Heather's Wild and Wonderful Adventure

(written by Heather)
What an honor to join these traveling honeymooners on the last leg of their journey! As this was my first time backpacking in a developing country, Daniel and Joo's discernment and guidance along the way was essential to my survival, and they kept me from having to break into my stash of immodium even once through the week ("I wouldn't eat that if I were you").



Learning about the country in preparation for the trip, I was facsinated to discover that Costa Rica has not had an army for over half a century, and as a result is not as impoverished as other Central American countries. And if its rated in terms of its beauty alone, it very well may be one of the riches countries in terms of landscape and mother nature. From the clean beaches of Montezuma, to the clean air and rainbows of Monteverde's cloud forrests, my nature quota was filled for the year!

Add this to the richness of the flavors and colors of food there, and you can see why tourism makes up about a fourth of the countries income... fresh fish, mouth puckering fruit drinks, locally grown coffee, fried plantains, etc. I can't say a whole lot about the people of the land themselves, Ticos, partly because my interaction was limited due to my stale spanish, and partly because so much of our interaction was with other foreigners who had either relocated to live the "pure life" or were traveling like ourselves. The culture of life among backpackers themselves intrigued me, and I found it to be a trusting, caring (and daring) community...

There are times where survival wouldn't be possible without the aid of a fellow traveler, and I loved and was challenged by this aspect of the trip. Thank you Daniel and Joo Yeon for letting me experience life with you as a traveler, and for creating an adventure with me equal to those I've heard so much about in the past (see Daniel's blog below)!

And now that I've felt the weight of your backpacks after months of travel, I will cherish all the more any souvenir you have ever made room for in your pack...the true gift is what happens in-between the purchase and actually recieving it! Adios!

The Short Gluttonous Life of Samuel Showalter

Ever since our marriage, Joo and I have been talking about when we should have our first child. And it finally appeared that the third member of our family, Samuel Showalter, had joined us. We ran some tests to make sure, and they came back positive. The only problem was that Samuel was growing in my womb rather than JooYeon's...

I learned back in India that it's always smart to get tested for diseases/parasites right before returning to the U.S., for the mere pragmatic fact that health testing and treatment is significantly cheaper elsewhere. So, even though neither of us had any symptoms, we skipped off to a health clinic in Costa Rica (or more accurately, I drug a hesitant Joo to the clinic) where we had the lovely opportunity of taking a stool test. Interestingly, Joo taught me the correct way to take a stool test which I had been doing completely wrong over the years but no doctor had ever informed me of it... no need for details...

On our final day in Costa Rica, we picked up the results. Joo, who was convinced she had at least five breeds of parasites inside of her, was completely clean... an amazing feat after 5 months of travel in developing nations. I, on the other hand, had a parasite... an amoeba to be precise... known as Endolimax nana, which we promptly nicknamed Samuel due to a linguistic misinterpretation by the nurse. The doctor assured me that if I had to choose any parasite to have, Endolimax nana was the best one to have as he is quite harmless and very easy to kill. This came as good news to me since Giardia had been a beast to get rid of while travelling Asia.


Heather and Joo served as the pallbearers, photographer, and cheerleaders in the solemn murder of Samuel Showalter which you are about to witness in the next few photos...

And within minutes, the deed was done and Samuel the amoeba was no more. More precisely, the battle raged on like little volcanic explosions deep in my gut throughout the day, but by the time we landed back on American soil, I felt purified, clean, and fully refreshed.

Heather's Brusque Initiation into the World of Backpacking

Heather came to Costa Rica prepared. After hearing countless travel tales of how I've run from cannibals, barely escaped the fangs of cobras, waded through typhoid fever, etc., she was ready for an adventure. So what kind of big brother would I be to disappoint her??? We started off easy though with her first night in a beautiful antique hotel in Alajuela, Costa Rica. The fresh blackberry juice in the breakfast alone was enough to addict Heather to the joys of traveling... the calm before the storm...

From there we rushed to catch a bus which carted us off to the Pacific shore as we rattled back and forth with stories of South America and Arizona. It's funny to see how each person interprets the same experience differently... for example, on the bus ride Heather continuously pointed out the fact that all the houses had shiny clean floors regardless of the state of the house - that is a fact that I have never noticed in all my years of travels!

