Manhattan transfer

We're off to New York for a Manhattan fix. With the transit strike over – or at least in suspended animation – we can whiz around the city with our 1-Day Metro Card Fun Passes. Seven bucks gets you unlimited bus and subway travel in all five boroughs. Great deal. Armed with the card and a bus and subway map, New York is your oyster.

Oysters are on our itinerary. We’ll head to Grand Central and linger in the Oyster Bar, swallowing slippery mollusks bathed in horseradish and lemon. The seafood is great. But the setting is as big a treat. The gleaming tiled arches over your head, lit with strings of tiny white lights, are the work of 19th century builder and architect Rafael Guastavino, who emigrated to the United States from Barcelona in 1881. He’s credited with having revived an ancient Spanish tile and mortar process that yielded strong, weight-bearing, curved tile surfaces.

Guastavino’s work can be found all over New York – at the Bronx Zoo, Grant’s Tomb, Ellis Island, Carnegie Hall, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and at many early subway stations. If it’s curved, tiled, shiny and looks old and artisanal, it’s probably Guastavino.

Some of Guastavino’s Grand Central Terminal curves are magical “whispering corners,” arched hallways that let two people standing in opposite corners clearly hear each other’s whispers. One of these arcaded hallways is outside the Oyster Bar entrance.

From tiles to tall towers. We’ll head downtown to the Battery to visit the Skyscraper Museum near lower Broadway and Wall Street. The museum celebrates soaring steel and glass and is the first museum to open in Lower Manhattan since September 11.

Once downtown, we’ll hop on the Staten Island Ferry for the free cruise across New York harbor. The 25- minute trip affords some of the best views of the city skyline (above).

It’s an easy transfer from lower Manhattan to trains that take you under the East River to Brooklyn. We like to ride to the end of the line and walk the winter beach at Coney Island and look up at the hulking roller coaster and ferris wheel, idle until spring.

Then, back on the train to Midtown to enjoy the holiday and winter scene. We’ll take in Fifth Avenue’s store windows, especially Lord & Taylor’s. The Christmas displays are exquisite, and you move slowly along the sidewalk, taking in each window’s story and details.

And there will be skating. We’ll see the great tree at Rockefeller Center and watch the tourists on the ice rink. We enjoy the spectacle but shake our heads at the thought of shelling out $17 per adult and $12 per kid (plus $8 per head for skate rentals) to pad around in that tiny rectangle under the golden statue of Prometheus.

Instead, we’ll head to Central Park and skate at Wollman Rink, scads cheaper, much bigger, and used by New Yorkers, including pee-wee hockey teams. (If you get up at 6 a.m. and run through the park, you might see them practicing. Tiny guys in too-big helmets slapping pucks under the gaze of the grand apartment buildings lining Central Park South.)

From our hotel near Lexington and 48th, it's a short walk to one of New York's most unusual public transportation experiences, the Roosevelt Island Tram. The tram sails smack next to the lacy-beautiful Queensboro Bridge -- bring your camera for close-ups of the exquisite steel girders and pylons and buttresses -- and deposits you on Roosevelt Island in the East River, from where you have a glorious view of the United Nations Building shining aqua-blue in the sun.

There’s a chance the transit strike will kick in again while we’re in the city. If it does, I have an alternate itinerary. I drew a circle with a one-mile radius (20 Manhattan blocks equal about a mile – from 54th to 34th Street, for example) from our hotel and noted lots of things we can see on foot. There’s plenty in that circle to keep us busy.

That’s the beauty of New York. Even if the circle’s circumference were a single block, there'd be enough to fill a visit to the brim.

In fact, you don’t even need a whole block. In New York, you could fill a visit by just sitting still and letting the place swirl around you.



I won’t be blogging while we’re away, so enjoy the archives. On New Year’s Eve, have fun and be safe.


LoriHein.com

The Hong Kong holiday duck

My extended family gathers on Christmas Eve at my mom and dad’s house. We eat, exchange gifts, listen to Kenny G, catch some of the little ones’ contagious excitement, and tell my parents, “I think that’s the best tree you’ve ever had.” It’s our favorite night of the year.

On Christmas Day, I usually host my parents for a baked ham and lasagna brunch, but my mom's back is bothering her and she's opted to stay home and rest. So this year, Mike, Adam, Dana and I will be on our own on the 25th.

