AtomJohnson Blog

For our 7 month anniversary, I ordered a Bingo Wall Hook for Jess from Uncommon Goods. It arrived the day before our 7 month anniversary, but I just couldn’t wait for her to open it. I braced myself for the joy in her eyes as she unveiled a framed vintage 1960s bingo card with metal hooks for jewelry hanging. Well, Uncommon Goods sure did pull the wool over my eyes as they instead sent me the bestselling novel, Porno For New Mom’s. Happy Anniversary Jess!

This is what I ordered….

This is what I got.

Its been several years since I’ve been healthy enough to play outdoor soccer. It seems that every time I try to come back, I end up blowing out some other part of my knee. Last year I blew out my ACL at my first practice for my new Boulder outdoor club, West End FC. This Spring I was finally able to play a full season. I think its going to take nearly the full year for me to get back into outdoor shape. I’d forgotten how much it takes to keep sprinting the full length of that field. I will say though that I’ve never had so much fun playing soccer with a group of guys as I am with this group. The most important position on our team is he who is assigned the duty of bringing beer for the post game. Its tough to figure out if its more of a soccer team or a drinking club. Either way, I’m not complaining.

That is me on the front row…#124

Well, its been an amazing vacation.  This morning we had to rise well before the sun once again to catch a taxi to the airport for our return back to Colorado.  In pure Costa Rican fashion, our taxi did not stop at a single light and came inches from hitting a dog on the highway.  I’ll never again complain about drivers in the States.

After paying our departure taxes, we boarded the plane and headed home.  Neither of us is looking forward to opening our email and seeing the hundreds of tasks that piled up while we were drinking beer and eating quesadillas by the pool.

After several very relaxing days at the beach, it was time to head back to the city. We grabbed our final free poolside breakfast at the Treehouse Inn before throwing our backpacks on and hiking through town to the bus stop. Jess taught me how to ask for two tickets to San Jose. After rehearsing my lines, I walked up to the ticket counter, delivered my Spanish flawlessly, only to be told….well, I don’t really know what I was told, but she seemed to indicate that I could only buy tickets on the bus itself.

Once on the bus, the driver seemed to indicate that we couldn’t buy tickets on the bus either. We soon learned that we could no longer buy reserved seats, but could sit in the seats until someone with a reservation came by to claim it. I was incredibly nervous about the prospect of standing for this 5 hour trip back to San Jose, but at each stop, passengers would be displaced from their seats and we’d keep ours. This trend continued for the next five hours until we finally stood up to depart the bus in San Jose.

We checked back into Kap’s Place and then decided to walk down to the Central Market. Other than the Delray Farmer’s Market in Alexandria, VA, I had never been to one of these markets. This one was nothing like Delray. The building took up an entire city block and was a huge, seemingly disorganized array of lunch counters, meat vendors, fish sellers, and a really disturbing pet store that sold puppies, guinea pigs, and adult and juvenile chickens. The meat counters sold every part of the animal. I know that I saw cow tongue and kidneys for sale, and I’m about 90% sure that they were also selling the heart. Somehow after seeing all this, we managed to work up an appetite for tamales…which are served in banana leaves here, rather than corn husks. They weren’t as good as the ones in Denver, but I was hungry enough to eat the heart out of a cow.

After laying on the beach for a hour or two this morning, I walked over to the Super Samara to grab a cerveza. While there, I walked across the street to inquire about the cost of lodging at the Samara Treehouse Inn. They were gorgeous villas on huge tree stilts that sat directly on the beach and shared a private, blue-tiled pool. Each had its own grill, outdoor dining area, and private hammocks. I found that the ground level villa next to the pool could be had for $95 a night and was available for the next two nights. As this was only $30 for our very ordinary room at Casa Del Mar, I jumped on it and quickly moved our bags across the street to our new accomodations in Playa Samara.

The move to the treehouse was easily the best decision of the entire trip. Instead of having to tote our belongings out to the beach and keep a keen eye on them if we wondered into the water, we had an amazing basecamp with huge french doors that opened out onto a private deck with ocean views, a fully-stocked kitchen, cable television, and a few meager steps to the sweetest pool you’ve ever seen (other than those infinity pools…they’re pretty sweet too).

With a fully-equipped kitchen and a grocery mart across the street, we picked up some items and made lunch at home. Jess makes quesadillas with the skill of a master chef. They were the perfect precursor to our afternoon of relaxing in the pool, napping in the hammock, followed by more relaxing in the pool.

