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Out at Gabe’s bar again, where we ended up for drinks after dinner. We finish our last beer on the beach under the new moon sky so filled with unnamable constillations. Colin’s been bugging Jose to have a game of pool since Thursday, but there are always too many dishes. Finally they’re into their second game, so I leave them to it. Wander back tipsy through the sand and baby palms, ducking under the clothesline and stepping carefully over the ageing barbed wire fence into our yard. Our beachfront yard in Pochote, Costa Rica. Taking the secret backup key from its hiding place and penetrating the hexagonal wooden capsule, our little shiplike home. Nuking some leftover Gallo Pinto, setting the aircon to stun and settling down to my laptop on the dining table.

</wierd present tense>

I was just saying to Colin today: Colin, life is good. We were floating out in the water near the little stream where the skimboarding is usually good. Today we went out at high tide and the waves were good instead, so Colin left his board to go bodysurfing instead. He’s quite good at it, and when he gets it just right you will see him coming towards the shore like a disembodied head in the middle of a rolling white wave, grinning ear to ear. We collected shells and looked for Mary’s beans on the walk back.

It was our usual break to a day spent hard at work, as we have been for the last month. A writer’s retreat, Colin likes to call it. There’s not much to do here and we are both so excited about our games that we’d rather work on them than do just about anything (though we make time for swimming!). Tomorrow I’m sending Word Dog off to FGL for strangers to poke and prod and give me their first impressions. Today Colin sent Flora & Fauna (short for Flora & Fauna on the Isle of Ajav, his new working title) to a few people for personal review. He weighs those reviews so highly! If I had done that for Rebuild I never would have finished it, and it just won the Kongregate monthly contest and is their #3 ranked game – hah!

Colin spent the last 2 days doing art for Flora, which has taken the style of a mid-1800s botanical text. It’s really quite beautiful what he’s done with it and his artistic strength seems to lie in his willingness to try crazy things, like bending the entire play screen as if it was folding into the center of a book. It really looks great and the gameplay is super fun, kind of like Contraption but with more organic kinds of creations.

I whussed out again and did the art for Word Dog myself rather than getting an artist, but it was much less work than Rebuild and I did most of the character stuff in one afternoon. The gui and tiles are… well they’re good enough for now. I actually spent forever on the logo trying to get it to look like the spraypaint title to Wild Style, but I am just not that cool. I picked music for it yesterday which consisted of me listening to every song in shockwave-sound‘s “hip hop” category and eventually picking the cutest, least hip-hoppy song in there. I got some excellent feedback from friends and family this week and I think the tutorial is pretty solid. Today I fiddled with dog barking sfx and drew a pretty halfassed dynamite explosion. Totally nearing completion!

Next up for me is a tossup between doing the iOS version of Word Dog myself (I’ve been meaning to learn) or jumping in to Rebuild 2. I haven’t decided if I want to make that sequel 1) a straight flash game, 2) a multiplayer facebook game, or 3) some flash demo/content pack thing. I guess I could add 4) full downloadable game in there because so many people have suggested it but the scale of such things is intimidating. Just hiring an artist to do some animations has me fretting but I’m going to have to bite the bullet this time. I just don’t trust other people to work hard and come through on things and I don’t want to end up in a relationship I regret.

But anyway, it looks like I’m going to make my deadline of getting Word Dog done by the end of Costa Rica. The Mishkins are coming to visit about a week from now and we’ll have a nice break from our writers retreat to do some of the fun local things we’ve been planning. I’m determined to see monkies in one of the parks nearby and go snorkeling at the popular Isla Tortuga.

Oh I nearly forgot to mention, one fun local thing we did do already was go to the annual Rodeo in Cobano. The bull riding was pretty wild, because they let spectators down into the ring where they run around drunk trying to get the bulls to chase them. This is after the riders dismount of course, when they send out guys on horseback to lasso the bulls. I was a bit disappointed nobody got gored (Colin was horrified at this remark, to which I replied, “just a little gored!”) but some of the rides were pretty amazing and looked scary as hell. Those bulls really can jump. The pupusas and churros were yum and we got to practice bad Spanish (and at the same time, bad English) in a bar playing salsa music and spanish rap. A Good Time Was Had By All, or as they say here, Pura Vida.