“What do you guys want to eat for Christmas brunch?” I asked the clan. “Anything you want. I can roast a turkey, make a ham, bake a lasagna, have French toast and syrup... Or, we can go out. Find a place that’s setting out tables of shrimp, omelets, roast beef, cheesecake. What’ll it be?”

Before you could say Mao Zedong, Adam answered, “Chinese.”

“Chinese? On Christmas? Seems weird,” I said. “What do you think, Dana?”

“Fine with me.” Mike shot me a when-life-gives-you-teenagers-you-pretty-much-do-what-they-want-unless-it’s-dangerous-immoral-or-illegal look. Chinese it is.

I went to the Lucky Corner Restaurant and picked up a take-out menu from the owner’s son, who advised me to call in my order at least 24 hours in advance. "I had no idea Christmas was such a big business day for you," I said. “The biggest, after New Year’s,” said the son as he pointed to a list of dishes that would not be available on those days because their complicated prep threw kinks into the mass production assembly system the kitchen used to meet the holiday demand.

I’d had Chinese on a major holiday once before. It was Thanksgiving, and Mike and I were in Hong Kong (above). We wanted to come as close to feasting on a traditional turkey dinner as we could and decided that Peking duck would be a suitable substitute fowl. We asked our hotel's desk clerk to recommend a good duck restaurant, and he directed us to a place near the yacht harbor at Causeway Bay.

We found the restaurant, a cavernous affair with 20-foot ceilings hung with blindingly bright chandeliers. Institution-grade metal chairs sat in tight rings around giant Formica tables. The place looked like a nursing home dining hall or a high school cafeteria. There were no customers. Desk clerk's dad must own the joint, we decided. Do we stay or go?

Before we could escape, a little man in a black suit hurried over, bowed his head, and showed us to a table. We followed like sheep. He gave us menus, and we pointed to the Peking duck. The man nodded and disappeared.

About a half-hour later, he reappeared and asked if we wanted anything. Well, we were hoping for some duck and whatever goes along with that, but in the meantime we’ll have some beer.

For hours, Mike and I drank beer while we waited for our Thanksgiving duck. Every half hour or so the man in the black suit would come to the table and ask if we wanted anything. (God, yes, man! Some duck!) We asked for bread, salad, rice. Something -- anything -- to sop up the beer. The man would nod, bring more beer, then disappear until his next half-hourly visit.

"I think I know what's happening here," I said after our third or fourth round. "They went into some alley to buy a duck, and while we’ve been sitting here, they’ve been in the kitchen killing, plucking, cleaning, dressing -- and then cooking a duck that was alive somewhere in Hong Kong when we walked through the door!” This was pre-bird flu, so the thought amused rather than alarmed us.

Two and a half hours after we entered The Desk Clerk’s Family’s Restaurant, the little man brought a duck to our table. And soup, rice, steamed and stir-fried vegetables, condiments, tea, and little gossamer pancakes.

We pushed the beer bottles out of the way and tucked into the duck. It was outrageous. If there are restaurants in heaven, this is what they serve. That golden-brown bird was possibly the most glorious food that’s ever passed my lips. We had a whole fowl between us, and we shared amicably, though each of us would have wrestled the other to the floor for total possession of the divine duck were it not for the threat the tussle might pose to our marriage. The skin was a meal unto itself. Crisp, dark and juicy-marvelous. The flesh deep, dense and succulent. A culinary triumph. Worth the wait? All two and a half hours of it.

Will we order duck from Lucky Corner on Christmas? No.

Once you’ve eaten the real deal, you don’t mess with the memory of it by eating poor imitations from cardboard cartons.



Where shall we go next?

Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America

Parenting tips from Jose Feliciano

A version of this story appeared in November 2004.
We were at the airport in Lisbon (above) waiting to board our plane home from a Christmas-week family trip to Albufeira, a seafront resort-cum-fishing town in the Algarve. The gate area was packed with travelers, and all seats were taken. Dana was two, Adam five, both seasoned travel vets. They sat in the plastic chairs we'd managed to snag, swinging their legs and sipping juice.

A group of tall men milled around, looking for a seat for a smaller, blind companion. Mike offered his chair, and the blind man sat down next to me.

We'd overheard the men, musicians, talking about the bad flights and lousy hotels they'd endured on their current tour. I leaned over and asked the quiet blind man, "What kind of music do you play?" All the men looked worn and tired, a littled rumpled and disheveled. I figured they played low to middle-tier clubs and bars. The Zildjian cymbals they kept at closer than arm's length were the only hint of the possibility of something bigger.

