Flamingo All Suites Playa Flamingo

... to hang out at the beach the entire day and have a picnic, get in the water, play with Isabella, read, take a nap. In other words, a perfect day at the beach. We found a perfect shady spot under some mangroves right on the beach and made this our camp for the day. Isabella and Susie enjoyed drawing sea creatures in the sand and looking for seashells. We had a great picnic lunch at right on the beach where we ate sandwiches (the mayo here has a lemon flavor ...

... like much, and even Ticos seem to feel compelled to defend such a seemingly simple dish, but there is more to it than meets the palate. For one, I don't think it's just as easy as mixing the two, there is some sort of seasoning, spice or sauce that gets in the mix and makes the whole a much more appealing concoction than the sum of its parts. I had it at breakfast and it was REALLY good! I must investigate further what the secret ...

... coast of Costa Rica in Guancaste and several days in the rainforest/volcano Arenal and Monteverde areas northwest of San Jose (capital of Costa Rica for those of you who already forgot or never learned 4th grade geography).


So some of you might be wondering Costa Rica is not that far away by plane, why would it make for a long day of travel (the title of this entry is "A LONG day....but we're finally here" afterall? Well, by the time I got to ...

... through rivers and even on foot when the car can't make it. She seems to know everyone who owns an animal within a 10 km radius of her home, and more importantly, they all seem to know her. She knows who has animals that need fixing at the next clinic, and who has new puppies or kittens that need deworming and vaccinating. She educates, hounds, scolds, praises, begs or does whatever she needs to do to keep "her" animals healthy ...

... They work in these cities and regress to their own homes. They utilize public transportation very regularly. I noticed that the families that are established here and have houses have the help from their families to become established. They have more of a sense of permanency. Most of the houses that I have come into contact with have been here for years, over ten years. They have established themselves in the community and are now living ...

Becca So we finally met up with my friend Kenery and her bf Wirt in La Fortuna, which is a small town near Volcan Arenal, a large active volcano. The hostel we all stayed out turned out to be kinda gross and the owner tried to scam us on every activity we did...so we learned quickly to book all our activities elsewhere. Asaf and I got there via a jeep-boat-jeep from Monteverde, which was kinda cool cause we got to see ...

... And a big parrot in a tiny cage outside. Cousin Jen was particularly horrified by the poor bird. I have a few rules while traveling that limit my alcohol consumption. 1 - No Drinking 2 nights in a row. 2 - Drinking is allowed on the night of arrival to a new place 3 - Drinking is allowed on a Friday night 4 - Drinking is allowed on a Saturday night. 5 - If you drink on the Friday night, you cant drink on the Saturday night (rule 1) 6 - NO drinking any other ...

... out as the sun lifted from the trees behind us. I felt fairly knackered from all the paddling, so my session would last about, oh, and hour or so. Then we'd head back for breakfast. Nick would play guitar, I'd do something else. We'd have lunch, then a nap, maybe. Coffee. I like the 3pm coffee before heading back out to the beach. We always stayed for sunset. The last night out, I shot a handful of pics. I found a neat looking ...

... our hostel. At this point, Al and I were tired of eating out every meal had stocked up on some basic supplies at the local grocery. Eggs, cheese, bread, butter, etc. Well, when you put all those together and fry them in a skillet, it turns out you get a damn good sandwich for the road. With a little tweaking of the proportions and heat, we became expert fried egg sandwich cooks.