Follow the Lava Rock Road....

Hello friends and family! I just got back yesterday from our trip to La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano and I am SUPER excited to share my pictures and stories with you :)

We got into La Fortuna at about 8:30 or 9pm on Friday night (we left Santa Anna at 2:30pm - gotta love public buses!) The hotel we wanted to stay at was full so we ended up going across the street to Pura Vida Hotel...we were a little skeptical at first given the fact that it's above a Chinese restaurant at all...and the owners obviously can't pick a language identity between Spanish, Chinese and English as the sign would suggest haha. BUT, it ended up being the best hotel we've stayed in throughout all of our travels so far! The shower was seriously the best shower I've had in a year, the water pressure was awesome and the hot water didn't run out! :)



The only bad thing about the hotel was that our windows faced the east...there was no sleeping in. We got up bright and early Saturday morning so that we could plan out the day. We found a company to book our Zip Lining adventure with, grabbed some breakfast, and then headed to the waterfall! It was absolutely gorgeous - and a decent hike haha :)















































After our waterfall swimming we headed back to La Fortuna to grab some lunch before our zip lining adventure! The road there offered some gorgeous views of the volcano.


































I was definitely a little nervous about what I was about to do once I started reading this sign... I was about to be flying 656 ft in the air attached to nothing but a cable at 50 mph for distances of up to 2,440 ft across the jungle! Now, all of you who know me know that I'm not exactly the most adventurous person in the world...but Costa Rica has brought out a little bit of a new Kelsey and I didn't back out :) After the first one I wasn't nervous at all anymore. It was so much fun, and beautiful!



After zip lining we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed to the hot springs! It was absolutely gorgeous! And the higher up you went, the hotter they got! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures for you of the hot springs...it's kind of a "romantic" get away place...and I'm pretty sure they would have frowned on me ruining the mood with my flash haha.

By the time we got back to the room at about 10:30 we were totally wiped out. I took another one of those AHmazing showers, and konked out pretty quick!

...Only to be woken up bright and early by the sun again. We didn't have time for much on Sunday other than to get breakfast, do a little bit of souvenir shopping, and basically just hang out and explore the town a little bit before we headed to the bus stop. We took the 2:45 bus back to San Jose; I got home right around 7 or 7:30 I think.

Even though we really only had one day for activities in La Fortuna, it was a GREAT trip. It was absolutely gorgeous, just as girls, and a lot of fun and relaxation :) This week is Beth and Myla's last week here! So I might have some pictures to put up of our nights out this week...other than that we're taking it easy. Next weekend is my last trip in Costa Rica - to Tortuguero! It's where I've wanted to go since the beginning - the most biodiverse national park in the country! I hope I'll get to see the elusive toucan :-D

P.S. Blogger is being really difficult about pictures. I have a lot on facebook already, and I will slowly but surely continue to add some here as it lets me.

More Pictures from Semana Santa

bruised, bitten, and a little burnt - but totally worth it!

Semana Santa started off with getting on the bus to Puntarenas in San Jose on Tuesday afternoon. We stayed in Puntarenas Tuesday night so that we could get to Malpais and the beach earlier on Wednesday, and to help break up the trip. There's not much to say about that first night, other than the fact that we ate some pretty damn good Chinese (I don't know why, but there were a TON of Chinese restaurants there) for dinner and there was a boat on fire in the harbor when we got into town. Puntarenas was kind of dirty...definitely just a pit stop kind of place...but the hotel we stayed in was very nice and clean, and we even had tvs in our rooms!

Wednesday we took the ferry across the gulf to the Nicoya peninsula and then a bus to Malpais. Malpais is a very small town...not a lot to do...except go to the beach and surf, so that's exactly what we did! We stayed at really awesome Surf Camp and Resort - with a pool and everything :) It was a little strange though to stay in an open air room






Unfortunately our surfing pictures are on Myla's camera, so I don't have any to show you right now. There were lots of monkeys and iguanas hanging around too. The beach was a short walk from our hotel, and we definitely took advantage!





