Feeling plenty rested, we headed down the beach that afternoon to try our hand at surfing. Our host at Casa Del Mar helped arrange surf lessons for us from Jessie’s Surf School, which is advertised as being “worth the walk” since it is about half a mile down the beach. All I can say is that I have a whole new respect for surfing. They should just called it “getting your a$$ kicked by waves”. I was able to get up a few times during the lesson itself, but mainly because my instructor held my board steady, pushed me into the wave, and then told me exactly when to stand up. After the lesson, all bets were off. The majority of my time was spent falling off my board and then being flipped over with my board while paddling out as the wave broke on top of me. I got off alot easier than Jess though. Her board had something personal against her as it came crashing down on her head from several feet in the air. Fortunately it was just the board that hit her instead of the fins, as a hit from the fins generally leads to stitches that number in the double digits.

It only takes about an hour of this before you’re ready to head home, drink a beer and eat some dinner…..which is exactly what we did.

This morning we were treated to another amazing home cooked meal from Reina. This morning she made us cheese empanadas made with the cheese that is produced locally here in Monte Verde. After this wonderful meal, we said our goodbyes and boarded a shuttle that would take us to the small beach town of Samara, where we plan to spend the next three days.

Over the next several hours, we plunged from the high, cool mountains back down into land of heat and humidity. However, this time we had a large body of cool Pacific water to cool off in. We shared a shuttle van with a German couple and a shuttle driver who would quickly ask us to buckle up whenever he saw the police. He sneered as if we were getting away with something. When he later asked his German passenger what he did for a living, the gentleman replied, “Police”.

For lodging we settled on Casa Del Mar for the night. It was right across from the beach, looked nice but affordable and best of all, had air conditioning. As the room would not be available for a few more hours, we changed into our suits put our bags in a storage closet and headed out to the beach. Samara beach turned out to be exactly that we were looking for. The dogs, cows and horses on the beach outnumber the people.

After a few hours of laying in the sun and reading in the shade, the skies turned grey and soon began to dump horrendous amounts of rain. We rain over to a beachside restaurant that sat under an enormous palm-thatched roof. The guy told us they didn’t open for a few more hours, but would be happy to serve us some drinks. The woman who poured our drinks did not have much experience behind the bar and poured Jess roughly an entire bottle of wine into a giant fishbowl-shaped wine glass. For the next few hours, we sipped our drinks, played yahtzee and watched the grey skies turn into a gorgeous sunset that invited all of the surfers out to play. Through a hazy buzz, we watched other people amble in for dinner as we enjoyed our own meal from the giant BBQ pit outside. Thanks to copious amounts of wine and beer, we did not stay up too long after the sun set on Samara Beach.

As amazing as our cabin is, its only downfall is the thinness of the bathroom door combined with its proximity to the bed. This morning was the fourth morning of our trip and four days since I had managed to go to the bathroom (you know….#2). I’m not one to talk too much about bowel movements, but after three days of packing food into my body without any escaping out the other side; I was growing a bit concerned. As David Sedaris says, its akin to “packing a musket”. Having never done so much as “pass wind” in front of Jessica, this was a very bright introduction to my digestive system. If you’ve seen Dumb and Dumber, you may refer to the laxative scene with Jeff Daniels. To make matters worse, the water in our cabin ceased to function for the next several hours…preventing me from flushing away any memory of my uncooperative digestive system.

Reina’s breakfast was as amazing as we had hoped. The homemade corn tortillas were the best I have ever experienced. All I can say for the coffee is that Jessica, who NEVER drinks coffee, loved it. And I, who always drinks coffee, think it is about the best I’ve ever had. Reina and her husband, Leo, grow it right here on their property without any chemicals. Reina mentioned that they make it really light as to not upset the stomach. After my episode this morning, as upset stomach was the last thing I needed.

With an hour to kill before our tour departure, we chose to take a walk around Reina’s farm. Most everything is out of season right now but we were able to see some bananas growing on the trees. If nothing else it was a great way to start the digestive process from our filling breakfast.

