Day 13: Never ending flight day

Our flight left early today, so we caught a cab the owner called for us.  Customs wasnt that difficult, nor long.  But the $25/ person to leave was irritating, oh well.  We were stuck on Coach on the way to Texas, but it wasnt too bad.  We flew over Nicaragua and saw an active volcano, which was pretty neat, and then on the way into Texas, saw the Gulf.

We had a VERY LONG lay over in Dallas, which American Airlines kept pushing back so we were stuck there for about 8 hours.  We made our way over to the terminal and tried to catch an earlier flight, but were told that our bags might not make it on the plane.  Didnt really make sense to us, so we left disappointed.

The first class lounge was just right across the way, so we went into the glass doors and were secretly really excited to relax for 8 hours.  We were pissed when they turned us away because we didnt have a first class international flight.  I guess you need to fly first class on an international flight in order to go up to the first class lounge.  Who knew?! We voiced our displeasure, especially since multiple people told us we could go up there!  They tried to sell us a one day first class pass for $90/person.  Pshyeah right!

We made our way back to our terminal and decided on a plan....I would stay quiet while Jeremy did the talking.  We tried another first class lounge in a different terminal to see if we could get the same results.  This time we werent going to advertise that we didnt take a first class international flight, since our tickets really didnt say we had a coach trip there.  Luckily we got the guy on his first day and was training, so it took him a while to figure out why our tickets werent scanning in.  The lady helping him just flagged us in!

No one could prepare me for how amazing awesome the first class lounge was, and amazingly out of place both of us were.  They had a gym, showers, kids play room, cigar room, a bar, and a huge lounge area.  We stuck out like sore thumbs, we didnt have roller Coach carry-ons, suit and ties, and a laptop, but we didnt care.  I took advantage of the free cookies and coffee while Jeremy took advantage of the free beer (I might have too)!

Our flight finally left, late of course but we were bummed because we couldnt enjoy First Class as much as the way down since it was late.  We didnt get any hot food, and Jeremy was a little grumpy cause we really didnt get much to eat.  We were so tired and ended up sleeping the whole way back to Sacramento.




Now that the trip is over, I am so glad we did it!  There were times that I wished we wouldve stayed in nice hotels and rented a car, but we would've missed so many cultural opportunities.  Im so glad that I could spent this time with the one I love, and wish we will have many more to come!  Here's to the next trip!!

Day 12: Travel day back to San Jose

Today was the day to get back to San Jose so we could catch our flight the next day.  This is the day I appreciated the fact that we paid to take a private shuttle up to La Fortuna!  There were two buses out of town, one leaving at 11 and one at 2:15.  We opted for the one at 11am, since we heard it was about a 4 1/2 hour ride.  

We were told that we could buy our bus ticket from the driver and save some dough, but now that I look back, Im so glad we didnt do that!  I wanna say it was only 5-10 dollars for the trip back to San Jose.  We stocked up on some snacks for the ride since the supermarket was right there by the bus stop.  

I wanted to be one of the first ones on the bus, so I could get a seat situated on top of the luggage storage below us.  I stood right were I thought the bus would pull up, and I was waiting patiently as the bus started to pull in.  I looked down for a split second to grab the packs and like flies to honey I had about 10 little Costa Rican ladies get in front of me.  Now, I dont really get irritated with crowds of people but people were pushing and yelling to get on the bus, it was irritating, it didnt help either that about 15 teenagers from Australia were linking arms trying to get on the bus.  

This is why I would suggest to buy your tickets before hand.  The ones with pre-bought tickets boarded first and the ones that didnt have tickets boarded last.  Needless to say, the ladies that went in front of me still had to wait, but we all ended up getting on the bus.  

The actual bus to San Jose was so painfully long and crowded!  I called the window since Jeremy had the window the majority of the trip, and Im glad I did since he had crotch awkwardly in his face the whole time.  At one point it was raining, so we had to close the windows, but it was a catch 22 because if you closed the windows it would get REALLY stuffy, but if you opened the windows the rain would drip on you.  I tried to get sleep, but I was constantly opening and closing the windows the whole time.