After a few hours of lush vegetation and clean floors, we came into the dock where our new friend from Massachusetts, Wayne, guided us to the ships to travel across to the Nicoyan Peninsula, one of the hotspots for jungle beaches in Costa Rica. There was quite a wait, but we eventually left the dock around 4:00 p.m. and had a peaceful sail across the water...

On the other side, as night was falling, we caught a bus which slowly wound down the coast towards our final destination of Las Palmeras. Now, being a responsible brother, I had done something I hadn't done on these entire travels... I paid for a reservation! The obvious advantage of that is that we had a definite place to stay. The not so obvious disadvantage is that we had to find it.

The website had given vague directions and Joo and I had slightly conflicting memories of it. She thought it was located in a town called Montezuma and I thought it was in Cobano, but we definitely knew that it was right next to the soccer field so we weren't that worried at first. We got off the bus in Cobano and amidst a sea of taxi-drivers with widely-varied specious directions, it became clear that none of them really knew where it was. However, it was clear that it was not in Cobano... strike one. So, as it started to rain (which it inevitably does in these situations), we lugged our backpacks down the road in search of an internet cafe to double check the directions. Unfortunately, the first three people told us there was no internet in town. The fourth told us there was and we followed him several blocks to an internet cafe which did in fact have computers but no internet (they told us it was out on the entire peninsula). We asked to see the phone book, but the number wasn't listed. It was getting a bit strange since it was a small rural area and the locals who had lived there their entire lives swore there was no hotel called Las Palmeras. Feeling stuck, I tried calling a British guy who owned a nearby hotel and he reassured me that it did exist and it was in Montezuma.

So we found a friendly taxi driver who said he knew exactly where it was and took our $8 to drive us there. We did indeed arrive at Las Palmeras but it was a restaurant, not a hotel. What was happening? Strike two. Now we were getting a bit frustrated, but we walked into Montezuma and lo and behold, there WAS internet! We checked the website which listed the hotel at three locations, Cobano, Montezuma, and Delicias. Having tried the first two, and carefully reading the other directions, it became glaringly clear that Delicias was indeed where we needed to go. With that settled, we dried off and got some food in our bellies and laughed over the adventure.

And as Joo said, that would normally be the end to one of our adventures. But not that night. After dinner, I took the phone number for the hotel and tried to call on a pay phone. After several failed attempts, some locals informed me the pay phones didn't work. So I begged someone for a cellphone and called the number but there was no answer. Not a big problem... we would just go anyway. After all, we had reservations.

We asked a few people where it was. The website had made a point of mentioning how CONVENIENTLY LOCATED the hotel was and so we thought maybe we could just walk. It was soon clear that was not possible. Everyone we asked was helpful at first until we told them we were trying to go to Las Delicias. Then they just shook their head, laughed, and generally said something like, "You're @$#$ed!" So we tried to find a taxi. But there were none in the whole town. There was, however, a guy who was quite intoxicated but trying in his own way to help us by setting us up with a pirate taxi driver. We debated back and forth about the safety of this since it would obviously be too dangerous to walk but we didn't fully trust the driver (who, thankfully wasn't intoxicated). Instead, we decided to scrap our reservation, even if it meant losing all the money, and just finding any hotel to stay in. Unfortunately, they were all full. We finally spotted a REAL taxi driver who said he had never heard of the hotel, but he would take us up there to Delicias.

Surprisingly, we found the place fine, which was in the middle of nowhere but right next to a soccer field, and got out in relief. It was now about 11pm. The driver pulled away and we knocked on the door... no answer. We knocked on the back door... no answer. For the next 15 minutes, we yelled, knocked, did everything possible, but it appeared that no one was home. Finally, the Irish owner came out in her nightgown and said, "Oh, I was wondering if you would make it up here! Most people who make reservations just never show up for some reason!" Hmmm... I wonder why...

She was actually very kind and gave us a much larger cabin after all we had been through. THEN... the adventure was finally over and we could collapse in relief (see the first picture of this blog). Aside from a monster cockroach lurking in the bathroom...

everything went smoothly from then on, and Heather had her first experience of sleeping in a mosquito net. She slept rather soundly, although she did have some altercations with the IBB (Imaginary Bed Bugs) that Joo had grown to despise. Of course, the next morning, as Nora the Irish lady cooked us up a fine breakfast and the sun broke over all the lovely colors of plants and animals and our nostrils filled with the fragrant fresh air, we all laughed together over the experience and Heather felt like a true backpacker!

