Woo hoo Going to Costa Rica!

      Saturday night I’m taking off for a week of sun and fun in Costa Rica.  Of course I’ll keep you all posted as much as I can while I’m there.  It’s going to be awesome.  Ziplining and exploring in La Fortuna, near the base of the active volcano Arenal. Dancing with hummingbirds, butterfly watching and more ziplining in the Monteverde cloud forest.  Hiking, ATV-ing past waterfalls, kayaking through a mangrove forest, monkey spotting and touring a spice plantation in Manuel Antonio.  Sweet.  Mentally, I’m on my way there already.  And it’s going to be warm, too.  Tank top and shorts weather!  Just dreaming about it is warming me up, I am so over this Vancouver winter, all the cold and rain (naturally the sun is coming out as I write this – leave it to mother nature to bitchslap my complaining), but I can’t wait. 

Tropics, here I come!

Tags: Arenal, beaches, cloud forest, Costa Rica, fun, La Fortuna, Manuel Antonio, Monteverde, travel, vacation, volcano, warm weather, zipline

Vancouver – Olympic Detox

       OMG, the Vancouver 2010 Olympics are over.  They were AWESOME, but they’re done now.  Finished.  Kaput.  Put to bed.  We’ve been prepping for this for the past 10 years,survived the gut-wrenching bid process, the constant traffic disruptions that came with building the new venues and Canada Line skytrain, the protests, the adjusting to the Logo that no one initially liked, the crowds, the incredible excitement, the overwhelming patriotism, the nine-hour line ups for the maple leaf mittens, the best hockey game ever, and the raging hangover from the post-Olympics-and-hockey-game celebrations.  Phew.  Now all us Vancouver (and surrounding area) -ites are left tingling, walking around in a daze and thinking, what’s next?

        First thing Monday morning, assuming you were not one of the 40,000 people trying to fly home from YVR,  the most noticeable change was that there is now nothing on TV again.  That’s one of the fantastic things about the Olympics in general: the 24/7  TV coverage.  You can get up at 6 and catch up on all the short track speed skating and doubles luge action that aired the night before while you were watching the moguls skiing and biathalon.  And here in the lower mainland we had this on not one but four English Channels, as well as French, and occasionally Punjabi ones. Multiply this by 2 if you have HD cable.  Author’s note - If you’ve never watched short track speed skating with an over-excited French commentator, you’re missing out, it’s hysterically funny.  Particularly if you don’t speak French.  But anyway, now we have to watch the same boring crap as always, and it bites.

        And then there’s downtown.  The streets are still busy, but you have to walk down the (gasp!) sidewalkon Robson St. because it’s no longer pedestrian only.  The street performers are gone, too, and we miss the guy in the green skivvies on the giant unicycle already.  Thankfully many of the pavilions, art installations and the wait-in-line-for-two-days zipline are still open thanks to the Paralympics starting on March 12th, so it’s easing us back into regular life slowly, not a sudden  rip-off-the-BandAid jolt.  The biggest difference is that the people walking around are no longer all wearing giant maple leafs on their heads (backs/arms/dogs/children), just a few holdouts still are, and the rest are back in their business formal attire.  Oh, and the line for your Japadog is only half an hour again.

        We’re all kind of numb.  It’s over.  It’s OOOOOOVVVVVVEEEERRRRR!!!!  But it was incredible to have it here, we now have state of the art facilities that will help foster the new crop of Olympians, we have a new appreciation of Curling, and we have the most incredible memories.  We are, now and forever, an Olympic City.  We showed the world how beautiful our scenery and our people are, and, most importantly, showed them how much National pride flows through our veins.  Sorry guys, but Canada isn’t just going to sit by quietly anymore, we’re going to scream our heads off, wear red and white mittens everywhere, and apologize for beating you afterwards.  For that, we thank the Olympics.  They brought us together as a Nation, the home-soil advantage brought us out of our shells, and nobody was more surprised by it than we were.  We always knew our country is the best (I’m more than a little bit biased), but we never really laid it all out there to be seen before. 

Vancouver 2010 Olympics, we miss you.  And we promise to remeber you fondly.

But in the meantime, can you help me find something good on TV again?

