I've been home for almost a month now....wow! can't believe I've been home that long! So much was going on it just FLEW by! I came home on the 4th to find that Greg was sick :o( I missed him so much I didn't care and hugged him and kissed him so much! Bad call.....lol.....a week later I was sick! Needless to say that our week and a half together was spent with one of us sick for the majority of it! lol.....oh well, I'm just glad we got to spend some time together before he headed out to the playa!
Yep, the playa! On the 14th Greg headed out to the playa and I rested and tried to get well before I went back to work on the 19th.....it worked! By the 17th I was able to go shopping and buy some back to school clothes and by the 18th I was well enough to drive out to tracy to get my hair cut/colored, hang out with Nicole and Memphis and have dinner with my dad.
Work has been keeping me busy but I'm glad we had about 4 days to ease back into regular school days! Last Wed was the first day of classes and it went well. Last week we reviewed classroom procedures. This week the students are having fun making collages and writing essays about themselves! :o)
These next 2 weeks feel like they are going to FLY by! On Wed when I come home from work Jen (my roommate) is driving me down to Teri's house to spend the night because on Thursday after work Teri is driving me to the airport so I can go to Burning Man! Super excited! I wasn't going to go this year at all but I decided that there was really no reason I shouldn't go! It's not like I have to pay for a ticket and Greg was willing to drive to reno to pick me up....so I'm going! I should land in Reno around 8:45 and we should be on the playa by 11 pm....I'm super excited!!!! This week is gonna fly by! Wed is so close!!!!
THEN, next week we have a short week because of labor day! On friday right after work I hop on a plane AGAIN to head to Las Vegas for Tracy's 30th birthday! We'll be there until Monday....we are going to have soooooooo much fun!!!!
Basically the next 3 weeks are all gonna be 4 day work weeks! yeah! :o) Looking forward to all of them! :o)
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
My last day in paradise!
Well, I don't know if I would call it paradise....but it IS pretty awesome here!!! :o) Yesterday I arrived in Alajuela and found that pretty much all the restaurants were CLOSED.....go figure! I guess they take sundays seriously! LOL.....this was the first time in 3 weeks that I've run into this problem! I walked around and around looking for somewhere to eat yesterday and only found 2 places..... a chinese place (in Costa Rica? No thanks!) and a super expensive place.....so I was left with only one option.....McDonald's!!!! I know! I know! I know! I hate McDonald's in the states and here I was eating it in Costa Rica!!!! BUT, I have to say that after a month of not being able to have a good burger it tasted pretty damn good! LOL.....and they even had REAL ketchup....not this salsa de tomato (tastes like tomato paste!) that they have everywhere! The weird this was that out of all the people in the McDonald's I think I was the only one putting ketchup on my fries! Everyone else was putting mayo....yes, MAYO! Gross! :op
After my fancy dinner I headed back to my hostel because it was dark.....so, my hostel is very....hmmmm.....how can I put this, basic! There is a twin bed in my room, a closet, night stand and table.....but then again it's only $15 a night for a private room and bath. I ended up watching TV and meeting 2 girls from Canada. Turns out we'd pretty much been to all of the same places and are heading home on Tuesday. While we were chatting we realized that all of us were going to check out Volcan Poas on Monday! Perfect! We'decided to go together! :o)
This morning I slept in the latest I've slept in Costa Rica.... all the way till 8!!!! I hopped in the shower and then met up with the Canadians to head to the bus stop! The ride to Poas was pretty....we drove up hill through coffee plantations and saw some small little towns. Poas is about an hour from Alajuela and is about 5km from the nearest town. There is only one bus to and from Poas daily. When we arrived at 10:30am the bus driver told us that we would leave at 2:00pm....perfect!
I decided to wander around on my own checking out the gift shop and relaxed with a hazelnut capaccino (sp?). Afterwards I decided to head to the volcano! I made the short walk to the top but was disappointed to see that it was covered with fog.....hey, I'm from the bay! I know about fog....you just gotta wait it out! ;o) So that's what I did and it paid off! I was able to see into the crater and see the pool of water inside of it! I wasn't able to see the so called stunning aqua/teal blue of the water but at least I was able to see it!
