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Kelli and I took a trip to Costa Rica at the end of the year! We flew down on Dec 1... after Kelli's bag caught up to us (it took a side-trip to Miami), we headed north towards La Fortuna. Kelli took lots of pictures on the way... here are some of them:
We ran into rain and fog as we wound our way through the mountains.
More pictures...
One of the many one-lane bridges we crossed.
More scenery...
This bird took off as we approached with a frog in it's beak!
We got a little room in La Fortuna. There were not many tourists around, so the porch in front of our room was pretty much ours. The town was quiet after dark, so we ended up playing cards a lot.
Only the main roads were paved. But, they did manage to warn you when you got close to the Arenal volcano!
We went to the Arenal Volcano Observatory Lodge. Unfortunately, the volcano was in the clouds the whole time we were there. The view of the lake nearby was great though.
We took a hike from the lodge to an old lava flow. This is one picture of the trail... not quite as maintained as trails in the US!
We saw several ant trails straight out of National Geographic. We also got
video!
Other cool plants...
This spider (about as big as my palm!) had a web across the trail. I almost ran into it... facefirst!
End of the trail.
More wildlife on the way down. This is a Crested Guan.
Another pretty flower... wait, there's a snake in there! We later found out that it was an Eyelash Palm Viper!
Back in town, a little dog adopted us. We named him Pedro.
The next day was rainy. So, we headed to a butterfly garden and serpentarium. Here are a few of the butterflies.
And, the photographers!
This is a little bluejeans frog.
And some iguanas.
Don't forget the snakes!
We also took a tour of the forest over a bunch of hanging bridges. Unfortunately, it was raining too hard to get many pictures.
This is the most we saw of the mountain.
But, we later saw lava tumbling down the side of it!
We next headed towards Monteverde. These are coatis (relatives of raccoons) that were begging on the side of the road.
A windfarm on the bluffs above Lake Arenal.
The road to Monteverde was one of the worst we found!
A rainbow over a lot of coffee bushes outside of town.
A bullring in Monteverde. We saw these all over the country.
In Monteverde, we took a canopy tour! Kelli got a bit dirty...
They also had a tarzan swing set up.
More zipline pics...
We also took a tour of the Don Juan coffee plantation.
Coffee on the bushes... the red beans are ripe.
In Costa Rica, all the beans are picked by hand.
The beans are then seperated from the pulp, dried, and roasted.
Don Juan himself came out to meet us!
We had enough of the rain, so we headed down to the coast. After meeting Kelli's brother Yancy in Puntarenas, we took a ferry across to the Nicoya peninsula.
We drove down to Montzuma... a beautiful sunset along the way.
Banannas along the road in Montezuma.
We hiked back to a beautiful waterfall.
Then, up to the bluffs above.
We also found a bunch of pretty pools along the waterfall river.
And, a rope swing!
Relaxing in front of our little cabana.
There were lots of little crabs on the beach... it they didn't run away, the could bury themselves in the sand!
Yancy met up with us, and we went on a snorkling trip to Tortuga island.
Fish...
We spent lunchtime on a beach, and met a friendly little monkey!
A fun time!
Pretty landscaping around our hotel.
And our cabana.
The beach out front.
And the road to town.
Kelli and I also took a trip up to Curu wildlife refuge and played on the beach and rocks.
A lot of farms on the peninsula used trees for fences.
The road back to the ferry was paved... mostly.
We next headed down the coast towards Manuel Antonio. A bananna truck we passed along the way.
Some more funky bridges. The first is made of railroad ties!
There were lots of Oil Palm plantations along the way.
The beautiful beaches in Manuel Antonio.
We took a wildlife tour through the park. We saw lots of wildlife, but mostly too far away for pictures. Here are a couple butterflies, and a big toad!
Relaxing in front of our hotel by the beach.
Back to the park... we saw a couple iguanas. The first is several feet long. The second one, just a couple inches.
On the beach, more crabs!
Playing on the beach...
There were also lots of monkeys in the park.
Finally, we took a kayaking trip though a mangrove forest on the coast. Lots of aminals there... and a pretty end to the trip!
On the way back to San Joes, we passed over the 'crocodile bridge'. Sure enough, lots of crocodiles! Some huge ones too... the head in the closeup was probably almost two feet wide.
Copyright 2006-2007, Ross Segelken