Costa Rica!

We went to Costa Rica in November and I am FINALLY blogging about it. (It took me almost an hour to even log into my blog account because I don't use my gmail account as my username. Blogger is extremely clunky if you don't use your gmail account. I thought I was going to have to start over!)
We spent our Thanksgiving in Costa Rica. We flew into San Jose and had private transportation to the Peace Lodge and Waterfall Gardens. This place is amazing. It's on the side of a mountain and has grounds that lead to the river below. Every room has an indoor and outdoor jucuzzi tub, fireplace, balcony, hummingbird feeder and amazing view. The lodge is in the cloud forest and it was cool and damp our entire stay. The lodge has a zoo featuring Costa Rican flora and fauna. They have monkeys, aviary, butterfly garden, big cats, and reptile house. We spent 3 nights here (buy 2 get 1 free). It was super relaxing. We spent Thanksgiving dinner at a nearby "typical" restaurant. The food was so fresh and delicious. We took a tour of the Poas Volcano near the lodge. It is active and releases sulphuric acid gases into the air. It was hard to see because of the clouds, but they would move out and there it was! We hiked all over the grounds at the lodge. They have 5 waterfalls--unfortunately a couple of them were off limits because of an earthquake in January 2009. Regardless, the hikes were amazing. We got caught in the rain everyday. Who knew it rained in the rainforest?! Ahhh, the Peace Lodge.

View from our room

View from our room in the morning

Waterfall at Peace Lodge

Poas Volcano

Jaguar at Peace Lodge 

Thanksgiving Dinner

The day after Thanksgiving we drove to the Pacific Coast to Playa Grande. It was the only time I saw a wild monkey. I just happened to look up as we were driving and there was a monkey in the tree next to the road. Playa Grande was recommended to us because our friends from Orlando (Steve and Olivia) are planning to move there. Playa Grande is small and less travelled to. We stayed at the Rip Jack Inn. The accomodations were great, but a big change from the Peace Lodge. We spent 4 nights here. We walked to the black sand beach, visited the nearby surf town of Tamarindo (more tourists here), did a zipline tour at a nearby farm (you can't go to CR without doing the zipline), and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere in Playa Grande. There are several Americans that work and live in this town and that made it really easy to get around and enjoy ourselves. We didn't try surfing, which I regret a little bit. Maybe next time...

Black Sand Beach is in the distance.

Zip Line!

Sunset at Playa Grande

We were planning to leave Tuesday from Liberia, but we were traveling on buddy passes and didn't make the flight. We stayed one more night in CR at the Liberia Airport Hilton. Jim had work to do and had to spend all Tuesday afternoon in the Hilton business center setting up appointments and such for the next day. We finally made it back on Wednesday, Dec. 1. It was cold and fast paced when we arrived back.

The trip partly inspired me to take Spanish classes, so I am now taking classes at KSU. It's a low-key continuing education class. No tests, exams, or grades. I'll receive a certificate at the end of it. I love the classes. The teacher is really fun and I'm learning a lot.

I will definitely blog more! Especially since I know some of you are actually reading it!!!