Saturday, March 9
It is Saturday in Atenas, and things seem quieter than on the weekdays. The traffic noise has lessened. The offices on our street - including the dentist's office above which we live - are closed. And many shops and other offices in town are closed.
There is not much to do here, and we are getting restless and a little bored. Our two main activities here have been walking and eating out. We have pretty much walked the town, and have started to walk the roads going out of town, except where they are very heavily trafficked. We have eaten at the best four places we have found in town - three of them we have been to several times. (Waistlines are expanding!)
Today we walked to breakfast at the Balcon Cafe (mentioned in previous blogs). Afterwards, Bob got a haircut in a unisex salon next door. We walked back to the apartment where I read a novel and Bob worked on a slideshow. Then we walked around the corner for lunch at Antano's. Bob had a Tico lunch - a Casada (complete meal on one plate) of tortilla, grilled fish, rice, beans, salad, steamed vegetables, and fried plantain. I had an American lunch - cheeseburger and frappe (hamburguesa con queso y batido frio chocolate con helado). All this was followed by a relaxing afternoon at home or nearby.
Antano Restaurant, Atenas, Costa Rica. This small restaurant is right around the corner from us, and we come here almost daily, sometimes more than once. The food is very good and reasonably priced. (Photo by Connie)
This afternoon, we heard the sounds of a band in the park, which is only a block away, and went to investigate. There was a small group of people there at an event intended to raise awareness of, and protest, the distribution of genetically modified seeds (GMO's) in Costa Rica. The band was an organic group of musicians jamming together on drums, flute, and what sounded like a didgeridoo. We sat on a park bench and listened for a while, but the sound began to bother Bob, who has very sensitive hearing, and we left. People-watching in the park seems to be one of the biggest pastimes for the Ticos living here.
Parque Central, Atenas, Costa Rica. (Photo by Connie)
The best thing about Atenas is the weather. Today is a sunny, blue-sky day with some wind which keeps the place warm rather than hot. We don't have an outdoor thermometer, but I am guessing that the temperature is in the mid-seventies. We have been here eight days, and the weather has varied from sunny to cloudy, but no rain to speak of. The days have been in the 70's and the nights maybe in the 60's. We have neither air-conditioning nor heat, and we don't need either. We sleep at night with windows open and a sheet over us on the cooler nights. Truly, this is the main reason we came to Costa Rica - to escape the harsh winter weather and live in sunshine and warmth. And this, we have certainly accomplished!
From our place, we have a view of a range of mountains and volcanoes to the north and east. The most well -known peak we see from here is Poas Volcano. And just east of Poas is Barva, an inactive volcano. Every day we have been here, there have been clouds all along the ridges and tops of the mountains. This morning is the clearest we have seen Poas, with just a thin strip of cloud cover at the very top. This seems to be a rare sighting - at least, so far. We have considered taking a trip to Poas - a very popular tourist stop - but we have pretty much decided that it would be a waste of money as we would be in the clouds at the top and would not be able to see the crater for which this volcano is known.
We can definitely see how the cloud forests came to be, and why they are called cloud forests. It is much greener and more lush in the higher elevations of these mountains because there are clouds hanging over them day and night. We have seen rain clouds over the mountains, though it isn't raining here. Yesterday, we saw a glorious rainbow spilling down over Poas, top to bottom. It seems that the clouds and the forest form a cycle. Clouds gather over the mountains, sometimes blown inland from the Pacific. It rains. Then the humid, moist air rises and forms more clouds, and it rains, and so forth.
We have come to the point in our journey when the novelty is beginning to wear off, we have too much unstructured time in our hands, and we are beginning to miss home and are thinking about our return, which is still almost four weeks away. I think it's time for us to start doing some touring, exploring some other towns and cities and visiting some more parks and other tourist sites. Bob has been resisting doing the tourist thing, but I think he's getting more up for it now.
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