Costa Rica Part III

Sunday took a swim in the awesome pool, and then we said goodbye to the JW Marriott and headed to see some other beaches before we left the region.

Playa Negra was not black sand, but it did have a lot of black rock, and a lot of surfers.

We drove to Volcan Arenal because that is the volcano everyone said to see. It was supposed to be very predictable, where you can see lava flowing every night. Well we found out that the volcano stopped erupting about a year ago. We still got a lot of pretty views of the volcano and the lake right by it, but no lava.

On the (very long) drive around Lake Arenal, we saw this Howler Monkey just walking along on the power lines.

The Lava Flow trail from 1968

So since there was no reason to stay at the volcano at night and we had a long drive ahead of us the next day, we drove back to San Jose to stay the night. Then the next day we got up early and headed to Manuel Antonio, which is a national park with lots of trails and tons of wildlife. But that ended up being another disappointment, because the park is closed on Mondays. So we walked around and explored Quepos, the town right outside.

We had lunch at El Gran Escape, and it was excellent.

Traditional Costa Rican rice and beans

On the drive back we passed this bridge with a crocodile crossing sign and a couple of policemen standing at the end of the bridge to stop people from climbing down to the river. We walked across the bridge and saw about 20 crocodiles there in the water.

The last two nights we stayed at the Doubletree in San Jose, and on Tuesday we caught our flight back to Florida. We spent a couple very relaxing days in Florida where I forgot to take any pictures of my two cute nieces, and then flew back home on Thursday. We had so much fun on our vacation but we were really missing our boys by the end of it, so it was good to be home.

Costa Rica Part II

Friday we left pretty early from Liberia to get to the beach. We were staying the next two nights at the JW Marriott in Guanacaste, which turns out is the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at. It is in Hacienda Pinilla, which is a gated community with some other resorts and some super fancy houses.

Biggest pool in Central America

There were hammocks hanging all around in these courtyards at the resort.

We had lunch at the hotel, with a guy playing music right there in the restaurant. Then we drove to Tamarindo Beach to sign up for surf lessons for the next day.

Tamarindo was a really cool little town where the main road is right off the beach, and everything is about surfing there. We saw a lot of old FJ Cruisers, which made Eric's obsession with them even worse.

There are tons of cows in that region, and they have funny flappy ears.

The next morning we went to Playa Flamingo and played in the water. The water was so perfect, just cool enough to feel refreshing but not cold, and when I got out it was warm enough that I didn't have to use my towel. I just stood there for a couple minutes and then I was dry.

We took our surf lesson at the Banana Surf Club and our instructor was Marice. We both fell a bunch of times and I got bonked on the nose with by board, but we stood up a bunch of times too. I thought it was so fun and I want to surf again.

These two days on the beach were my favorite part of our vacation. Next we head to a volcano!

Costa Rica Part I

We flew into San Jose airport on Wednesday morning and got our rental car. The first night we were staying at the Residence Inn in Escazu, which seemed to be a nice town. Didn't really do much the first day, just walked around to the mall next door, and had dinner at the hotel.

The next day, we drove to the Monteverde Cloud Forest, which was a long drive. And about half of it was up the mountain on a dirt road.

Ox cart: the national symbol of Costa Rica

We hiked around in the rainforest for a couple kilometers, and there was a bridge way up in the canopy that was cool.

Even though we could hear tons of birds, this thing was the only wildlife we saw (besides some birds that were pointed out to us on the bridge).

This is at the Hummingbird Gallery, right outside the Cloud Forest.

After the rainforest, we wanted to see some more animals. So we went to the Monteverde Frog Pond, which was a great exhibit because there are tons of different types of frogs, and they have a guide pointing them all out and telling about them. Before that tour though, we did a zip line canopy tour at the same place.

I didn't get any pictures of the frogs to turn out, but we saw them all and they were cool! That night we wanted to get a jump on the long drive the next night, so we drove back down the mountain on the dirt road in the dark and drove all the way to Liberia and stayed at the airport Hilton. The next day, we were off to the beach!

Universal Studios, Part II

Theses pictures are actually from both days we were in Universal Studios, everything except Harry Potter.

I made Eric pose all goofy-like for these pictures.

We thought the Jurassic Park part of the park was really fun, except that I scratched Eric on the arm during the big drop on the ride, and he thinks I infected him.

Funny story about this picture: The first day we walked to the park, the walk went really far out of the way and took longer than we liked. So on our way back to the hotel at night, we found a different way out, which was to walk through the parking lot to the outermost corner of the lot, and then out the car exit, up a hill, and down through these bushes behind the park sign. I'm sure what we did was illegal, but it was shorter. And that's how we got in and out of the park the second day too.

These are the only pictures I got of the second day. We met Scooby Doo and Shaggy...

... and got really wet on Fievel's water slide. That water slide is in the kid's play area, which was pretty empty, and it was actually a really fun slide! We rode it like four times. And every time, we were in line with a bunch of little kids, because they were the only other people in there. And you only get wet on the left side.

Overall, we had a blast. There are lots of fun rides (that in general make me more motion sick than Disney).

Next up: Costa Rica!