The Rica

Cuba Libres in a can!! Rad. Enough said.... ok so here it comes. These are some pictures from Costa Rica. We headed out to the Oso Peninsula on the southwest tip of the country to check out some wild life. Let me tell ya, it was wild. The town that we stayed in has the highest concentration of macaws- it was a trip having these ridiculously colored birds flying all over the place like crows. Me gusta! Check the pics.

White faced monkey family- there was about 20 of these little mongrels.

Stellar frog picture that Em snagged, this is one of the rarest frogs to see... so we were told.

This was a super cool waterfall that only has water for 4 months out of the year. If you stand directly underneath the water it feels like getting a bag of softballs dropped on your head, but we had to try.

Living in a post card

1 off-road trip to secluded beach...$3

1 surfboard rental...$10
1 bad wipeout and a broken board..$170
Troubles in paradise...priceless.

Sorry for the cliche but I couldn't help it. So here's a little update my friends, we just spent the last week on a remote beach in Nicaragua just north of San Juan del Sur. This place said post card all over it (no people, great surf, the sun setting behind wild rock formations, turtles laying eggs on the beach.... we already miss it.)

After bidding the ocean farewell we headed inland to Isla de Ometepe, the largest island in a freshwater lake (and supposedly home to the only freshwater sharks in the world). The island is made up of two volcanoes, one of which we were hoping to climb but got totally rained out (when they say "rainy season" they really mean it). So we ended up relaxing, eating, watching all the weird animals that secretly inhabit the finca (boa constrictors, HUGE beetles, etc.) and playing a lot of shithead-our new favorite card game- with our two new travel buddies, Angie and Daniel. (We met in Flores, Guat. and later ran into in Nicaragua- we've been traveling together ever since! Coincidentally they're from Bellingham, Wa).

Earlier today we (barely) made it through the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border and now we're in San Jose, Costa Rica on our way to wander down some of the southern beaches/jungle. We have to catch a super early bus, so we're off to bed- hopefully we'll get to post some more pics soon!!

Poisonous bed mates

Upon arriving at Finca Ixobel (a little ecofriendly ranch started by an American woman in the 70s) we found out that one of our sleeping options was a tree house! Seeing as how we both adore tree houses there was really no need to consider other options... that was until we returned after dinner and fully realized that our lovely little tree house was in the middle of the pitch black jungle and already had many inhabitants. Our bed mates for the night?- armies of ants, large spiders, and a scorpion. Creepy sleeping situations aside, the finca was awesome- beautiful scenery, great food, and the craziest inner tubing EVER (when they said "not for wimps" they meant it...)

Many chicken bus hours and one rainy night in Coban later, we arrived at beautiful Lanquin, Guatemala (see pics). From there we saw Semuc Champey (pics are trapped in the camera), easily one of the world´s most beautiful natural wonders- look up pictures to see for yourself! We also did a wild cave scramble/swim/jumping via candlelight, and got to jump off a huge bridge into a raging river (sorry moms!) Christian also decided to play monkey and climbed up a huge tree, then jumped through the branches into one of the Semuc pools... he survived...