s is for sarah: July 2010

We spent the last week in Costa Rica! The weather was very similar to Tampa, although, everything was way more GREEN! Beautiful flowers, plants, water, mountains, and of course the Arenal Volcano!

We spent the first half of the week in northern Costa Rica in Arenal (La Fortuna). It's a small town surrounding the biggest volcano in the country. It is active, and although we never saw liquid lava, we did see it erupt with black smoke!

Our hotel 'Naraya Arenal' in La Fortuna, was amazing! Fantastic view of the volcano, wonderful grounds and pool, and friendly people with good food!

Get your 'scrolling finger' ready for this plethora of photos..... Pura Vida!

View from our airplane flying into the capital San Jose.

La Fortuna.

Private hot tub on our patio.

Four birds joined us for dinner at our hotel everynight.

In fact, we DID exercise one day. Although, with how incredibly hilly CR is, we got PLENTY of exercise!

Our first adventure in Costa Rica was a 'hanging bridges' walk. Some of the bridges were verrrry high. We saw lots of animals, plants, and great views.

Howler Monkey! A boy, were they loud!

Can you spot the snake?

Where did the volcano go? This is how it looked every afternoon during the rain.

Our second day in Arenal we went zip lining!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Words cannot describe how much fun it was!!!!!! AND how H I G H it was.

Here we are on the Sky Tram on our way up, up, up.

We spotted more monkeys as we got higher.

These smiles are fake. We are thinking about what lies ahead . . . ughhhhh.

Arenal Lake. More than half of the countries energy supply comes from this lake.

After our trip to Arenal was over, we drove back to San Jose and then on to Manuel Antonio (5 hr drive!) On our way, we stopped by a river with the largest crocodiles you've seen! SCARYYYYY.

Once at our next hotel in Quepos, Hotel Parador, we went on an ATV tour through the towns, and hills. We started off in beautiful sunshine, and ended getting soaking wet!!!!! SO MUCH FUN!