The TRUTH about Travelling with little kids........

Oh how do I start this blog? Does the title say it all? Does it give you a small hint as to what I am going to write....

Before I start, I want you all to know that the four of us are a strong family. We love each other to death, and will sacrifice and bend over backwards to do whatever it takes to make the others happy. Spending each and every day together is a treat that we wouldn't trade for the world. We are lucky lucky Lukies, and we know it. But.....

There have been trying, TRYING times. There are times when the kids actually wake up whinning, and it seems to continue for the entire day. These are the times when we want to run. Run far away!!! They are good kids, but at times seem very spoiled and unruly. They miss their friends and family. They want their Baba and Gido and Baba. They want their chocha's and Twinkle. They even miss our old Jeep. They want a back-yard to play in, not a small cramped hotel room with no privacy. They want some stability. There was a routine back home, although slight at times, when the kids knew what to do, what to expect. This is something that here they don't have. Dinner is never known, we know we will eat - but when, and where is nearly always up in the air. Sometimes they are having a siesta until 5 pm, and sometimes they are done at 2 pm. Are we changing hotels today, are we driving to a new town, are we looking for a home, or just spending the day at the beach. We miss the little things like : Kraft dinner? Bed time on time! Familiar faces..... Things here are different. In every way, the people, the culture, the food, the customs, the air and the surroundings. Although they are adjusting well, it's still different, and we all need to get use to it.

This is a strange and life changing adventure we are on. We're on our 7th week, but it sure feels longer. When we decided to 'leave' and try something new, it wasn't because we thought Canada was a bad place, we just needed to see what else was out there. I'm not saying we're moving back, but we haven't found our perfect paradise yet either.... It's hard. Leaving your family and friends. Leaving your home and not having a stable place to call your own. Not really having anything to call your own, besides what you have been able to keep in your suitcase. The kids are feeling home-sick, and I'll admit that I am too. What we're doing isn't normal, it's a great adventure, but far from normal. And sometimes normal isn't always right - but sometimes having something normal is good too.
We are in our 7th week now, and that is over 1172 hours where the four of us have been together. TOGETHER for over ONE-THOUSAND-ONE-HUNDRED-AND-SEVENTY-TWO! There have been no breaks. Maybe one or two where we just leave the room, have a beer or a smoke. But basically no break. This (I believe) is more of a problem then having no routine.

Belize is coming up quickly now, but I'm not sure if we should go there as a vacation, or to find a new life. It's a lot of stress this 'finding a new life'. You need to think about a million things all the while keeping your kids happy, fed, safe and not too spoiled. You need to make sure the area is good, there are good schools, kids to play with, things to do, and friends to be made. Friends, yes, that's a hard one, and family here means just the four of us. Here in Costa Rica we have met many many expats, and they all say the same thing. Whether they have lived here for 6 months or 10 years, they are all still expats, gringos, outsiders. Do we want to feel that way? Do want to just have other expats as our only true friends? Belize may be different. But who knows.

I'm a little tired of travelling (as you may be able to tell). And the kids are too. They tell us their having fun, and I believe they are, but they are still home-sick.

Change is good and change is hard. You need willing participants and a wonderful husband who shares your dreams and helps you see the rainbows after the storms. There are rough times, and times of pure bliss. We haven't forgotten where we came from, and we're not scared to come back. But we're not ready yet. There is still a wonderful world to explore and amazing adventures to be had. I think that in order to have a wonderful and fulfilling life you always need to re-evaluate where you are and what you want. It's an ever changing world, and the only way to know what you want is to go out there and look. Sometimes you realize what you had was what you truly want, and sometimes you find something better. We'll keep looking, but know that we miss you too.

Still loving it here!

Today was another day for adventure. We decided to take another forest walk, but this time we hired a guide. We headed off to the "Santuario Ecologico", one of the many wild life reserves here. Our guide was fantastic, took his time and explained many of the plants, tree's and more that we passed. If I had a pen and paper on our walk I would be able to tell you about them all, but alas my memory is not so good. I do remember the leaf cutter ants. We saw them all in a line, marching with their huge leafs. They actually make there own trails in the forests! The queen lives between 15 and 20 years, and continuously makes more workers and soldiers. The soldiers ants watch out for predators, and the indigenous people use the soldiers to stitch up cuts (kind of like going to the doctor and getting stitches, but they use the soldier ants. There bite is so strong and powerful, once they latch on, they cut off the bodies, and they will stay latched on!) Also we saw their home (ant hill), it's HUGE, and they have little tunnels going from their trails, into the ant hill.... very tricky! The walk totaled around 2 hours, and it was great. But I think the best part was finding a two toed sloth and it's baby. These animals are nocturnal, so it was really cool to see it during the day. We stopped and stared at it for more than 20 minutes, just crawling up the tree with it's little baby, having a snack. Sloths eat leafs, about 50 different types of leaf - so they aren't too picky. It was crazy incredible. There were times when it would just stop, and they would both turn around and look at us. Very cool. Our guide told us that the mother is pregnant for around 11 months, and stay's with it's baby for about 2 years, after that the mother gives up her territory to her child and finds a new one for herself. Self-less mothers all around the world!!!