Monty
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Today was a very doggy day. As soon as I opened ‘the wall’: our front doors which make up a full 1/6th of our hexagon shaped house, our neighbor Larry’s dogs came over to greet us. Nearly as soon as they left, a trio of dogs I’d never seen before took over the deck. One of the females looked suspiciously similar to the puppies we’ve seen hanging out at the bar. They were probably strays although it’s hard to know here, and they were friendly and healthy and content to lie at our feet in the morning sun. Larry and I hatched a plan to adopt one of them while we’re here and get her spayed before we go.

Later in the afternoon the half owned, half stray pack from the next cove over crossed the river and caused a ruckus with the local dogs. We only worry if they go after the iguanas, who are cat sized dinosaurs with a tendency to fall off the roof and surprise us. The biggest, which Colin nicknamed ‘Monty’ (pictured here), comes out to bathe himself in the sprinklers at midday while all the dogs are sleeping.

We haven’t seen a howler monkey yet but today we found tracks by a stream, and of course we can hear them in the hills every morning and evening – I can hear them now like the roar of distant lions. One morning we had scarlet macaws in our yard pulling huge bean pods out of the trees. They used to be common here but disappeared in the 80’s during a time of local development. They’re coming back now with the help of a raise and release program in Tambor.

This place is a birder’s paradise, but so far I’ve only identified the macaws and the long tailed grackle which is basically a crow with an expanded vocabulary. There are lots of green parrots and yellow birds with squawky voices, hummingbirds and seabirds. The pelicans are fascinating, how they so clumsily dive into the water and bob up, then float about for a minute trying to swallow their fish.

Yesterday we watched people come to take the coconuts from our neighbor’s yard. One guy climbed up barefoot then a machete was passed up to him on a rope. He tied ropes to big bunches and they lowered them down slowly so they wouldn’t crack. Huge fronds were sent crashing down with a well aimed chop from the machete and a shout of either warning or joy, I wasn’t sure. In the end they had too many coconuts to take away so Colin grabbed some, borrowed a machete and started practicing his coconut opening techniques.

Sometimes, in the middle of the day or night, a coconut will fall off one of our trees and land with a loud and recognizable thud. We hurry out to see if it is a tasty liquid filled brown one, or one of the sad aborted green ones which usually split on impact. I know they’re not great for you but the allure of eating something from our own yard is pretty strong.

Sunny and Happy
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

My game Rebuild went up on Kongregate, Newgrounds and the general public last weekend, and rocketed to the top of the charts. I expected a decent turnout since there aren’t a lot of Flash games like it, but I’m genuinely surprised at the number of people who have stayed up all night playing it, trying to get all four endings in one day. They aren’t turned off by all the reading either, which was my biggest fear. So many players are posting their suggestions for a sequel that I guess I’ll have to make one after I finish my next game. I have a suspicion Word Up Dog is going to disappoint my fans, having no zombies or visceral stories of life after the apocalypse. I suppose it could be post-apocalyptic, in some future where mutated animals find a collection of early 90’s hiphop albums and base their culture on them.

It’s going to be great.

Pochote’s been treating us very well this last week. We’ve made friends with our neighbours Larry and Angie and their three dogs. We took a trip with them to the next cove over and spent a beautiful day on the secluded little beach, swimming and exploring and getting rather too much sun as usual. Larry’s been in the area for several years and has lots of advice for other fun things to do nearby.

Our neighbour on the other side is actually a sleepy little bar/restaurant run by expat Canadians. We head over there every second night to watch the sunset and have some fabulous roasted chicken from their big clay ovens. They just opened it a few months ago and so far it has a very quiet and chill atmosphere, lots of families and some nights with nobody there but us.