After we spent Wednesday and Thursday in Malpais we headed to Montezuma on Friday morning. Montezuma was a LOT of fun, there was a lot more to do and a lot of ticos on vacation too :) We hiked to a huge waterfall on Thursday and on Friday we went horseback riding to a different waterfall. Sean and Caitlin were the crazy ones who actually did some cliff diving (the whole time I kept thinking about how much I wished Adam was there because I know he would've loved it...and he probably would have been one of the crazy cliff jumpers too). I stuck to the small stuff, rope swings and jumping off boulders :)

Pedicures, Cockroaches, and a Boy in Striped Pyjamas

I have a lot of extra time on Thursdays, so I figured I would update - I'm sure the title intrigued you :)

All of us girls got pedicures on Tuesday before going out to Myla's birthday dinner at a Caribbean restaurant in Santa Anna (soooo delicious!). This little Nicaraguan woman went to work! It was by far the most thorough pedi I've ever had - and for only $12 including tip! :)

I HATE cockroaches. Uggh...it gets worse and worse. And I swear they flock to me because they know I hate them so much. In the beginning I had deluded myself into believing that I just had to make sure I kept everything off the floor...Well, then I come home the other night and there's one on the wall above my bed. So now I know they can climb walls. When I told Floria about this she laughed at me and said "didn't you know that they can fly?" UGGH! They've gone from bad, to worse, to absolutely terrifying. They are so disgusting...and I keep seeing more and more of them; I don't know if it's the weather or what.

Yesterday, Myla's real birthday, all of us girls went to the Multiplaza to go to the movies and get some ice cream :) We saw the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - extremely sad, but very good.

I've been reading the Twilight series; something I never thought I would do because I thought the plot sounded completely stupid - but I am ADDICTED. I read the first, 500 page, book of the series all on Monday. I read the second, almost 600 page, book on Tuesday and Wednesday. I checked out the third in the series this morning and I'm trying to keep myself from reading it because I know I will continue to read too fast (and Myla still has the fourth and final book checked out so I need to make the third last!) Besides, I'm hoping to take it with me on Semana Santa for some good bus ride reading. Self restraint is difficult for me when it comes to reading, and I haven't experienced a book that I could get lost in like this in so long - since the Harry Potters really. It reminds me of how much I used to love reading in High School, definitely a past-time that I have missed a lot in college - the only reading I had time to do then was textbooks :-/

Anyway, I highly recommend the series to any young adult females out there who are looking for an addicting read!

I don't have a lot to talk about really, since it's only been week days that I'm updating on. We don't have any big plans for this weekend other than watching March Madness games at Amigos. Our Semana Santa trip to Malpais and Montezuma begins early Wednesday morning - who has two thumbs and is super excited? THIS GIRL! :) Horseback riding to waterfalls, surfind, hammocks, and sun soaking here I come!

A little in town relaxation :)

Well this past week was fun, and relaxing because we're taking a break from traveling until Semana Santa next week!

It all started on Thursday when Beth, Myla, Brika, Jeffrey (B and M's professor from OSU) and me went to Tihany. Tihany is like a mini circ de soleil - it was pretty freakin awesome.
I wish I had more pictures to put up, but you weren't supposed to take any pictures, even without a flash, and we got yelled at. It was hilarious though because they were putting people up on the screen and saying things about them...like a couple that had "beso! beso! beso!" at the bottom of the screen (kiss) and a group of old people that had "blah...blah...blah...." Lol, so we were talking about how funny it would be if they put our group on the screen and said "gringos! gringos! gringos!"...and lo and behold....they found us (not that we are hard to spot in a crowd of ticos!).














Just to make sure everyone remembers who people are here...in this picture, from back to front it's: Brika, Me, Beth, Myla :)







Friday night was Bingo at PAS, none of us won anything :( I stayed after school from 3-6 and caught up on the Grey's episodes online that I've been missing out on - crazy stuff has been happening! After bingo we all went out to our favorite bar in Santa Anna, Amigos, to celebrate Jillian's last night in Costa Rica! :(



Saturday we all chillaxed until we went to Cocos (the tico bar) to watch the Costa Rica-Mexico game. If you didn't know...soccer is big here! :) Unfortunately Mexico won 2-0. The day was fairly miserable, I'm pretty sure it got into the low 90s, it was definitely high 80s anyway.

