Don't wear your sunglasses around the monkeys!

So to catch up on our travels I thought I would post an entry about our trip to Costa Rica. Wes and I needed a break from Europe and wanted to see something more, ehhh, scenic. So we booked a trip through GAP adventures, a lower budget tour operator. They provide transportation to the different cities, Eco-friendly hotels and some activities. This was the first trip we had done together that was considered a tour.

Wes and I arrived in San Jose a day late, we got grounded in Jackson, Mississippi while horrible thunderstorms cycled around Atlanta like a car wash (for four hours.) We were hoping to have more time in San Jose, but it ended up being OK since it was the day before Easter and a lot of businesses were closed.

We hit the streets mid-afternoon and walked towards the city center. The heat and humidity hit us first, we had become use to the dry, cold air of Colorado. As we walked I could hear birds chirping in the trees but could not see any. Finally in a square by a church I had a view of the squawkers, green parrots!

Now Wes is not a shopper and the last thing he wanted to do in San Jose after spending so much time getting to Costa Rica was spend money, but I had read that San Jose was the best and cheapest place to buy crafts. I dragged him all over the city looking for this crafts market. We finally gave up and as we turned to go back to the hotel, we stumbled upon it (ha, foiled again Wes!)

We also stumbled upon a parade commemorating the death of Jesus and the agony Mary had to endure before Jesus rose again (well this is what I was guessing the parade meant, it entailed a procession and people carrying relics and some very sad sounding music.

After a day in San Jose we headed out toward La Fortuna, a tiny town that sits at the base of Volcan Arenal, an active volcano. We took a somewhat long detour to get to the city and went white water rafting on the El Toro river. This was a lot of fun, we even saw some toucans in flight! The water level though was low, so we got stuck on a lot of rocks. I don't think I will ever forget hunkering down in the raft waiting to go over a sizable rapid and getting stuck on a rock hanging about 4 feet above the bottom of the rapid.

After rafting we headed to our hotel which had a great balcony with rocking chairs overlooking the volcano. Our activities in La Fortuna included an evening visit to Baldi Hot springs (which has THE scariest water slides I have ever rode, seriously, I hurt my shoulder and others in our group sustained minor injuries, none of us were suspecting it!) We also tried canyoneering, and repelled some waterfalls one was over 200 feet tall... now I'm afraid of heights but this was still not as scary as the water slides! Our visit to La Fortuna was topped off by a night visit to Volcan Arenal to see glowing lava sputter out of it's top, it was pretty impressive, and we learned afterwards we were very lucky to actually see lava.

We traversed Lake Arenal the next day by boat to meet our van transfer to take us to Monteverde Cloud Forest area. Upon arrival we took a horseback ride through a forest, this was a little anti-climatic, my horse (Mappa -- meaning, you guessed it Map!) was pretty old and he took a lot of prodding to keep him going. We also took a short hike through a nature reserve in search of the elusive Resplendent Quetzal (with no such luck though!) The highlight of the day though was definitely ziplining through the tree tops, we did not see much wildlife but the ride was worth it for the thrill. After ziplining we took advantage of the hanging bridges and walkways through the jungle. During our walk we spotted the Quetzal, which everyone was pretty proud of since we did not have a paid guide in tow. We also saw howler monkeys, my first monkey sighting! All in all a pretty successful day!

Leaving Monteverde we headed to the pacific coast to enjoy the beaches and views. We took a break along the way to view huge crocodiles living under a bridge by the road. We were staying near Quepos in a little "Eco-friendly" hotel, meaning no air conditioning, it was seriously hot and muggy on the coast. We had to sleep with the windows open to get as much airflow as possible. Whoever invented those Cd's with sounds of the rain forest to help people fall asleep or relax has obviously never heard the real jungle, it is loud! We had monkeys running over the roof all night, crashing into trees, birds squawking, monkeys howling, even the rain was loud... it was pretty intense.

After a night of limited sleep we enjoyed the beaches and tried surfing. Wes was pretty successful at surfing, he was able to stand and balance numerous times. I was not so successful, I got seasick, so I am definitely not destined to be a surfer! We also visited Manuel Antonio National Park. We hiked in and found a great beach to chill at, along the way we saw a sloth and her baby!

We took a mangrove tour by boat which was a lot of fun, we got to feed monkeys! (Wes was not as excited about this as I was, he didn't want the dirty monkeys crawling on him) but I had been wanting to see monkeys for a long time and having the experience of seeing them so close and getting to feed them was pretty cool. The one rule we were told about the monkeys was that you had to take off your sunglasses when feeding them. (If they can't see your eyes when you feed them they may bite you, apparently they gain trust by looking into your eyes!)

After Monteverde we headed back to San Jose, our trip back consisted of one flat tire, one very long (and loud) group 80's rock sing along, one thrilling ride down a mountain (I think our driver wanted to get us out of his van so he did not have to listen to us sing anymore) and one stomach bug. It was a pretty awesome trip, we participated in a lot of exciting activities, saw a ton of wildlife and met some great people. Pura Vida!!