On the same property the owners also run the free Harmony Music School for local kids, which they started out of their own pockets but the government has finally recognized and begun to fund. They are part of a volunteer program where people come to teach in exchange for accomodation. Pochote is a very small fishing village with few extracurricular activities for kids besides “futball”, so this school is a big deal for the area and is making a real impact. A number of their students have gone on to play for the national symphony orchestra.

A couple days ago we walked with Don (a founder of the music school) all the way down the beach, past Tambor and another fishing village out to a place called the Jesus Tree. This was a spectacular little beach with one lone tree inexplicably growing out of the rocks in the ocean where no tree should be. High tide stopped us from going farther, but Don regularly walks all the way to Montezuma along this coastal path, about a 5 hour walk. And he does it without bringing water; just shorts and flipflops and an early morning start.

I’m getting opportunities to practice my clumsy Spanish and to cook with unusual ingredients, and we are both working hard. During our daily beach walks and dips in the ocean we talk about game design. At 5:30 we take in the sunset on a beach log or at the (still nameless) bar next door. We rise and sleep with the sun here, it just seems to make sense that way.

To houses on the beach!
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

I forgot to mention, I’ve been cooking again! I look forward to making dinner every day and spend my idle time looking up recipes and finding uses for local ingredients. I finally bought some achiote paste, which is a popular spice slash food colouring, so I’m going to see what I can do with it. Last week I made a seafood pasta salad for a small potluck dinner, a recipe of my own creation and one of my first times cooking for other people. It turned out really well! I did a trial run a few days before then made adjustments (green plantains need to boil for MUCH longer than yellow ones!). This week I cooked us a rather delicious Brazilian fish stew which was exciting because you don’t put any liquid into it, just tomatoes and other veggies which provide the juice, then you layer the seafood and herbs on top and those get steam cooked.

As in Honduras, the seafood came right to our door at Casa Coba. A friendly guy in a pickup truck came by a couple times a week with camarones (shrimp) and a few fillets of whatever was caught that day. On his last visit he brought beautiful yellow-finned tuna which we ate as sashimi the first night (tasty!), then lightly seared with wasabi lime-mayo (mmmmm), then cooked in a honey-chili sauce (kind of weird, but good on a salad).

We also picked bananas, basil, chilies and unripe mangoes from the garden at Casa Coba. Colin made excellent banana milkshakes every morning which were a wonderful start to our days. I shredded the mangoes and mixed them with lettuce and red peppers for my daily lunch. They were sweet and citrusy so I topped it with a little olive oil and soy sauce, which sounds weird but it worked.

We mainly shopped at the Pali grocery, the first chain grocery which just opened in Samara: it’s big, it’s cheap, it doesn’t have a lot of things but has many brands of those few things. They have 5 types of canned tuna with peas, 5 types of lime-flavoured mayonnaise, 5 types of powdered chicken stock, 5 types of bologna sausage, and 5 types of dried black beans. But if you want, say, beef stock or plain mayo or pinto beans, you are out of luck. We had some laughs about it, and cooked using what they did have. Happily Samara also has a smaller grocery which takes the opposite approach and has one of everything. Fancy things like oregano, brown rice and chocolate, mostly imported from Spain at inflated prices, but sooo worth it (I am thinking of the chocolate).

Hmm, I am obviously hungry as I write this. Must be time to try out the popular local restaurant in Pochote: Momo’s. brb.

…

Momo’s food was very good! The shrimp was fresh and tasty and reminded me of Thailand, and they have a peaceful atmosphere on the edge of the river where we listened to howler monkeys and watched birds diving for insects. Unfortunately the menus are priceless and I think they gave us the gringo prices, which is not a system I’m fond of but whatever. On the way back we noticed a two table restaurant out of someone’s home which we are definitely going to visit. Also a home selling fish and lobster from a collapsing shack around back, which we will work up the courage to approach. Pochote is a fishing village after all, and the mangroves and riverbanks here are filled with fishing boats.