For our tour, we had chosen a zip line tour of the cloud forest biological reserve. For this tour they harness you up to giant metal cables that fly you over and through the canopy of the forest. Upon arrival in the higher mountain areas, we realized that the temperature was quite a bit colder than it had been in town. Being the gentleman that I am, I walked into the gift shop and picked up a jacket for Jess. It was blue, it was waterproof…and I later found out that it was also a little boy’s size 12. Jess thanked me profusely before having to inform me that it was the ugliest jacket she’d ever seen. We immediately walked back in and tried to exchange it. The girl was not going to let us until Jess explained.

The zip lining is incredible! Once you get over the initial fear, it’s really quite exhilarating. The tour we went on had 11 different zip lines and a “Tarzan” swing. The Tarzan swing is a giant metal tower that you jump off of while connected to a rope that attaches you just before hitting the ground and swings you into the trees. It is “poop your pants” scary. The attendees at the bottom slow you down by slapping at your ankles until they’ve taken away enough momentum to grab your ankles and that finally grab you with two inner tubes tied together.

The tour price also includes a walk along the 1.5 mile path of swing bridges that extend over and through the forest canopy. Somehow Jess found the swinging of these bridges to be much more frightening then flying full speed over the jungle connected to a cable as thick as your thumbs.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing on our porch and planning our activities for the next few days and the beach. Corn nuts, chilled red wine and Pilson beer made the planning much more tolerable.

For dinner we chose a restaurant called “La Conica de Lona de Dona Flory.” I think this roughly translates to Flory’s kitchen. From the description our Lonely Planet guidebook, it sounded almost like a roadside food stand, but its promise of the best tamales in Monte Verde had us sold. Our taxi driver had no clue where the restaurant was, but my instruction that it was on the road to La Colina Lodge near the cheese factory seemed enough to put us in the right direction. If nothing else, this place was certainly off the beaten path and way out of town. As we arrived at the general area where we understood the place to be, there was no sign of it. We stopped at La Colina lodge to inquire as to its whereabouts. The old man inside sent us about 50 meters down from where we came to a very well hidden left turnoff. Well, this road, (which was the worst we had driven) dead ended into an abandoned house. So, we tried the next one, which had a sign to “The Residence of Marvin Rockwell.” Halfway down the road, I was resigned to the fact that we were going to have to head back into town when suddenly we saw the word Restaurante painted on the side of a building through the woods. The taxi pulled around to reveal a large open air garage with a make shift open air kitchen and two tables 4 plastic table clothes. There was a woman at one sipping from a glass of white wine, so I guessed they were still serving dinner. We paid our taxi and proceeded to the small unoccupied table.

The meal turned out to be on of those fortunate accidents in life. The restaurant is no longer “officially” open. Flory, who ended up sitting and chatting with us the entire meal, ran a very successful restaurant out of this garage for 5 years. Then the government began demanding taxes and other fees that would have amounted to over $1,000 per month. There is no way she could afford that, so she took down the road signs and now only cooks for people who know about the place and call ahead. Fortunately, the other group there was a party of three families, one of which was local. Once we informed Flory that we were not part of that group, she apologized and walked over to give us some options on what she could cook for us. Since tamales were no longer offered (too time consuming) Jess chose the enchiladas and I opted for the burrito. After cooking for everyone, Flory commenced to tell us how her husband, Marvin Rockwell, was the first Quaker settler to Costa Rica in the early 1950s. Her stories, demeanor, and hospitality reminded me of being at Nanny’s house. For dessert she brought out homemade glazed donuts that were the best I have ever eaten. She insisted that we come back the next day to see her flower gardens, but regretfully we had to leave first thing in the morning. If you’re ever traveling to Monte Verde, please call her and arrange a meal. If you want beer or wine though, be sure to bring it with you as she does not serve it there.

We each gave her a hug and thanked her again and again, and got into another 4-wheelin taxi for the bumpy ride home.

This morning we decided not to do a large, organized, guided volcano hike and instead to attempt the Laguna Cerro Chato hike. It was described as a 5 hour strenuous hike with amazing views of Volcano Arenal that ended at a turquoise-colored lake formed in the mouth of an inactive volcano. Sounded good to us!

Prior to our hike we took advantage of the free breakfast at the hotel. Since Jess cannot have wheat, her options were reduced to corn flakes and fruit. She was not a fan of the flakes, which reduced her pre-hike breakfast to a glass of juice and a few pieces of fruit.

