Archive for the 'Costa Rica 2007' Category
the way to monteverde
The next day it was time to travel to our next stop in the itinerary, monteverde (green mountain). the way to monteverde will be a diverse transport experience as we ride on a boat across Lake Arenal to ride horses and then back in a van to bump ourselves up the unpaved roads to Monteverde.
internet woes
i didn’t expect the internet to be so freaking, incredibly, annoyingly slow. everything is slow. the computers should be in a museum (PIII with USB 1.1) and the connection is a slow ISDN 128 kbps. the usb connection makes transferring the pics to the computer slow and then it is unbelievable slow to transfer to the website.
let’s groove tonight
after writing the last post, the next activity we signed up for was the volcano hike to an observation point where we would eat pizza and drink beer then we would head to the hot springs.
la fortuna
while john and i were having a blast white water rafting, dee was having the exact opposite experience. she went on the canyoneering trip where they hiked up to waterfalls and then rappelled down five 100 meter waterfalls. john and i thought she might return with an injury, but nope, she returned with a look of disgust. she hated being cold, next to the waterfall attached to a rope with it raining on her. she was very miserable. poor girl. i wish i had gone so i could have cheered her up a little or made her more comfortable.
jesus christ lizard!
the next day we woke up and got on a bus to take us to the white water rafting and la fortuna. in the informational section, it said the rapids were a mix of class III and class IV rapids. with the rainy weather, the water was going to be higher and maybe rougher. despite the concerns, i was excited to head out. john and i were going and dee was going to do the rappelling down waterfalls, which i also wanted to do cause of my love for rockclimbing, but white water rafting sounded more fun.
san jose and meeting the group
dee and i walked around san jose and discovered that there isn’t much to this city. the main street looked like monterrey, mexico. there were plenty of people walking around but nothing exciting going on except for when the cops were banging on a metal door to a shoe store. i guess they were saying open up. once they did, a rush of store employees armed with metal poles came out ready to fight. they came out as if they were expecting a fight from someone other than the cops. it was a crazy scene that had us puzzled as to what started it.
we went to the central market or mercado central. they sold all kinds of goods from meat, baskets, shoes, fabric, animals, flowers, etc. unlike the thailand markets where we were trying to decide what to buy, we were trying to find something to buy. we found the pet store that had turkeys
, chickens, rabbits, a really cute dog that made dee miss shiloh, and all kinds of fish.
pura vida
we made it to costa rica, thankfully! we started out on a great foot by going to jfk, which was my thinking of the international airport in the region. turns out we were flying out of newark. for anyone aware of the region, it is an hour and 15 minute cab ride, 110 dollars, and you have to bare with the congestion in manhattan. it was a gut wrenching hour and 15 minutes. we showed up at the airport with 30 minutes before takeoff. dee was amazing at persuading the person to let us through. she turned on the water works and said it was our honeymoon trip. so, the woman behind the counter did a little trick for us. Continue reading »