Goodbye Tamarindo hello Playa Azucar

It was time to say goodbye to Tamarindo and in order to do that correctly, Danielle had to give our house dogs a treat. Dino and Gris were our "guard dogs" for the house though most of the time they were either at the school or hitting up the discos in town. After breakfast we hit the road and headed north. We really weren't sure of our destination though we had a few places in mind. Playa Flamingo was sold out of everything but suites (wow, that's convienent), so we kept going to a beach that we knew would be pretty secluded. Playa Pan de Azucar (Sugar Bread Beach) is about 3 km from a tiny town called Potero, which is surrounded by dirt roads. After leaving Potero, the road gets really bumpy and steep. The fact that you need a 4wd and that buses turn around in Potero keep most people away from this beach. There is only one hotel on this beach and it is has little villas nestled along the hillside that slopes down to the beach. The hotel has done a great job figuring out how to make the least impact on it's surroundings, unlike most of the hotels in Tamarindo. We will be here until Monday morning when we have to head back to Alajuela to return the car and catch an early Tuesday morning flight. Until then, we will be enjoying our own private beach. Today we were on the beach for at least three hours and saw only the hotel staff!

Happy 5th wedding anniversary.

Today, Friday, Danielle and I are celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe that it has been 5 years since we were on that beach in Maui. What better way to celebrate than to be in Costa Rica! Today we hit the beach again and were greeted with a very strong sun. It rained around 10am and cleared up the skies for the afternoon. The tide was the lowest that we had seen on Playa Tamarindo so far, but we knew that high tide would quickly be coming in. A few hours after catching some sun, the clouds rolled in and cooled things off. We had a nice dinner on a 4th floor terrace that gave us a panoramic view of the ocean.

Beautiful Sunsets in Tamarindo

We learned after the attack of the sand bugs that even laying on a towel wouldn't stop them. Instead we paid $4 for two chair and an umbrella to keep them at bay. It was a lot more comfortable, too! After class, we headed to the beach to catch some rays and some Zzzz's. The rain came early today, which allowed us to stay on the beach until sunset. Luckily we did because it was a beautiful view.

Playa Choncal

So today after la clase de espanol, we decided to head out to check out another beach while the weather was decent. We ended up at Playa Brasilito, but the tide was so high it was reaching the top of the beach. The locals said that this was the highest tide they have ever seen. I don't know what today was at, but two days ago it was a swell of 9 feet and yesterday it was 10 1/2. We walked over to Playa Choncal, which is basically all shells. Part of the beach still has whole shells or mostly whole anyway. The rest of the beach is shells as well; however they are smaller pieces. The shells created very clear water conditions. It was really beautiful. It was also very low key because the beach is not easily accessible from the main road. There were some hotel beach chairs that were not being used, so we helped ourselves to them. We headed back later in the afternoon and checked out the sunset on Playa Tamarindo.

Look ma', I'm on Survivor

When the rains stopped for a day, we thought it would be a good idea to hit the beach. Wrong. The bugs in the sand combined with an already large mosquito problem attacked Danielle. These pics are just of one leg. I ended up with bites on my feet. We have been to the Farmacia twice so far to get some medicine for her. Hopefully they leave her alone!

Playa Tamarindo

We have been in Tamarindo since Sunday afternoon. Monday we actually had a break in the afternoon rains and we able to go to the beach. It was high tide, so a lot of the beach was swallowed up by the ocean. Today, the rains returned and kept us close to the house. We had a lot of homework to do anyway, so it worked out. Yes, I said homework on vacation. Our Spanish class continues until Friday. Hopefully we will get a few more nice afternoons here in Tamarindo.

Costa Rica Spanish School

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While we are in Costa Rica, Danielle wanted to brush up on her Spanish, so she talked me into taking a 5 day Spanish class. She took Spanish all through High School and a few years in College, however; me on the other hand have never taken a day of Spanish. We decided to stay in their student house, which is the first pic. The house is nice, but it's run down and far from town which sucks because the roads are really muddy and by the time you get home it looks like we were mud wrestling. Danielle is in the process of trying to get us out of there, but they aren't happy. We will see what happens. The classes are great, it's just the accommodations that we feel are not up to par. We are taking classes in the morning from 8-12 and then have time to go explore the local beaches and towns in the afternoon's. The first day of class was rough for me, there was no English spoken. Now I know how people feel who come to the States with no English background.

