A’s First RTW Work Week

The plan for the first couple months of our RTW adventure was for Andrea to remain working, this was her decision and nothing forced onto her by her semi-retired husband! That’s what also made Costa Rica our starting point, due to it being on a 2 hour time zone difference meaning Andrea would work from 6am-3pm instead of her EST hours of 8am-5pm, and on Friday a mere 6am-10am. We recently realized that this would change for the worse on November 3rd when the US has it’s daylight savings change, but oh well we can’t have everything. Finishing at 10am on a Friday was pretty close to having a 3 day weekend which is just what we wanted, and gives us plenty of time to explore whatever country we may be in. It does mean that I have to keep myself occupied during the week, one of the reasons for having my mountain bike here with me, and we do have to get up at 5am everyday which again is not a problem as it’s just about light at that time.

The view Andrea has to cope with all day beats our old Florida apartment view of a main road hands down! She’s able to see toucans, 3 foot long iguanas, and many exotic birds pass by the huge open windows all day long. The sounds leading up to and during the start of her workday of the surrounding rain forest are very therapeutic for work.

The one thing we don’t like about Costa Rica is that it’s dark everyday by 5:30. We leave the house at 3 when Andrea finishes for a solid 2 hours of exploring. Each day we’ve been venturing out in a different direction from the house, and so far we’ve walked up the steepest road ever. We can see the lights on a hillside behind us and we wanted to find out how to get there! Other days we’ve gone to watch the surfers, enjoyed an awesome pizza that was recommended and searched for toucans and monkeys.

Pretty much within 30 minutes of Andrea starting work I head out on my mountain bike for anywhere from 3 to 5 hours, mainly in training for La Ruta but also to discover this amazing country’s scenery and wildlife. Around 3 miles from home there can be 2 to 20 scarlet macaws in the trees along the Pacific ocean feeding on the fruit and shrieking loudly making me aware of their presence. I usually spend a while trying to photograph them with my current goal of getting them in flight showing off their dazzling colors, but bringing only a tough-proof camera with us is making this a frustrating task.

The Earthquake!
This past week we have had some interesting new experiences with a 6.5 earthquake, the first I’ve ever been through. I was on the phone Tuesday night to a mountain biking friend who lives on the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica and Andrea was sitting across from me at the table when all of a sudden the table started moving, along with the window frames and the entire concrete floor. Andrea thought I was shaking the table but couldn’t work out how I was making the window frames shake too, my friend briefly dropped his phone and declared that we’d just had an earthquake. The epicenter was a few kilometers from where he lives and fortunately not severe enough to damage buildings. Costa Rica has experienced numerous earthquakes this year so the grounds deep beneath this part of Central America seem to be on the move.

ANTS
Due to all the rains this week bought on by Hurricane Sandy, we’ve had a huge influx of ants, thousands of big red ants! One afternoon I saw a few out on the patio and within a short time noticed that they were multiplying, and in even shorter time all hell let loose and they were marching towards the door leading to the back garden, up the walls, into the hammocks – something had to be done! I started sweeping them away and called the gardener over to show him, fortunately he said this happens when it rains a lot and they are searching for food. He didn’t panic like we were! We were actually more concerned with a repeat performance and the ants coming in through the bedroom door in the middle of the night. Luckily we haven’t seen them since on the patio, except we do see what seems like miles of them carrying leaves in convoys on every trail and dirt road we walk on.