I should talk more about our new casa for the next two months! It’s totally beautiful and built entirely of wood. We think the hexagonal shape makes it feel like a ship on the inside; it even has kind of a mast in the centre. We’re sleeping and living in the big room downstairs, then there’s a steep kind of ladder/staircase up to the big loft with two more beds and an extra bathroom. And a/c and hot water to boot – such luxury! Enormous doors open away onto a superb deck; hammock-lined and breezy, it’s definitely where we’ll be spending our time. The house is set back on a big treed lot right on the ocean, at the very very tip of the 8km long beach with Tambor at the other end. We went for a swim earlier and declared the beach wonderful, with even the ocassional body-surfable wave.

We’re sitting out on the deck now listening to the gentle waves and the crickets and the other wildlife. The yard is filled with crab grass and crab holes but so far we’ve only seen an iguana and some big toads, which Colin is chasing around right now trying to get pictures of. We’re going to meet the house manager tomorrow and get the low down on the area. Then for a long walk on our nearly deserted, beautiful soft sanded beach. What a life!

Hard at hammock-work
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Our last week in Playa Samara has gone by too quickly, spent in the hammock and in the ocean, and working on our games. Colin cracked one of his ribs the day after my last post, so unfortunately (for Colin anyway, who is very upset about this) surfing has been cancelled until further notice. We’ve still been out in the water several times a day and Colin’s discovered he now has incredible skill at body surfing despite the very painful rib.

Colin has totally fallen in love with Samara and almost convinced me to stay at Casa Coba for another month instead of moving on to the house we’ve already rented in Playa Tambor. I guess it was the rib that changed his mind; that’s going to take awhile to heal and Samara’s main appeal for him is the surfing. But don’t get me wrong, I love the place too for different reasons. The beach is 5km of nice soft sand and gentle slope, fabulous just for walking or swimming. There’s a reef you can snorkel around, lots of trees and nature nearby. The town is the perfect size, small but big enough to have a pharmacy, hardware store, bank and chain grocery. It’s a tourist town, but pretty quiet except on the weekends, and this is the busiest time of year. There are a couple bars that have live music but it is a chill scene and most nights the town seems to fall asleep by 9:00 (we do, anyway). Mostly foreign tourists come to surf and attend the language school, and on weekends Ticos bring their families to camp or stay in their summer houses.

We took a long walk today and looked at those summer houses, which line the beach and for the most part look abandoned, and with luck available to rent. We’re already doing research for our next visit back. Colin really, really enjoys surfing, and from what I can guess he’d happily surf every day for the rest of his life, so this is our new travel priority. I… well… you can stop saying “you’ll never know until you try it” now.

When we return, I’m looking forward to taking one of the gruelling courses at the local Spanish school, because I haven’t been too successful learning on my own. I can read Spanish pretty reliably which seems like magic since I’ve never tried to do it before. It’s because a lot of the vocabulary resembles French so it’s easy to recognize and piece things together from context. Linguistics is fun! But speaking is a different matter – I’m so shy!

An example: We shop at a bakery with a seating area, and every time they ask us if we want our empanadas to go, which is “para llevar”. Kind of like “par lever” in French, right? Well I know that’s what they’re saying and it should sound something like “yeh-var”, but that’s not what I hear, and I can’t repeat it the way they pronounce it. So I kind of mumble and give the thumb-out-the-door gesture, which unfortunately doesn’t work because the seating area is that way too. Every time! Anyway, I think proper motivation is in order: eight hours a day in a classroom where they refuse to talk to you in anything but Spanish.

Tomorrow is our last day here and it will be a snorkelling day, albeit a lightweight one for the sake of sore ribs. Then it’s off to the great unknown of Playa Tambor, which I hope we enjoy too although I know for Colin it will be hard to compare to Samara.