The trip ended up taking almost 6 hours.  I thought it would be somewhat of a straight shot to San Jose like the trip to Quepos, but it wasnt!  Ugh, we probably stopped every few minutes to let people on and off.  To make matters worse we got stuck in traffic when we made it close to San Jose.  There was some confusion (and slight panic) when we were getting close to our destination...we quickly noticed we werent being dropped off at the same place when we first started out trip.  I heard about the Coca Cola bus station in Lonely Planet and we found out from some of the other people on the bus thats were we were being dropped off.

I was a little apprehensive about this place, as I heard it was a horrible place for a bus station as a few travelers recently got mugged.  I quickly briefed Jeremy and what our plan of attack was going to be once the bus stopped.  Nothing really prepared me for this place!  The taxi drivers were on the bus just as we stopped.  They even offered to grab our bags and take them to their taxi for us, how nice!!  Yeah right!  Jeremy grabbed our bags, as I pretended not to understand what the guys were saying to me.  We learned our lesson this time and found a red taxi waiting on the street.

We still were stuck in traffic on the way to Casa de Parque, but made it in about 30 minutes.  We were so happy to be there, and had the same room as before.  We settled in a little and made some soup we had packed from home.  We relaxed and watched soccer while chit chatting with the owner of the place.

Day 11: Eco Centro Denaus and Baldi Hot Springs

We both woke up late (which was nice) and walked around town for a bit since we were sore from the hike up Cerro Chato.  We had a late breakfast in town, and did some last minute shopping for friends and family, I was limited on the shopping since I was quickly running out of room in the pack since we bought that hammock.  

We went to Eco Centro Denaus, which was recommended by Lonely Planet, it was close to town, fairly cheap, and didn’t involve hiking!  I wish we would have done this on the first day at La Fortuna, this place was great!  It’s a little bit outside of town, and on a dirt road but a super cheap cab ride which was a plus.  I don’t know how to describe it other than it was like a miniature ecocenter.  We paid, I wanna say around 20-30 bucks for a guided tour and I'm glad we did because we definitely wouldn’t have spotted that much stuff without one. 

We saw so much wildlife, iguanas, frogs, birds, sloths, butterflies, monkeys, everything!  The tour lasted for about an hour, and the tour guide was super knowledgeable.  We ended up spotting the red eyed tree frog on the underneath of a leaf, which I was soooo excited to see up close since the last time I saw one was in the car, and we couldn’t get him to sit still long enough to take a decent picture.  I was stoked! 

We left and on the way back into town ended up booking a hotsprings trip to Baldi with dinner included.  We went back to the room, Jeremy ate some more (shocker) while I had a cappuccino   We figured out a way to pack the hammock in the backpack (I don’t know how we fit it), and left for the taxi up to the hot springs.

The place was a nice way to end a vacation.  The buffet was okay, not really something to write home about, but for a couple extra bucks added on the price it was worth it.  The only thing that irritated me about Baldi is that we had to pay for lockers… Well I thought I would outsmart them and bring my own lock and towel (they charge for towels too).  Evidently we still had to pay for a locker!  I was pissed.  We heard some horror stories of employees going through peoples stuff and taking money, and when you go to return your towel, they would still charge you for it.  The locker and towel rental would have been just as much as the hot springs.  If you go bring your own stuff!!

 The hot springs itself we were nice, and relaxing.  There were many different types of pools, with a range of temperatures…one being 150 degrees!  Needless to say, no one was in those ones.  The place was pretty empty so it was nice to be somewhat secluded.  The natural saunas were at the top in the 150 degree pools in some rock formations.  We didn’t stay there long since it was virtually impossible to breath.  Glad we decided to finish off our trip with this!

Day 10: Death hike to Cerro Chato Lagoon

The hike to Cerro Chato was definitely a well thought out trip considering it was the most intense hike we went on in Costa Rica.  I planned on starting my own geocache up there, and was well aware before hand of what the hike entailed.  Cerra Chato is the dormant volcano next to the active Arenal, that has a lagoon were the crater would be.

The hike started out and the same area as the La Catarata waterfall from yesterday, again it was around $10 per person.  At least this time I could justify the $20 because the hike took a good part of the day.  Too be honest with you, I was a little disappointed at first.  The hike was a little grass path flanked with bushes and flowers.  I guess I pictured it to be a more intense hike...boy was I wrong.