Tags: BlogSherpa, Canada, excitement, mittens, Olympics, pride, TV, vancouver, zipline

Vancouver – Olympic Life in the Olympic City

        So we’re more than a week into the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games, or, to use a sports metaphor, wll into the home stretch.  Our muscles and wallets are sore, but it’s so, so, so worth it!   The city just feels energized, and it’s freaking fantastic.

        The pavilions, shows and events set up all over the downtown core gives the whole place a theme-park like feel (you line up for a long time, go on a short ride/see a short show, then walk to the next attraction, past souvenir and snack carts and street performers).  And speaking of line ups, at this point I think people are lining up for the sake of lining up.  The wait times at pretty much everything are multiple hours long.  Even just to get into the Granville st. Bay to buy your official team Canada tee (completely disregarding that we have tons of other Bay stores in Metro Vancouver, just a short skytrain away) is like three hours, and that doesn’t come with any guarantee that they’ll still have what you want in your size.  The longest line by far is the zipline, where, according to Radio Canada, a couple recently set the record for waiting more than 9 hours.  The ride is only ten seconds long!!!!  Think about it people, you’re turning waiting in line into an experience in itself, because you’re not doing anything else all day!  I made it into LiveCity Yaletown with only a 40-minute wait, and I was there right at opening.  God knows what it was like by 6!  Even the fabulousness that is the unique Japadog gourmet hot dog cart has a massive wait for your street meat.  By the time you get to the front, you’re ready for dinner, while you’d lined up at lunch.

          But the coolest thing is the overwhelming “We are Canada, we’re loud, proud and we ROCK!”  vibe that permeates everyday life here.  Just sitting at work I see tons of people each day wearing their Canada tees, stupid (or stupid awesome) Moose toques, and flag capes.  Vancouver has become Disneyland all of a sudden, a place where you can wear all sorts of stupid, furry things on your head, your cape has become regular office attire and the world will cease to exist when the puck drops tonight on the Canada versus Germany showdown.  Even the random stranger that approached us yesterday asking for a light said “Go Canada Go!”  by way of a thank you, and those were probably the only English words he knew.

            We’ve definately upped our international reputation, which was pretty good to begin with.  Unless you ask the British, of course, they’re really hammering us, but I think they’re just trying to call our games a failure (yes, they are really using terms that harsh) to make London 2012 look better.  They’re also forgetting that this is a Winter Games and they’re hosting the Summer, hardly an equal comparison, but whatever.  I’m Canadian, I know our games are fantastic, and at least my country has never been bombed, so the Brits can suck it.

          Even Though we still have days to go before the closing ceremonies and the start of the Paralympics, I already know I’m going to miss the Olympics once they pass.  More than anything, in the past week, people have been happy.  All the time.  It’s just a permanent smiling-at-strangers good mood that I don’t want to let slide once the torch has been snuffed.  It’s a pleasure to be in Vancouver.  Even more than usual.  And that’s saying a lot.

Tags: cape, flag, fun, Games, good mood, hockey, line up, livecity Yaletown, Olympics, toque, vancouver, zipline

Vancouver – Olympic countdown: 0 days !!!!

            It’s finally here.  Vancouver is suddenly in the midst of a giant Christmas-morning buzz, with people walking around with stupidgrins on their faces and talking in that higher-pitched, excited tone usually reserved for large groups of women at a sample sale.  Even water cooler talk has gone from “can you believe what happened on Survivor last night?” to “Who’s going to officially light the Olympic cauldron tonight?”  In six hours we’ll finally know for sure when the 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies get underway.  And from the scuttlebutt, it’s going to be huge, with Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Nelly Furtado and the Canadian Tenors, amongst others who’ve managed to elude the media thus far, and all the pomp and pageantry and showmanship we know and love.

          Woke up this morning in time to see Arnold Swartzenegger (that well-known Canadian) wade through the masses of people on the Stanley Park Seawall on his leg of the torch relay.  That torch has already done incredible things to unite us as a city and a country, with much larger crowds than expected turning out both to see it run past and also for the concerts and parties surrounding it every night.  Yesterday it was really cool as it was running just blocks from my home and, later, just blocks from my work.  One of my co workers hopped on the Canada Line Skytrain on her coffee break, saw the torch run past, and got back to work in time. Sweet.

