Wendy's Wedding

So, time for our first non-Costa Rica post in a couple of months. We were recently admonished for our lack of posts here, so we better step our game up. I was using my Sunday afternoons and evenings for writing my brother on his mission, but he comes home on Wednesday, so I find myself with a little more free time to keep this thing up-to-date.

Anyway, one of the things we didn't blog about was the wedding of Jenny's sister, Wendy. She got married on May 1. I was at a convention for work in San Antonio just prior to the wedding, but I was able to catch a flight back just in time, arriving about ten minutes before the ceremony. Jenny helped set up the reception, and it looked great, as did our girls and their cousin Aurelia in their beautiful new dresses.




Wendy and her husband Mike also looked great as they cut the cake and danced the night away.



Tori especially liked the dancing, and was quick to join Wendy and Mike on their first dance.



Madeleine and I soon joined her.




We had a lot of fun, and we think we might need to enroll our girls in dance classes here soon. Do all little girls love dancing, or is this some particular talent they have that needs developing?

Pura Vida!! - Part 3

Our final few days of our adventure in Costa Rica were spent in a town and National Park called Manuel Antonio. It's another tourist town, but this one is located on beautiful white sand beaches.

We spent our first day in Manuel Antonio at the National park finding more wildlife. It was so fun to see so many animals that we'll probably never see in person again. We went through the park on our own in the morning. We saw a few animals like this little lizard that scurried by.



We even saw some deer.



I know, amazing. Like we couldn't have seen those any closer to home. They were almost as exciting as the jungle squirrels and pigeons that we saw. We went swimming in the morning in the warm Pacific Ocean at this gorgeous, pristine beach inside the park.



Then later we went with a guide through the park on a practically private tour. It was amazing! Our guide was named Juan Luis Brenes and he is in his early twenties. He's been a nature guide for almost ten years and I would recommend him to everyone! That's a hermit crab in my hand, by the way. They were everywhere.



The advantage to hiring a guide is that they carry a scope (a telescope on a tripod; you can see it in that last picture) so we could actually see the animals and, get this, take pictures right through the scope with our digital camera. Our guide also knew how to work our camera to get the best picture possible. I promise these next few pictures are all from our camera. We didn't steal them from a National Geographic.

Here's our first view through the scope. This is an Orange-Chinned Parakeet hanging out in a palm tree. To give you an idea of scale, this thing was probably 40 feet up in the tree, and it's a really small bird.



I love this picture. These are bats all lined up in a row asleep. We would've never, ever, ever seen these on our own. They were almost impossible to see with the naked eye, and again, forty feet in the air.



A couple more bats.



Here's an iguana. While looking at the iguana we were entertained by two female iguanas fighting over this big hunky stud.



We saw a lot of sloths with our guide. A lot. And they really are very slow animals, which is nice because you can get good pictures of them through the scope. Most of the time we saw them hanging out in the trees sleeping, but when they decide to move they look like they are going in slow motion. It's like you want to press fast-forward to make them move at a normal speed! Below are some three-toed sloths, hanging from some vines. These are the most common of the sloths.




Below is a two-toed sloth, which is more rare than the three-toed. But even more rare, this is a picture of a baby sleeping on its mother! Two-toed sloths are nocturnal, so we didn't see any of them moving around. But, they generally sleep with their heads tucked in to their fur, so it was a treat to see this pig-nosed little baby peeking out at us.



Below is the most sacrilegious of all reptiles, the Jesus Christ lizard, or basilisk. Up top is the male, and below is the female. They're called the Jesus Christ lizard because they run so fast that they can walk on water! It is rumored that they can also turn water into wine, but that has yet to be observed in the wild. You can see on the female that the toes are really long, which help it to stay on top of the water and run away from crocodiles and snakes and anything else trying to eat it.




Like we said, there were lots of crabs. This is a land crab, which stands out like a sore thumb with those bright legs.



Speaking of brightly colored animals, check out this iridescent grasshopper resting on the branch below. I have no idea how our guide saw this, because the thing is about a quarter inch long, and it was not moving at all.


After a full day in the park, we still hadn't seen any monkeys, and our tour was coming to an end. Luckily our guide knew the sounds of the squirrel monkeys, and was able to pick up their call down one of the less-traveled pathways. We raced over to them, and only got one decent picture of them, because they were so small and fast! Here it is.



And here's a not-so-great video of them jumping through the branches. See how much better our pictures are through the scope! It didn't hurt that our guide knew better how to use our camera than we do. Seriously, he was constantly adjusting contrasts, using different settings, and generally being a pro with our camera. He was more than worth the price of the tour.