We started the hike off pretty slow at first because it was straight up, but again it was fairly easy because the road was pretty well maintained.  We made it to a little flat stopping point with an awesome vista.  Thats when the hike started to get intense...once we hit the trees, the stairs were ON!  I swear it was never ending!    I thought we were at the top about 5 times.  Ugh.  It was seriously humid and we were doing some serious sweating.

It was so worth it once we made it to the top!  The views were breath taking and the lagoon was perfect.  There were frogs everywhere, and I mean everywhere...in the water, on our toes, on the trees, hoping everywhere!  We didnt do any swimming, but went calf deef to cool off.  We had lunch up there and cooled off for a little while, before hiking back up to the top to hike back off the volcano.

We decided the best spot for our geocache was the stopping point at the highest part of the hike, just before you drop down into the lagoon.  We found a hiding spot at the base of a tree under some roots.  Right when we were placing the geocache someone was coming up from the lagoon too.  I felt weird placing the cache when people were watching, so we idled for a little while waiting for them to leave.  Right when I felt comfortable we had hid it well enough, a coati jumped out of the bushes and scared the crap out of Jeremy and I!  The guy looked like a huge version of Ron!  He sniffed around our bags and walked around the area for a good 5 minutes before we shooed him away.

The way back down was amazing.  I think in part because it was downhill and we could actually enjoy the scenery.  Jeremy did stick his hand on a gigantic spikey green scary bug thing, I seriously have a pretty high tolerance for bugs and such, but this thing made me scream like a little girl...I high tailed it down the mountain.  He started to fall and put his hand down and the thing spiked him right in the finger making him bleed, I was a little scared for a little bit cause we both didnt know what it was or if it was poisonous.

We didnt see any monkey or any cool big birds, but the place was full of ants.  I started to call them the ant highways, they had used some of the trails so much that there were little paths of dirt leading straight to their ant hills.  Some of the plants were completely eaten by the ants, once they were finished they would move to the next plant until that plant was all gone too.

The whole trip took around 3(ish) hours to get up, but took about 30 minutes to get back down.  Once down we caught a cab back to the hostel and took a nap because we were beat!  We ended the night doing a little shopping in town and had a huge banana split in a pineapple at the place right next to the hostel.

Day 9: Hike to La Catarata de La Fortuna, (Another) hike to Arenal

Jeremy and I decided to sleep in a little and take a trip to the waterfall and take a look at some interesting shops we read about in Lonely Planet.  If I havent said it already, this book was a life saver...I lot of stuff we saw we read about in LP, and probably wouldnt have given it a second glance.

We took the taxi to the waterfall, which didnt take too long and was pretty cheap, the entrance fee to get in not so much.  I mean I guess it was only $10 per person, but really, to just take a 20 minute hike was $20 bucks...I would definitely do it again, cause the waterfall was awesome, but I grumbled a little bit about the price.  The hike was easy getting to the waterfall because it was all down hill, it maybe took 10-15 minutes to get down.  You definitely need good soles because it was slippery, it wasnt too crowded though, which was nice.  Their were two waterfalls down there, both of which were gorgeous.  We brought bathing suits but the water was far to cold to take a swim..there were a couple people milling around in the water, but we decided not to.  The hike back up took a little bit longer, but again wasnt too bad.

On the way back home we walked back to a cool place we read about, Neptune's House of Hammocks!  This place was so cool.  Its run by this weird bohemian Costa Rican hippy guy, that (Im sure) was high as a kite.  We couldnt leave that place without getting a hammock.  First off, they have kitty hammocks, and human hammocks, both of which were handmade..and cheap!  We ended up getting one sit-down type, and a small one for Ron, all for less than $50USD.  I think the Ron hammock was probably for my entertainment then anything else...I cant imagine Ron ever liking this thing.  I think hes going to step onto it, flip it over and run away hissing.

