Finally home

Yesterday morning we woke up for our last time in Costa Rica. We caught a taxi and went to the airport to catch our 1100 flight to DFW. It was a beautiful day and a great flight. We made it to the airport around 400 and after catching a "Parking Spot" van we made it to our car in the South lot. We all agreed that we would drive through somewhere for dinner so we could get home quicker. We got home around 645 and it was so good to see everyone. We had a wonderful vacation, but it is always good to be home!

Flight back to San Jose

Today we left our beach hotel and got on a little 12 passenger airplane to fly us back to San Jose. It was an exciting flight since we weren't exactly at an airport like we have seen before. We basically flew out of a field with a little runway in the middle of it. Once we got up it was a pretty view and enjoyable. Only one hour to San Jose. We are back at the Marriott that we stayed at our first night here. We don't plan on leaving the hotel today, but just hanging around and resting. We are watching the memorial service from Fort Hood on the television now. We missed all this terrible news this week while we were away. Very sad.

Can't wait to see family tomorrow.

Relaxing Day in Guanacaste

Our day at the beach has been very relaxing. Tommy, Brittany and I found us a chaise lounge cabana on the beach and we stayed there most of the day reading books and listening to music. It was so relaxing watching the waves roll in and the pelicans dive into the water for fish. We only got up when we wanted to stroll the beach of walk over to the grill for lunch. As I mentioned before, it is very rocky on this beach. When high tide comes the water comes over the rocks. We found today that since the tide is back down that there are water puddles, or mini ponds in between these rocks. We found many beautiful fish that were trapped there until the next tide rolls in. We saw some bright blue ones with black dots and another bright yellow fish. And we also saw a greenish looking fish that had big brown spots. It was fun just exploring.

It started raining pretty hard around 400 so we had to go into our hotel room for a while. We watched the sunset from our balcony and then we took our showers and actually were able to watch the news on ABC. We haven't seen any news this week with no televisions in the other hotels.

We have dinner reservations at 800 tonight at the Japanese restaurant in this hotel. Hope the sushi is good. We fly out of here tomorrow on a puddle jumper at 1100 going to San Jose. We are going there so we will be by the airport to fly home Wednesday morning. We are looking forward to being home, as we miss everyone.

Love to all.

Guanacaste

We made the four hour car trip to the JW Mariott in Guanacaste last night. It started and ended with very rough, bumpy unpaved roads but there was some highway in between. Our hotel is very beautiful and gigantic. It has a pool that meanders through the grounds and a beautiful view of the ocean. The beach is not what I expected and the waves are too rough for snorkeling and there are lots of rocks. We thought about going to a nearby beach that is beautiful, but we do not want to go through all the trouble and expense of taking a taxi down those bumpy roads to get there. Today will be sit out and relax day by the Pacific Ocean or pool, read a book or listen to music. I needed a day like that anyway.

Hope all is well. We stay here until tomorrow and then we fly on a small little airplane at 1100 tomorrow back to San Jose where we spend one night at the Mariott by the airport. Then the next day we come home. Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Monteverde

Last night we went on the night hike with our guide Carlos, Brittany,Tommy and I and four flashlights. We walked for two hours through the rainforest hearing all the sounds of nature, but we didnt see much except insects and our big find was a giant taranchula spider. It was still very exciting of the possibility of what was there that we werent seeing. Many times we turned off the flashlights just to see the dark and hear the sounds. I was surprised that there are larva on the ground the glow in the dark and they look like lights all over the ground.

After the hike we had dinner in our hotel. The dining room is under construction, so they have tables sitting outside on their grounds with candles lit all around and laterns hanging from the trees. It was sooooo beautiful. I know the finished dining room could never have the ambiance of the outdoors.

This morning we woke to see white faced monkeys (black with white faces) swinging all around the trees outside our hotel room. They were beautiful. We also saw a beautiful toucan fly by. He was too fast to get a photo of unfortunately.

We then had breakfast outdoors and then met our tour guide for the morning. We were very pleased that it was Carlos again from last nights tour. He took us up to the Montverde Cloud Forest where it is always raining. Fortunately, today we had an unusual sunny day and it was absolutely gorgeous. In this forest we saw the spider monkey which our guide says is the rarest in the area. We also saw a very rare bird , the Resplendent Quetzal, that all bird watchers come to see and usually leave only with a postcard photo of. Well I have an actual photo taken with my own hands. We saw many other birds and animals and I enjoyed photographing them.

Carlos then took us to a hummingbird garden and I took lots of good photos of the hummingbirds flying around.

When we came back to the hotel it was time for lunch and Brittany had her mind set on pizza. She had seen a pizza place on the route and assured us that it was within walking distance. Oh my goodness!! It was maybe half a mile but it was up a very steep hill the whole way. A little difficult for me, but I made it and it was a lovely restaurant and great pizza. I am happy to say that it was downhill all the way back to our hotel.