"All kinds," he said. "Maybe you've heard me on the radio at this time of year singing a song I wrote..."

"You're Jose Feliciano?!!" I launched into Feliz Navidad and called Adam over between notes. "Adam! This man wrote the Christmas song that mommy sings all the time!" I sang some more. Adam joined in on the "prospero ano y felizidad" and let loose on the "I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas." Jose was pleased.

We talked with Jose for a half hour. His big, serious, but very gracious manager hovered protectively. The band was on its way home from a sold out New Year's Eve concert in Estoril, and Jose was eager to get home to Connecticut to his pregnant wife and two young children. A loving, involved dad, he talked about his kids. "I try not to spoil them," he said.

Although he couldn't see them, Jose was keenly aware of Adam and Dana. He sensed their movements. He used their names when he spoke to them. He told Adam to "enjoy being a kid, because it goes by so fast." He told Adam jokes: "Adam, why did the turtle cross the road? He wanted to get to a Shell station." And "Why did the chicken cross the road, Adam? To get away from Colonel Sanders." Dana was cranky, and Jose gave me parenting tips: "Change her diaper before you get on the plane, and give her a lot to drink so her ears won't hurt from the change in cabin pressure."

We boarded. Jose crossed the Atlantic in first class, and we sat in steerage, narrowly escaping the flood of red wine that burst from the overhead bin when a Portuguese woman's jug of homemade vinho de mesa popped its cork. A nearly eight-hour flight. Adam and Dana handled the marathon transit like pros. They played with Legos, colored, ate stuff, and scanned the headset stations. Henry the Navigator would have been proud of their endurance.

When we landed in Newark, I noticed Jose sitting alone on a windowsill in a corner, waiting for his men to pull the luggage from the carousel. I told Adam he could go over and say good-bye. Thousands of miles, one ocean, eight hours, two movies, and two meals had passed since we'd shared polite conversation with Jose Feliciano back in Lisbon, which seemed a lifetime away.

As Adam walked toward the tired man, I realized Jose might not remember Adam. And Adam didn't know Jose was blind. We hadn't mentioned it, and Jose wasn't wearing dark glasses. Jose wouldn't see Adam coming. He wouldn't see Adam at all. He might not be able to put a name to this little person he'd never seen, only heard. Adam was a voice from another time zone, another continent, another reality. Would Adam's five-year-old feelings be hurt? Should I have left well enough alone?

I stood nearby and listened. "Bye, Jose," whispered Adam.

Jose looked up and smiled. "Take care, Adam."

Lori Hein.com

Christo redux: A little joy

2005. It was a very tough year.

TIME provides a visual reminder of just how tough with its recent “Best Photos of the Year” issue.

There are 37 photographs in the issue’s print edition. (The online edition displays 24 of them).

Of these, 36 relate to events that involved suffering, death, injustice or sadness. Captions like “Burial Ground,” “Body Bag,” God’s Wrath,” “Paradise Lost,” and “A Fight for Life” accompany these “best” images of all that wasn’t good about 2005. Hurricane Katrina and the London bombings each merit seven images. Rita gets one, as do Darfur, France afire, Pope John Paul II’s body and a frail Michael Jackson in pajamas. There are nine photos of Asia’s horrific natural disasters, six related to the chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan, and two showing strife in Palestine.

Then, there’s Christo.

The print edition’s final photograph, by Andrew Kaufman, carries this caption: “Curtain Time! For two weeks in February, The Gates, a 23-mile-long art installation by Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude, filled New York City’s Central Park with 7,500 orange banners and countless smiles.”

Indeed it did.

I shot the photos above as I wandered under and along miles of Christo’s brilliant orange curtains. They blew in the winter breeze and captured in their folds the white light of the sun.

They brought a brief burst of joy to a year that had so little of it.


Related posts:

2/17/05: Off to Central Park to see Christo’s Gates
2/21/05: Christo, the Chrysler Building and one bad oyster
3/3/05: Newsweek’s Quindlen calls gates “Ode to Joy in bright orange”

Where shall we go next?

Christmas in old, quiet places

There’s something deeply calming about spending Christmas week in an old European town whose cobbles and cathedrals have seen Christmases since the Middle Ages.

The swirl of white lights in the leaded window of an ornament shop in a walled city on Germany's Romantic Road; quiet candles casting a yellow glow inside a crumbling Portuguese church that sits on the sea; the slow, deliberate movement of two dozen Catalans celebrating the holiday by dancing their solemn sardana, arms linked, in front of La Seu, Barcelona's soaring Gothic cathedral.