We caught a cab back and walked around town for a cool tour to do.  We ended up at this desk attached to a pizza place we had dinner at the night before.  The guy was clearly American and was always bull shitting with Jeremy when we walked back up to the hostel.  We were a little leery of buying a tour outside the hostel, but we took a gamble.  He had a lot of tours available...I was really interested in seeing the turtles but they were hanging out on the East side of Costa Rica, so it was an all day tour that ran well over $100, and the majority of the day was driving.  I also really wanted to see the Rio Celeste, but it was also a long drive and an all day trip.  We opted against them.  Instead, we decided to take the half(ish) day tour to Arenal, since the last hike up there was rained out.  This tour was so awesome, in fact, we ended up stopping by the guy the next day and told him how much fun we had!  Highly recommended!

The tour was jammed packed with a bunch of stuff to do, a hike around Arenal, hanging bridges, tons of wildlife, waterfalls, the observation deck, tree frogs, hot springs, and mud...all for around $45 per person.  We jumped on it, we didnt realize though that the tour started at 2:00...it was 1:30.  We booked the trip, ran down to Super Christian for some snacks, and back to the hostel for a change of clothes.  The van picked us up in front of our hostel, and we were off!  Jeremy was excited because the tour guide was Italian, I was excited because it wasnt raining.  There were a couple other couples about our age that were taking the tour too, one couple was from Denmark, the other from Germany, and Austria.  The Austrian couple were interesting (to say the least), she (clearly) didnt wear a bra which Im sure we all noticed right away when she bent over and we could all see down her shirt.  Needless to say, Jeremy LOVED her as well!

We spent about a couple hours hiking around Arenal.  We saw a ton of wildlife while we were walking around.  The hike wasnt too intense and was mainly on a concrete path.  The hike to the little waterfall was really neat and we even saw a bunch of spider monkey swinging around above us.  We decided not to swim, but the Austria couple had other plans.  He decided he wanted to take a dip...without his clothes.  It was like a train wreck, I could not help but watch.  He literally just dropped trou, bare bottom in front of everyone.

On the way back to the van we saw a cool ant eater in a tree.  Thats when it started to rain, and I mean rain.  But then it started to thunder and lightning to the point where it seriously touched ground a couple 100 yards away from us.  I seriously screamed, and possibly crapped myself as did Jeremy, Ive never been so scared from lighting in my life...it was close too, like deaf for a couple minutes because of the noise close.  I thought it would be a good idea at this point to grab my umbrella, as it was really coming down and I was getting pretty wet.  Smart move I thought...in hind sight, not so much.  I dont know what I thinking...really holding a lightning rod when its thundering/lightning seemed like a smart idea at the time

The rain slowed up a bit and we hung out a saw a glimpse of the volcano at the observation deck, and drank some yummy coffee.  I swear, I hate black coffee but this was probably the best coffee Ive ever had...it might have been because I was cold (the first time on this trip) and a little wet.  It was nice to kick back for a second and relax without it raining.  We met up with another group of hikers, and drove back down of the mountain to enjoy the hot springs.  First we stopped on the side of the road to check out the red eyed tree frog..this is the frog you see all over town on souvenirs etc etc.  He was super cute and he hopped around the inside of the car when we passed him around.

We stopped at Tabacon Hot Springs, one of the really nice hot springs in town...and promptly walked across the street.  I came prepared....already wearing my bathing suit, the Austrian couple not so much.  She just took her top off and put on her suit right on the side of the road.  I wish I was that modest!  LOL.  A lot of tour guides wont tell you that there is a free hot springs right next to Tabacon, of course they would rather have you buy the expensive Tabacon that runs more then our whole tour combined.  The hot springs were so cool, and were probably one of the most favorite things we did in Costa Rica.

The river is right on the other side of the street, behind a gate, but its pretty easy to spot since its across the way from Tabacon.  The river had a few people in it already, but there was still plenty of room for the 10 of us.  The river had a couple secluded little spa type areas were you could just sit and relax, but the best part was underneath the tiny waterfall, were there was a natural sauna.  The tour guides were awesome, and brought us some vodka they tried to convince us was "Costa Rican Firewater," it was basically a 1/5 of Vodka and Fanta, we were in heaven!  They also brought some mud from the volcano and we all had mud masks.  I swear my face has never been so happy.  We hung out for about an hour and half in the 100 degree water, and were definitely reluctant to get out.

We got dropped off at the hostel and we went to the grocery store for some snacks for the hike to Cerro Chato the next day.