After we'd hung around the squirrel monkeys for a while, we finally got to see the howler monkeys. We had heard these suckers during our first few days in Costa Rica, but we had never seen them. They howl (duh), but it is seriously deafening. The sound carries for miles. So, we'd heard plenty of them, but never seen them. At least, that is, until our tour of Manuel Antonio. Here they are.





Isn't that baby adorable? Seriously, the photos that this guide took are ridiculously good. Here are a couple of last creepy crawlies that we saw: a couple of tree frogs hanging out on leaves and trying to conserve moisture during the hot day. Apparently the one that is trying so hard to blend in to the leaf during the day looks like this during the night. Apparently we were there at the wrong time of day to see the frogs in full display.




And here's the biggest snake we saw in Manuel Antonio. It's an arboreal boa constrictor. This thing was huge!



OK, just kidding. It was about an inch long. I know, I didn't fool anyone. Anyway, after all the wildlife action, we needed a break. So, we spent the next day and a half eating in cool restaurants and boogie boarding on the public beach. The coolest restaurant we went to was called "El Avion." The owners somehow got a hold of one of the cargo planes that we Americans ditched in Costa Rica in the 80's as part of the Iran-Contra affair. They had it disassembled and shipped piece by piece to the coast, where they painstakingly reassembled it. The bar was inside the plane, behind the gunners' chairs. And, if that wasn't cool enough, it was perched right on the ocean cliffside, so we had a stunning view of the sunset with our delicious food and fresh fruit smoothies. Mmmm. This was one of my favorite moments of the trip.




After dinner, we naively decided to walk the mile down the cliffside back into town to our hotel. In the dark. This was a mistake because Costa Rican drivers, like all Latin American drivers, are crazy. There is no shoulder to the road, and no sidewalks, generally. But that doesn't stop idiots like us from walking in the road all the time. So, the government has to put up special signs to remind drivers to watch out for the local wildlife. You know, like tourists in muumuu's, dingos, dead sloths, and rat-tailed monkeys.



Luckily we made it back alive. After a relaxing Saturday on the beach, we used our Sunday to take the local bus back to San Jose to spend a day before catching our flight home on Monday. There were no chapels in tiny little Manuel Antonio, so we had to make due with just reading our scriptures for our religious services. We got to our hotel around noon, and so we took a walk downtown through San Jose's cobblestone Avenida Central. We had a great lunch at a funky place called Spoon. The table we sat at was a converted sewing machine, complete with a still-functional foot pedal.



Then we stumbled upon Costa Rica's most famous museum, the Pre-Columbian Indian and Gold Museum. We figured that would be an appropriate Sunday activity, so we gave it a shot. It was pretty dang cool, and a nice relaxing way to spend our last evening in the country.



That night we indulged Matt's nostalgia for Argentina by going to a great little restaurant called La Esquina de Buenos Aires. They had very authentic, delicious Argentine food, and great tango music. It was a terrific way to wrap up our vacation. We'll spare you the details of our flight delays on the way home, but we did make it back safe and sound. And our girls even remembered who we were!

So, are you officially ready to take your own trip to Costa Rica? It really was pretty affordable, and we would be happy to give you any hints and tips about our experience. And, if you give us a year or so to save up some cash, maybe we'll go back with you! Pura Vida!

Pura Vida!! - Part 2

After our fantastic river run we headed to the city of Arenal where we stayed in an extremely cheap hotel run by a 17-year-old with a mean smoking habit. I'm sure he doesn't run it, but he was the only one we ever saw. He was nice though and loved practicing his English with Matt.



So Arenal is purely a tourist town at the base of a currently active volcano. Yes, I said an active volcano. The town is actually on the back side of the volcano so the lava runs down the opposite side. Although if it were to have a big eruption I'm sure the entire town would be lost in the ash. This is the volcano covered in clouds. It was covered in clouds the entire time we were there.



Our first adventure was going to the Hanging Bridges. It's a trail through some rainforest with a few suspension bridges that allow you to look in the actual canopy of the forest. We had a guide and were able to see a ton of wildlife and learn a lot about the rainforest. The forest is very dense and it's amazing how every tree has other trees, vines and plants growing on it. Matt, with his love of biology, couldn't stop taking pictures.

This was our first picture. It's a Macaw. We were so excited to see one!




Come to find out there are two of them, male and female, and they are pets of the owners of the park. But because they are pets they were able to get their attention and get them closer to us.



Unfortunately our picture was pretty fuzzy, and we had to get going.



But not to worry, because the Macaws decided to follow us onto the first bridge. (Don't you love my hair in humidity? This was the first and last day I let it go curly. I just didn't have the right stuff to make it look good.)



