Well here it is.... as promised

Day 18 of our trip... sorry for the delay. There was excitment before we even left the airport. For starters, we saw Nick Lachey at LAX, though he was trying to keep a low prof, we were quick to recognize him. But more important then that, we almost couldn´t leave the airport due to not having an exit ticket, so we just charged it. Thank god it is was fully refundable, or we would´ve been home on Oct. 10th.

San Jose was alright, not our fav. But there were some pluses, like Sarah Anne Pringle was born the day after we arrived. She´s beautiful, happy, and very very small, oh and she giggles a lot. All and all San Jose is a big city, but we were ready to leave. Although we were told that we brought the sunshine with us, because the rainy season ended the day we arrived! Well kind of...

From there we took a bus to La Fortuna on day 3 of our trip. From here we took a tour that led us to a look out point for Volcan Arenal, and we hiked to a beautiful waterfall in the pouring rain, and then shivered to wait for lava, which unfortunately we never saw. But it was still wonderful. Here, we also found our favorite food place. A local soda (small family owned restaraunt) that gave huge portions of casado, basically rice, beans, meat, fried plantains, tortillas, and potatoes all for around 4 bucks!

On day 4 we were pointed towards a local swimming hole, there were waterfalls and a rope swing and not as crowded as the rock slides. And for the first time, we were able to convince Annabelle to jump off a rock over a waterfall (though she was holding Molly´s hand).

On day 5 we traveled to Tamarindo, or Tamagringo, as the locals call it. We stayed on the beach near crocidilles, which the hostel failed to mention to us. However, we eventually learned the safe place to swim and got to surf. The next day was Annabelle´s birthday, we met up with a guy we met on our La Fortuna volcano tour who asked us to join him and his father for a fresh tuna dinner, which they had caught fishing that morning and were having prepared at a local french restaraunt. It was awesome! and probably the best meal we´ll eat in the next few months.

From there we took a private shuttle to Jaco due to poor public transportation. In Jaco we got to live like queens for a few days because of the condo Kristin´s family has there. Though she has failed to take advantage of it, college reunion trip anyone? We took a bus to Manuel Antonio, a national park, where we were able to see a SLOTH, monkeys, and mean raccoons that stole our bananas. All and all our stay in Jaco was lazy.



Day 12, we returned to San Jose to check in on Sarah. Here we pitched our tent for the first time and fell in love with it. It´s perfect for us.

SLIP N SLIDE!

Day 13 we took a bus to Rockin J´s hostel in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, it was our first time on the Caribbean side. This hostel is like a crazy zoo. No walls, around 200 hammocks, 2 stories of camping space, and the place is covered in mosaics and paintings. We pitched our tent for $4.50 a night here. On day 14 we saw a lightning storm that was spectacular, the lightning struck every ten seconds right over the ocean. We made 2 good friends here, a dutch and an australian, who taught us funny words, like kongazoid, which means cancer shit. A common swear word in Holland. We had the same breakfast everyday at a local soda, for $3 we got coffee, two eggs, gallo pinto (seasoned beans and rice), and a fried plantain or tortilla. Additionally we may add that we got to do slip in slide in the rain and it was AWESOME, though are bodies have been aching from it since!


Puerto Viejo was a favorite place thus far, but we were anxious to move onto Panama where the cost of living is less. Day 17 we crossed our first border, and what an exprience. The trip was relatively easy, but the bridge that we had to walk across connecting the two countries was super sketchy.

Once we got to the other side the shuttle driver tried to tell us that they were going to put our bags in another car that would meet us at our destination, but we immediately refused and said we´d sit on our bags if we had to. Luckily he just let us sit in the taxi that was carrying them. We took a boat to Isla Colon, one of the islands in the Bocas del Toro chain, it´s beautiful and we´re excited to see more!

Sorry for the laundry list of what has happened so far, we promise our future entries will be more entertaining, we just wanted to catch everyone up! Ciao!