Hotel Cafe de Paris Nicoya

... fishing hatched turtle eggs out of a hole in the nursery. I had made it! We caught up all day, I helped out a bit with the conservation, digging holes, moving sand and counting baby turtles. It was nice to see someone from home and made the day's adventures extremely worthwhile. Another volunteer arrived later in the afternoon, and somehow he already knew my name. Turns out, he had the same cab driver as I had, and I have scarred this poor man. He probably thought I was dead ...

... of the cave where we donned harness and then climbed down a long ladder into the mouth of the cave. The temperature dropped to a very comfortable level and being away from the humidity for awhile was a great relief.

We were lead around the caves for about an hour or so. We crawled through muddy and wet openings as we twisted and contorted our bodies to get past giant stalactites and stalagmites. We found no bats only a solitary and skinny cave toad and ...

... There are many birds and we saw the majority of them at the back of the property including a toucan. Meanwhile our kids, Kristen and Kevin went for a tour called Canyoneering. They loved it and it was the favorite tour of their whole trip. They rapelled down a very high waterfall and couldn't quit talking about it.

... a turquoise lagoon of icy cool water. It was to us, what it is to a person lost in a desert who suddenly finds a pool of water in front of him. The place is so far away from civilisation that we had the place all to ourselves for an hour before the next hiker arrived. On our way back, we stopped at a another lagoon nearer to the starting point of the trail and sighted some capuchins monkeys. The first wildlife spotted in the day.

... It erupted last in 1968, and since then you can still see some lava coming out almost every night! So far, the clouds have been pretty thick around the cone, and we have not been able to see the summit at night when the lava would be glowing red. As we were driving around the lake, we had to stop for a group of 18 Coatimundi who were crossing the road ...

... frightened that we found that there on the same floor we would be sleeping on. However, everyone survived the night and we just suffered a few mosquito bites, haha. Service in Nandayure was GREAT, just like I remembered it. I got several good return visits already for the friends to go back on. We went preaching on the same street we were on with Ashlee one time, and we all said, "we miss Ashlee ...

... enough, it did feel like a completely different country from the one that we had left that morning. Sweatshirts that we had hugged to our bodies only four hours before were flung back on the buseta and pant legs rolled up. The air was steamy though it was only 9 am. Everyone looked around them in astonishment with even the most mundane things...but these weren't just any trees or rocks, these were trees and rocks in Guanacaste. After acclimating ourselves to our new surroundings ...

... Turns out my drivers are my neighbors lol! My familia tica (CR fam) is really great! the mom cooks two really good meals a day and if im home on the weekend lunch 2. I live like 15 min from school along with about 8 others that go to la escuala. at 730 I get on a van that takes me to school from 8 to 12 and then I usaully get lunch and do anything I need to intown, the school is in the town about a driver and 7 iron (350 yards ...

... to all the action although not as big as where we are now. Both villas are wonderful - it's certainly not traveller living, but it's oddly cheaper as I'm not paying for accomodation. We've got air-conditioning, 3 bedrooms, a dvd player and DirectTV. Cuba will definitely be a change. Today was pretty easy-going. We grabbed food in Coco and then headed to the supermarket to stock up the very bare kitchen. We've spent the whole afternoon sitting at Coconutz ...

... speak very little that combined they speak more. They do have official taxi's in Costa Rica They are red with yellow triangle. So when a white pick up truck comes to fetch us we are apprehensive. Insistently, the men help us into the cab. We ride thinking theirs very well may be one of the dumbest thing we have ever done. There is a large festival seemingly for the police, so the truck can't take us all the ...