We actually got a good picture and it was fun...at first. But then they were flying from side to side and squawking at us. I think they thought we had food.



It was making me nervous and then this happened... Thank goodness the bird landed on Matt. I would've freaked out. But it made for a good photo. As we got to the end of the bridge they finally left us alone. I don't think I ever want one of those as a pet.



Here's a look at some of the wildlife we saw and actually got pictures of. We saw some amazing flowers...





...and butterflies.



This one is called the glasswing butterfly because that blue part is actually see through. Such a cool butterfly.


This is the famous Blue Morpho butterfly that's huge and bright blue on the inside of its wings. It flew right past us and when we caught up it was closed up on the leaf, trying to camouflage and hide.



There were some very unique animals like this bird, the Motmot. I love its tail.



There were a ton of lizards like this whiptail lizard basking in the sun.



This is a impossible to make out, I know, but it's a fast running squirrel. Did you know there are jungle squirrels? Neither did I! Very unique.


This insect is crazy looking. It's a wingless wasp called a spider ant, about two inches long. It's camouflaged to look like a spider and it's supposed to have wings. I was very grateful this one didn't. There was another crazy looking insect that moved way too fast to get a picture of. But it was a tarantula-eating wasp. It was busy searching tarantula holes so it could fight the spider, lay eggs in its head and then the larva would eat the spider. Gross, I know.



Here's one of those huge beetles and did you know that they fly? It was creepy having this flying around our heads. Thankfully it's pretty loud when it flies so you know when to duck.


We also saw a ton of leaf cutter ants throughout our trip. This was our first introduction to them. They are fascinating. Our guide here decided to demonstrate the strength of this ant. So he picked it up and somehow held it by the abdomen without squishing it. Then he put this stick in its pincers. So that stick is being held by an ant's head. He even swung the stick back and forth. The poor little ant. Don't worry, it survived unharmed.



But I loved watching the trail of ants, which they say goes for miles, carrying their leaves to their ant colony where they use the leaves as mulch to grow mushrooms, and then they eat the mushrooms. So cool!!



Here are my two favorite wildlife sightings in the Hanging Bridges. We found an eyelash pit viper. They are very small, maybe two feet long at most. But it has scales over its eyes that look like eyelashes.

Then my absolute favorite was this... a poison dart frog. This is the blue-jeans frog because it's wearing blue jeans. I bet you didn't know that frogs wear jeans either. A beautiful frog and so tiny! We're proud of this picture.



As we headed back to our hotel, we saw this in the road. The "Costa Rican raccoon," or coati. Doesn't it look even more sly and weaselly then our own raccoons?



That evening we continued our wildlife tour with another tour group. This time we saw a group of vultures. They are very common and one guide called them the Costa Rican Air Force.



We had a lot of fun with these "sensitive ferns". Who knew plants could move so quickly?



We were also very lucky to see two different anteaters. They said this is a rare sighting.





This second tour group then took us up to the active side of the volcano to an observation deck to see if we could see some lava. By this time it was starting to rain pretty good and we began to wonder if we would see anything. But after being there an hour and a half listening to the rain pound the tin roof (now we know why it's called the rain forest. 300 inches of rain/year), we finally saw a little lava rolling out of the volcano. And it was just in time, because our driver had just gotten word that we needed to leave right then. Water was starting to cover the road in areas. That in itself was quite the adventure as we drove through three different areas of the road where the water was at least shin deep. One of those areas was a bridge where the water had previously been ten to fifteen feet below. Amazing! It had risen ten feet in an hour and a half!

We ended our adventure at a hot spring resort, Baldi, where we had a good dinner and then got to swim in some of the 23 different hot spring pools. It was romantic being surrounded by jungle, low lighting, warm water, and a sprinkle of rain. A very good way to end a day.



One of the best adventures of Arenal, and our final one in the area, was going ziplining through the canopy of the rain forest. The only downside was that it was raining and rain hurts when you're flying 40 mph through it. As Matt said, he gained a greater appreciation for windshields.

Here's our attractive get-up. I wish I could wear it everyday.






This is a look at one of the zip lines. They each ran for close to half a mile long and 200-300 feet off the ground, over the canopy. You can barely see the platform at the end. I was slightly scared. Although that might actually be an understatement.



But, we'd already paid for it so I couldn't chicken out. I just sucked it up and did it.



It was exhilerating! I loved it! I just wish I could have seen more and that the rain wasn't hitting my face so hard. But really, it was great! We had six more lines to go and I was sad when it was done. I would love to go again. This is Matt coming in. He came in fast! I barely made it to the end a couple of times.



What great adventures in Arenal. And to think, it's not even the end of our trip. I know, you can't believe there's still more! I told you this was the best vacation ever!