Next I took the trail to see the Boto Lake near the volcano. The walk was eerie and beautiful at the same time because the trees covered the sky and a mist covered the path....I'll have to post pictures when I get back tomorrow! When I got to the lake it was covered with fog and no matter how long I waited it wasn't moving.....so I decided to continue along the trail to the visitor center with the 2 Belgiums I met on the bus. :o) We made our way back slowly checking out the trees and plans for any frogs....no luck! :op
When we got to the visitor center we had a few minutes before 2 so we headed to the bathroom. When we got to the parking lot at 2 we thought we were early because the bus wasn't there.....but neither was anyone else! We decided to walk down to the main entrance....maybe we'd misunderstood where to meet. When we got to the entrance the lady working it said that the bus had left already!
We were really starting to worry because that was the ONLY bus! We asked the lady what we could do and she said we had to walk to 5km to the nearest town and try to get a taxi (fat chance! I haden't seen ANY taxies as we drove up! As we were talking to her a small jeep was exiting the park and we flagged the driver down. We told him what had happened and asked him if he could drop us in a town.....he told us he would drive us all the way to Alajuela! Turns out he is a teacher in Costa Rica and teaches English! The Belgiums were both teachers too!
So, I've officially hitchhiked now....lol.....I guess a trip to Costa Rica isn't complete unless you've had to hitchhike! ;o) Now I can come home and say I've done it all! :o) See you all very soon! :o)
Thanks for following my adventure! When I get home I'll try and update my blog with pictures! :o)
*hugz*
oh my gosh! I can't believe I almost forgot! So, on my last night in Manuel Antonio I decided to meet the girls from Denver & Dallas at the Mariposa Hotel to go swimming wand watch the sunset. The sunset from that hotel is suppose to be one of the top 1000 things you need to do/see before you die....who knew! ;o) The sunset was pretty but the main highlight was seeing the sloth!!!! A sloth came down out of a tree and was hanging onto the glass fence! It was sooooo cool! We were able to get really close and I got some GREAT pictures! :o)
After my fancy dinner I headed back to my hostel because it was dark.....so, my hostel is very....hmmmm.....how can I put this, basic! There is a twin bed in my room, a closet, night stand and table.....but then again it's only $15 a night for a private room and bath. I ended up watching TV and meeting 2 girls from Canada. Turns out we'd pretty much been to all of the same places and are heading home on Tuesday. While we were chatting we realized that all of us were going to check out Volcan Poas on Monday! Perfect! We'decided to go together! :o)
This morning I slept in the latest I've slept in Costa Rica.... all the way till 8!!!! I hopped in the shower and then met up with the Canadians to head to the bus stop! The ride to Poas was pretty....we drove up hill through coffee plantations and saw some small little towns. Poas is about an hour from Alajuela and is about 5km from the nearest town. There is only one bus to and from Poas daily. When we arrived at 10:30am the bus driver told us that we would leave at 2:00pm....perfect!
I decided to wander around on my own checking out the gift shop and relaxed with a hazelnut capaccino (sp?). Afterwards I decided to head to the volcano! I made the short walk to the top but was disappointed to see that it was covered with fog.....hey, I'm from the bay! I know about fog....you just gotta wait it out! ;o) So that's what I did and it paid off! I was able to see into the crater and see the pool of water inside of it! I wasn't able to see the so called stunning aqua/teal blue of the water but at least I was able to see it!
Next I took the trail to see the Boto Lake near the volcano. The walk was eerie and beautiful at the same time because the trees covered the sky and a mist covered the path....I'll have to post pictures when I get back tomorrow! When I got to the lake it was covered with fog and no matter how long I waited it wasn't moving.....so I decided to continue along the trail to the visitor center with the 2 Belgiums I met on the bus. :o) We made our way back slowly checking out the trees and plans for any frogs....no luck! :op
When we got to the visitor center we had a few minutes before 2 so we headed to the bathroom. When we got to the parking lot at 2 we thought we were early because the bus wasn't there.....but neither was anyone else! We decided to walk down to the main entrance....maybe we'd misunderstood where to meet. When we got to the entrance the lady working it said that the bus had left already!
