LB In Costa Rica

Have you read my previous blog post about Costa Rica? It's pretty cool if I do say so myself.

Anyway, I'm still not done blogging about Costa Rica but I don't quite have time right now to write the blog post I want to, that the topic deserves. In the meantime I thought I'd post some pictures of myself, because I don't do that very often and I know that, as a blog reader, I also enjoy looking at pictures of the blogger I'm reading about.

Trying to look all tough at the stadium in Alajuela where I went for training and for a match. I was the first person on the field at the team's practice. I had free reign of the field for a few minutes so I think that's why I acted all tough.


This is a cool-looking sign in the stadium, nearby where the previous picture was taken. It's a plaque with the stadium's namesake on it - Alejandro Morera Soto, who was a famous local footballer.

Remember the crocodile bridge from last post? This was taken on the bridge. Had I somehow managed to fall over during this picture I would have fallen perilously close to the crocodiles and I probably wouldn't be blogging right now. Yay for me keeping my balance.

And this last picture is... well... not sure if I have to describe it...


Oh yeah. Paradise.

¡Pura Vida!

Costa Rica Trip

I’ve had some pretty memorable trips in my time but I’m finding it difficult to recall a time when I had two unbelievably incredible international trips in consecutive weeks.

A week ago, I was in Morelia, Mexico, wondering if anything could match that. Now, I’m back from Costa Rica, knowing that something did.

I spent a whirlwind two-plus days in Costa Rica, getting into Central America late Monday night and flying back home all day Thursday. On both personal and professional levels, Costa Rica was a rewarding, unique, fulfilling, tremendous trip.

So much happened in the last couple of days that I really don’t know where to begin. From going on a run in Costa Rica and getting lost to being at an old, venerable and true Central American soccer stadium to visiting beaches and seeing some amazing wildlife to returning to the stadium and experiencing perhaps the most insane and frenzied passion I’ve ever experienced at a sporting event, the trip was non-stop action for me.

Now, I will save my run for a separate post but it was an adventure unto itself.

I suppose I should start with the best things first. Sit back and make yourself comfy…

There were four of us writers on the trip but only three of us were able to head out to the beaches on Wednesday. We’d done a lot of work on Tuesday, both in the morning when …. um, let me backtrack a bit. I went to Costa Rica to cover a soccer match as the LA Galaxy were playing Liga Deportiva Alajuelense in a CONCACAF Champions League match. If you follow soccer, that might make sense. If you don’t… well, that’s another post for another day. Anyway, at the hotel we were able to interview Landon Donovan and the team’s coach, Bruce Arena. That gave us some proper ammo with which to get started writing, so I got started, Costa Rican style of course.

Since we’d done a lot of work, actually, all of our pre-game stories were done by Tuesday night, we had Wednesday free to ourselves until about 4 or 5 p.m. So we rented a car, one of the other guys volunteered to drive and off we went to explore the Costa Rican countryside, determined to make it to a beach. We stopped after about 45 minutes for some breakfast and to stretch our legs.

Now, we had an idea of where we were going. Our destination was Jaco, although that could have changed since we only wanted to find a beach, not necessarily visit Jaco. One of the people at the hotel had told us about Crocodile Bridge, where supposedly there were some crocodiles relaxing underneath.

We came up on a bridge but didn’t see any signs or anything. But there were people on the bridge so once we crossed it, we parked and made our way back to the middle of the bridge and sure enough, down below…

… were our buddies the crocodiles. I’ve always referred to them as “cocodrilos” in Spanish but here they’re known as “lagartos.” Whatever they’re called, they’re kinda imposing.

Are you ready? Here’s probably my favorite picture from the whole trip:

Dude has his mouth open. For real.

So then we made our way back to the car. We had to stay on the straight and narrow.


We piled back in the car and kept driving. Our destination seemed close.

But it didn’t seem close. Although we were right by the ocean, we couldn’t see it. There were a lot of trees and vegetation blocking our view. Since I’d been here before, I knew the water was just on the other side of the greenery, so when the first hint of a break in the trees appeared, I did in fact see water.

We pulled off the road once more as we were right by a beach. The sight was stunning.


Absolutely beautiful.

And notice the best thing about these pictures: there is nobody there. We walked past a couple with a young boy and there was also an older lady with her grown daughter and (presumably) their tour guide there at this beach, but there wasn't anybody else there.

To be fair, I'm not sure if this was a great spot for swimming. There seemed to have been lots of rocks in the water, and not the small rocks you pick up and toss but the large ones that can tear a hole in the side of a boat. The water, though, was quite warm, so warm. I only went in to my ankles but it was so soothing and refreshing.

After a little bit there, we got back in the car and made it down to Jaco. Now, Jaco is close to where we went in 2009, to Quepos which is next to Manuel Antonio National Park, and I would recommend visiting Quepos. However, you can't exactly go wrong with Jaco either.