Unfortunately, it is time to pack because our driver picks us up at 300 to take us to the beach in Tamarindo. We will be there two nights. I am a little concerned about getting car sick on this leg of our journey because it is four and a half hours long and the roads around here are unpaved, very rough, very steep and large drop offs by the road. It will be an adventure.!

Last day at Arenal Observatory

After my last post, we shopped the little tourist town of LaFortuna. We enjoyed the view of the volcano steaming at the end of the street as we went in and out of different souvenier shops. We bought a few things to take back for ourselves and others. We found a nice open air restaurant to eat at. We did not know that it was Mexican food until after they brought us the menu. We selected chicken and shrimp fajitas and the chef brought them out to us flaming! The food was delicious and the atmosphere was excellent. No walls on this nice restaurant. I guess that the rain just falls straight down and doesnt ususally blow in.

When we were finished shopping and eating, we called for our taxi and he was there within five minutes. Our transportation everyone in Costa Rica has been excellent with hardly ever any waits. Most transportation I had booked before we left home and I had travel vouchers to bring with me to Costa Rica. No problem at all. Excellent service everywhere! Everytime we get into a taxi they are playing American music. I guess they put the CD in when they see who gets in their car. It is always this old 70s or 80s music that I remember from long ago, such as The Carpenters and Chicago!!

When we got back to the Lodge, we showered and actually dressed up for dinner for the first time. It was nice at the hotel and we had a good view of the volcano, lake and storm coming from far in the distance.

This morning we were picked up by our taxi at 815 and he drove us down to Arenal Lake where we took a boat taxi on about a 45 minute ride across Arenal Lake. It was absolutely beautiful here with the lush green rolling mountains on each side of us and of course Arenal Volcano disappearing behind us as we made our way across the lake. When we got across the lake a van was waiting for us to take us on to the Montverde Lodge in the Montverde Cloud Forest. We had 8 folks in our van including the driver and this trip was crazy. It was about an hour and fifteen minute drive to our next location and it was all on unpaved roads. These roads had large rocks and big pot holes. The roads were very steep too, but it was so beautiful. Big drop offs on the edge of the road were a little scary. I thought we might get car sick bouncing around but we had to use mind over matter and we made it fine. It has been raining since we arrived here in the Cloud Forest, but it is not slowing us down. We just got back from a tour of the Bat Jungle. We now know much more about bats than we did before. At 530 today we are going on a two hour walking night tour of the forest. We will just put on our rain suits and hiking shoes and go. Tomorrow morning we have a 700 tour of the Montverde Cloud Forest with a guide lined up. Hope it stops raining so we can be a little more comfortable, but we will enjoy it anyway.

Take care everyone!

Adventure!

I am posting this post from an internet cafe in Costa Rica on Friday, Nov 6 because the hotel we are at now, Arenal Observatory Lodge, has no television, no internet, no phones, no radios, no alarm clocks. Only an active volcano a little over a mile from our room and howler monkeys outside our room to wake us up.

Let me tell you about yesterday. We were picked up at the Costa Rica Mariott at 705 am and we drove over three hours, mostly on paved roads, but a few miles on gravel roads to our hotel The Arenal Observatory Lodge. We arrived before check'in time and were greeted by an outgoing Costa Rican who signed us up immediately for some tours. He said How about you go now to Sky Trek and take a cable car up the mountains deep into the rainforest and this zipline through the longest and highest zip lines in Costa Rica. He says Why Not? So we signed up. Then he said ¨Why not go to thermal springs tonight and sit in hot mineral waters and then have a nice dinner¨. So we signed up for that too. (By the way...if my typing is funky, it´s because the keyboards in Costa Rica are different than USA and not all keys work the same)

We had a couple hours before our ziplining adventure, so we took off on a hike on the property down, down, down to a waterfall. It was beautiful. I have photos to show you. Then we hiked up, up, up back through the rainforest towards hotel. Note to myself, MUST GET IN SHAPE.

Time came for us to go to the zipline and it was crazy adventure. Can´t believe that I actually did this. It was so beautiful there and we were extremely high (Tommy has the stats on how high and how long these zip lines were, one was a half mile long) The first two ziplines were called ¨practice¨ zip lines because if we were too scared we could actually take the chiken walk and leave. However, if we chose to go on number 3, then that was the point of no return and it was incredibe. When I shot out over that canyon high over the rainforest I shouted out a word I dont know if I have ever used before Äwesomness!! That really described the experience. There were 8 long ziplines and we have video and photos to prove our bravery. It started pouring down rain on us on the last zipline and it felt like bullets hitting out face as we zipped across.

