Costa Rican Adventure

Well our Costa Rican Adventure began on November 28th. We left RDU at 7:15am. We landed in Miami at 9:15am. Left Miami for Costa Rica at 12:15pm and Arrived at 2:00pm in San Jose. Everything went well at the airport. There was a Sky cap waiting for us as we got off the plane. We did have to wait for Jonathan's wheelchair and get the stewardess on our plane to explain to the skycap that we had it and get the baggage handlers to send it up to the Jetway. We then proceeded through the airport with the skycap who escorted us to customs. We didn't have to wait in the very,very, very long line but were taken to the handicap lane and only had to wait for 2 people in front of us. Next was baggage claim. It took a long time for our luggage to come out and our luggage sustained a lot of damage. Next we had to go through and have it xrayed. We then went out of the airport and met the car rental rep. He made a call and a few minutes later our car came and we were taken to the car rental office to sign all the paper work. They gave us a map and directions to get to the hotel. After only a minute or 2 of driving we got honked at. People are not very patient on the roads here and the roads have no names on them. We arrived at the hotel after a difficult drive (because of no road signs) and settled in.



November 29th we left San Jose for Quepos. We knew it would be a very long drive so we left early in the morning. All was going well until we went through a little town North of Colon an ended up on a smaller road that then turned into a very windy dirt road that did s's up and down the mountain side. The phrase now for our adventure is "bus to Carthagna" from the movie Romancing the Stone. We finally made it to Quepos around 1:30pm and had lunch before checking in to the hotel. After checking in we went to see the Pacific ocean. We came back and went for a swim in the pool. It is very hot and humid in Quepos. We then went to eat at a neat restaurant that had as its bar a C123 from the Iran Contra scandal. We got up early on the 30th to take a nature walk. Well we found the trail to be a bit dangerous!!! (Bus to Carthagna) Surviving that we left for Arenal Volcano.

November 30th we drove to the Arenal Volcano. We found a much better route there than to Quepos. We also found a policia (police) yes we were pulled over for speeding in a foreign country. Well we didn't get a ticket because we explained in very broken Spanish to the cop who only spoke very broken English that we were here visiting for medical treatment for Jonathan. He very nicely warned us to slow down and we did. we arrived at the volcano about 3pm and got settled in. There were clouds covering the top of it so we couldn't see much. But just after sunset the clouds cleared the volcano rumbled and proceeded to erupt for several hours. Our youngest son said it was "God's fireworks". The next morning we went for another nature walk this time with a guide to look for wildlife and at a waterfall. This was not as dangerous as the day before but proved to be difficult for Jonathan. We all finished safely and took the ride back to the hotel. We had not seen much wild life but our guide spotted a howler monkey so we stopped to take pictures. The next morning the volcano was erupting again and the clouds were letting us see the top and the hot rocks rolling down the side. We then left for San Jose. We arrived around noon. We got settled in and went to a Rosti Pollos (roasted chicken chain here) for lunch. After lunch we thought we would be a bit adventurous and check out the local shopping areas. We drove to them but there was no place to park (think downtown in a big city with roads only wide enough for 1 car) so we went back to the hotel.

December 3 we went for our first appointment at ICM. They put Jonathan to sleep and proceeded to put in an IV line in and take blood. It took 4 tries before they got the IV line in. they then drew blood from it and it blew the vessel before they got all the blood they needed. 2 sticks later they got another line in. They then got blood from his other hand which they had to stick several times to get any. After waking up we left the clinic and went back to our hotel to get Jonathan his breakfast. We then left for Volcano Poas. We arrived there around noon and ate lunch. We walked to the top of the crater only to see clouds. We decided to go to the Botos lagoon (used to be where the volcano erupted). We were able to see that and proceeded to walk back to the crater. When we got there the clouds had cleared and we were able to see the mud bubble and even spout like a geyser.
Tomorrow we go back to the clinic at 6:30 pm to get our first stem cell infusion.