Sunday was unfortunately yet another miserably hot day. I woke up at 9:30 already a little sweaty. I took the bus back to Santa Anna to join everyone at Amigos (our favorite, gringo-friendly bar in SA) for the OU-UNC game.

That was pretty much the weekend. I came home last night and went to bed at about 8:30/9! Even thought we hadn't done a lot, I think the heat totally zapped my energy because I was exhausted. I think my body is going crazy with so much sleep though, I feel really out of it today.

This week is going to be another week full of local relaxation and fun - tomorrow us girls are getting pedicures and going out to dinner for Myla's birthday (which is on Wednesday) and on Wednesday we are going to Multiplaza to do a little shopping and to go see a movie - the boy in the striped pajamas? (i don't know if that's the title in english, but that's the translation of the spanish title) Not exactly a happy bday movie, but it looks so good and we all want to see it.

I've decided that if I could have changed my packing...I would have packed fewer clothes, and a few more books! I've been slightly bored during the weeks...but, at the suggestion of dear Beth and Myla, I am going to start reading the Twilight series which is available through the school library - for free! Yay for libraries! :)

I can't think of much else to update you all on...other than I'm SUPER excited for our semana santa vacation - I can't wait to do some surfing and horseback riding! It's kind of crazy, but if you think about it...after next week I will be almost half way through my time here; it's going faster than expected.

Miss you already Jill! :-*

Trip to Manuel Antonio and Quepos

Hello everyone!

It's Monday, you know what that means...

weekend trip update time!

Well, the beginning and ending of the trip were a little rough...but other than that it was a great time!

On Friday after school we headed into Santa Anna to pick up the bus to San Jose. We were supposed to all meet at the bus stop a 3. Haha, well...by 3:10 all of the girls were there and we were only missing Sean. So we waited...and waited...and waited...and searched...and waited...until 3:45 when we said "screw him." Then, lo and behold, he was at the San Jose bus stop already when we got there. What a punk. It turned out alright though because we were able to hop on an earlier bus at 5.

I think we got into Quepos at about 9:30, with two things on our mind: hotel and food!

We found our place to stay fairly easily, and the owner of the place was really nice and very funny. When the 6 of us walked in he looked at Sean and said "What do you do with five girls?! I have one and that is enough?! All these women, they are a lot of trouble!" Haha...he was very cool. He also directed us to a restaurant that was still open. Our rooms were right off of the common area and we immediately met a Belgian and two Aussies who were hanging out. They came out to dinner with us to a BYOB place and the two Aussies told us their story about how they just decided in a couple of days that they wanted to do a world tour - they started off by going to the US and they are making their way down to South America; from there they are heading to Europe and then to Asia. I admire their ability to be so spontaneous - I'm not the pick up and go world backpacking type, haha!

After dinner we headed over to the small casino at the Best Western, just for a little fun. It was hilarious because for roulette they had like a BINGO ball setup, and they had a five card draw table (never seen that before!).

We turned in kinda early because we knew we wanted to get up early the next day to head to Manuel Antonio for the beach!

I think we got up somewhere around 8 in the morning, had a fantastic (and fairly cheap) breakfast at the hotel and then caught the bus to Manuel Antonio. There were a ton of market stands lining the street along the beach. The walk through the national park wasn't nearly the hike that Cahuita was - but along the way we saw four sloths, some capuccins, and an iguana :)

Third beach was absolutely gorgeous - and totally worth the $10 and walk to get there. It was in its own little cove right up against the edge of the jungle...beautiful. Unfortunately I was an idiot and left my camera at the hotel for the first half of the day, so you have to wait until I get pictures from the rest of the crew for me to add them here.

