The Dueling Cavalier

JULY 1st
Happy 2 Year Anniversary to us! Its been an incredible 2 years now since Kyle & I tied the knot! We've had many adventures and misadventures--with many more to come. Since our most favorite things to do happen to be traveling, outdoorsy things, and running, I thought I'd sum up the past two years in with a couple memorable mentions: Moving to Costa Rica for 3 months, and completing 5k, 10k, and 12k trail races! We LOVE the XTERRA races! Plans for the future: travel and trail run more!

Life wouldn't be as swell , however, without such an amazing husband...Kyle are you reading this? You're absolutely splendid :) Adventure, sickness, joy, tragedy, health, whatever...bring it on.

Baby Phat

After fond memories of going to the Children's Museum in Portland, OR when I was but a hatchling, I thought it would be a delight to take Carleigh. It was, however, a bit of a disappointment.
The facility was only one level an and big as a school gymnasium and very "kidy"...toddler heaven, but for Carleigh (an adult in a mere 9 yr-old body) it wasn't too pleasing.

We did find sanctuary in the Moon Sand! Think of that blue putty that you put on walls to hold up pictures with a grainy texture. Oh, the masterpieces we made!

The next best thing was, of course, painting with finger paints. Carleigh was thankful the artistic opportunity; however, we decided that our next excursion should be one of pottery-making.

The trip to downtown Atlanta was at least informative and entertaining as the "humans" you walk past are quite out of this world.

The Formalities

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood for the Nel clan: The wedding of "K" & "A" (Keali & Andrew), not to be confused with the first "K" and "A" Nel (Kyle and Almira)...creepy, but it gets creepier. I'm from Vancouver, WA, so is he...My birthday is in January, so is his...we have mutual friends. It has got to stop. They are always copying us...next thing you know, they'll be moving to Wisconsin, lol. Okay, just kidding about purposefully copying. :) But seriously, all those coincidences are real. Weird.

We had just gotten back ourselves for the wedding a few days before, and were planning on going back but sickness prevailed. We didn't really feel like going anywhere with our Costa Rican illness...pneumonia, sinus infections, fatigue, the list goes on. Needless to say, we decided to stay in the grand U.S.A. And a wedding was just what we needed to rouse our spirits!

If you were wondering: Yes, Kyle's tie was, in fact, a hook-on. Not quite sure why that was the particular choice was made for ties on this occasion, but it worked. At least their corsages didn't wilt like mine did. :)

Unfortunately, was a rainy day...April, go figure. But the pictures probably turned out cute since they borrowed an umbrella. I'm sure it will be adorable in sepia.

The award, however, for this wedding goes to Keali's mom, Heidi! She should be a wedding planner, since she effortlessly planned the whole wedding in such a short amount of time! Colors, reception hall, you name it... :) And the hydrangeas were scrumptious, I might add.

Carleigh won the award for "Best Looking" at the wedding in her cute little flower-girl outfit.

A good lookin family and delightful occasion all in all.

Turkish Delight

The name of the beach we went on holiday to was "Mal Pais" or "Bad Country"...however, it was quite the contrary. It was quite breathtaking, so I've entitled this post as Turkish Delight simply because it seems more palatable, though we didn't find anything Turkish there. Israeli food was abundant for some unknown reason other than perhaps they particularly like to live in dusty, expensive surf towns...who knows?

This beach was absolutely lovely with white sands, sunsets that could kill a man and surfers that didn't care if they punctured your esophagus (well, I'm sure they'd feel a little bad...there were so many of them--one of them must have a conscience!) The tides were so strong, you had to be on your guard even in a few feet of water, but running on the shore was a daily treat. There was certainly a "LOST"...that series on TV for those of you who don't recognize the media reference :)...because on one side you have a huge jungle and then beach; no shops, no houses, nothing. You have to hike to get back inland to "civilization."

As for the brave act of surfing...that was fun and hard work to learn. We traded those in for boogie boards the day a local surfer died due to all of the rocks and intense waves. We took this picture inside our hotel because we didn't dare take our camera to the beach! Even locals hide their flip flops under leaves...anything left even hidden at the beach--consider it stolen.

So, to sum it up: it was a great get-away for a couple of locals like us. The only down side was how dusty it was...a very rustic beach town, you had to wear either a scarf or some locals actually wore those little white masks you use when working with dry wall. Don't worry, the jungle clears up your lungs afterwards. A great way to spend a week in "Rich Coast." (If we were rich, we'd probably opt to stay at one of those lavish resorts, rather than in ant infested one we got a "bargain" for, but puhleez, who does that anyway?) And yes, we did move to 2 other rooms during our stay of 4 nights in that hotel. Hurray for rock-hard bodied, brain-less surfers.

To the left is Kyle posing in front of what we named the "Iguana Tree" It was covered in huge iguanas, probably because they camouflaged well with the 1 1/2 long thorns the protruded from the tree's surface--definitely not a good tree for forts or climbing.

One side note for those of you that may feel so inclined to go here...everything closes at dinner time for a few hours so that all the surfers can go watch the sunset, then jobs resume as usual (this is why most of our pictures are being taken at sunset).

"Tuanis" is Costa Rican for "cool"...and it was rather "cool" to say the least!


Stay tuned for The Nel Casbah's following adventure: the Keali & Andrew Matrimony

Rara Avis

Hi Everyone!