Hello Santa Elena and Monteverde!

We woke up this beautiful morning to the fresh air of the mountains and the view to the Ocean was stunning. After a nice breakfast Chris thought it would be a great idea to go to the cloud forest and look around. Instead of waiting 45 minutes for the free shuttle we took a taxi the 25 minute drive further up the mountain.

The cloud forest here is approximately 1600 feet in elevation and is shrouded in mist for 9 months out of the year. This mountainous forest straddles the continental divide. Stevlatura offers canopy zip lines, sky walks, butterfly museum, hummingbird gardens, and an insect and reptile home. Today wasn't too sunny so the reception advised us not to bother with the butterflies, and the kids being so young and small we didn't attempt the zip-lines. But we did do all the rest. We started with the suspension bridges. There were 8 suspension bridges (totaling just over 770 meters) all along the 2.5 kilometer hike through the cloud forest. It was so interesting, the leaves of the trees arrange themselves to capture the sunlight without shading the others so that you can't see the forest floor from the bridges. I'm not sure how high we walked up, but we did quite a hike. I felt a little cheated not having a guide for the sky walk - I'm sure that we walked by many incredible things that were naked to the tourist eye, but it was fantastic none the less. We saw amazing, one of a kind breathtaking views, birds all over the place, and flowers through out the walk. We didn't see any monkey's, spiders, snakes, frogs or birds that we could recognize - but that doesn't mean they weren't there! I think the walk took us around 2 hours. We took our time, and had a lot of fun. Callym actually walked the entire way and said it was his favorite part of the day. The fresh air was so invigorating and made you just feel like you were a part of something special. It was hard once we came to the last bridge and knew it was almost over, I wanted to keep walking.... but there was more to see, and we were getting hungry.

We stopped into the restaurant there and ordered some delicious pizza a few fanta's and a coke. After lunch we headed off to the the humming bird gardens. It was very similar to the one we went to at Laz Paz Waterfalls, but it was smaller, and somehow had many more birds. We actually got very very close to the hummingbirds without scaring them off. The only drawback here was the enormous amount of wasps, they like the sugar water too. After that we waited for our guide to take us to the insect and reptile museums. The reptiles were both interesting, educational and disgusting! They had many different species both venomous and non. We learned how to tell the difference between the two as well, Quick Lesson: If you see a snake with small scales on it's head, and eyes like a cat (meaning that they have the vertical black colored slit in the center of it's eye, walk back slowly and once you are more than 2 meters away..... RUN). If the snake you come across has large scales on the top of it's head and it's eye's are more like a humans (meaning for one, there is no similarity to a cat's eye, and it has more of a round dark color in the center of it's eye), you should be ok, it is not venomous. One snake they have in a large cage is the 'bushmaster'. This is a snake that even the most experienced snake-man (or woman) will fear. This snake is not only extremely venomous (it can kill you with one bite, and if you do not die quickly, you will most likely need that limb to be amputated), but it is also very aggressive, and will seek you out to attack! Wonderful, but on a happier note, most of the venomous snakes are also nocturnal, so if you go out at night just make a lot of noise, or stay in well lit areas. BUSHMASTER..........

On to less scary reptiles. We finished that tour off with some toads, frogs, and lizards. We saw the Jesus Christ Lizard (it's actual name), named because it can run on water. The famous Iguana (the largest lizard in C.R., and apparently eaten by many people here - they taste like chicken!), The poisonous dart frogs (Callym's favorite is the blue jeans frog) - These are called Poisonous dart frogs because the indigenous people use to catch these frogs and lay there darts on the backs of the frogs to coat it with it's poison, this in turn would kill any animal that they shot with there darts. There are very poisonous to the touch (you need to wear gloves if you want to touch them), and they get there poison by eating ants. We also saw a toad, the same one that Callym saw hopping across the roadway in the dark in Brasilito. This toad secretes a white poison out his neck glands, when you come in contact with this it is more like a hallucinatory drug, some people, we are told, lick these frogs to 'see things'. (remember the lady kissing the toad and seeing a prince, this is the toad!).

