HI from Costa Rica!!!!
I didn't think I would get a chance to blog while I was here, but my friend has her Mac, and we have free wi-fi at the place we are staying at right now. So far, the trip has gone really well!! We flew in on Saturday, and our flight was at 7am-needless to say, we were up super early to get to the airport. And my wonderful mommy, volunteered to take us to the airport that early, even though she never gets to sleep in! She is pretty much awesome. We changed planes in Ft. Lauderdale, then on to San Jose. When we left the airport, we were immediately bombarded by about 10 taxi drivers. It felt a little sketchy, until one guy came up to us and was really nice, spoke english pretty well, and was not pushy like all the other guys. We wanted to go to Jaco (pronounced Haco, like "taco"), which is a small beach town along the Pacific coast. He took us there for $35 each-seriously, it was a 2 1/2 hour drive too, so we got a pretty good deal. I seriously think that he was sent to us, because we started talking to him, and he had been to Atlanta! He turned out to be really cool! Not only did he drive us there, but took us to this local restaurant along the way on the top of a mountain, which was open so that the fog could blow in and cool you down. So cool! He also told us about a bridge that had a ton of crocodiles and he even stopped and showed us! It definitely started our trip off right.
In Jaco, we stayed at a cute little inn run by a Dutch couple, and it was pretty nice-had a kitchenette in the rooms and a nice pool. We stayed three nights and had a bus booked to take us to Arenal, which the area with an active volcano. We got up early, packed our stuff, and had breakfast at the hotel. Our bus was not supposed to be there until 9:05, but at 8:30, with breakfast on the way, someone comes up and says "Are you taking the Gray line bus? Because they are here." We looked at each other and were like "oh Crap!". We bolted back to our room without eating to get out stuff, and by the time we got back, the nice ladies working there had boxed up our breakfast so that we could eat it on the bus!! It was so nice!! We honestly didn't think we were going to get to eat!
In La Fortuna (the actual town that surrounds the Arenal Volcano), we stayed at a really nice hostel, that was more like a hotel than a hostel. It had air-conditioning, which is something that you come to greatly appreciate in ridiculously humid Costa Rica, which makes Georgia feel like Alaska. They also had a sweet pool with a swim up bar. ; ) The first night we did a tour which was a drive up to a scenic area by the volcano, with a hike through the jungle, then they drove us around the other side of the volcano to see the lava at night. Arenal is by all means an active volcano-smoke can be seen everyday coming out of the top crater, and lava flows fairly regularly down one side. I got some really good pictures of the lava too. Then they took us the hot springs for dinner and some relaxing in the naturally hot mineral water. Soooo goooood.
By far the best thing at the hostel was the people. There are people from all over and it is so great to be able to talk with them. After we did the zip line through the rainforest-another really amazing experience-we hung out with 4 swedish guys and a french dude, and went to La Fortuna waterfall. We hiked back down and went to a local waterfall spot as well.
That brings me to today. We are sitting at the hostel right now, waiting for our bus to take us to Brasilito, which is where our friend Elizabeth is student teaching. We are going to hang out with her for the weekend, then head back to San Jose to catch our plane home!!
Pura Vida! (which the locals say, it means "life is good" )
