Out and about

I made a last-minute trip to Illinois this past week. I flew (obviously), which was a very strange experience after so much driving. A year ago, we were also in Illinois, and to think that one is able to cover a distance in either one year or six hours is a fun little comparison. International airports basically feel like shopping malls now. On the one hand, going through the entire airport rigamarole seemed very civilized. On the other hand, I’ve forgotten how sterile and impersonal it is, and how trapped you feel once you’ve started the process.

I’m not going to gripe about all the indignities, but just to say that air travel is still one of the most amazing things a person can experience. About an hour or two into the San Jose – Houston leg of the trip, I looked out the window and saw this:

I have never seen anything like this before, a turquoise well surrounded by ocean. I jabbed my seatmate to ask her if she knew what it was, but she didn’t know, either. A few moments later, we started to cross land again so I took a series of shots so I’d be able to figure out later where this was. I was able to match this area:

With this area:

What do you know? Turns out we spent a whole week camping on the cusp of all this (just next to Chetumal in Calderitas), but at the last minute decided not to cross into Belize, instead turning back inland toward Chiapas.

Air travel! It was a bummer to see that we were so close to something so amazing and just didn’t know about it. Next time…

Anyhow, I made the trip by air for a very special event: my mother’s retirement party!

It was a great night to honor a great lady, a great physician, and just a great inspiration to us all. After that, I spent the rest of the week doing very important things, such as: eating deep dish pizza, eating sushi, eating noodle soup, eating Mom’s home cooking, and eating cheese. I also got a new pair of flip-flops, as I have actually been without flip-flops since Baja. Yes: Baja.

While I was in Illinois, Juan’s buddy Patrick came to visit from San Francisco, and then they came back to San Jose to meet me. I hadn’t expected much out of San Jose, but it is a really nice city. We are staying at the Fleur de Lys, a quirky (pink!) hotel that, per the usual, has secure parking and is dog-friendly. It is right next to the train tracks (the commuter train starts announcing its way through before six a.m.), but it is also right across the street from the National Museum, and a few minutes’ walk from downtown, many parks, and the pricey but delightful Argentine restaurant, La Esquina de Buenos Aires.

The National Museum was a pretty good visit. You enter through this amazing butterfly garden, where you’re just surrounded by all these blue butterflies.

The building used to be a fort that saw action during the wars, and was also the site where President José Figueres Ferrer announced in 1949 that he was getting rid of the military, after which the fort was converted to a museum. The lack of a military in Costa Rica is a big point of national pride. (Imagine in the United States if all of our military spending went toward education and health care!) My favorite part of the museum was the collection of old photos. Women were only pictured in family portraits, with men in all manners of positions that are today typically reserved for women.

Tomorrow we’ll be shipping out of the big city and headed back to the coast.