Where do I start?

I have so much to tell you.

First we went to San Jose. Where you can image that no one can spend more than a twenty four hour time span there because you have "Do you know the way to San Jose?" stuck in you head. Not to mention that it was pretty dirty and when we were in the park taking pictures this dude walked up to our group, Kyle, me, my brother Sam, and his wife Beka, and asked, "You smoka the roke?" Translation: Would you like to buy some crack? Yeah that is pretty much what we thought. It was just one night. By seven the next morning we were leaving for Arenal.

An active volcano is a site to behold. The first day sightings were pretty rare, if we saw any of it at all. Then that night we got to see it exploding moltent lava. Which was awesome, but it was pretty cloudy and we could only see it a couple of minutes. Then the next day it cleared up a little more and boy, oh, boy did we see some lava at night. Since it is so quite at night you can really hear it exploding. It makes your insides go to jelly when it is rumbling. It is like something inside you wants to leave. It was beautiful all that red lava tumbling down the mountain. Spectacular. I wish I had a tripod with me so I could have taken a night picture. Then the morning we were leaving Arenal it was totally clear and we saw the whole volcano. Sam and Beka went on a waterfall repelling tour. Their guide said that there was maybe a 10% chance we would see the volcano. BOO, YAH! We saw that bitch, in all it's glory!

We spent two days in Arenal. We took a tour of the Cano Negro, which was about 3 kilometers from the border of Nicaragua. We saw all kinds of wildlife: bats, three types of monkeys, two types of sloth, all different kinda birds, one of those giant blue butterflies, lizards that run on water, caymen small crocodile type things, wow! We also had hot springs at our hotel that were glorious!

Our next destination was Monte Verde. As you may have gathered by the name it is in the mountains, green ones. The fastest way to get there is what they call Jeep-Boat-Jeep. Funny name because it didn't involve any jeeps, but there was a boat. First they drive you to Lake Arenal, a man made lake, it was beautiful! Then you get in a boat and you go to the other side. Next, some men where there to pick us up on the other side with a 9 person mini van with no tread on the tires to drive us two hours on roads that weren't paved. Since the van was full, there was about 3000 pounds or so of luggage and it was hot in there if we weren't moving. This one lady in the front kept asking to stop to take pictures. Which was not necessary because I took plenty of good pictures while we were moving.

Since Monte Verde hasn't been a very touristy destination for very long the roads aren't paved. None of them! Not a one. It rains like crazy there. Granted we went during the rainy season because it was cheaper, but a number of people told us there is no un rainy season in Monte Verde. It is way up high in the mountains and it is wet. Average percent humidity 100! When you were salt deodorant it doesn't really work because there is so much water. I stunck the whole time we were there. We went to Selvatura Park where we went on a Canopy Tour. Basically it was a zip line over the canopy only you were in a harness you didn't have to hold on or anything. There was a series of lines that you went on maybe 7 or 8 I have no idea. You stand on a platform, they hook you up, then they push you off to the next platform. Since I am short when they were hooking me up I had to "Yump" to they could attach my harness to the pulley. "Yump" I had to hold on to the line and pull myself up. I told one of the guys, "I think I am to short for this" his reply, (chuckles) "Yeah, maybe a little bit" (more chuckles). Yeah, well, I maybe short, but at least I can pronounce my J's! After that we went on the hanging bridges. That is a mile and half walk through the rainforest and a number of hanging bridges that are way high up. There was a number of bad pictures taken of me, cause I went on hairdo strike. Kyle however looks great. At the same park we saw a reptile exhibit. Were they had all types of Costa Rican Snakes like the rattle snake, the coral snake, and some other native Texas snakes, we say iguanas, one of the Jesus Christ Lizards that was huge and colorful, a red eyed frog that was amazing, a king toad those are the ones you lick to get high, and other varies reptiles. Next we saw the third largest insect collection in the world. Where some asshole was slowly killing off Costa Rica's insect population. It was really unsporting. It showed a picture of the guy catching them. What they do is take a big as "collection" sheet and a UV light at night and the insects flock to it. Really unsporting. By the end of the day I was dog tired.

After spending two nights in Monte Verde we were off to Flamingo Beach. We had a hotel right on the ocean. I mean right on the ocean. It was a volcanic beach so it was pretty black. Also we were in a bay were the waves weren't very big. We could walk on the beach about 2 kilometers into town. And another kilometer or so to a different beach, also a bay but the waves were much bigger and stronger. They beat me up quite a bit. Since we had three full days at the beach we took a cab to a more touristy beach for surfers called Tamarindo. There was some big surf! Were Kyle and my brother proceeded to rent a boogie board and do that all day long. It was a lot of fun.

It was weird coming back because I was a little sunburned and it was cold and cloudy outside. Me and Kyle weren't quite out of our tropical destination mindset and left the house in shorts and t-shirts and we were cold.

Don't just sit there go to my flickr and see all the pictures!!!!! NOW!!!!!