After a 10 minute taxi ride, we paid our entry fee for the trail and began the long, hot walk up into an inactive volcano. We learned very early that when The Lonely Planet guidebook says “strenuous”, they mean every bit of it. The first part was all up hill and completely exposed to the sun….and it was hot….and it was HUMID.

Once we entered the forest, it seemed a blessing, but this is when it really got steep. As the book promised, this would prove to be a three hour ride on the stairmaster. We were essentially hiking up and over the roots of enormous trees.

It quickly became obvious that the few pieces of fruit were not going to sustain us on this hike. Jess was complaining of nausea and dizziness. With our only food being a banana, I offered that we turn around, but Jess insisted that we keep moving forward. For the next mile she just kept moving 100 feet at a time. After what seemed an eternity, we finally crested the hill to the top…only to find that it was 720 more meters down a even steeper hill to get to the lake.

Running short on time (as we had to catch a 2:30 shuttle to Monteverde), we hauled butt down the hill only to be tortured further by a small guided hike eating a huge spread of lunch. While we’re shaky and hungry, they are piling salami and cheese into their sandwiches, having just come out of the lake from a refreshing swim. With very little time to get back to catch our shuttle to Monteverde, we only had time to dunk our heads into the lake before turning around for the long, quick haul back to the trailhead.

We made it back into town with only enough time to have the taxi drive us to a Super Mercado to pick up some snacks. Then we boarded a mini tour van for the first leg of our jeep-boat-jeep transport across Lake Arenal to Monteverde. My time in this shuttle was the most afraid I’ve been so far. The driver was in much more of a hurry than we were and was driving like a NASCAR driver on the final turn of the Daytona 500. He was weaving across the double yellow trying to find the slightest window of opportunity to pass the van in front of us. At one point he was forced to slam the brakes and sneak back behind the van to avoid a head-on collision with a motorcycle.

The next mishap of this leg of the trip was when Jess was stepping out of this cursed van. The step was coated with a Teflon-like plastic that offered no traction at all. Jess’s feet slipped out from beneath her as she landed directly on her back. She assured everyone watching way too quickly that she was fine. I had my doubts.

With both of us still alive, we took our seat in the water taxi and enjoyed the ride across the lake. It was a picture perfect day of blue sky, few clouds, and another incredible, unobstructed view of the smoke pouring from the top of Volcano Arenal.

The final leg of our shuttle to Monteverde was in an old, tired-looking Toyota mini van. I had little confidence that it was going to make it over the hills that we were asking it to navigate, but slowly and surely it moved over every rock and pothole on the dirt road. After several hours of getting thrown around the inside of the van, we finally pulled into Monteverde.

With no hotel reservation for the night, we inquired about rooms at the Hotel Belmar (where the other passengers were staying). They were asking $85 for the last room available. We passed this up and asked our driver, Juan, if he had any recommendations. He drove us to the heart of the tourist-laden downtown area and turned 100 meters down a side road to the most serene setting of tiny cabins we could have imagined. I guess we were not the first to fall in love with this place as they had no vacancy for the two nights we were there. The very nice owner referred us to her friend’s place that she said was very similar.

So, another taxi picked us up and drove us out of town opposite the way we had arrived. The roads out of town were as bad as any of the jeep trails that I had experienced in Southwest Colorado. After five minutes of this road, we pulled onto a private drive that led to a well-lit house in the middle of the forest. A very nice young woman met us at the front door and introduced herself as Reina. She walked us down a path to a private, 2 story, 2 room cabin with a full kitchen, bedroom, private porch and bathroom that had magnificent views of the surrounding countryside. She asked that after we got settled to please let her know what we wanted for breakfast in the morning and to also let her know what tours she could arrange for us. All this for only $50 a night!

For dinner we took another taxi into town and found ourselves the only customers at El Romantic Restaurante. The food was great, the beer was cold, and we were both incredibly hungry and exhausted. It was a very delicious and relaxing end to a very tough day.

Our first night in Costa Rica felt very much like home. The bed was cozy, the pillow was not too plump, and best of all, they had a fan in the room. Both Jess and I slept like little tourist babies.

We woke up this morning to the delicious aroma of freshly toasted toast. We were pleased to discover that our $35 included breakfast. I had very much been looking forward to my first cup of Costa Rican coffee and it did not disappoint. I did discover though that papaya actually smells and tastes exactly like throw up.