In an ancient place, on a hushed winter afternoon or evening, such sights both stir and settle the soul. The simplest things often touch us most deeply.

In Tarragona, Spain (above), the unadorned, potted evergreens that sat along the narrow pedestrian passage leading to the cathedral were, there and then in that quiet alley half-hidden from the sun, the most beautiful Christmas trees I’d ever seen.


LoriHein.com

Click your way around the world

My friend, Julie, a travel lover, is also a Web wizard, and she persistently but gently pesters me to do the things I should do to really buzz this blog and help more readers find it. I know she’s right about feeds and keywords and reciprocal links and search engine optimization, but whenever I sit down at the computer with the intention of tackling some of that stuff, a new travel story gets in the way, and I end up writing something. Keywords, schmeywords. Maybe tomorrow.

So I’m always delighted when somebody new finds me, in spite of myself.

I’ve been meaning, for months now, to thank Erik Olsen, who publishes Gadling, a great blog devoted to “engaged travel” and the “engaged travelers who throw themselves (sometimes literally) into action when they travel.” After enjoying some posts I wrote about Russia, Nassau and Aveiro, Portugal (above), Olsen recommended Ribbons of Highway to Gadling readers. Thanks for the mention, Erik.

And thanks to Top 10 Sources, “a directory of sites that bring you the freshest, most relevant content on the Web.” Top 10 Sources steers you to great content on a variety of subjects, including Travelogues, and Ribbons of Highway made “the list of ten of the best travelogues out there.”

I’ve added Gadling and Top 10 Sources to my newly expanded list of travel-related links. Put on a pot of coffee, and click your way around the world.

And let your friends know about this blog so I can continue to not pay attention to keywords and search engine optimization. Sharing photos and stories is much more fun.

Ribbons of Highway, the book

Iceland: A very cool warm place

The U.S. Department of Energy predicts a 25.7% increase in home heating bills this winter. For my family, it’ll be ugly. Our front-gabled New Englander is a beauty, and we love her, but she’s three floors of uninsulated, 110-year-old walls with their attendant 110-year-old chinks, cracks and crevices. Baby, it’s cold inside.

In a normal year, which this isn’t, we see a gas bill or two that hovers around a grand. I gasp when I look at them. This year, I’ll probably go apoplectic before I even open January’s and February’s envelopes. I’ll feel the killer largeness of the numbers right through the paper. I’m already having thirteen-hundred-dollar nightmares. I’m sitting at a desk wrapped in Bob Cratchit stockings and scarves, writing a check by the flicker of light from a candle stub. An evil Scrooge voice laughs, “Yes! Thirteen-hundred dollars for hot air! For something you can’t even see!” I shiver and pass the check to the mean man.

Makes me want to move to Iceland, where it’s warm. There, heat, lots of it, is pumped from the earth. And it’s cheap.

I saw Iceland’s steaming, geothermal bounty before setting foot in the country. On our approach to Keflavik Airport, some 50 minutes from Reykjavik (above), I looked down on the powerful sight of jet black volcanic cliffs rising from the sea and topped in shimmering white ice and snow. Iceland looked like a gargantuan devil’s food cake sitting under layers of vanilla frosting.

Then, just beyond the airport, I saw steam. Massive billows of white-hot steam, gigantic and foamy and eerie, rising from a pool of aquamarine water. Round clouds puffing into blue air. Wispy jets trailing into crystalline air. Rising above and gathering around an industrial-looking building made of stacks and pipes and vents and silver tunnels of metal. This was the Blue Lagoon, Iceland’s premier bathing spot. It was February, in Iceland, but folks at the Blue Lagoon were outside, cavorting in Speedos and bikinis.

The Blue Lagoon is the runoff from the Svartsengi power plant, which pumps geothermally heated water from deep inside the earth. Mineral-rich and superheated to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the Blue Lagoon is one of Iceland’s key attractions and a stop on many tour company itineraries. Because it’s near Keflavik, many travelers make a Blue Lagoon pit stop on their way to or from the airport. If you’re flying budget-friendly Icelandair between the U.S. and Europe, you may have a Reykjavik layover long enough to allow for a quick dip in the Lagoon, so pack your swimsuit in your carry-on.