         The city already has an electricity that I’ve never felt before, and I think downtown Vancouver buzzes on a normal day.  On Tuesday night, before anything had actually started, I was blown away at the vibe the city was giving off already.  It felt like Christmas, with more Christmas lights out than there had been in December (I guess a lot of downtown businesses are lighting up to show their support, too) and the city just sparkled.  Okay, so I’m a little biased, but I think we have one of the world’s prettiest cities anyway, but combine that with the festivities and it’s incredible.  One of the exits of Pacific Center Mall has become a giant Igloo, complete with polar bear statues, and Robson Square is lit up like a rock concert with lighting and pyrotechnics highlighting it’s new ice skating rink and zipline.  Man, I would love to do that zipline right through the heart of the city.  I don’t think I’ll be able to, the lineups are supposed to be epic, but that would be so cool.

       So cool.  That pretty much sums it up.  As of today, we’re officially an Olympic city forever, and the huge-ass party to end all huge-ass parties kicks off.  I can’t wait.  We all can’t.

GO CANADA!

Tags: excitement, Olympics, party, torch, vancouver, zipline

Zipping over Whistler

           Get this: I work in travel.  I’m all about travel.  I live and breathe tourist destinations.  And never once in my 26 years had I visited Whistler/Blackcomb, the world-class tourist destination that’s only two hours away up the Sea to Sky highway. 

             Oops. 

           What can I say, I put all my energy into far-flung locales, and completely overlooked what was right under my nose in the process.  I’d been to the nearby town of Pemberton once in grade six for a school trip, but that doesn’t really count.  But this past April I finally made up for all the years of neglect and the BF and I took a long weekend mini-break up to the soon-to-host-the-Olympics village.

             The drive up alone was spectacular, the panoramas compelling me to take lots of pictures (that I got home and was like, “oh, look, another picture of a mountain with some snow on it”).  There’s a good reason why the British Columbia tourism slogan is ”the best place on Earth” (and I’m not biased at all, of course).  The highway itself is interesting, two lanes most of the way.  They’re working on that prior to the Olympics, and there’s lots of construction where they’re widening it, but there will always be some bottlenecks where they can’t go more than two lanes due to the giant rock face on one side and sheer cliff drop into water on the other.  This highway is actually the main reason why I hadn’t visited Whistler earlier, as most of my immediate family was not comfortable driving it (the “highway of death” nickname wasn’t helping things any), but I found it smooth, scenic and effortless.   Granted, I was free to gawk at the scenery while Eric (who’s only lived here a year and had already been to Whistler multiple times) could focus on the road without being distracted, so that helped.

              We went in April because I don’t ski (the one time I went cross-country I sprained my ankle and had to be evacuated on the back of a ski-doo), and more importantly, I don’t do cold.  I live in Vancouver, people!  If it drops below zero schools close, and it takes far less than that for my sensitive hands to turn “oh my God, are you okay?” white.  Turns out that by total fluke we hit the final weekend of the Telus World Ski and Snowboard festival, so the place was packed and free concerts/free promo stuff from the suppliers’ booths/free extreme sports demos/free-wheeling drunk Australians hanging naked out of their hotel rooms at 10am.  I’m not sure if that last part had anything to do with the festival, but when I go back I’ll compare and let you know.

             The village itself is adorable, in that perfect, Disney-does-a-ski-village way (I know, I compare everything that’s cute and clean to Disney, deal with it ).  I had booked us into the Delta Suites because it was the only hotel I could find decent last-minute space at, and even then I had to use my “I’m a travel agent” card to get us in (*sigh* membership does have it’s privileges.  They’re few and far between, but I’ll take what I can get).   Our suite had two fireplaces, a full kitchen, a bed you could loose yourself in and a mountain view, way nicer than I thought I’d booked, but very sweet.

            Most of our time was spent wandering the village, exploring and checking out the shops and events that went with the festival.  Our personal favorite was the dog day, where they had dog agility performances and – love this – a dog costume parade.  There was a woman in a Hawaiian shirt pushing a stroller with two pugs wearing leis and grass skirts, while the other three identially-dressed pugs followed behind, it was so cute!

