Costa Rica Itinerary: In Search of the Utopian Scene (Again)

Well everyone, ie. me, back to my blog "Paul's Project." So much for a project, I cannot call it a project when I haven't written in about six months. Damn it's hard for me to write right now because a piece of skin I sliced on my pointer finger just fell off and the fs, rs, ts and gs are excruciating. Crimony!

I thought I should re-engage the blog in case I get a chance in Costa Rica to write something to folk back home like: "Julia was eaten by a 50 lb tarantula" or "Julia ran off with a howler monkey named Biff." All plausible story lines in this nether region we're going to visit. It's funny how we always start to plan a regular, run of the mill trip, then end off at some far flung shit hole in the middle of a bug infested jungle. What gives?

Ever since I was a curious teenager, I've always been in search of what friends of mine called the "Utopian Scene." I mean, Utopia is really a great place, right? It's pretty much perfect and nothing can really ever be perfect, but it can be close to perfect. It's like Calculus, when you always do that stupid equation: if a parabola approaches infinity then you can figure out the volume of some stupid three dimensional bowl on a piece of graph paper, then you proceed to get drunk, miss three labs, drop the course, take more History and work for WestJet. But that's off topic, the Utopian scene is nearing infinity, getting as close to Utopia as humanly possible: that's my mantra. Aitutaki, Cook Islands, pretty damn close--save the giant cockroaches, devilish mosquitoes and sea cucumbers. I'm sorry, sea cucumbers are just gross.

So where the Hell are we going?

After extensive deliberation, researching the whole country, emailing places, talking to people, obsessing, drinking, then obsessing more we've arrived at this itinerary:

March 8: Fly to Montreal, La belle Provence.

March 9: Fly to Fort Lauderdale, in Florida, the Jeb Bush state.

March 10: Fly to San Jose, Costa Rica, to stay at a place called the Hotel Don Carlos. (http://www.doncarloshotel.com/index.htm)

March 11: It's off to nowheresville, flying Natureair to a rainforest ecolodge near the southern town of Golfito. It's called Esquinas Lodge and it's buried in the virgin rainforest of Piedras Blancas National Park. Here's the link, this place looks great. (http://www.esquinaslodge.com/)

March 14: It's back to Golfito to be picked up by boat and taken to Playa Zancudo, a beach spot not far from the Panamanian border that, according to Lonely Planet, is "off the beaten track, even by Costa Rica standards." We're staying in a lovely teak hut at a bungalow place called Cabinas Los Cocos. (http://www.loscocos.com/)

March 17: We're flying back to San Jose then making our way either by plane or bus to Mal Pais in the Nicoya Peninsula. We're staying at a place called Moana Lodge which will be the second time in three years we've stayed at a place called "Moana." (On Mangaia, in the Cook Islands, we stayed at a place called Ara Moana--remember, the corrugated steel shed). This place is a little higher end, though, as we gradually re-introduce ourselves back to civilization. I'm sure by this time I'll be talking to a hand print on a volleyball, with Julia saying "stop talking to that stupid volleyball, I'm right here!" Here's the link to this swanky two star resort. (http://www.moanalodge.com/)

On March 20th it's back to San Jose and the Hotel Don Carlos for a return engagement and some nice urban exploring for a couple days, checking out restaurants, museums and the zoo so Biff can eat some gnats off Aunt Bea.

On March 22nd it's back to Fort Lauderdale for a couple days before heading home and if all turns out according to plan Julia will have gotten over Biff and I will not be covered in some heinous rash or welts from miscellaneous insect bites.

Don't you just love the Utopian Scene? Updates coming soon.