Now, Jaco looks easy to pronounce - hawk-o, it looks like, but it's pronounced haw-KOH, so it doesn't necessarily rhyme with taco.

I joked with the guys that I was going to move to Jaco and open up Jaco's Tacos, even though it wouldn't necessarily rhyme. And then, wouldn't you know, we passed by Jacos Tacos. I was so disappointed someone had stole my brilliant idea.

Well, anyway, more pictures from Jaco.


Now, these birds were strange.


Okay, well, strange maybe isn't the right word. Unique is more like it. I think the one on the left is a turkey vulture. It looks like it anyway. Not sure what the heck the one on the right is. I obviously photoshopped the one on there so they weren't together or anything but they were sorta close to each other.

I snapped some more pictures before it was time to head back to our hotel.


Parting really was sweet sorrow.

On the one hand, I was sad that my time at the beach had been so short, but on the other hand, I was grateful for every second I was able to spend there. After all, it was a gift, it truly was. I'd never imagined being anywhere near Costa Rica and then to have this thrust upon me was a blessing, a gift, a prize of some sort that I'm not about to slight.

Amazingly enough, the trip would just get better, for me of course. There was a little matter of a soccer game to attend and cover, after all. If you made it this far in my tale, I'm hoping you come back for another layer or two of it.

Stay tuned for the next part.

Back From Costa Rica

Greetings! I made it back from Costa Rica. I'm already working on a long post with pictures and stuff but I guess I can't wait to put up something so...

This will hold us over for now. And as you can see I made it to a beach. Yay!

Another International Trip

I'm heading out to Costa Rica later today. Ha, that's not something you say every day.

This will be my second international trip in a span of eight days. That's not something that happens often either. But that's how things work out for me. I go long stretches of time without traveling and then all of the sudden I'm thrust onto international flights in rapid succession.

My whirlwind travel isn't done either. I may have a chance to go to Honduras for a match in late October. That will be interesting as I've never been to Honduras.

Anyway, we'll cross that bridge in Tegucigalpa when I come to it. For now, it's on to San Jose's Juan Santamaria International Airport. Well, later this afternoon anyway.

I haven't had the chance to read up on you all so I apologize for not getting out and reading blogs as much lately. Next week things will be back to normal and I will have time to run and blog and read blogs and get to some things around the house.

Anyway, hopefully I'll check in from Costa Rica.

And if you weren't reading my blog in 2009 when I last went to Costa Rica and the land of Pura Vida, check out some of my posts from back then. That pretty much includes things that I won't get to do now. But I'm sure I will have different but still memorable experiences this time around as well.

Return To Costa Rica

Have you read my previous post about my visit to Morelia? If not, make sure you do after you read this one. Got some cool pictures up from my quick trip to Mexico.

Anyway, as the blog post title says, I will indeed be making another international trip here. I am headed to San Jose, Costa Rica on Monday. I will be there until Thursday, covering another soccer match.

Now, this trip to Costa Rica won't be like my 2009 excursion there. I also traveled there for a soccer game. That time it was the United States national team playing against Costa Rica in a World Cup qualifying match while this time it's the LA Galaxy playing Costa Rican side Alajuelense in a CONCACAF Champions League game. But that time Mrs. LB traveled down on the day of the game and we stayed an extra three days on vacation there. We visited the beach in Quepos, visited Manuel Antonio National Park and had an amazing and awesome time. It was unbelievable, to be honest.

This time, I won't be so lucky. San Jose is in the middle of the country and while it is a small country, it still would take a couple of hours to go to the beaches. And I just won't have that kind of time.

Still, a trip to Costa Rica is something I'm not going to pass up, and having the chance to take this sort of excursion, for work no less, is a blessing. I've worked as a freelancer for about eight solid years now, have covered soccer since 1998 and while I've traveled before for games and tournaments (Japan in 02, Trinidad & Tobago in 01, Dallas in 05, Seattle in 09 and 10, also been to Chicago, Salt Lake, Denver...) my big trips are few and far between. To have two trips like this so close together is a bit of a whirlwind but definitely something I'm enjoying and feeling so fortunate to have the chance to partake in.

One thing that will be different from my last trip to Costa Rica - I will definitely go on a run there. Last time I didn't run but this time you can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to run. Costa Rica is safer than Morelia so I will head down there with the intention of running, and also I want to add Costa Rica to the list of foreign countries I've run in. Right now that list consists of Canada and Mexico. Woo hoo!

Anyway, I rambled on for longer than I intended to. If you haven't checked out my Morelia post, please do so now. Got some cool pics. And I'll be back for one more post before I leave for Central America on Monday.