We were really starting to worry because that was the ONLY bus! We asked the lady what we could do and she said we had to walk to 5km to the nearest town and try to get a taxi (fat chance! I haden't seen ANY taxies as we drove up! As we were talking to her a small jeep was exiting the park and we flagged the driver down. We told him what had happened and asked him if he could drop us in a town.....he told us he would drive us all the way to Alajuela! Turns out he is a teacher in Costa Rica and teaches English! The Belgiums were both teachers too!
So, I've officially hitchhiked now....lol.....I guess a trip to Costa Rica isn't complete unless you've had to hitchhike! ;o) Now I can come home and say I've done it all! :o) See you all very soon! :o)
Thanks for following my adventure! When I get home I'll try and update my blog with pictures! :o)
*hugz*
oh my gosh! I can't believe I almost forgot! So, on my last night in Manuel Antonio I decided to meet the girls from Denver & Dallas at the Mariposa Hotel to go swimming wand watch the sunset. The sunset from that hotel is suppose to be one of the top 1000 things you need to do/see before you die....who knew! ;o) The sunset was pretty but the main highlight was seeing the sloth!!!! A sloth came down out of a tree and was hanging onto the glass fence! It was sooooo cool! We were able to get really close and I got some GREAT pictures! :o)
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Only 3 nights left....what?!?!?!
I can´t believe that my trip has gone by so fast! There were times when I felt like I had forever here! There is no doubt about it though; I have had an amazing time....I´ve seen SO much and I think I got pretty tan! ;o) So on Thursday (my last post) I went to the grocery store and got food and came back to my hotel (and YES, it rained on me the whole way home! lol). At my hotel I met 2 women from Denver (Allison and Lindsey) and 1 from Dallas (Sarah Kate) and we ended up cooking dinner together and hanging out. Turns out they hadn´t been to the Manuel Antonio park either so we decided to go together on Friday.
Friday was AMAZING! We all had breakfast together at our B&B and then headed out to the park.The bus to the park cost 200 colones (about 17 cents!). The park itself was a little more expensive- $10.....but as soon as we got into the park we saw a SLOTH!!!!! I was sooooo excited!!!! That has been the only animal that I haven´t seen that I really, REALLY wanted to see! I took some pictures but he looks really small in the pic.....but I swear he was pretty darn close! We continued on along the trail and saw some lizards and butterflies. We ended up at Manuel Antonio beach....so beautiful! Just like a tropical paradise!
White sand, blue/teal water, palm trees, jungle right up along the water and beautiful rocky cliffs jutting out. *sigh* we changed into our suits and hung out there for a couple hours.....we went swimming and just lounged around reading and napping. 
Went we woke up from our nap we noticed TONS of hermit crabs crawling around! IT was funny because we had noticed them before but once we did we saw them everywhere! After a couple hours some dark clouds started to roll in so we decided to head back to town.....when we went to go change out of our suits we saw MORE monkeys! I´m not sure what kind but they are the small ones you see with Aladdin! 
They were everywhere and they were NOT shy! I got some great pics! Anyway, good thing we headed out of the park when we did.... As soon as we got on the main street the rain came pouring down! To get out of the rain the girls went to check their e-mail and I had a yummy refreshing scoop of mango gellato! :o)
We hadn´t eaten since breakfast so we all headed to El Avion.....a restaurant built around a huge plane! Inside the plane was the bar!
We found a good spot on the second floor to watch the sunset and have dinner. Almost all of us ordered the special: dinner salad, mahi-mahi with a spicy tomoato sauce with shrimp, veggies and mashed potatoes and a glass of wine....yummy! Unfortunately one of the girls wasn´t feeling well (she´d been sick for a couple days) so we decided to head back home right after dinner.
So, you´re probably wondering what am I doing my last few days in Costa Rica....so let me tell you! :o) Today I got up and came to Quepos to mail my postcards and check out Quepos. I´m gonna hang out here for a bit and then I´m heading back to downtown Manuel Antonio....I´m gonna check out the shops and maybe lounge around on the beach :o) Tomorrow I´m gonna head to Alajuela....it´ll take about 4-5 hours. THEN on my last full day in Costa Rica, Monday, I´m gonna get up super early and head to Volcan Poas.....and that´s pretty much it for my plans! Tuesday morning I´ll be on a plane at 6:30am heading home!
It´s def been fun and an adventure! See you soon if I don´t get a chance to get online again....I think I will but you never know! ;o)
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