Ok, so enough of that, we headed off to the insects. If you ask me, we should have stopped there, but we went on. Richard Witter is the collector of over a million insects from all around the world. He has many museums filled with creepy crawlers (we saw none that we still alive, so that made it a little better). None the less, all the spiders, scorpions, killer bees, cockroaches, beetles and other flying things made you feel at times that they were crawling all over you. I won't get into the details too much, but basically the bigger the insect, the less likely it is to be dangerous. Most tarantulas do not have poison, there hair will irritate you and their bite will hurt, but that's about the extent. Same for the scorpions, the large ones hurt when they bite you, but the one the size of an adult index finger (small eh?) can kill a human with their poison. We saw many extinct and near to extinct butterflies, bed bugs that can make you very sick, shiny beetles that looked like solid gold, walking sticks, and more. Needless to say, I was glad once we got out.

We made the 3 pm shuttle back into town and stayed for a nice snack. We walked around a little, and decided to check out the night tour for the frogs. Many of the really cool frogs are nocturnal, so this was a great chance to see them. We've seen many frogs before, actually we've seen them all, but being nocturnal we never got to really see them. Example, the red eyed tree frog just looks like a green blog on a leaf when it's sleeping, but when awake you see all of it's bright blue, orange and green colors, not to mention it's red eyes! This tour was really cool, and the boys loved it, and once we were leaving one of my demented dreams came true...... Right there, by the entrance doors and somewhat hiding beside the huge bag of coffee was a tarantula. A real one in the 'wild'!!! Granted, this one was only about the size of 2 loonies put together, but there it was. And I felt happy that I finally had the chance to see one up close. After all of this we headed back to the hotel to change and do a bit of relaxing. Santa Elena is an extremely beautiful place. It makes you feel alive with it's views and it's air. I wish we had more time here.

Good-Bye Brasilito....

Our last night in Brasilito was great. We actually met a Swedish family of 4 (their kids were young like ours), doing a 6 month stint of traveling. They arrived in Costa Rica, and were going to go to Nicaragua, Panama, and Fiji. A great thing to do! During our talks they mentioned loving Thailand and it made me think again how much I would love to go there for a while (long while) and explore that part of the world. Maybe that will be next? Who knows. They have a blog going as-well, but it's in Swedish, I think we will keep in touch with them. We had a nice dinner, and headed off to bed. Our driver was to pick us up around 10 am the next morning and we weren't yet packed. No problem tho, we were getting to be pro's at packing. Monteverde and Santa Elena here we come!!

It felt like a treat to be heading off to the mountains again. Being Canadian, it feels more like home than the sea. Ah, the fresh air, jungle and more. We couldn't wait. Actually, Oscar and I were almost craving it. I think the heat was getting to both of us, me going 'crazy', and poor Oscar would sweat just sitting under a fan! So 10 am rolls around and we're ready and waiting. 10:30 comes and goes. 11 am. During this time the fumigators have come around and are spraying for Dengue mosquitos. Chris yells to the boys to get into the hotel room and close all the windows. It's not really poison that they use, but exhaust fumes. Same difference eh? So as we're hiding from the fumes, Chris is calling to see what's up with our driver. It seems our driver didn't get in until midnight the night before and didn't check his messages, so he didn't know he had to drive us. Not a problem, he would be there in 20 minutes. As we were waiting again, Kwan (the chef at the restaurant), came by to talk with the boys, he really liked the kids, and wanted to buy them some ice-cream before we left. Everyone was so nice to our kids, and took a great liking to them on the first day.
Anyways, our driver came, and we were off. We wanted the boys to sleep during the trip, for one because it's quieter and easier to travel that way, and two so they wouldn't be car sick (once was enough). So they slept. The drive was great. Scenic and calming. At one point we even had a paved road with a center line (the first time I remember!). But then, just as the boys woke up the road took a turn. Bumps, potholes twice the size of our van, and mud everywhere. Up to this point we were making great time, but now I was worried, we only had 34 km to go, how long would this take? Well, the answer is 65 minutes!!! Once we got even closer to the hotel there was one hill we started sliding down, and so we had to turn around and go another way. But we made it and it was better than beautiful. It was heaven.