We stayed at Third Beach until about 1 - soaking up the sun, swimming in the ocean, floating with the greatest of ease (yay salt water)! There was quite the episode when a very large raccoonish animal started skulking around the edge of the beach looking for unattended food - well, he found one! And even though Brika started running up the beach at him, he made off with this woman's bag of bread. It was absolutely hilarious - definitely funniest home videos materal, I wish we had a video of it!

We headed back into town for a small lunch and a little bit of market shopping (I got two beautiful necklaces for $6) and then we caught the bus back to Quepos. It was miserably hot and the sun was ridiculous - I swear I was putting sunblock on every 20 minutes but my shoulders are toast!

We showered, changed, and freshened up to head back toward Manuel Antonio to go to El Avion for dinner. El Avion is a restaurant based off of an actual cargo plane that was left in Nicaragua,bought, and transported all the way to Manuel Antonio. The restaurant is right on the edge of a cliff and has a gorgeous view - so we got there by 5 to make sure we had a good spot for sunset watching. And - we definitely did! The sunset was absolutely gorgeous!




















After sunset watching and a fantastic dinner we went back to Manuel Antonio - our real reason for going back was because Sean and I had talked to a guy earlier about horseback riding in the morning and we told him we would come back to set up a reservation... we went all the way back and he wasn't there! :-/ So, what else would we do except for split some bottles of wine on the beach! Haha :) The six of us passed around some bottles under the stars while we waited for the next bus back to Quepos - it was pretty awesome. After we got back, Sean, Jillian and I went out for a night of dancing.

Sunday we got up for breakfast, walked around town for a while, had a huge lunch (burgers!) and then got on the bus back to San Jose at about 2:45. We got into SJ at about 6:30 and hopped on a bus to Santa Anna. The bus we took, however, was a bus that takes the calle vieja route - a route which no one in the group had gone on at night before - big mistake. We missed our stop, went all the way to the end of the route, had to get on another bus to take us back...it was a big mess! We didn't get back into Santa Anna until almost 8! (what should have been about a 40 minute bus ride turned into 1:30!) We grabbed some pizza for dinner in Santa Anna and then I headed back to Belen.

Well, that's about it. I wish I had more pictures to show you; I will add the pics of the beach as soon as I get them from the others. This weekend there are no big plans - we are staying in town for BINGO at PAS on Friday night (which is also Jillian's last night here!) And then there were 5... :(

Week 2

This week has gone by super fast - I can't believe tomorrow is already Friday and I might be embarking on my next weekend excursion! I say "might be" because we have all been talking about going to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast but there hasn't been any definite plans made yet as far as I know. I'm sure that by the end of the day today I will hear something.

If the weeks keep going by this fast my time here will fly!

The only exciting story from this week I guess would be St. Patty's day. It was very strange to have a St. Patty's where hardly anyone else recognized or celebrated it. Me, Beth, Myla, Bircka, Jillian and Sean all went out in Santa Anna. We weren't planning on drinking a lot until we found out that there was a drink special with 1 1/2 shot vodka, oj, pineapple, and mango juice for only 700 colones! (aka about 1.25 each!) It was the first time anything has been crazy cheaper than in the states - so of course we took advantage :) No worries though, we were all in a big group and very safe.

I know one thing - I want my belated corned beef and cabbage dinner when I get back!!! I have such a craving for it; I only get it once a year and I couldn't here :(

I'm starting to adventure a little more on my own - I took the city bus by myself to Santa Anna on Tuesday night and I walked around town after school by myself. Slowly but surely I am getting more comfortable with my surroundings.

It sounds like Adam and maybe 3 others are really thinking about coming down the last week of April - which would be really awesome, but kind of sucky at the same time because my break is in the first week of April. Basically, I'm going to have to figure out where they can stay and what they can do while I'm at school everyday. I mean, I know they are big boys and they can fend for themselves...but you kind of have to travel to really find stuff to do. It's kind of like being in Chelsea actually - you have to go a couple towns over to get to a movie theater and whatnot.

Well, that's about it really. Nothing too crazy to update you on. Hope all is going well in the States!