Apparently a blog is like a journal or a diary but it's put on the internet for the whole world to see. I'm guessing the whole world won't care too much what I've been up to, but perhaps you are curious.
View Map
I went down to Costa Rica to meet up with friends. A good friend from college was going to be down there with his wife, father and sister for a 60th birthday fishing trip and another friend from Washington was going down to look at a new house he had just built. That these two separate groups were both going to be in Costa Rica at the same time, seemed too convenient. So, I found a cheap flight from New Haven to San Jose (via Philadelphia, Washington and Charlotte - I said it was cheap!) and left the cold of New England for the warm waters and beaches of Central America. After meeting up with friends Todd and Curt in San Jose, we made our way westward to Jaco and Quepos to find the beach, the waves and the monkeys at Manuel Antonio National Park. I then met up with Ben, Elaine, Emily and Butch for a couple days of catching up,
landing my first sailfish (AMAZING!) and eating some great food. I had such a good time with them, it was sad to say goodbye, but I was excited to catch back up with the crew, which now included my friend Bart, and to go check out his new house - our home for the next week. As it turned out, the house was not completely finished, so the developers put us up in the model home which came complete with a pool, a waterfall, a 24 hour guard, and a maid that did our laundry everyday - basically, we were roughing it. We spent hours each day relaxing, drinking coffee and playing in the waves. We also tried a new activity - Zip-lining, which is basically where you go high up a mountain and then work your way down by 
"zipping" along a wire that is suspended between two platforms as much as 6oo feet apart. Not quite the rush of bungee jumping or skydiving, but fun, nonetheless. When the guys were headed home, I decided to make my way up to Nicaragua for the remaining five days of my trip. A crazy 13 hour day of travel that included a missed "grande bus", a "poco bus" ride, two more big bus rides, a taxi ride with the happiest, most smilingest cabbie (Chino) that I've ever met and finally a ride on one of the infamous "chicken buses" into Granada had me completely exhausted yet totally exhilarated. It was great to be back on the road again - challenged by a foreign language, third world conditions and a completely new environment. Sleeping in a 12 bed dorm room in a hostel was certainly not as glamorous as hanging in a house with our own maid, but it provided such an amazing environment to meet new and different people from all over the world. I spent a day hiking with a great girl from Portland and then a couple more days on the volcanic island of Ometepe which included a wonderful (and 
MUDDY!) hike with two young dutch girls, a 50 year old Quebecois and a really nice guy from Switzerland. I had such a great time putting the backpack on again that I pretty much made up my mind that I was going to turn around, almost as soon as I got back to Connecticut, and make a trip that I've dreamed about for a long time....Link to Costa Rica / Nicaragua photo album
No comments:
Post a Comment