We spent several days in southern Iceland, and beautiful, hot geothermal energy played some role in most of our experiences. Our room at Reykjavik’s Hotel Loftleidir looked out onto an eerily beautiful blue-domed geothermal plant that looked like a futuristic mosque. There was a restaurant, too rich for my budget, atop the dome. We also had views of some of Reykjavik’s houses and apartment buildings. When they got too hot from all that ever-flowing geothermal heat floating around their homes, residents would open their windows to the winter air. A stunning sight to see, in a land of ice and snow, a row of windows open wide to invite the frigid air inside.

The geothermally heated water in the hotel’s indoor pool was too warm for lap swimming, but perfect for relaxing. A hint of sulfur hung in the air as the kids and I lolled in the sultry water with a group of very serious, reserved Nordic bathers (who found nothing amusing about the sight of Dana in swimmies and a Lion King bathing suit, but did crack a smile when the spa’s TV showed a news clip of a Dalmatian riding a bicycle).

We visited Hverageroi, a town that sits atop a geothermal vent. The Hverageroians have harnessed the cheap, abundant energy to create a thriving greenhouse industry that supplies the tomatoes and cucumbers that appear at every meal you eat in Iceland, breakfast included. A banana tree grows in Hverageroi, and it sits in a greenhouse called Eden.

When we came out of Eden, Adam bent down to inspect small plumes of steam coming up through cracks in the sidewalk. I touched the paving stones. You could have fried an egg on them. A billboard near Eden’s parking lot advertised “EARTH COOKING – and Coca Cola.”

In Iceland, the earth moves under your feet and keeps you in constant awe of its power. One morning at breakfast, a small quake shook our chairs for a few seconds, and later that day, as we waited for a bus in downtown Reykjavik, the bench we sat on took us for a tiny ride.

Our hotel was geothermally heated, and the subtle sulfur scent that lived in our room with us was mysteriously soothing. This wondrous heat from the earth wrapped around us like a luxury. We lay in our beds at night and listened to the sweet gurgle of water through pipes above our heads.

In the dark, Dana whispered, “The sound of the heat is like a lullaby.”


Travel lovers on your holiday list?

Thanks, Nova Scotia

A version of this story was posted in December 2004

Our Christmas tree is up, and so is Boston's.

The nearly 50-foot white spruce that graces the city's downtown is, like 30 trees before it, a gift from the people of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It's an annual expression of friendship and thanks for help that Boston provided after the 1917 Halifax Explosion, in which a collision between two ships, one loaded with wartime ammunition, took 2,000 lives, injured 9,000 and left 1,500 homeless.

The delivery of the Boston tree always reminds me of a personal experience with Nova Scotian friendliness. I was in Truro, (above) at the head of Cobequid Bay, a finger of the Bay of Fundy. I'd come to watch the tidal bore, an amazing crush of water that rushes toward Truro twice daily, filling Cobequid with a fast-moving wall of water that literally piles on top of itself. The evening performance, lit by a dramatic fireball sunset, was about to begin.

I pulled up to a farm that sat at the water's edge. As I began to see water from the distant Bay of Fundy move toward Truro, I realized I'd left my camera at my motel. The woman who owned the farm came outside, and I asked her if I had time to retrieve the camera before the water wall reached us. She considered the liquid shimmer advancing from the horizon and said, "Yes. You have time. But hurry."

I tore up the road and barrelled into the motel parking lot. The owner was waiting at the door, holding it open. "Forgot my camera!" She nodded and smiled.

I got back to the farm just as the water reached the channel neck west of Truro. In a minute or two, the advancing sea would be squeezed into a narrow space, and the aquatechnics would begin. The farmwife stood where I had left her, staring at the bay. "I knew you would make it," she said.

I considered the wonder I was about to behold, then considered the wonder I'd just been part of. I'm convinced that, through the power of welcome and friendship, the farmwife and the motel owner had held back the tidal bore and made it wait for me.

LoriHein.com

Costa Rica: Do you know the way through San Jose?

The men in the family lost their drivers’ licenses. Not get-a-lawyer lost but physically lost. Misplaced. Dropped. Left behind. Adam’s wallet slipped out of his pocket, and there went ten bucks, gym membership card, New Hampshire boat operator’s permit and four-month-old license. Happily, no credit cards yet.

Mike lost his license at the Hertz airport rental counter in Buffalo, New York. He gave it to a rental clerk who never gave it back. We’re mildly concerned, as Mike’s license is the old-fashioned “YES! THIS IS MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!” kind. We’re imagining an illegal alien or identity theft ring operating up there in Buffalo on the Canadian border, with purloined documents supplied by the occasional corruptible rental car agent. Mike reads people well, and the fact that his particular clerk never looked him in the eye bothered him. We smell something fishy in Buffalo.

