Long post...but lots of pictures!

I finished up at school on May 14th and the next day, guess who came to visit?!


Geoff!! Saturday and Sunday, I showed him around the city, my school, my church, and he got to spend some time getting to know my host mom and roommates. Monday we bought some bus tickets and traveled to Liberia (4 1/2 hours on a bus with no a/c, no bathrooms, very little leg room, but great conversation and great views of the country). At the airport that evening, Dad and Kim arrived! Mom was hoping to come as well, but ended up staying home waiting for news on a possible surgery for my grandpa.

While in Liberia, my dad rented a car (and a GPS!) which ended up being such a blessing during our trip and we spent the next 7 days traveling around Costa Rica!

We started near the Rincon de la Vieja volcano. Here we stayed at a somewhat all-inclusive place that had lots of activities to choose from. Our first day there we signed up for the all-day pass and got to do the following activities:

Horseback Riding: didn't get any photos of that though...

Ziplining/Rappelling:






Rafting/Tubing down the Rio Negro:



Kim's face is priceless in this next one:


Lunch: rice, beans, beef stew, yucca chips, star fruit or watermelon juice, salad bar, etc. etc. etc.!

Spa Time: sitting in a sauna (I thought Costa Rica, itself, was a sauna!), coating ourselves in volcanic mud, and relaxing in the volcanic heated hot springs:




Next, we traveled to a different volcano, the Arenal Volcano, near La Fortuna. You might remember this one from my Semana Santa trip. I loved this area so much, that I knew we had to come back. Here's the view of the volcano from town.


Our hotel, Los Lagos, was simply gorgeous. The area was covered in luscious landscaped gardens, flowers, even animals. They had crocodile, frog, ant, and butterfly gardens too. The best part about the hotel was their own hot springs. Who would have thought that over 100 degree water would feel so good in such a hot climate!


Gorgeous view from our room!


Since we did so many activities on our first day, here we decided to do something fun but a little less exhausting! We went on a private ATV tour around the volcano. Here we are cruising around the volcano...it was cloudy that day (the volcano is the large white space in the background).


Next we crossed this bridge over the Arenal River...

Just kidding! We actually just cruised up to the river, checked it out, and looked at the rickety old bridge. After the tour, they gave us a delicious authentic Costa Rican lunch: rice, beans, plantains, chicken, tortillas, tomatoes, and avocados; all washed down with a strawberry juice drink. YUM!



That afternoon, we decided to take advantage of some local hiking trails. As if we weren't tired enough, we went on a 1 1/2 hour hike through the old lava trails in the area. Arenal was considered a dead volcano, dormant for over 400 years, until 1968 when it violently erupted covering 3 small villages at the base of the mountain and killing 87 people. Now it erupts hourly on average, but they are much smaller eruptions. Thankfully! We were lucky enough to see (and hear!) a big one during our hike. Right before the hike started, we stopped at an observation area to get some quick photos. Right on cue, as we got out our cameras, there was a great schoo, schoo, schoo, schoo sound, steady like a machine starting up and smoke started billowing out of the top of the mountain. I had seen lava on my last visit, but I never saw/heard anything like this before. It was pretty cool (especially given that we were in a very safe distance from any danger).


The lava is not liquid, like in Hawaiian volcanoes. Rather the lava here is formed into giant boulders and rocks. Here's what the 1968 lava trails looked like...It was a rough hike but a lot of fun.

Here's a night view where you can see some more activity happening...


We left Arenal on Friday morning and headed for the beach. On the way, we drove over the Tarcoles River, known for its crocodiles. We took a quick break from the drive and counted 19!


On a few more breaks, we got to see some wildlife. Here we stopped right by Playa Hermosa (last year's world surfing championship black-sanded beach). A native was collecting sand for his granddaughter's art project and pointed out a flock of scarlet macaws (red parrots) to us.


We finally arrived in Manuel Antonio, a city and national park on the Pacific side of the country. This area is known for its breathtaking beaches and abundant wildlife. Here is one of their unique traffic signs: Caution/Slow for kids, dogs, sloths, and monkeys.



While in the area, we visited the Manuel Antonio National Park. It's the smallest national park in the country (there are 20 in total), but is the second most-visited conservation area. We were lucky enough to see a lot of wildlife while visiting: white faced capuchin monkeys, red legged-purple bellied crabs, sloths, iguanas, lizards, and geckos (everywhere!). Here's a picture of the beach. The undertow was super strong and all four of us got knocked down a few times, our suits filled up with sand, and a mouth full of salt water, but nonetheless it was thrilling!


There was a troupe of about 10 monkeys that circled the picnic area where we had some snacks. They were so close to the people, taking food from trash cans and running all over the area. I'm sure they get a hoot out of watching the humans follow them like little paparazzi crews, all with their digital cameras in tow hoping to catch that one picture. I tried to keep out of that crowd for a little while but then realized if I didn't get my camera out, I wouldn't get this awesome picture below: (he wouldn't smile...I even tried the 'got-your-nose' trick on him)


We got the absolute last room available at our hotel, Costa Verde. We chose this hotel because it has a suite made out of the fuselage of a 727. Seriously. Check it out (www.costaverde.com) Unfortunately, we didn't stay in the suite, but only because it was booked for the night, not because of the incredibly reasonable price of $400 a night (!!!). Dad and I thought they might give a discount for being pilots...maybe that would lower their insurance rates. You know, in case there was a hurricane and the plane took off, we could...fly it or something. Instead, we looked out of our hotel room at this perfect piece of rainforest property:

Gorgeous, right? From this view alone, we saw a sloth, a BIG iguana, capybaras (the world's largest rodents...they have a beaver face and fur, but shaped like a pig...interesting combo I think), a poison dart frog (who is smaller than half my palm but can secrete enough poisonous toxin through its skin to kill a human...yikes!), a tapir, and more monkeys. Lots of different wildlife than Iowa has to offer!

This is the view from the hotel's pool. Just about the most picturesque moment I've ever experienced! That penninsula on the left is the national park and the area just to the left of the palm tree is open public beach. I'm going to miss Costa Rica!





Our last day in Costa Rica was spent driving to San Jose and getting things situated to come home. All four of us stayed at the Holiday Inn Express by the airport, but made a trip through the pouring rain to Escazu to visit my school and my Costa Rican home. It was great to have them all meet Oky and my one sole remaining roommate. We drove back to the hotel through the worst conditions ever possible: a foreign country, a manual transmission, midnight dark skies (though only 7 pm), hurricane type rain, and Costa Rican roads filled with Costa Rican drivers. At one point, we passed a "pot hole" as big as a two car garage. No joke. To give the Ticos credit, it did have caution tape around it. With God's help, we did make it back to the hotel in one piece and returned the rental car.

Dad and Kim took off on a 6 am flight while Geoff and I followed later on a 2:30pm flight. We arrived in Chicago Monday night and drove back to Waterloo Tuesday. (My first meal was a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and french fries at Chili's in the Charlotte Airport...does it get more American than that?! YUM!)

Ok...I'm tired of typing. This one post has taken over an hour...so much to talk about! We're heading back to Spencer today for Memorial Day Weekend...I'll make at least one more post next week to let you know how my reverse culture shock is going. Until then...Enjoy your freedoms and thank a veteran!