long time, lots of sea

looking at the date of the last post, i realize it has been three weeks since i last wrote anything here in my corner of the vast interweb. on the 17th, a week after my previous post, i plugged into the drugs for another go-round with the heavyweights avastin and alimta. all went as anticipated; i wasn't feeling very motivated to write anything new about the old routine. the days were grey and the drugs put me to sleep. all in all, i was doing fine, but i had my eye set on only one thing.

vacation.

samara and i had been talking about and planning a march vacation for quite some time. the main criteria driving our decision making process (and what a process it was) were that it be (a) sunny and (b) warm. and by warm, we didn't mean t-shirt and jeans weather. we meant hot. and by sunny we meant not dreary, grey, snowing, or raining. we wanted a fix for the long winter blues.

we decided upon costa rica, finally, because it came recommended by so many people we know, it was relatively easy to get to via a short day of travel, and we already had an idea for a place to stay once we decided what part of the country to visit. with only a week's time, we decided to pick a spot and stay there for the entire seven days, therefore maximizing our time to do fun things and minimizing the time we would spend traveling through the country. we settled upon the osa peninsula, home to the largest tract of pacific rain forest remaining in the world. it is still fairly remote, and much to our liking, not at all touristy. it took a twin otter and a boat to get us to our lodge in drake bay. no phone, no internet, not even a post office for mailing post cards. one lane dirt roads are the main arteries feeding the nearby towns and even then, they are often traveled by horse or dirt bike instead of car or truck. at night, it was just us and the myriad bugs thrumming away in the tropical humidity. during the day, the air was filled with the sound of birds and monkeys. trust me, life was really tough.

i did my best to fend off a nasty stomach bug that had me miserable and hating food for a day and a half; i spent a lot of the first two days with my eyes closed, hoping i would start feeling better so i could resume eating so i could gain some energy to do some of the things i had been hoping to. thankfully, following some stale saltines and a coke on tuesday afternoon, i started feeling a bit more like myself and at dinner at a meager portion of lasagna and some watermelon that managed to stay put once it hit my digestive tract. i was on the up and up. wednesday brought more eating and more importantly, some activity other than lying on the beach. we hiked south along the shore, ducking in and out of the woods on the way to a small river, where we joined a guide and took a trip upstream via boat. we spotted a cayman (luckily, after we had been swimming in the river for 20 minutes) and hiked to some awesome waterfalls. i practiced my spanish with the guide and had fun trying to make sense of everything. following the river excursion we hung out with some white-faced monkeys near a mango tree and completed the all-important afternoon routine of swimming in the ocean, showering, eating dinner, and promptly falling asleep at 8pm just to do it all again the next day.

thursday brought us to corcovado national park and incredible wildlife. on the hour boat ride we saw pacific spotted dolphins right next to the boat. their exhalations sounded eerily human. in the park, we saw so much - right off the bat, a tapir rambled onto the beach and we ran to watch his morning routine. we saw all four species of moneky - squirrel, white faced, howler, and spider. we saw the costa rican equivalent of the raccoon, along with countless birds, including toucans and scarlet macaws. my head was in overdrive trying to remember everything i was trying to learn; a day wasn't enough - a week might not be! friday came with a rain storm to dampen the beginning of our canopy tour, but by the end, as we emerged from primary rain forest, sun was baking the pasture nearby. a muddy hike back to the beach capped the day and i did my best to ignore the looming return to civilization and reality.

i felt more at peace in moments there than i have in a long time. the mornings came alive with howler monkeys' calls and birds singing and i was happy to open my eyes as the sun rose around 5:30am. with almost exactly twelve hours of daylight and set meal times at our lodge, it was easy to fall into a routine that seemed to mesh well with the sun and the heat. i daydreamed about future vacations and about the summer here at home. the salt water, heat, and humidity - and my time with my good friend - healed my soul quite a bit. i'm carrying that warmth with me right now. it was missing but i found it again. i'm happy. pura vida for sure.