After breakfast, with an hour or so to spare before our taxi to the bus station, we headed out for a walk around San Jose. I have not felt heat and humidity in a very long time. I must say that I do not miss it. This city is not as bad as growing up in Atlanta, but compared to Colorado, it is a sauna. The city is very interesting. Instead of security systems and police men responding to burglaries, they have resorted to just putting up razor wire everywhere. Combine this with the fact that trash collection seems to be organized by simply making a large enough pile on the roadway for it to be collected.

After our walk, we headed back to Kap’s place, made a reservation for the following Saturday, and had the guy at the front desk call us a taxi. I did not even have time to take our photograph in front of the guest house before the taxi had arrived. It was a measly $2 cab ride to the bus station, but once again, no seatbelts.

I’m so thankful to have Jess with me for many reasons, but her Spanish has really come in handy. At the station, we went to two different ticket counters before we finally found the correct one. Each time the man behind the counter would speak complete gibberish, but somehow Jess would find meaning in the sounds.

With a four hour bus ride, I figured it best to find a bathroom. I commented to Jess that a man at the entrance to the bathroom was trying to charge me 100 colones to use the facilities. She informed me that this was standard, so I paid the man and continued to relieve myself.

The entire bus ride seemed like we were traveling through a roadside village. The roadway here is lined with shops, cafes and shanty houses for what seems the entire way. Past this are huge rolling hills of coffee and banana plantations. Again I was relieved that we did not rent a car as the skill and sanity of the drivers leaves much to be desired. While traveling up a curvy mountainside, we would hear a horn beep behind us before a tiny Japanese car would pass us on a double yellow line around a curve. In most cases, a car would come flying by in the opposite lane seconds after we had been passed. It is no wonder that there is so much faith in this nation.

Shortly after we heard a kid in front of us complain to his parents of his need to go “ca ca”, the ca ca really hit the fan. It appears that the game of ignoring the double yellow lines finally caught with someone and we entered our first Costa Rican traffic jam. By the time we’d arrived on the scene, everyone was either out of their vehicles already or on their way out the door. It did not take long for the jam to curve around the bend for who knows how much further. At this point, everyone had exited their vehicles and were running excitedly towards the accident. One guy was speaking excited Spanish and making a crashing motion with his hands. Two vehicles behind us was a bus of drunken young soccer supporters. Many of them had the tattooed insignia of the team on their chest along with tattooed stars on each shoulder. Their behavior ended any mystery as to why there is violence at many of these matches.

After about a half hour of people running around chatting about the wreck, an ambulance came screaming around the curve behind us and fishtailed itself out of control and was lucky enough to pull back onto the road. Then after another half hour, the bus finally started up again and we proceeded through the rain. The cause of the backup was a head-on collision between a small shuttle van and a huge semi truck. This did nothing to boost my confidence in the safety of these roads.

A few hours of driving finally put us in La Fortuna. The bus drive made up a lot of time by not spending any time at the small bus station where we rotated several of our passengers. Jess gambled that she might have enough time to pick up a snack and use the restroom, only to have the driver slam the door shut behind her. We were not sure he was going to let her back on, but the sheer panic in her expression must have convinced him otherwise. Needless to say, it was good to have her rejoin us.

La Fortuna has definitely thrived/grown/suffered from the tourist industry. Its main road of hotels, restaurants and tour operators sit in the shadow of the menacing Arenal Volcano that erupted in 1968 killing 80 people and 45,000 cattle. These days it brings far more people than that each year in hopes of seeing a bit of spewing lava.

We had booked a room at the Sierra Arenal Hotel. It promised private balconies with unobstructed Volcano views for only $45 per night. Best of all, it had air conditioning. I was sweating buckets before it finally kicked into gear. The combination of the hours of sitting, heat and humidity had combined to swell my ankles enough to erase any sign of them….all feet and calves….very attractive.

For dinner we headed two doors down from our hotel to Restaurante Las Brasitas. Its open air seating looked very inviting. The jalapeno steak that I ordered was cooked well and was not afraid to bring the heat. However, we were reminded that we were in a tourist town by the fact that the steak was served with French fries and white rice. It is also not customary to tip in Costa Rica, but our waiter was not shy to remind us as we were leaving that tip is not included. Jess gave him her best look of “whatever” to let him know that we knew and left him 500 colones (about $1).