Pura Vida in photos

As this posts to my blog, I'm getting ready to take off. I'm headed to Montreal for a vacation. Unlike my Costa Rica trip, which was planned around my work and really just came to fruition relatively late, this Montreal trip has been planned for a while longer. It's celebration for Mrs. LB and me, for our 10-year anniversary.

Anyway, I figure now would be a good time to get the last of my Costa Rica pictures out there. No stories attached to these shots, really. Just pictures with a few words of description, random pics that didn't really fit anywhere.

Overall, I loved Costa Rica, everything about it. Their famed saying down there is Pura Vida, pure life. I can't wait until I get the chance to go back.

On the long road outside the capital.

Statues for sale on the side of the road.

A Costa Rican convenience store.

Their version of a school (I think).

A typical Costa Rican dish, loaded with black beans and white rice. Very yummy.

A sign from inside the Manuel Antonio National Park.

In an unfocused picture, I circled our friend the Eyelash Viper. See how close we were to death?

One of the absolute best things about Costa Rica were the clean bathrooms everywhere I went, including at Manuel Antonio National Park (where even the porta-potties were clean!).

Yours truly.

Til next time, Ticos.

When in Quepos...

... do like the locals do.

Okay, maybe not all the locals take regional flights, and not sure how many can afford or would take such a trip. But on our last morning in Costa Rica, we had two choices to go from the coast to the capital: take a shuttle or an airplane. The shuttle would take three and a half hours, while a flight would last about 25 minutes.

I opted for the flight and convinced Mrs. LB on it about a week before our trip. I found pictures of the airplane we would fly in afterward, and I think it helped my cause to have saved those pictures for after.

This is the plane we ended up boarding and flying from Quepos to San Jose.

It's kinda small. It seats 12. It has a propeller. It makes a lot of noise. My wife called it a cropduster. As it was pulling up to the, uh, airport, I joked with my wife that it had a load of pesticides underneath and that we would fly over a field of crops en route to San Jose.

Mrs. LB didn't laugh.

Actually, she was terrified about the whole ordeal. Here's the Quepos Airport.

It didn't exactly do much to calm her fears. I was never worried though. I'd done some research on their safety record and was pretty calm about it. Still, Mrs. LB had me ask several locals about the flight and if it was safe and the cabbies and waiters I asked all assured her that it was quite safe to fly from Quepos to San Jose.

Oh, check out the rest of the airport.

Once on the plane, the propeller whirred to life. Our small plane, which did not feature a pressurized cabin since we wouldn't be high enough to require one, skirted down the runway and took off. We got a good view of the coast.

We were barely in the air 20 minutes when the pilot announced that were descending upon San Jose's main airport, Juan Santamaria. We landed without any problems, and even Mrs. LB admitted that it was the smoothest landing she'd experienced on an airplane, in recent memory anyway.

Here's the plane that took us to the capital, and it got there in one piece and in right around 23 minutes.

Hurray for regional airlines!

One week ago

I wrote this blog post on Friday night. Right now, as it posts to the blog, I'm probably knee deep in mud or trudging uphill somewhere on Camp Pendleton.

It's a far cry from where I was at this exact moment one week ago. I remember looking at my watch on our last morning in Costa Rica and thinking that I'd be competing in the Mud Run at this very moment.


Funny how things work out.


So anti-today.

Let it rain

One of the things we experienced in Costa Rica that we don't normally experience in Southern California... or anywhere for that matter... was a torrential downpour.

Now, I don't mean just a hard rain, or even a hard storm. This was the skies unleashing their fury on Quepos.

From May to October is Costa Rica's rainy season, though they call it the Green Season to tourists and such. I mean, Green sounds better than Rainy, right? It didn't rain the first three days I was there, but when Mrs. LB and I were there together, it rained both nights.

On Thursday, it rained from about 4 p.m. to about 5 a.m., a solid 13 hours of this torrential rain. It was about the same on Friday. On the Friday, we were out at the beach and went into an Internet cafe to send some e-mails. In about 20 minutes, it went from overcast to a blanket of rain. It was actually fun because it was a new experience for us. We had to get a cab in the pouring rain and the drive to our hotel was, interesting.

I shot a video of the rain. This was in the hotel restaurant.

Drink up

I'd wanted to blog about the cuisine we enjoyed in Costa Rica but figured it'd be best to split it up into the food part of it and the drinks separately.

Costa Rican food was... well, we'll save that for another time. The drinks were fantastic. There's something about sipping certain drinks on the shores of the Pacific, a part of the Pacific you've never been to, not many have, that just makes the drinks taste sweeter.

Now, we drank some alcoholic drinks but not all of our trip was liquor. Mrs. LB opted for a Diet Coke, which in much of Latin America is called a Coca Light.