Things are great here in Fern Gully. Last weekend we went to this very rustic hippie retreat up in the mountains- Rara Avis. Rara Avis means rare bird- and this was true there were no birds. This place has no electricity in the "lodge" and was very, very basic as far as ammenities go but so pristine and beautiful.

The journey there begins with a 3 hour tractor ride through these wonderful logging and farming trails. As you can see it was pretty muddy and gnarly.

Of course the most random things happen to us. So we are on this tractor bouncing around to the point of hilarity and what happens? Two butterflys land on Almira's hand and hang out there for about 5 minute. I think I am married to Snow White.

Here is a photo to prove it. I am pretty sure that I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been there.

Once the tractor ride was finished we then had to hike the rest of the way in- an hour or so. Everyone there is required to where these snazzy rubber boots, for the snakes, mud, and such. We actually ended up buying our own because hey they look cool and everyone wears them. When we went to buy the boots the guy at the hardware store tried to get us to buy the nicer model by saying that "these boots would not be just for you but an heirloom to be passed down to your son and his son (translated from Spanish)" Man do people take their rubber boots seriously- so we of course got the nicer ones. I feel that it was a wise investment, but I will have to wait to see if our grandkids are still wearing them to see if the sales guy was right.

Rara Avis is so cool becuase it is really a scientific research station. The guy who started it was the basis for the movie Medicine Man. The really funny thing is that we actually live here. It is still so weird to us that it is not weird that this is where we are now.



On our hike to Rara Avis' center, ie where the food is, we learned about the walking palm. This little guy to the left. These things have been tracked to move up to two meters a month. They move their crazy branches and roots to find the sun and water and in the process actually move. Very Lord of the Rings I know.




Once we got there, finally, we saw the main reason we came this far, the fabled 4 tiered waterfall! This is the coolest place that I have ever been to. Period. I think that Almira would agree. The water was so clean and pure. We loved it!



This is us in front of the bottom tier of the waterfall. We had quite the slippery hike to get there. But thanks to our auto timer on our camera we were both able to get in the shot. Even these pictures cannot fully express how beautiful this place is. One of our favorite trips to be sure.



And this of course is the random photo of the week. Doesnt this look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book? This was outside our window at Rara Avis.

This place is unreal. We love you all! Drop us a line sometime.

Tirimbina and More Fun w/ Nature

Hello - We hope that everyone is well and enjoying the winter. I read that this winter has seen the most snow cover in the US since the 1960's. I must admit that it is hard to think that it is ever cold anywhere. Wisconsin is going to be a rough adjustment for sure. We are just getting over a pretty nasty illness. It knocked us out for about a week. But I am happy to report that we are both feeling much better.

We have had a few more adventures to report on. We went to La Tirimbina last week. It is a nature preserve and so cool. We hiked all around the park, and spent sometime trying to get un-lost.

We learned that when the sign says "Warning- Do Not Enter Without Guide" There is probably a good reason for that. The trail was washed out on more than a few parts of the trail and sometimes the trail didn't even appear to be a real trail. Always a good time. Always. In our endless journeying we did find and see some cool stuff. Mostly this is because Almira has almost Super Hero Like vision. She can spot the most random and hard to see animals and plants.

For example. Play find the frog. In this picture there is a frog hidden in the leaves. Can you find it? Almira did. Really her vision is pretty amazing. Oh the things you learn while living in the middle of nowhere in Costa Rica.

Also a Cocoa Plant that was growing on one of trees we saw while we were lost on our hike. It looks pretty unreal. It is hard to believe that things grow like that.

On the way in we got to cross this insanely long suspension bridge. It was so high and very shaky. This picture does not really show how long the bridge is. Something to see in person for sure. Any takers?

This was my favorite part of the hike. The strangest prehistoric looking bug. It was so strange looking. Every time I think that I have seen all of the strange things that I will see on this trip another crazy bug shows up. I did not intend to say "strange" so many times. Oops!

We love you all! Drop us a line sometime and let us know how you are doing and fill us in what is going with you.

The Great Almond Tree Chronicles

Hello! Happy Valentine's Day! We hope that everyone is doing great out there so far from the equator. We are loving our time here in the CR. Yesterday we went on a hike to go see the official favorite tree of Costa Rica 2007. Yes they really do have that award here. This tree the Gran El Almendero or Great Mountain Almond Tree is huge and over 600 years old! I do not think that the pictures fully communicate the sheer size of this tree. (Almira wanted me to mention that I chose this photo- I like the blurry- looks very candid.)

It seems to have its own ecosystem, complete with huge cave like holes filled with bats. This part was bigger than I am- no fat jokes please. Just to give you an idea. (The picture to the right)

The hike was great and of course is right near where we work/live. So it was a nice little morning hike with our crew from work. It was rainy fun at its best. Here is a picture of all of the hippies that work at the center. They are Ticas(Costa Ricans), Indian, Hungarian, and good old Americans. It is funny how true the stereotypes are. We are of course the exceptions to most of these (I do however own several pairs of Birkenstocks and Almira and I love the Grateful Dead).

Maybe this shot gives a better view of the giant tree but not really. Truly a site to behold. Come visit and we will take you here....any takers?

We also had a family of howler monkeys move in- permantley- next to our office. They are definitely appropriately named. Those suckers can howl! These guys are around all of the time and we never get tired of watching them.

And of course... the random animal/bug/flower picture of the week... Yurtle the turtle. This little guy was hanging out right in our path during our Almendero Hike.

Until next time...We love and miss you all! Please post your comments we read and sure do love them.