A year end trip with twists and turns - Day 0 and 1

We literally came back after a 11 day break first week of December. The kids were. not a part of it. Given work and school, they were free only from 23rd evening. So San had made a plan to go “somewhere” with the kids to wrap up 2025. It was the kids choice and all I knew early on was that it was to be a “kids style vacation” which meant, sitting somewhere with a view and reading a book sipping drinks, be it mocktails or masala chai.

Even the original location was not in my radar and all I knew was to take enough yoga shorts which meant water was involved.

We were to leave on Christmas Eve and come back on 29th. Given no one was working during that time, it was good by me. I am not one for going to a new location and sitting in one place. The kids knew that and still wanted me to “let go of wanting to go places”. The original plan was apparently to fly from SFO to Faa’a airport in Tahiti, then fly from there to Raiatea island, take a boat and spend 3 days in the Taaha resort and come back.

Two days before the trip, the resort called San and said they had to close because of some issue with local government regulation, they were very sorry and will give a full refund. What about the non refundable flights for four people to the middle of nowhere? There was only one other place in that island and apparently the girls didn’t like it. So alternate arrangements were made to stay in Bora Bora in a nice hotel called The Royal. You get the idea.

Now this meant keeping the original flights and booking an extra flight from Raiatea to Bora Bora and back to keep the original flight tickets intact. Fate had other plans. Also the girls missed two things about the local island geography and the flight patterns for these islands.. All these islands are part of French Polynesia and Bora Bora is definitely one of the most amazing islands here.

Our trip started with a lot of panic. San and me went to Bikram Yoga at 4:30 PM and came out at 6PM. We were to leave for SFO airport at 8PM. When we started driving back, got a text from kids saying heavy rains and winds knocked out a transformer. There was no power, cant open garage door and electric water heater is out. We had no change of clothes and were on our way back. I took a chilled water shower in the dark while San ran to our neighbors house to shower (thankfully they had a powerwall). After this we did all the last minute packing with flashlights. The laundry was still in the rinse cycle when power went out. We decided to just turn everything off (when you have lights that have multiple switches and the kids don’t know which lights were on when power went out, it makes it interesting). I even made Maggi in the dark( we do have one stove that works even without power which we can light with a matchstick).. technology is great when there is power! When we went to the airport it was really bad. Just as we were about to leave the driveway, the power came for 2 minutes! Enough to reset the garage door and turn off all the lights! Thanks to Pillayar for small mercies. Usually Pillayar helps when we take trips. Think this time he went on vacation as well. Our travails continued.

We flew on French Bee airlines. I would avoid them if possible. The flight from SFO started 2 hours late (after we sat in the plane they were doing flight maintenance checks) and the return flight was also 2 hours late. It is one of those flights where you have to buy everything on the flight and vegetarian options end up being limited to chips, pringles and pretzels. Not okay for an 8 hour flight that is delayed by 2 hours every time.

When we landed in Tahiti, we ran and made it to the connecting flight only to be told that carry on baggage is 5 kg on the local flights. We had 7 kg bags from the US which was totally okay and is the carry on for almost all flights everywhere. The local airline said that given we had to check the 4 bags there was not enough time and we had to go on a flight 2 hours later. So we sat there for 2 hours in Tahiti and finally made it to the flight to Raiatea. We were in shock as that flight stopped in Bora Bora for 20 minutes, dropped some people off, took some people and went to Raiatea. Given we were going to spend 3 hours in that island (to see a place called Uttarua .. based on someone’s Insta recommendation.. avan mattum en kaila maatinaan. !!). We asked the air hostess if we could get down given these flights were being run like local village buses. She said nope. Get down in Raiatea. When we got down and got the bags, the entire airport closed. It was Christmas. There were only 5-6 staff at the airport for the two airlines that flew there and they all went to spend time with family. We were told that the Uttarua place is closed completely for Christmas and no shops were open. There were no taxis available on this small island either. The airline rep told us to stay at the airport and have some drinks at the restaurant (which was open) and they will all come back in 5 hours for the last 4 flights of the evening.

She did do us a favor by putting us on a flight to Bora Bora earlier.

Raiatea airport is small. It is a nice shack and the restaurant is another shack. Cute, and quiet. There was a lady selling jewelry at the airport who spoke English and helped translate. We took a 2-3 hour nap. thankfully San had packed lemon rice and idlis which we had for lunch. Then we walked around the airport and sat at the restaurant some more. Guess we got what we asked for.. a vacation where we did nothing.. it was a kind of detox. no cell phone, no signal at times.. there was nothing to do but to enjoy the sudden downpours, the sudden clearing of skies, watch the birds.. After spending 6 hours between the four of us (we have not spent this kind of quality time together in a long time) we finally made it on the 20 minute flight to Bora Bora.

It was another interesting experience. The flight ticket included a boat ride from Bora Bora airport (which is its own island with only the airport) to the main Bora Bora which has the volcano crater and hotels all around the lagoon. Once we made that boat ride to Vaitape, a car from the hotel picked us up and took us to the Royal Hotel.

It was a nice welcome and we went to our rooms, showered, changed and came out for dinner. All our meals were at the restaurant that was part of the hotel. They had vegetarian options. The sun had just set 10 minutes before we made it for dinner and the skies were lit. So we did take a few pictures before dinner. After dinner we just went and crashed.

It had taken us 26 hours to get to our final destination when it could have been 11. Still we enjoyed the day as we were all together.

Here are some pictures (some from the plane window)… the place is absolutely breathtaking!

The first photo below was my view for 3 hours in Raiatea airport. This is pretty much the sum total of the airport ceiling. We did try to take a family portrait with self timer by placing the phone on a coconut tree.. however it was already dark.. but we saw this and said “tomorrow we are going to get great photos!” . There were only 10 other guests total on Christmas night. So dinner was fast and quiet at the dinner hall in the hotel.

