Jenn and Mary's Excellent Adventure in Costa Rica
(pssst, scroll all the way down for pictures, unless you want to read my witty reparte directly below)
Jenn and Mary
recently went to Costa Rica and had a most excellent time. We stayed in
San jose the first night and the last night, and let me tell you, you are not
missing anything if you skip san jose. Since it is the rainy season, and
it was raining, a lot, we headed right for the southern coast, Playa
Herradura, which means Horseshoe Beach in spanish. We stayed at the Los
Suenos Resort. It had a most excellent pool, check it out -
While we were there, we went on a tour of the rain forest canopy, by zip line. What is that? Well basically they dangle you from a cable, and with the help of a pulley, you "zip" across the rain forest, from tree to tree. We also took a guided tour in the rain forest and saw lots of birds and monkeys. Later that same day we were stupid enough (mostly me) to think that the man that told us it was only 40 minutes down to the waterfall and 45 minutes back up, wasn't lying. Anywho, i survived, and we taunted a poison dart frog and some monkeys, so the trip was not a total loss.
The next day...we left the beautiful Los suenos resort and went to the town of Manuel Antonio. There we went to the sate park of the same name and went in. this rain forest was right off the beach. we liked that. After tracking through the hot muggy rain forest it was time to strip down to the bathing suits and jump in to the ocean. Oh yea, we saw monkeys...
After that, we thought it smart to get a hotel near by, we were wrong. We stayed at the byblos hotel and casino cause we thought "cool, a casino named after the bible". Our bungalo was in the rain forest, but all the bugs were shacking up in the bungalo, not in the forest. Someone painted the furniture pink, sigh... The lady (i mean Senora) told us that there was a continental breakfast. in the morning we asked where was breakfast and the new lady said "breakfast? what breakfast". Don't stay there.
After that, we drove to the Arenol volcano. We took the long way around the lake, complete with giant potholes, landslides, and yea, danger...... We finally got to the Tabacon Hot Springs and resort. You should go there. Who doesn't love pools of hot water? Here is a link to the place. my camera couldn't take the humidity so we did not get the best pictures - Tabacon Hot Springs While sipping drinks in the back hot spring some howler monkeys talked to us, so we talked back. Ahhh...evolution!
After the hot springs, it was off to the monteverde cloud forest, of which we took a wrong turn at albuquerque and ended up in cow pastures in the middle of nowhereville. Once there, finally, we stayed at the Fonda Vela. It was pretty, stay there. The next morning we did a bridges tour of the canopy in the Monteverde Cloud forest. I was disappointed to find out it was not a forest made up of clouds, but was actually more trees. No monkeys were found.
After that we decided it was time to head back towards san jose to catch our flight. We thought "hey a place called puntarenas is on the way, and it is on the water, so let's see what that is all about" Bad thoughts come in 2's. Don't go to puntarenas, it's a dump. So we headed back to san jose. in about 4 hours we went about 20 miles. The "interstate" which is 2 lanes tempts the truckers to think they can make it up that big hill and at least half the speed limit of 45 mph. they were wrong. you go about 3 miles an hour for everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
We stayed at the beautiful marriott in san jose. It had a cool jacuzzi., i mean hot. We laid out the next morning at the pool to get some sort of proof that we had been on vacation. So far the only thing we had were bug bites.
Pictures: Adventure
Jenn's self portraits, sigh....
Vacation Sunset pictures, oooohhh, ahhhhhh