Two days later, Heather had planned for another big travel day... back to the mainland and up a long, winding road to the mountains of MonteVerde where the Quakers had settled. The travel itself went quite smoothly until it got dark, started raining, and the mountainous dirt roads turned to mush. After it seemed like we had stopped particularly long at one random bus stop on the dark roads, the sounds of spinning tires alerted us to the grim fact that we were stuck. The driver ordered all of us off the bus into the mud and rain, but after about 10 minutes it was apparent that only the foreigners had heeded his words as the blank stares of the Costa Ricans peered out at us. A couple cars zoomed down the one lane road from the opposite direction, promptly getting stuck sideways and further sealing our sedantary state of affairs.

After fully soiling their feet and shoes somehow (which I'm still not quite sure how since my shoes were probably even cleaner when I re-boarded the bus, thanks to the rain) Heather and Joo huddled together on the bus until the driver gave it full gas and got us out of there!

Panama... the in-betweenie place

Panama always seems to be best known for its linkage in-between Central and South America, making it ideal for the canal location. And ironically enough, that's exactly what it was for us as well. We were catching our breath, relieved to have survivied the final Colombia ordeal and gearing up for our 16-hour bus ride journey to where we would meet Heather. That said, you can still get quite a general sense of a country in three days.

Joo described Panama City as the "same as the L.A. ghetto we were in, but spread all over the city." We did have a nice stay at an all-out youth hostel, which I thought would be a bit overwhelming for Joo, but it turned out that she loved it.


By "all-out" I mean it was very packed with travellers... we shared a skinny top-bunk in a room with about 16 other travellers and spent most of our time in the social lounge, kitchen, or balcony conversing with various people, most notably a delightful Basque girl (Joo was amazed to find out there was another little country sandwiched in-between Spain and France that she had never heard about). One nice thing about Panama City was the colorful buildings...


The local crafts and coffee were also splendid and energized us for our journey up to our final country... Costa Rica.

A Philosophical Dilemma while Leaving South America

What exactly is a criminal? Is it merely someone who breaks the law? Is it a normal person backed into a wall so they see no other reasonable means of escape? Are Joo and I criminals?

It was the Russian nightmare all over again, but this time Joo was subjected to it as well. Backpacking inevitably subjects travellers to a very awkward situation now and then, and perhaps our most trying one of this honeymoon took place a couple days ago. It should have been one of our easier travel days, as we only had to take a short flight from Colombia to Panama (as opposed to 10-12 hours of grueling bus rides and transfers).

As I generally research countries before entering them, I had found out months ago of the Panamanian police scam at the border where they made all tourists coming from Costa Rica pay an extra $10-$20 if they lacked proof of onward travel (which backpackers very rarely have, in order to remain somewhat flexible). Therefore, I had willingly compromised our generally spontaneous travel approach and picked an exact date to get a bus ticket from Panama to Costa Rica. Unfortunately, neither of the 2 bus companies would sell me a ticket by phone or internet. So I contacted a hotel owner in Panama City for advice and he assured me that he had lived in Panama for years and that this clause was never enforced for people arriving by air (like us), only by the land border. And so I forgot all about it.

Until the lady at the Pereira, Colombia airport asked me for it. I showed her our flight ticket out of Costa Rica, which would clearly show that we had no intentions to secretly migrate to Panama, but this didn't suffice. I think the problem was that no one knew what to do with us since we were some of the first foreigners to fly out of the little Colombian airport. In fact, the well-informed Scottish hostel owner who has lived in Colombia for years had asked me incredulously, "Pereira has an airport???" Whatever the case, she wasn't about to budge on the onward travel rule, and we weren't about to settle for her proffered Plan B which was $1200 in plane tickets that we wouldn't even use. We reasoned, then pleaded, attempted to creatively provlem-solve (buy a refundable plane ticket, pay them the full fare for a bus ticket, etc.), but all to no avail. She demanded a ticket that literally was non-existant. And so she finally denied us our flight and we stood there helplessly as our plane soared towards Central American soil. Before sending us back into the bustling city of Pereira, the ticket counter lady did say she would give us 24 hours to resolve the issue, or else we would lose our plane ticket for good.