This next drink was very good. It was made of passionfruit and don't even know anything about passionfruit other than it makes for a great drink in Costa Rica.

There was also another drink that was quite excellent. It was made from a fruit called guanabana and that was a very sweet flavor. It was a little thick but it didn't leave any aftertaste or any sort of lingering flavor or anything that overly sweet drinks here can sometimes leave.

Now, onto the mixed drinks my wife tasted. The first one was a caipirinho or something, apparently a popular drink in Brazil. The waiter at the restaurant recommended it to Mrs. LB and it was very good. It was made with lime and sugar cane and rum, I think. Can't be certain.

Remember how I said the pineapples were great here? Well, that makes for a pretty good Piña Colada.
I'm not much of a mixed drink person but I liked the sip I had of Mrs. LB's Piña Colada. That pineapple flavor shined through. Incidentally, I ate the pineapple that was on the glass :)

While I didn't drink any mixed drinks, I did indulge in some beer. Now, quick story, I used to drink more than I do now. I used to enjoy it. Not that I don't enjoy it now but it's funny what losing 120 pounds will do to your alcohol tolerance. I suddenly became a lightweight in more ways than one. So a couple of beers now are enough to knock me out sometimes, especially if I haven't eaten.

But I don't drink much. I had one beer in late May and the last beer I had before that, I cant' remember. Maybe... I don't know, may have been 08 sometime.

In Costa Rica, though, I opted for the local brew, Imperial.

I like Mexican beers and this one was similar to that. This particular photo was at a restaurant across the street from the public beach in Manuel Antonio. The day was warm, a bit humid and we'd just traveled more than 3 hours from San Jose by van. This beer was ice cold and hit the spot.

When you factor everything in, probably the best beer I've had in a long time.

Monkeys and Sloths and Crabs - Oh My!

I blogged about the lovely iguanas Costa Rica had to offer, but there was more than just large, scaly lizards to grab our attention.

Yours truly in front of a sign near the park entrance. That translates to Manuel Antonio National Park, but you probably figured that out. Incidentally, the shirt was a gift from my brother, who went to New Zealand and Australia on his honeymoon. It's a t-shirt with the outline of New Zealand on it. That's the closest he'll ever get to Costa Rica... but that's also the closest I'll get to New Zealand.

Anyway, the national park is part of several national parks in Costa Rica. The Ticos have set aside about a quarter of their land as wildlife preserve. One thing about the Ticos, they have quite a bit of pride in their country. You hardly saw any trash anywhere. They were very green down there with lots of recycle trash cans in several places we went. I guess when you have an awesome country filled with rainforests, you take a little more pride in them.

In this particular national team, there were several companies that offered tours. The tours weren't necessary - you can traverse the park yourself. But you won't see most of the animals we saw.

Such as this deadly snake:

It's an Eyelash Viper, and it was sitting on a large leaf about three feet off a path our group took. This picture was taken from our tour guide's telescope (they all carry telescopes so you can see stuff up close). One bite from this guy and you'd be dead in a matter of hours. That was a fun fact.

One of my favorites was the following groups of animals:

The above is a White-Face Monkey (who unfortunately didn't have his/her face turned towards us) and the one below is a Howler Monkey.

Monkeys down there all travel in groups, so when you see one you see lots. To see them, our guide said, all you do is keep an eye on the tops of the trees. If you see some shaking and movement, it's probably a monkey. It was crazy to see them hopping from tree to tree. Some of them had babies on their backs. They really didn't pay us any attention.

One thing we were warned about was this:

No Alimentar A Los Monos, Ni A LB.

Apparently monkeys and bananas aren't the greatest combination. Monkeys and people food don't mix either. Tourists are severely discouraged from feeding the animals, and we complied. We did, however, feed LB.

Another tree-dweller we saw was this:

A three-toed sloth! How cool is that?!? They move really, really slow. While monkeys zip from branch to branch and tree to tree, the sloth climbs up slowly and moves at a gentle pace. But they are also quite comfortable meandering through trees.

On the beach, there were dozens upon dozens of hermit crabs.


There were tiny ones to large ones, well, not that large. This was about as large as they got. But it was strange because you'd walk along certain parts of the beach and stop and you'd see the ground moving. There were so many crabs. Another thing the park discourages is for people to take seashells from the beach. Seashells could actuallly be crab shells, and hermit crabs go from shell to shell so if people take shells with them, the hermit crabs won't have anywhere to go.

There were several other animals we saw that I didn't get good pictures of: Blue-Morpho Butterflies, hummingbirds, grasshoppers, a Jesus Christ Lizard (named so because it walks on water), a large rodent... thing, and various forms of vegetation. I took pictures of them, they just didn't come out. See, in the rainforest, you can't use flash because it might spook the animals.

And you don't want to spook an Eyelash Viper, do you?