Day 8: Dia de Independencia, Hike to Arenal

This morning we slept in a little and went down to the town square for a little Independence Day festivities.  I love stuff like this…this is why I love staying in hostels, we never would’ve seen this stuff it we stayed at an all inclusive.  They had all the school children from around the area parading around the streets and holding flags singing and cheering.  It was definitely a cool thing to see!  We stayed around a watched the show before we went back and grabbed some food.

We booked a hiking trip for 3:00 through the hostel that was farely inexpensive, considering it was a drive to get to Arenal.  But it started to rain around noon and it made me nervous, it didn’t stop either.  We were picked up and joined by two other young couples from Germany (whoot).  They seemed very unprepared to be out in the rain, let alone hike around!  One was wearing a cotton sweater, and the other wearing jeans and indoor soccer shoes.  Im sure they were miserable!

This was the first (and really only thing) that was ruined by the rain.  It was pretty miserable outside, but there was really nothing we could do about it, so we made the best of it.  I wasn’t too wet because I had my rain jacket and Chacos on.  The tour guide was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to hike in them, but he quickly ate his words when I was walking in streams and generally had no problem with the rain when it concerned my feet.  Everyone else was trying to avoid the water, while I was trampling straight through it!  Im glad I brought my Chacos!  It started to thunder and lightning pretty bad, so we cut the hike short…we were a little bummed but were excited to get out of the downpour, and eh for $28 bucks I couldn't complain.

 We went back to Super Christian got more ice and brought some food back to the hostel.  We forgot drinks so Jeremy just decided to get two cokes from the restaurant the hostel had, big mistake because they were $4!  Ugh.  Oh well it was our fault, but we just knew we wouldn’t do that again.  It really didn’t bother us, but what bothered me was that all of a sudden the exchange rate went up temporarily!  We gave US Dollars and were expecting a couple bucks back, but when he handed us some change we looked at him a little weird.  So the rate isn’t 500:1 anymore?  Evidently it almost doubled for that two minutes we were standing in  front of him.  When we brought it up to him what the exchange rate was, he shrugged his shoulders and left.  In reality it was only about a dollar we were shorted but it was more annoying then anything else.  We didn’t eat there the whole time we stayed there after that.

Day 7: White knuckled ride from Jaco to La Fortuna

We started off this day on the wrong foot.  I had scheduled a pick up from Jaco Best Western to our next hostel in Arenal at 9.  We got a cab close by our hostel, cause at that point our bags were starting to weight a lot more.  We made it to Best Western, but then realized we never really knew who was picking us up, as they had two main shuttle companies in Costa Rica.  We finally cleared up the confusion with the grumpy guy at the grey line desk and waited on the street for our shuttle. 

A little side story…

We wanted to save as much money on this trip possible, hence why we always took public transit, but this was the only time we paid for a private shuttle.  The only buses that run from Jaco to Arenal must go to San Jose first.  So basically we needed to take a 5 hour bus ride to San Jose then another 4-5 hour ride to Arenal…no thanks.  We opted to pay the guy $90 bucks to take us directly to our hostel, and let me tell you it was well worth the $90!

Our driver picked us up on time and we started up to Arenal/La Fortuna area.  It was not a fun ride!  Im pretty sure I hugged/white knuckled the seat in front of me the whole way up there.  He was a crazy driver, a fast driver, but a crazy driver!  He didn’t speak really any English, but he tried.  Luckily I was able to tell him where we were from, where we were going, whether we were married…you know the important stuff!  Spanish 3 really did pay off in high school!

We were worried when we were on our way to La Fortuna, cause we hadn’t done any souvenir shopping really this whole trip.  I guess I was worried La Fortuna wouldn’t have a whole lot of shops…boy was I wrong.  We checked in to our hostel, Arenal Backpackers and quickly gave him our laundry that never dried from our night of hand washing clothes in the sink…at that point they smelled SO bad!  I was embarrassed to hand over my stuff, they smelled that bad.  It was the best $8 spent on laundry (which in hind site, there was a Laundromat right down the street (oh well).

We got to our room and it was like staying at the Hilton compared to some of the other places we stayed at.  This was definitely more pricey then the others (around $55 a night), but worth it considering we got our own shower with hot water, TV(!!!), and Air Conditioning.  The bed was a nightmare, and was the most uncomfortable thing Ive ever slept on. 