Now I hate sounding like a broken record, but....... I love this place. I've said it before I know, but I do. It's so different. It's the mountains, and the jungle all put together. We even have a view of the Ocean from our hotel room. (be wary of buying ocean view properties, this could be it, 4 hours away from the sea ha ha !!) I really can't wait to explore this place, and we're all a little sad already that we only have 3 nights here, a week would have been much nicer. But then again we are at Arenal Volcano after this, so it should be great too. The one thing I am regretting now is that I got rid of all but one long sleeve shirt and all of my sweaters in Nosara. Long sleeve shirts I though, who needs them here? Opps, I may be doing a little shopping. At least I saved 2 pairs of socks, and 2 pairs of long pants (and the kids are alright, we have sweaters, pants, socks and raincoats for them, don't worry mom's!)
Alright, enough for now, The hotel is amazing, the restaurant for once since Heredia has fair priced food, and it looks like we're going to have a great time doing some exploring. Talk with you all soon. All our love, The Lukies!

Just a quick note....

our blog is still the same, I have just changed it from " Our Dream " to "This train is bound for glory" . Very significant. If you were at our wedding, or have heard of Sublime, this was our wedding song, and both Chris and I love the words. It has come to mean a lot to the two of us. When we are going through trying times, one or the other of us will always say ..... This train is bound for glory...... and it somehow makes us feel so much better.
Anyways, rambling here..... I hope you all keep enjoying the blogs, and keep emailing us too! We love to hear how it's going there! Love you all,
The Lukies!

p.s I'm catching up right now due to the lack of internet, so there will be a few new blogs up today.

Funny Story or Just Sad ???

When we left Canada I brought along 2 pairs of brown flip-flops. They were the same size and style. 1.97$ each at Superstore. A good deal I thought, even if they break, fall apart, or I lose them it would be fine. Well, as it turns out they didn't last as long as I hoped. 2 weeks ago both my left flip-flops broke. Not completely, but enough for them to be a hassle walking through the mud and rain. Anyways, I kept the best of the 2 pairs and contiuned on.

3 days ago I was crossing a river (this time it was an actual river), and lost both my flip-flops. Nuts, now I really had to buy some new ones. There is a small souviner shop next to the hotel we are at and so I went in to buy a cheap pair.

#1 they were not cheap. $$10.

At this time I would like to point out that Humor is very different all around the world. It takes a certain type of person to 'get' Monty Python, as well, there are perverts who think they are funny, and of course the jokes that just make you groan. On that note, I will now show you a picture of my brand new ten dollar flip-flops. I don't get the 'joke', but I'll just leave it with you, maybe someone out there will get it............





The quote on the shoe's says.... " My son loving you"
and there is a 9 1/2 on his shirt ??????

Things I've learned on our trip thus far...

You need to have a plan or you'll go crazy!

Too much planning will drive you nuts.

Finding a balance between the 2 is very hard.

The worst part about moving around is the unpredictable showers and matresses.

Packing, unpacking and repacking every 4 to 10 days lets you evaluate how many pairs of knickers and hotwheels you REALLY need!

Eating out 3 times a day for 5 weeks has it's drawbacks... you just can't beat a home cooked meal. (miss you mom, mom and baba!!!!!!)

Laundry service is better than fantastic! I may not be able to live without it now.

You can never get sick of finding new seashells or rocks on the beach.

The fresh smell of the Ocean and Jungle is better than a cup of coffee in the morning (Yes I said that!).

Sometimes finding things to do in a new place is harder than you think.

There are rude people all around the world. (there are nice people everywhere too though).

Still In Brasilito....

Well, as the title says, we're still here in Beautiful Brasilito. We've done a bit of exploring and really love this area. There are many different little villages all along the Ocean here and all are perfect in there own little way. Brasilito is more of a restaurant place, there is a school here, a daycare, a few hotels, 3 grocery stores (all within a 2 minute walk!), a car rental place, a few stalls with souvieners, and half a dozen homes. It's cute. Playa Flamingo, Portero,and Conchal, are all basically within walking distance to eachother, it's easiest to walk to each little town on the beach (and much prettier). Flamingo is more of a place for expats - full of condo's and gated communities, restaurants and the like. Portero is split into two sections; Surf-side Portero is full of condo's, homes and a few restaurants and is mostly inhabited by Canadians, the town of Portero is more traditional homes with locals. Playa Conchal has no homes, but has the greatest beach around here. There is an all-inclusive across the sandy road, and there is a grassy area where many people come to sell there stuff (seashell necklaces, coconut things, sarongs, and more). I will have picuters up of the beach soon, it's beautiful - and the water is amazing! Clear like the caribbean. I'm not kidding, so clear, you can see the fish swim by you, see your feet at the bottom, and more. There is also a trillion shells everywhere. The sand is as soft as flour (to quote my husband, but I've never walked through flour, so I don't know....) Anyways, take a look at the pictures below (I should have them up later). And take care!