Shuttle to San Jose

Last day at Los Altos :( We take a shuttle at 4 pm back to San Jose and by this time tomorrow we'll have gone from hot and humid back to clod and snowy.

Pool Day

Another lazy day. This one reading books at the pool.

Sunset

We finally took the time to get a good photo of the sunset we've seen each night from the pool.

Private Beach

We usually are all about exploring but our condo has a great beach at the base of the hill below it. This week we are just lazy Americans. This place is so great that aside from one trip to the grocery store and a trip downtown, we have been just enjoying ourselves here.

Manuel Antonio

Left early from Monteverde and took a shuttle to Quepos/Manuel Antonio. The views on the way down the mountain are just amazing. The road runs directly from the mountains at a couple of thousand feet to the Pacific Ocean. We stopped at a rest stop once we reached the coast and it was 10 or 15 degrees warmer. We also had a chance to see some crocodiles at the mouth of a river leading out to sea. They are some of the largest in the world, biggest are about 15 feet.

We made it to our hotel, which is just down the beach from the park. It is amazing. It's actually luxury condos that owners can rent out for secondary income, but because of the downturn, very few are selling and we rented an unowned own for crazy cheap. They gave us a larger 3 BR condo (we booked a smaller own but I guess this was what was available) and it's nicer and larger and has more bathrooms and a nicer kitchen than our house. If anyone wants to come down to Costa Rica, send me an email and we'll put you in one of the spare rooms :)

Zipline!

Today was great. Warm, sunny weather with a breeze. We headed up to La Selvatura park and took the zipline tour. We ended up in the back of the group with all the guides, which gave us lots of time to talk with them and look around. It was amazing. The longest zipline was over a kilometer long and took at least a minute to go down.

In the evening, we headed up to the Treehouse B&B for tea. We almost stayed there but couldn't get a reservation. It was amazingly beautiful and modern. I can see why so many Americans and Europeans love it. The porches have an amazing view from the mountainside all the way to the ocean 20 miles away.

On to St., Elena para el dia de San Valentino

Clouds stayed and rain came so we never got to see the lava at night. We did manage to hike essentially every trail on the property and saw plenty of interesting foliage. We left after and took a colectivo to a boat to another colectivo through zero visibility in the cloud forest to St. Elana. So far our accomodation seems nice and conveniently close to town. Tomorrow, we go ziplining in the cloudforest. Lacey's quote of the day is "The ride wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't next Mr. Blubberstein and the Von-Blumberton family."

Clouds

Made it to the Observatory Lodge. Great spot,right across the river from the Volcano with an amazing view. It's American and German tourist central, and expensive by Costa Rican standards, but for the access to the Volcano, it's definitely worth it for one or two nights. We are hoping we have photos of glowing night time lava to post...if only the clouds would clear.

Volcano

We got to see the Volcano from La Fortuna pretty well last night when the clouds cleared. There were some nice views from a great little park in the center of La Fortuna. Later today we will head to a hotel that used to be a geologic obsevatory and is located on the other side of the Volcano where we will hopefully be able to see glowing lava at night. This morning is cloudy with all of the volcano completely obscured.

La Fortuna

Long ride through the mountains to La Fortuna. Roads are better than I expected. Tomorrow we are off to the Arenal Volcano looming over the town, hopefully to see some lava.

Last day of Surfing

Last day at the surf camp. We leave early tomorrow morning for Arenal. Lacy's been under the weather, but I hope she feels better soon. I've been out past the break now and today even caught a few waves but don't have the control to stay up for long. I never had any idea how much more difficult surfing is then snowboarding.

Surfing

Actually made it up on the board, but bruised my foot, my toe specifically, getting the hang of standing up. Surf camp is good. Mostly younger people and actually mostly Austrians. I think we are the only Americans with a few Canadians and Swiss mixed in. It's right on the beach and relaxing,but also very tropical, hot, and humid.

We've had rain, unusually much for the dry season, at night, but we can still only surf in the morning and late afternoon. Mid-day is just to hot.

Surfcamp

Made it to our surfcamp in the middle of nowhere,monkeys, cows, and the beach is 60 feet away. Exciting landing in a prop plane on the only airstrip I've ever seen that goes up the side of a hill. Rest of the airport consists of a fence and a parking lot.

We made it :)

We woke up late this morning, but luckily we made it to the airport on time and Juraj and Mitzi helped us out with our car. Other than the late start, everything went well. We landed uneventfully, got cash, a SIM card, through customs, and a taxi in 30 minutes. We made it to our downtown Holiday Inn (lots of American brands) and head out to the coast for surfing early tomorrow morning