We walked around town for a bit and checked out some of the tours around town (there are plenty of them that’s for sure).  The hostel swore up and down they were the cheapest but they definitely weren’t when we did some price shopping.  Although, I must say that I guess La Fortuna is great for tour scams where you pay for a trip before hand and then no one comes and picks you up, so we were a little cautious. 

Our hostel didn’t have our own kitchen, one of the things that was a definite negative when we were searching for hostels in La Fortuna, but we made do.  We went to the Super Market, which oddly enough is called the Super Christian (weird) and picked up on some stuff for breakfast and lunch.  Jeremy picked up on this weird concoction he saw Walter make when we were staying at Hotel Kangaroo…it was plain corn flakes and liquid flavored yogurt.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad but was an acquired taste considering the consistency.  Since we didn’t have fridge we decided to get a bunch of ice and fill our sink with ice and food.  It worked for a little while, but it eventually graduated to our trash can, it was effective enough and saved a bunch on buying 3 meals a day.

There were a couple geocaches in the La Fortuna area that I wanted to check out so we walked around town trying to find it.  Unfortunately the person who started this one was a complete idiot!  They hid it next to someones retaining wall on their house.  It was a little awkward cause Im sure people were wondering what we were doing hovering around the area.  Needless to say it was gone, long gone, cause when we tried to log our visit, no one else found it either.  I was bummed.

We ended up getting dinner at the Lava Café and we had steak and chicken casado (again yum).  I also had my first taste of a pretty yummy bastido (milk and fruit shake thing).  We finished up watching tv and relaxing in bed

Day 6: Zip Lining, Surfing Jaco, and hiking Mt. Miros

One of the “Had to Do” things when we were planning the trip to Costa Rica was zip lining.  Michael from Si Como No suggested we do it in Jaco, we ended up finding a place in Los Suenos (town just outside of town).  They picked us up right outside Hotel Kangaroo at around 830, for our 9:00 tour.  The weather was perfect and we did it early enough in the morning that it wasn’t quite muggy yet. 

Everyone that ran the tour was very helpful and super cool, we felt safe the whole time.  We ended up meeting up with another couple that were on their honeymoon that were staying at a resort in Jaco too.  They took us up on a tractor to the top of the canopy and showed us how to use the cabling system and a few safety pointers before sending us off.  We tried to figure out who would be the first victim, so naturally Jeremy went first. 

The whole tour consisted of (I think) 14 lines and the last one was one of the longest around.  It was an experience that cant be described…it was so much fun.  The first few lines were a little nerve racking, but once you get the hang of it, the nerves went away and I finally enjoyed the scenery.   We saw a ton of wildlife in the canopies, some weird wild turkey thing, toucans, bats, and a ton of creepy crawlies ( I could’ve lived without those!). 

About half way down, they had one line where you could go upside down with no hands or backwards.  Jeremy had a hard time deciding, but before he had the time to chicken out they let go and he flew down upside down with no hands.  I also enjoyed the view upside down…the other couple opted out.   Chickens!  The last one was the longest/coolest/fastest one they had, and it was such a rush.  Jeremy had the Go Pro on the majority of the time and it was a blast! 

We got down off the platforms and on actual soil, and they gave us some fruit before we left.  The shuttle driver had to pick up some other people in town, so we waited around for a little bit before leaving.  He made it back with a new group of people about 5 minutes later.  They opened the doors to the van, and out pop out are around 5 rowdy mid life crisis men with a beer in their hand.  Really?  Why didn’t we think about that?!  Im starting to wish we would’ve joined their group…they seemed like a fun bunch!

We made it back to the hostel and ate some left overs from the night before.  I convinced Jeremy surfing was a good idea, albeit frustrating at times, and prefaced this many times before we left because I knew he would have a hard time…not for lack of athleticism, but surfing is tough when your first learning.  We took the Go Pro cause I wanted to document this momentous event.  I haven’t done much surfing since I left the Central Coast in California, so I was excited to get up on a board finally.  Funny enough, its just like riding a bike.  I stood up right away.  Jeremy on the other hand, not so much.  He went in a couple time frustrated while I stayed out and caught a few more waves.  I did catch some surfing on the Go Pro, and when I mean surfing I mean eating shit for about 5 minutes, then getting frustrated and catching a wave in.  I was frustrated at that point, so I came in.  Good timing too cause I ended up finding around 20 bucks in the sand!  I could tell Jeremy was frustrated and I was tired so we called it a day, and I was fine with that!