Father and son became license-less within hours of each other, so they spent an afternoon bonding at the purgatory that is the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. They returned home with temporary paper that keeps them legal until their new plastic arrives in the mail.

This drama was rather easily resolved (if you discount the specter of identity theft hanging over our heads) because we were on home turf. It’s a tad tougher when your stuff is lost (or stolen...) in another country.

We'd been on the ground in Costa Rica no more than 10 minutes when the money belt I was wearing under my sweater disappeared. Thankfully, our passports and credit cards were in a separate neck pouch under my shirt, but we’d lost all our traveler’s checks. Somewhere between the plane and the airport exit, our money went missing. Welcome to San Jose.

We picked up a rental car, checked into the San Jose Holiday Inn, and called American Express. It was midnight. The voice on the phone told us to go the office of TAM Travel in the morning for replacement checks. Sounded easy. The address? “Avenida Central Primera.”

At 6:30 in the morning, the Holiday Inn took the holiday part of its name very seriously and blared Nat King Cole singing “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire” (which you can now download as a ringtone) through the hallways. It seeped like spilled eggnog under our door and through the pillows we held over our ears. Hopeless. There was nothing for it but to use the croon as a wake-up call and start the day. Good morning, Central America!

At breakfast, where we gorged for a good long time on eggs, bread, fruit and chewy Costa Rican coffee, I asked the maitre d’ if Avenida Central Primera was close to the hotel. “O, si!” she nodded. “Muy cerca.” Just three blocks this way and two blocks that.

We packed up, checked out, got in the car and found Avenida Central in a flash. As primera means first, I looked for Number One Avenida Central. No such animal. We soon realized that Avenida Central was miles long and that the buildings had no numbers. We tried the three-blocks-this-way-and-two-blocks-that tactic but found nothing that linked Avenida Central to anything vaguely Primera.

As we spiraled deeper into the vortex of San Jose’s clogged, carbon-monoxide-infused chaos of one-way streets, I wished I hadn’t violated one of my own travel rules: carry a street map of every city you may visit. A good map puts you in control. We hadn’t planned to spend more than our first night in San Jose, so I’d chosen not to bother with the extra paper. We'd come to Costa Rica for Jaco Beach (above) and Manuel Antonio National Park on the central Pacific coast.

For nearly three hours, we crisscrossed and circumnavigated the unwieldy metropolis. I told a traffic cop we were looking for Avenida Central Primera. “Calle Ocho,” - Eighth Street – he said, and pointed off in the distance. What Eighth Street had to do with anything we didn’t know, but we drove in the direction of his finger. And drove. And drove some more.

I asked three more cops, and each used the word “calle” several times. “Cual calle?” Which street?

I began to get it. Building locations in San Jose are all about where Avenidas meet Calles. To find a place, you need to know its closest avenida-calle intersection. We’d found the right avenida, but to find where TAM Travel sat on it, we’d need a calle, too.

I wanted to call TAM to pinpoint their location before we wasted more time and energy, but I had no Costa Rican colones. Mike double-parked at a bank, and I hopped out. The police kept shooing him away from the bank, so he circled the block for an hour until I emerged, having waited in a colossal queue to change a small American bill into Costa Rican coins to feed a payphone.

The woman on the phone at TAM cried, “No es Avenida Central Primera! Es Avenida Central, Calle Primera!” Eureka. Then she unknowingly added insult to injury: “Es cerca del Holiday Inn.” We recrossed the city and found TAM, three blocks this way and two blocks that from where we’d started so many hours ago. At the American Express desk housed inside, gracious people treated us kindly and gave us new checks.

As we’d seen enough of San Jose to last several lifetimes, we headed north out of the city. In the pretty town of Alajuela, where we stopped to buy groceries, a cop gave us a 1,000-colone ticket for parking in a taxi zone. I flashed some money, mumbled a contrite apology, and in short order he swapped the ticket, which required a court appearance, for a 500-colone payment that went straight into his pocket.

An hour later, on a deserted coastal highway, a three-foot-long iguana emerged from the brush in front of our car. We pulled off and watched his rough, beautiful body lumber across the asphalt.

All thoughts of lost money and time, urban gridlock and baksheesh disappeared into the ether. The iguana reminded us why we'd come.

Where shall we go next?

LoriHein.com