smartphone to the viewfinder to snag a couple of shots. Even though the bird was partially hidden by a tree branch, the photo made it look like he was trying to hide from the camera (see the fourth shot).

We were back at our lodge shortly after 8, still in time to be served the breakfast that was included with our accommodations. After a traditional breakfast of eggs, fresh fruit, and rice with beans, we went back to our cabins to rest and then shower before tackling our afternoon adventure.

I'll share that, tomorrow.

Getting the Shot

They thought I was crazy.

Already, at 6:30, the temperature was in the mid 20s and it was only going to get hotter as the morning continued. By noon, it would be in the 30s.

But I was determined. In my backpack, I had a tripod, a 360-degree camera on a three-metre selfie stick, a D-SLR with a 24-70mm lens, spare batteries, an ND filter, and a water bottle.

It seemed like a lot to carry, DW and our friends said, but I assured them that I've carried much more. I'd be fine.

I'm not in as good a shape as I was when DW and I trekked around Portugal, in 2022.  I can't remember the last time I was on my spin bike and I'm less than two months post appendectomy. I'm carrying more weight on me, too.

But I had a specific photo in mind and I was determined to get it. 

The trailhead for the Nauyaca Waterfalls was about a 20-minute drive from our Airbnb, in the hills above Dominical. From there, it was a 3.3-kilometre hike, mostly uphill.

And it was getting hotter.

I moved the slowest of our foursome. Though I rarely stopped, only doing so to retrieve my water bottle for a swig or taking some video footage, but I kept moving.

When we reached the falls, they were more beautiful than the photos that we saw online, in preparation for this visit. As DW and our friends prepared themselves for a dip in the cool pool below the two-tiered falls, I moved to a place where I could set up my gear.

I placed my camera on my tripod and screwed the ND filter on. I snapped a few shots.

Determined to capture both levels of the falls, together, I had to place everything back in my pack and strap it tightly to my back. I removed my hiking boots and waded in the water, waist-deep, to get to the far side.

The floor of the pool was slippery and I had to cling onto some rocks to ensure that I didn't fall. If my backpack sunk into the water, my gear would be damaged. 

Slowly and steadily, I got across. The view was worth it. 

And the return trip to the car was mostly downhill.

Sometimes, carrying your gear can take a lot of effort. But when it pays off, it's worth it. 

Happy Friday!