We heard about Mt. Miros from a couple people, and we could see it from our surf spot (you cant miss it it’s the big mountain on the south end of the beach), so we wanted to check it out after we got done surfing.  The weather started to look like it was going to rain, so we wanted to make it up there before we got stuck in the downpour.  It also helped that it was really close to the hostel.  It was a short hike (as far as mileage went), but took us a little bit because it was a pretty steep incline.  The views at the top were awesome though, definitely worth the hike up.  On the way back down, we spotted a couple toucans too!  I was excited because we have been looking for them for days, but haven’t spotted any our whole trip.  No macaws though, we knew they were there, cause we could see them flying that way everyday from the hostel.  We were pretty excited!  Perfect timing too, cause it started to rain on the way down.

It started to rain a lot more, so we stayed in and washed clothes in the sink.  It seemed like a good idea at that time, but it turned out to be more of a hastle than anything else cause it really wasn’t hot enough to dry the clothes in enough time.  Once we finished washing clothes, we walked on the beach and enjoyed the sunset with beer in hand!  It was a relaxing night.  We walked into town a little more and had some ceviche, it was my first time trying it and all I can say is eh…it was a little weird, it didn’t taste bad or anything, but it was just weird.  We ate curbside while people watching.  There wasn’t lack of excitement, as a hooker just got dropped off at the ceviche stand while the guy cleaned the steam out of the inside of his car windows.  It took us a while to realize what just happened, but Jeremy and I seriously figured it out at the same moment, cause we shared awkward icky glances at each other once we realized what was going on.

We stopped by the liquor store on the way back and got a couple beers to finish off the night.  We played a couple games of cards, ate snacks (common theme on this trip) and drank the rest of our beers before turning in.  It was a great day

Mt Miros

Macaws!

Hotel Kangaroo

Day 5: Relaxing Day in Jaco

Today we left Quepos for a short trip north up to Jaco, a chill little surf town right on the water.  It was a short bus ride, only maybe 45 minutes and a couple bucks.  Jeremy wasnt too excited though, because he had to carry a random bag of food the whole way there.  Food meaning three eggs and a head of broccoli...There was only one casualty.  It reminded me of high school when you were assigned an egg (i.e. baby) to take care of for a week.  And if you broke the egg, you would fail the assignment.  Lets just say Jeremy was a horrible dad!

We checked into Hotel Kangaroo, and was greeted by Walter almost immediately.  He was super cool and showed us around a little and brought us to our room.  The room was great!  A/C. Check. Private Bathroom. Check. Hot water. Check!  Man, the hot water shower was great!  As much as I loved Wide Mouth Frog, the no hot water was killing me.  The A/C was just icing on the cake.  The hostel was pretty quiet...Im pretty sure we were the only ones staying there the first couple days...I think we finally saw someone else on our last day.  The hostel was annoyingly far from the center of town, which was mainly my fault cause I should have done a little more research.

We settled in a little bit and headed towards town and the beach, good thing the hostel is a couple hundred yards from the beach!  We enjoyed the sand and scenery of Jaco and made our way towards the center of town for some shopping and food.  I hadnt really done much shopping in Quepos, so it was nice to look around a bit.  Jaco is cool, but I must preface this by saying there are drugs and prostitute everywhere...I mean I guess we really only saw a couple prostitutes, but pipes and drugs were everywhere.

We brought our own lunch this time around and it was nice to relax and sit down on the beach and eat.  Consequently, I worked on my awesome Chaco tan.

We went back to the hostel for a little bit, and finally got a chance to relax (really for the first time since we got here).  We took a nap for a little bit (with the A/C mind you), and then went back into town so I could find the next geocache.  It was a little far away and lack of car makes finding geocaches really hard.  So we rented bikes for a couple hours and went for a ride across town.  We ended up not finding it, which was frustrating because we were right there!  Oh well...until next time.

We went back to the hostel, played some cards, and made dinner (finally used that random head of broccoli).