Relaxing on Playa Samara

After enduring an insanely intense and heart pounding thunderstorm last night (seriously - it sounded like the windows were going to shatter!), we stumbled out of bed and packed our bags. We left Manual Antonio, headed to Quepos for a quick breakfast, and were on our way to Playa Samara. The drive was quite pleasant other than having to pass a road bike race and their support cars on the narrow roads. We stopped at Playa Hermosa, which is world known surf spot, to check it out. It was super mellow and low key, with a handful of surfers our there trying to catch a wave. After crossing La Amistad Bridge, we were now on the Nicoya Penninsula, which is the part of Costa Rica that jets out on the south west side. Playa Samara is about halfway down the Penninsula on the Pacific Ocean side. It is a sleepy little beach village with an amazing stretch of black sand and scattered seashells. There are no highrises or even supermarkets for that matter. Just small casitas and street vendors with lush jungle in the background. The horses that you can rent to ride on the beach during the day, provide lawm mowing services for the town's soccer field at night. What a great place to just relax. After breakfast, we are headed to Playa Tamarindo and will be there for about six days.

Manual Antonio National Park

Manual Antonio is a small village town home to a handful of beaches and a National Park. The park is small in comparison to our National Parks in the states. Although small, it is nearly impossible to see the wildlife that so carefully camouflages itself in the jungle. We were prepared to attempt it on our own if we could not find a guide at a decent price. Luckily it is the slower time, so when you walk away, the price suddenly comes down. We ended up negotiating a decent price for a guide and ended up going in with another couple. The guide didn't want to have just two people when he could make a little more money with four. The people we were with, Mark and Jo, were from Wisconsin and had traveled and even worked in many places around the world. It was nice to talk to them while we waited for animals to show their faces. Our guide, Roy, had a scope which came in handy for seeing tiny creatures or those that were way up in the trees. We saw quite a few sloths, both male and female, which I couldn't tell you the difference before. They are really slow and can even stay in the same spot for 16 hours. A few of them were eating, so we were able to see them in action (slow action). The others were just hanging out. Mostly they are high up in the branches. A group of monkeys showed us their swinging abilities and called out to each other while picking out things to eat along the way. We were lucky enough to see a toucan. It had been nesting in a tree that the guide was familiar with, so we hung around until it showed it's colorful beak. We also saw coatis, which look like giant squirrels with out tails or oversized short haired guinea pigs. Either way they were fast runners and liked to beat up on each other. Some of the smaller creatures that we would have walked right past if not for our guide were some extremely small frogs, lizards, iguanas, and bats. With your entrance fee to the park, you are also able to use the park beaches. There was actually employees sweeping the picnic areas and cleaning up litter, which made it a desirable choice over the main beach. We haven't figured out exactly where we are going to stay tomorrow, although we know that we need to be in Tamarindo by Sunday.

The long way from La Fortuna to Manuel Antonio

Today we relaxed in the Baldi Hot Springs and took a walk through the flower garden before we took off on the long road trip from La Fortuna to Manual Antonio. I think it took about 6 hours after going around Lake Arenal (scenic route) and taking a wrong turn in Puntarenas (due to the extreme lack of signs) and lunch. It is the slow time here as the rainy season is starting up. We were able to get a good deal on a room located within a 5 min walk to the park entrance. $30/night with WI-FI. Not bad considering most of the hotels usually go for at least $80 or more in this area. We are hoping the rain clears a little tomorrow to give us a good view of ocean. Hopefully tomorrow we will have some good picks of the wildlife in the area.

Arenal Observatory Lodge

Today we ventured up to the Arenal Observatory Lodge to attempt to see the lava flow. Since this is the start of the rainy season and this is the cloud forest, the weather was against us. Instead, we hiked to a waterfall and also a hanging bridge. You could definitely hear the volcano rumbling, gurgling, and setting off rock slides. That was pretty interesting to hear. Arenal looks like a giant science fair project. Perfectly cone shaped and steamed coming out of the top. If it is clear in the morning, we might head up there again before venturing to our next city. When we got back to our hotel we again enjoyed the hot springs before heading off to dinner.

We found out today that the sun comes up really early in Costa Rica. It was about 5:30 am and it was as bright as about noon would be. After eating our breakfast, our rental car was delivered. We rented a Hyndai Tucson for a really good deal. The locals pronouce it Tooxon. We threw our backpacks in the car and started our journey to La Fotuna. The drive was a total of about 125km. Costa Rica doesn't name any of their roads. There are just signs pointing to the next town. Danielle was an informative passenger. She read all of the signs to me. I think it took us about 4 hours or so with stopping for lunch. We decided to upgrade our room for the next two nights and stay at a really nice resort. The price includes access to 25 hot spring pools with 12 different temps (one is 152F - ouch), waterfalls, waterslides, tropical gardens, buffet dinner, and breakfast. It has a beautiful view of the Arenal Volcano, which is the smallest, but most actice volcano in Costa Rica. We got to see it for a little bit when the clouds parted just enough. The thunderstorms here are very intense. The thunder is so loud that it shakes the windows. At first we thought the volcano was exploding! We are going to stay here tomorrow night as well and hope to post some pics of the volcano if the weather coroperates.

Layover in Atlanta

(This is Danielle writing.) So, last night I woke up to Jason puking in the bathroom. Apparently he ate something that did not sit right. Without getting into the details, let's just say he for sure felt like crap. We had to catch a flight this morning at 6am at SFO. That was quite miserable for him. Right now we are sitting in the Atlanta airport on hour 2 of a 6 hr layover. He's resting up. I hope that he feels better soon! We will update when we have a chance once in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica Here We Come

Danielle and I are off to Costa Rica. We have a 6am flight out of SFO to San Jose, Costa Rica. We don't have much planned, but all we know is we are going to have fun. I'll try to do a post every few days, check back to follow us across the country.

Muddy Buddy 09 San Jose

This weekend we went down to San Jose to compete in the Muddy Buddy. We left Reno on Saturday afternoon, so we could have dinner with the family and pick up our race packets at REI. Saturday night we went out to dinner with my Dad and Stephanie, Dave and Diane, Ginger and Alex and John. It was great to be able to see the family even if it was only for a few hours.

Sunday we awoke at 5am which sucked. We needed to be at Grant park by 6:30 for the Muddy Buddy. Danielle's parents came along to get a good laugh seeing us all muddy, and thanks to them for getting all these pics taken. The race is a 6.3 mile leap frog with 5 legs, there were 4 obstacles, after each obstacle Danielle and I swapped from Riding the bike to Trail running, she bike 3 and ran 2 legs and I ran 3 and biked 2 legs. The first leg was only a mile but had about 500 vert it was a killer. After that the course wasn't to bad, along the course we crawled under a cargo net, over a climbing wall, up a cargo net and down a slide, across a balance beam and last but not least a huge mud pit. The race was a lot of fun and can't wait for next year. Not sure of our exact standings yet but there was 1250 teams and I think we were in the middle of the pack.

What a great way to spend a day.

Crazy Softball Game

Wow, our game tonight was intense. We were down 17-5 and in the 5th inning we started coming back, as the inning progressed the trash talking started getting bad. The other team was frustrated and we were pushing their buttons to get them off their game. There was a play at home that Danielle had to slide, but the catcher was standing on the plate without the ball, so Danielle slid under her and she fell on her. It was a clean play, but as she was on top of Danielle she was cussing her out, so when Danielle got up she kicked dirt on her then pushed her away because she got in her face. That play got the other team pissed and they were trash talking even more calling Danielle a bitch about a thousand times. That inning we proceeded to score 20 runs and when Danielle got back up bat the 3rd base girl was running her mouth and as Danielle was rounding third to go home the girl dropped her shoulder and took her out. The Ump ejected the girl and Danielle is smart and didn't say a word so she didn't get ejected too. We ended up winning, but there was a lot of tension leaving the fields, although nothing ended up happening. Our coach did have to stay because they protested the call, the third base girl ended up getting ejected for the season, and she deserved it.

Tomorrow we are heading to San Jose for the Muddy Buddy race on Sunday. It is a Run/Bike race were you leapfrog your partner through 5 legs. It should be a great time. I will post pics of all the fun.

DC Ken Block Gymkhana Two Project

Check out this clip, it's amazing driving.