             But the highlight by far of the weekend was the Ziplining.  Whistler Ziptrek  has a great setup, and, since I had ziplined before in Costa Rica and knew I loved it (the BF just went with it, he luckily had no fear of heights), we went for the higher/longer Eagle tour, as opposed to the beginner Bear tour.  We marched, in full harness-and-helmet glory through the festival crowds from the Ziptrek office to the van that took us up Whistler mountain, past the Olympic bobsled track en route.  The platforms and equipment was impressive (there was none of that ”I don’t trust this to hold all our weight” feeling), but nothing really mattered as we flew back and forth over the river to end right back in the village.   On the longest line if you made it in under 45 seconds you were going more than 80km/h, and the heaviest guy went so fast the  guide’s leather gloves literally caught fire as he tried to apply the breaks!

           It was a short journey to Whistler, but I finally get what all the hype is about, as the atmosphere in the village is buzzing and, if you’re a skier, you couldn’t ask for more options to be right at your fingertips.  It was still a lot of fun, and not once did I have to don technicolour ski pants (I mean, really, do all these people get dressed in the dark?  Or is it so they can be found by rescue crews in case they get lost?)  or waddle through the crowds in non-flexible ski boots.   We really do have a jewel right here in our backyard.  And I got another pin on the map!

Tags: BC, BlogSherpa, budget, Canada, dogs, expensive, money, mountains, scenery, ski and snowboard festival, Whistler, zipline

Finding Pura Vida in Costa Rica

              I admit it, I’m a city traveler.  London, Paris, Los Angeles, I love the hustle and bustle, and as long as there’s a gift shop I’m happy.  So, for me a twelve day vacation to Costa Rica was my test, to see if I could break free of my department store box and truly embrace what the local Ticos call Pura Vida, the Pure Life.

Within hours of landing in the capital of San Jose I was whisked off by minibus to the small but charming city of La Fortuna, at the foot of the active Arenal Volcano, four hours away.  The entire country feels vertical, and my ears popped every half hour as we drove up, down and up again the tiny one lane roads that cling to the hillsides like mountain goats. From here day-long canyoning, hiking and ATV tours are all at your disposal, but I selected a SkyTrek zipline canopy tour.  During a torrential rainstorm I flew along quarter-round steel cables as much as 660ft above the jungle below, suspended by nothing but my harness, while trading grunts with a troupe of howler monkeys.  It was incredible!  I couldn’t get the smile off my face for days.

After a few days there, it was time to move on to the Monteverde cloud forest.  Here the roads are not only vertical, but unpaved, and a drive that looks tiny on a map can take hours.  It gives you a bit of an Indiana Jones complex, and only serves to add to the adventure.  Rain here sneaks up on you, and in a matter of seconds a flawless sunny day can become a downpour, turning all the roads into muddy slip-n-slides with potholes the size of VW beetles.  The hanging bridges are not to be missed, and the hummingbird garden at the Selvatura park has dozens of species buzzing past only inches from your head.

The town of Quepos and the famed Manuel Antonio national park were my third stop, with postcard-perfect views and a relaxed beachy atmosphere.  By far the hottest and most touristy of all the cities, the park is the whole reason to stop here and is well worth it.  Our guide hauled a four-foot telescope the entire hike just to give us the best views of the two-and-three toed sloths, monkeys, birds and even a banded anteater that his well-trained eyes could (unbelievably) spot. The Rainmaker adventure forest, with it’s 190 ft high suspension bridges, is so much more fun than it looked on the Amazing Race: Family Edition, and a mangrove tour got us so close to a troupe of wild whitefaced capuchin monkeys that at one point they even jumped on the roof of our boat!  Leaving there was hard, and after a few final days in San Jose to see the stunning Teatro National and the Gold Museum (and shop), it was back to reality. 

Costa Rica surprised me in many ways, from the diverse climates to the awesome animals, but most of all the incredibly welcoming people.  It leaves you with the warm glow of adrenaline-and-sun fueled enjoyment, combined with the faint scent of coffee. Pura Vida.

- As originally published in the Vancouver Province

Tags: BlogSherpa, city tour, Costa Rica, monkeys, museum, national park, published, rainstorms, volcano, zipline