After Sky Trek, we went to Baldi Springs and soaked in the hot thermal waters outdoors while it rained down on us. The water felt good. There was a nice buffet there that came with our entrance fee, so we had a good dinner. We then took a taxi back around the Volcano and through the several miles of unpaved roads to our hotel. Our luggage had been placed in our room and we found no tv or any of the above luxuries that I mentioned above. Our wall was solid glass doors with the Arenal Volcano looking right at us. We went to bed early and were awakened at 530 the next morning with sunlight shining in and howler monkeys outside. I ran outside on the patio and took some photos of the monkeys. So neat. We then went to breakfast and went on hike through the trails on the property and over a hanging bridge taking photos of all the beautiful flowers, birds and monkeys. We were then picked up to go on our next adventure. An ATV tour of Costa Rica. Well let me say, I thought this experience would be 4wheeling along and stopping to look at wildlife and take a few photos of the volcano. wrong!!! This was once again an adventure taking us through many cow pastures, down steep hills, through mud holes and actually going down a river. Not across the river, I said ¨down¨the river! I was covered with mud. However we had alot of fun, but I was scared a few times, as I have never done that on a 4wheeler before. Once again, we have photo to show just how muddy we were. When we got back from the ATV tour we sprayed ourselves off with a waterhose, then changed clothes. One of our tour guides drove us to town to this internet cafe where I sit not completely clean.

You are now up to date. Tommy and Britt are walking the streets waiting for me so we can have lunch and then shop a little. I´m not checking this post for spelling, so that´s the way it is. Love you all, wish you were all here on this adventure.

It rains in the rainforest

We had a busy and fun day in Costa Rica, but we got so wet! First of all, the tour bus picked up us at our hotel at 7:00 and we left for a tour of Doka Estates Coffee Plantation. It was a very interesting tour and the coffee fields are beautiful. The mountains are covered with rows of beautiful green coffee plants. The weather was nice for this part of our tour. We also had a traditional Costa Rican breakfast of eggs and beans with rice and watermelon at the restaurant at the Doka Coffee Plantation. From there we headed for Poas Volcano national parrk. That's when the rain began. It was just a shower there, so our rainsuits kept us mostly dry and we had plastic rain sleeves for our cameras. We hiked up to the crater and it was solid clouds over it and we could not see the blue water in the crater. Our guide suggested that we hike to the lake and see that part of the volcano. This is a very acidic lake with no life in it, also the water is about 140 degrees, I believe. Then we hiked back-uphill I might add-to the Poas crater and God blew off all the clouds for about five minutes to everyone's delight! We had cameras ready to photograph the blue water in the crater and the steam escaping from the volcano. Then as quick as the cloud cover left, it came back and we went back to our bus.

After Poas, we went to the LaPaz Waterfall and gardens. It was beautiful there. It was showering along and we were making it fine going in the dry butterfly houses and bird houses and frog houses, then it starting absolutely pouring. It never settled down and it was enough to make you feel miserable, but we kept treking on. Tommy, Brittany & I were three of just a few who took on the task of going down a steep hill and 300 stairs to see two waterfalls at the bottom in the pouring down rain. We were glad that we went to see them as it was beautiful, even though we were soaked. Then came the task of climing those steep hills and 300 stairs in a high altitude location. Oh my goodness! I didn't work out on that treadmill enough. Tommy and Britt were a little out of breath, but I had to stop several times to even be able to breathe!! We all survived though and were glad that we saw the waterfalls.

We have made it back to our hotel now and we are about to eat some snacks that our hotel has set out for the evening reception. We plan to rest after dinner because we will be picked up at 7:30 a.m. in the morning and taken to Arenal Observatory Lodge. Hopefully it will stop raining, but I heard on the radio that there is a tropical storm in the Pacific. Ugh! Well at least we are on vacation! Miss everyone and we love you!

We made it!

It is Tuesday night, November 3, and we have made it to Costa Rica. We had a four hour flight from Dallas that was smooth and went well. The flight went quick with them serving first drinks then a dinner and they showed the movie The Proposal. We are staying tonight and tomorrow night at the Costa Rica Mariott San Jose. It is a beautiful Hacienda style hotel with open air hallways and heavy wooden doors to each room. Thankfully, our room has cool air conditioning. We are spending time in the executive lounge watching CNN and having a snack and beverage while our room cools a little. We will start the morning bright and early with a combo tour to Poas Volcano, LaPaz waterfall and gardens and Doka Coffee Plantation. By the way.....it's raining and we are not even in the rainforest yet! I will have internet access again tomorrow night, so I'll post how our day went. We arrived at night here, so it looks just like Texas so far!

Just finished packing this morning for the trip. We thought that we would be packing light, but as usual we are taking lots of stuff. No frills really, just clothes to last 8 days take up a lot of space! We plan to leave Hallsville around 10:30 AM to head for DFW airport. We don't know how long it takes to get checked in for an international flight, so we plan to get there early. After we are in the secure area we will probably eat a very early dinner or a late lunch. We will arrive in San Jose, Costa Rica, at 8:10 and will get to our hotel by 9:30. Looking forward to having lots of fun on our vacation.