Are you feeling lucky?

This weekend, Avalon and I decided to stay in San Jose. It's been pretty low-key, which allows me to finally catch up on blogging about what we did last weekend.

Last weekend, we were able to enjoy the biggest perk of interning at The Tico Times: hotel reviews. That's right, we get to go stay at a sweet hotel somewhere outside San Jose, eat the food, meet the people, then come back and write about it--all on the Tico Times' dime. Our first destination? Lucky Bug B&B in Nuevo Arenal, a few hours northwest of San Jose, by Lake Arenal and the Arenal volcano.

I had my choice between Lucky Bug and a hippie-ish hotel down in Puerto Viejo. While we are jonesin to get down to PV (probably will next weekend) hippie-ish turned out to be some full-fleged "spiritual experience" retreat. Then, when I saw that the owners of Lucky Bug had moved to Costa Rica from Mt. Shasta it was no contest. We were feeling lucky.

"Why would anyone leave Mt. Shasta?" I wondered aloud. Costa Rica is amazing, yes, but Mt. Shasta's pretty amazing in its own right. Then, Avalon responded: "Why don't you ask your parents?" She had a point.

But I digress... Getting to Nuevo Arenal proved to be an experience in itself. Once again, we (I) dropped the ball by not getting bus tickets in advance, and we had to stand or sit uncomfortably on the floor of the bus for most of the four-hour journey. And that only got us to Tilaran, where we had to wait and take another bus to Nuevo Arenal. We decided when we come back to this area, we're renting a car.

But once we finally got to Lucky Bug, our discomfort and anxiety from the by then five hour journey went away fairly quickly. We were treated to a lunch by the incredibly kind and generous owner, Monika, who chatted with us about Costa Rica, Mt. Shasta and life between helping customers at Lucky Bug's art gallery and cafe. There's an incredible amount of art there, both on sale at the gallery and in the rooms themselves. Much of it is animal-themed iron and tilework done by one of Monika's triplet daughters. It lends a warm, creative ambience to the place that vibes well with the jungle around it.


We were, however, disappointed a bit that the weather was off-and-on cloudy. That, combined with the difficulty of traveling the area without a car, meant that we never got a chance to check out the volcano. We also went 0-3 in our hopes to see the turtle in Lucky Bug's private lake, or the monkeys and sloth supposedly inhabiting the adjacent rain forest. (The icing on the cake was when a downpour began the minute I left the dock while taking the kayak for a spin in the lake, see picture above).

But shortly before we left on Sunday, our luck took a turn for the better: one, then two, then three toucans showed up outside the cafe. First, they were perched in a nearby tree. Then, one by one, they flew over to a feeding post that had some banana peels and other fruit scraps. Avalon and I, just a few feet away, were speechless. I'll let the photo say the rest: