Costa Rica

And the journeys continue. I left Spokane for Costa Rica last Monday, November 28th and will travel around this country (and maybe Panama and Nicaragua) until December 3rd when I fly to Mexico City for a week to visit my friend Amber from college who is teaching English there. Then a few days back in Washington followed by a week in Hawaii with the whole family, then back to Korea for another year or two of teaching. Good, now we are up to speed:

I was supposed to be coming here with my friend John that I met while traveling in Europe four years ago. He has lived in Costa Rica as a SCUBA instructor but after some delays in the US before our trip he ended up getting his dream job working for the Dept of Defense. So now I keep calm and carry on alone. I booked four nights in San Jose and per usual didn't do a ton of research about what it is like but rather like finding it out for myself first-hand. And what I found out is that San Jose can be a dangerous place, it is as you would imagine most capital cities in the US: just a big big city where life carries on as usual, not too many amazing cultural tourist sites but the usual stuff (I went to a bank museum which talked about the history of Costa Rican currency). It was on the second day there I met two new backpackers from North Carolina and they convinced me in taking the city buses to La Fortuna. Since this was city buses it took a very long time on twisting and turning roads through a very very pretty countryside. We were the other foreigners on the bus full of schoolkids, farmers, and other various local Ticos (Costa Ricans).

By the time we got to the city we were all a little road-weary and happened across Rick, an American who has made Costa Rica his home for the past 7 years who showed us some good places to eat and signed us up for a river rafting trip/organic farm tour, as well as helping us plan our journeys around the country.

Rafting was awesome, class 4+ and 5. Definitely worth every penny. After rafting we headed to one of 11 hot springs/resorts in the city and had some AWESOME buffet and relaxed in the hot springs and rode some pretty insane speed slides. Then the day before yesterday I took a semi lazy day and went to a tarzan swing over a river with a kid in the hostel names Cam. I had my recently purchased underwater camera with me ($100 from Huppins on N. Division, Spokane) and had wanted some pics so i should "Hey Cam, toss me the camera but make sure you throw it ahead of me so it doesn't get lost in the fast moving current". And it was a great toss, just a few feet ahead of me........ and that was the last I ever saw of that camera..... Why I thought it would float is beyond me. I wasn't even mad when it happened, I just kinda laughed and said "Oh well, this is life, and I still have my better point and shoot with me, there just won't be any underwater pictures from the rest of my trip." It wasn't Cams fault and maybe a should have thought it through more but c'est la vie.

Yesterday I went ziplining which was a whole other experience with much fun to be had. Check out the video on my facebook as well as all the other pictures thus far.

I will head off now and do some laundry and get some food. Then maybe back to the tarzan swing with a friend i just met in the hostel (Anne from Quebec).

Hasta Luego,
Pura Vida.