Pura Vida

Its 8 in the morning on Day 6, and this is the first time I've been on the Internet since arriving in Costa Rica. Considering I spend over 10 hours on the computer on a daily basis, thats quite a shock to the system. Thats par for the course this week, everything in a 3rd world country is a little shocking.

Im sitting in the outdoor restaurant by the infinity pool overlooking the dark blue Pacific Ocean at Bahia Paz Vela. Its certainly beautiful here but not quite what we expected. We are on the Northwestern coast outside of a town called Playa del Coco. There are lots of jungle like trees all around the beach that we are on, but just above eye level if you look towards the mountains, the green lush stops and its a dirty, dried out brown color. A lot of the roads are half paved and there is a tremendous amount of dirt and dust everywhere. We were definitely expecting more greens and less browns, but then again, this is the dry season so I'm sure that lush tropical look is coming back later this year.

There is so much to talk about from the people, the towns, the activities, the friends and so on. Maybe I will just cover a few things in this post.

Our biggest adventure so far was the jungle ziplining trip. The Canopy Tour interesting because we were completely off the main path and saw how a lot of locals lived. Sometimes the houses are literally tin shacks. Of course there is no running water and the way that people get electricity to their house from the road is something special to see. At one point in our drive the road took us through a dried out river bed. It was pretty cool. Sarah, Willy, Brian, their two older kids and me all went on the ziplining tour. We showed up at the gate at 8 in the morning and were the first ones there; they actually opened for us which is a great way own a business (don't have to open til the first customer arrives). While we were waiting for the tour guides to show up to work, we walked around the complex. They had a mariposa (butterfly) farm and a mono (monkey) house that we checked out from behind the fence. Once the main tour got started we had a wonderful time. The longest zipline was 400 meters and I did the Superman for that entire line. I also got to hang upside down about 80 feet above the jungle floor for a couple of the lines. We saw an Iguana that was about 5 feet long and lots of monkeys. Monkeys are everywhere was about a 45 minute drive from our beach house. 6 kilometers of that trip was spent driving down a bumpy half paved dirt road with little or no signs to direct us. It was really around here. Sarah had a blast too, I think she even did a Superman or upside down line, but cant remember for sure.









Yesterday about 7 of us (there are 13 total staying here) went into town for the day. We took a taxi and got dropped off a couple hundred yards from town then spent the next 4 hours just walking around and checking out local places. We did a little touristy shopping but mostly just took pics of life down here, spent some time on the local beach, ate at a local pollo shack called Pollo Crispy (KFC without the K), and got off the main road a couple times to see what was just around the corner. It was an exciting day but, as with all activities, came to an end when the babies got too frustrated (overheated).

We have spent a lot of time at the beach, pool, or just sitting around the patio at our little complex. Its about 85 degrees with 80% humidity (dry season) so muchos calor. I have been sea kayaking almost everyday and we both have had professional massages on the beach.

We have today and tomorrow then make our way back to the airport at about 4 in the morning on Friday. Will blog more later, hopefully from CR.

Pura Vida, life is fantastico, wonderful, pure

C