The first video below is our experience at the Raiatea airport on Christmas. We have traveled on red eye to a lot of places on Christmas, but never have we faced this type of a situation. This was an interesting experience.

Once we got to Bora Bora we were tired but happy, got to see a nice warm room, a nice hotel, beautiful beach and lagoon, food! Somehow looking back at the two video clips, I think we were all just smiling through both experiences anyways.

The videos do a better job for this post than the pictures.

Day 2 was going to be better than day 1 after a good nights rest.. I had not factored in the roosters of Bora Bora which have their own daylight savings time. They start crowing a good two hours before sunrise. That in the next post..

Wrapping up 2019- A trip to Costa Rica

We wrapped up 2019 with an amazing trip to Costa Rica with friends. San and Padma got this trip with an amazing tour company called Desafio. United and my 1K status got us there. Given the chances of getting tickets during the break, we left on Christmas morning and came back on New Years.

The entire Christmas day was spent in traveling to San Jose, Costa Rica. We got to a local hotel 10 minutes from the airport and promptly dozed off. The next morning we had a nice breakfast at the hotel and a van took all eight of us to the first stop, La Paz waterfalls and butterfly garden. Our first photo session outside the hotel in San Jose. My refurbished 5D Mark ii has officially turned 10 years old. It is showing signs of strain just as I am showing signs of strain lugging it around! This was taken on the iPhone 11, which came in quite handy for many a rainy day. 

It was raining heavily and we were given an hour to 90 minutes before the next drive. So we made the falls the priority instead of all the other exhibits there. We did a quick run through the butterflies but skipped the reptiles, hummingbirds and wild cats etc. Given the communication barrier with the driver, we did not know that we could have spent more time.

This one is a Blue Morpho butterfly.. you can see the blue through the cut in its wings. I could not get a single shot of this one in any butterfly garden to show the blue side. There may be a video somewhere.. it is an amazing butteflly the size of my palm, but it flies real fast. 

big butterfly, big caterpillar....

 

I did not get what they were doing with the coccoons hung like this on a line...will have to find out!

We made a dash for the falls, all 5 of them and got soaked from the rain and the mist. This was our first intro to the rain forest in Costa Rica. Rain from the outside, sweat from the inside.. a poncho to cover the camera that made things awkward. The pictures and video will show you what it was like... It was a good intro that prepped us for what was to come.

After hiking through all 5 falls (climbing back up to the exit is not trivial and pretty steep), we were picked up by a shuttle bus from the La Paz fountain to the parking lot. That bus took 30 minutes to show up. Eventually we drove back in our van through that exact same pick up point. If only we had known, we would have asked the driver to just meet us down there and saved ourselves 30 minutes. The three kids in the Van who were learning Spanish in school kept freezing up when we asked them to talk to the driver!!! I gave the little one a lecture on "skills" vs. "grades" which did not go well.  Jr. escaped because she has been on Mandarin for the last 3 1/2 years. Her turn will come when I ask her to translate. 

Where were we? The drive to the next stop, Serapiqui river white water rafting. We got to a rest stop 20 minutes from the river, which was the last restroom on the route. Do NOT skip this. Get some fresh water, take the minute, change into wet clothes and wet shoes. You can thank me later.

Once you go to the river, there is you, the helmet, lifejacket and paddle. A quick lesson and you are off on the rapids. The river had amazing local birds large and small everywhere! The older girls and the two men got the brunt of the river on either raft. It was an amazing experience.

After what seemed like an entire day on the river going through rapids named ay caramaba, ouch, etc., we got to haul the rubber dinghy up the bank. They had towels for us and a shower area and once done, were fed a really nice fresh made lunch by the local Desafio team. There was a photographer on a kayak who was ahead of us and he showed us the pictures. We loved it and bought them (you still need to edit them and these are .jpg not .raw, but great starting points). 

did not know I was taking the wettest seat in the boat... the funny thing is San always knows where the camera is, even on that rapid to smile!!! Amazing camera awareness, while I was practically underwater..

I skipped the egg and the avocado.. there was no shortage of vegetarian food in Costa Rica.  A lot of folks there are vegetarian and sugar conscious and there seems to be no obesity there yet. There is banana in everything. The banana chips (actually nendranga chips here are amazing.. true Kerala feel). Hope it stays that way.

We said bye to the rafting team and started driving to Arenal Volcano. It was a long drive and given most people were sore from the rafting, it was a quiet trip.

We saw some Coatis that were being fed by someone from a car. It clearly said do not feed animals in the route. Felt bad for these creatures. Once they get used to food from cars, they are on a downward spiral..

 

Once we reached Arenal Paraiso resort, we realized that there was no point in trying to go out anywhere for the night. They had the hot springs right there, so we put our bags in the room and sat in the springs for an hour.

Then they had dinner served in the restaurant right in the resort. A full vegetarian dinner with icecream and Chocolate cake! 

Day 2 (or rather day 1 of actual touring) was hectic and fun. 

On a side note, the only time we saw the volcano was when we checked into the rooms and were about to go to the hot springs. It was almost sunset and the coulds were moving fast. The entire next day, it was raining and foggy to the point that the volcano was not visible at all. Was glad to have these pictures..

Given this is the first post in this series, would strongly recommend Desafio and United Airlines if you are planning a trip to Costa Rica. Most of the drivers and guides from Desafio speak English and are very courteous and everyone shows up on the dot. 

Day 3 post when I get done with editing photos and videos.. it pretty much took me all day to do this blog post and get the pictures and video. It is my sincere hope that friends and family will find this useful when they make plans to visit Costa Rica.