Now, making the situation significantly more desperate, my sister Heather was scheduled to arrive alone in Costa Rica only 4 days later on her first trip to an underdeveloped nation. For Heather's sake, my mom's sake, and my own sake, I NEEDED to be in Costa Rica within a couple days. And I knew the bus ride from Panama City was at least 16 hours, plus extra time for rain delays or the chance we couldn't get a ticket for a couple days. Direct flights to Costa Rica would have been about $1600, and I can't effectively communicate to you how much money that is for budget backpacking.

I called the bus companies again, but they refused to sell me a ticket. I called around to hotels and travel agencies in Panama City and only one manager offered an idea... bring the imaginery required ticket into existence. We had already concocted that same idea ourselves before even setting foot out of the airport. Ironically, I had a high school computer teacher who had spent an entire semester teaching us how to realistically counterfeit documents and, although it was a blast, I never thought I would actually use the information in the real world. But 15 years later, it came in very handy and we designed the following ticket...

Was it ethical? I reasoned that the whole purpose of proof of onward travel is to prevent people from illegally entering and residing in a country, which of course we had absolutely no intent to do. Furthermore, I was disgusted by the fact that they made a completely illogical entry requirement, as the bus companies didn't sell advance tickets. (Although granted, it probably wasn't as illogical as when I crossed into Cambodia at a remote point and the policeman simply locked my passport in a drawer until I bribed him enough to give it back to me.) But most importantly, I didn't see any other way to meet Heather in time, and Joo was starting to panic also as to whether we would ever leave Colombia, regardless of its status of our favorite country on the honeymoon so far. All to say, I was much more concerned with covering all the bases and making sure we could pull it off without getting caught than with the ethics of the decision.

I didn't sleep well that night, frustrated that we were stuck in this situation where we had no viable option but to do something that was prohibited. I felt a bond with other criminals from across time and literature, such as Jean Valjean (Les Miserables - a guy who went to prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family), Jesus (One of the most law-breaking guys the Pharisees ever came across), Emerson (with his legendary civil disobedience), Ghandi (with his stubborn refusal to acknowledge the existing authority), etc. Granted, our case was nowhere near as socially productive, but I did feel we were doing the right thing. JooYeon spent her time preparing for the quickest way for us to make it to Costa Rica in time once we had arrived in Panama...

Meanwhile, the city of Pereira celebrated their own anniversary of breaking Spanish law by asserting their indepence. The streets were filled with firecrackers and dancing and the Christmas-decorated mall was filled with cheer (even if they do live near the equator)

Other men who had been labelled criminals on posters around Colombia were not as happy as they had already been turned in for rewards (the men with X's)...

The next morning came... show time. When we awoke, there was a downpour outside and our hearts sank... not only did we have to get past customs, but we had to hope it would be dry enough to fly. As we pulled into the airport, the airstrips were closed down and our driver told us there would be no flights for that day. In any case, we stood in line behind the ticket desk and waited nervously trying to prepare ourselves for any question that might be asked of us.

We first went through the hard-core baggage check where they were ripping everything apart. They punctured out Marisol's eye (JooYeon's favorite doll that she sets out as female company in every hostel room) as well as our vacuum-sealed coffee checking for cocaine. I didn't feel too bad as they were much stricter with the several people before us. We stepped up to the ticket counter, faced the same girl, told her we had arranged everything while acting very relieved and she smiled and said, "Okay, great!" And that was that.

I'd love to hear some of your comments on how you would handle a similar situation, or any thoughts on legal philosophy in general and how to handle crimes that people commit because they passionately believe they are doing the right thing (as opposed to brutal crimes that are intentionally designed to hurt people). In the meantime, with our bags smelling deliciously aromatic from Colombian coffee and our hearts full of all the 99% wonderful experiences we had in the country, we headed off for the final leg of our Latin America journey, Panama and Costa Rica.

Here you can see the street lined with Colombians petitioning for our release. :) Actually, they were supporters of President Uribe. The night before there had been some riots where guerrillas filled the town square and threw rocks at the policeman and so this crowd moved in the next day to peacefully protest against the lingering remnants of violence in Colombia.