Pura Vida!

John and I recently took a trip to Costa Rica. It was AWESOME!! I could live in the rain forest-John says he needs the Rocky Mountains. Nevertheless, we've talked of someday visiting again. And P.S., a HUGE thanks mom and dad for staying with the kids!!

What we did:

We arrived at 5am-went to a hotel in San Jose and slept. Then did the waiting game for our shuttle to La Fortuna. We figured out quickly that a pick up time of 12:00 really means 12:30 in Costa Rica.

This is the Arenal Volcano. We watched lava flow down at night-here you can see the smoke from the lava.

Zip line through the trees.

Canyoning-We rapelled down 5 waterfalls and two cliff walls. This was for both of us a highlight of our trip. You couldn't beat the scenery or the adrenaline rush.


Cano Negro River Tour-it was like the Jungle Ride at Disneyland minus the cheesy guide and bad robotics. Our guide Hugo was awesome-he spotted birds like the green ibis in the very green trees near the river-which became a running joke afterwards as John for the rest of our trip would cry "green ibis!" whenever we were in the forest

This is what I looked like much of our trip-binoculars never far from my hands.

Our next stop-Manuel Antonio. First day we did some hiking and it was SOOO humid. We sweat (or is it sweated?) a ton, hence my karate kid look here.

Jet Ski Tour-we raced through the ocean and did some snorkeling. John didn't like the warm water so this wasn't his favorite-is he weird or what!

Surf Lessons-SOOOOO FUN!


What We Saw:

We identified about 75 different birds, 70 of those were all new to me so it was exciting if you like birds. We also saw lots of monkeys-howler monkeys that, yes, howl-especially when it rained it sounded like they were letting out a loud "NOOOO!", we saw white faced monkeys, and the endangered squirrel monkeys. We also saw a few sloths which were my favorite aside from the birds-we got to watch one slowly and methodically move from one tree to another. We saw a tree full of iguanas, some caymens, and a big lizard (can't remember the name) hanging out on the beach. There were also a TON of colorful crabs but I didn't get their picture. (Note: the bird pictures were pirated off the internet).
Red legged Honeycreeper

White Crowned Parrot

Blue Crowned Motmot

Keel-billed Toucan-not as big as it looks

Coati

Iguana

This is called a Great Potoo. As John and I were scanning my Birds of Costa Rica book, we came across this bird and thought we'd NEVER see it-you can see how camaflouged it is. Fortunately our guide on the Cano Negro tour was an avid birder and knew this Potoo hung out in this tree.

Caymen

White Faced Monkey

The beach-dwelling lizard

The view from our room in Manuel Antonio.