After dinner we went to the ATM to take out some more cash. I figured $400 would be good for the week. $400 looks a hell of a lot cooler in colones!

Shortly after 4pm, I finally finished up a frantic week of work. After one more glance at my to-do list, now full of checkmarks, I happily opened Outlook one more time to set my “out of office” assistant to inform all who inquire that I’ll be away for the next 8 days with no access to voicemail or email. Hell yeah!

I spent the next five hours running through lists of things I thought I should probably take on my first trip out of the country. Later that evening, while driving to Jess’s house, I went through my mental checklist of the things I had forgotten from my list of items to remember. For those who know me well, this should come as no surprise.

After setting the alarm for 3:45am, we finally went to sleep around midnight. In the blink of an eye, 3:45am had arrived and my first Costa Rican vacation had begun.

Our day of travel was certainly long, but fairly painless. We did have a six hour layover in the Phoenix airport, but compared to sitting at a computer all day, playing Yahtzee and dining at Chili’s with Jess was a nearly perfect way to spend the day.

The leg between Phoenix and San Jose was much shorter than I imagined…only about 4.5 hours. The passing out of forms to be filled out had a very elementary school feel to it. It felt like getting permission slips signed for a school field trip. “We give Adam permission to explore Costa Rica for a week. Please be sure that he takes his Cervezas each night before bed.” – Mr. & Mrs. Johnson

Customs was kind of a joke. At the first gate, the guy entered our passport numbers into a computer. Jess got nervous about me trying to photograph the customs gates. In hindsight, I probably could have asked the guy to pose with me. The second phase of customs looked more serious. We had to place our bags on an x-ray machine. My nerves were immediately calmed once I realized it was the shortest x-ray machine in the world and there was in fact nobody looking at it. We grabbed our bags and headed out.

While at the airport, we decided to go ahead and get some local currency. We changed up $140.00 US dollars for 62,000 colones. You feel pretty cool anytime you have 62,000 of any currency in your pocket.

The guest house where we are staying had sent an email saying that there might be a car there for us with a KAP’S PLACE sign. As I expected, there was no car, so we took a taxi. As we flew through the streets of San Jose, I realized two things. 1. I really wish that I had a seatbelt. 2. I am so glad we didn’t rent a car as there are no street signs and it seems to every man for himself on these streets. After several turns with no street signs, we finally arrived at our destination. I paid the drive 12,000 of the colones in my pocket and we entered our guest house for the night.

The neighborhood is definitely a bit sketchy. Every house or storefront has iron bars and razor wires. Our guest house has two secured doors with a surveillance system in between, and circular razor wire lining the roof and fence. It has a very cozy prison vibe. Once you get through security the place feels downright homey. We had read rave reviews in several travel guides and for $35 we get a private room with a double bed, a shared bathroom, and walkout access to the rooftop deck.

After dropping our bags in our room, we headed down the street to Soda Isabel (the cafes are all called Sodas) to take in some of the local fare. Upon stepping out of Kap’s Place, we found the felt sack that Jess keeps her passport in lying on the street. It appears that I have begun to run off on her a bit. I guess its not good to lose your passport the first night abroad. We certainly feel fortunate to have found it.

Soda Isabel was definitely a local place. The waitress gave me a menu in English, but I was still lost on what there was to eat. I decided on “Chicharron Gallos”, having no idea what I had just ordered. What came out were hunks of fried pork fat back, yucca, raw cabbage and limes with orange fruit in the middle. It was all very tasty. I had never seen or tasted any of the hot sauces, but they were amazing on the yucca.

As we finished our meal and I polished off my Pilsen beer, we jammed to Phil Collins on the stereo. We enjoyed it almost as much as the guys at the neighboring table. Their collection of empty Pilsen bottles put mine to shame.

Before heading to bed I bought one more Cerveza from Kap’s Place to drink while blogging (handwritten for now). This time I tried the other local beer called Imperial. Both Pilsen and Imperial are very light bodied and are a perfect compliment to the humidity.

We also decided to try to find some information on a possible soccer game for tomorrow. I feel like in the US I could find my missing keys with a cleverly crafted Google search, but trying to find a soccer schedule for the local club, Saprissa, was next to impossible. After enlisting the help of Albert at the front desk, we finally determined that Saprissa does have a game against the University of Costa Rica tomorrow, but could not locate a time or place. There is definitely opportunity for a good we designer here in Central America.