Hotel Coconut House Alajuela

I woke up this morning hoping for pancakes for breakfast and surprisingly, we had them! I was so glad to not have rice for breakfast. I have had rice for lunch and dinner for the last two days and am feeling like I would really just like to have something else. Like pizza or pasta or chocolate!<br> Today was a relaxed day at the orphanage. The 4 year old and the baby were the only kids that were available when I arrived ...

... So I left with my bike tour an hour delayed with my stomach filled with swiss bread and ice tea. Her last sentence as she good-byeed me was, that there was a bit of the way pretty tough... on my ride to the blue bridge I just remembered her saying earlier that she already biked in Switzerland more or less professional.. uh.. so should I worry about the 25km way??? Well.. I just pushed it aside of my head and took off. After passing the bridge I turned left, the sun ...

... There are not street signs, people everywhere, cars speeding, honking and it really is a busy place. We wanted to find the exit to Alajuela and by luck, found a sign to the airport and luckily (again, with no street signs) got on Highway 1 and we were enroute to Hotel Hortensia in Alajuela. Once we arrived, we chedked in. The car was going to be picked up by Avis but after calling, they informed us we ...

... and they had signs informing people of it. We will have plenty of opportunity to see other butterfly gardens, so no worries. We have been consuming a lot of water and stripping off layers of clothing as the day went on. The sidewalks (and I use that term loosely), are extremely hazardous. There are man hole covers every few feet that look precariously balanced. We tried to walk around them, but I envisioned falling to our deaths in to the ...

Despite many delays and uncertainties during a snow and ice storm, we managed to fly out of Ottawa to Toronto. Loading baggage onto the airplane in the snow took longer than usual and de-icing the plane took a good half-hour. Despite the weather, we took off only one and a half hours late. We didn't spend much time in Pearson Airport (fine with me) and managed make our ...

... beans in my dinky little Magic Bullet food processor and it tastes fine to me, but perhaps my coffee palate is not yet sophisticated enough to tell the difference. I sampled all the coffees again and found I still preferred the house dark roast, by a wide margin. They were all a little watery by U.S. standards (but typical for Costa Rican coffee) and this actually seemed to make the differences in flavor more pronounced. Fortunately, it doesn't take ...

... not San Jose). San Jose is a huge city where this is relatively small and quaint. I am now a lot closer to the airport so I don´t have to wake up to early before my flight. I arrive back in NY around 11 pm. I´ll send a final update to everyone once I have my pictures posted on a web site. Thanks so much for reading my blog. :)

... greeter, ground crew and security. After saying goodbye to Rachel and Darren I waited at the airport for the incoming plane to arrive. One of the "locals" was talking with another traveler and from their conversation I was able to find out local man took the Tamarindo-San Jose flight once a week. He was asking the other traveler if he knew who the pilot was today because he did not want the lady that crashed last month. I ...

... After we finished, we took a short drive back to the operations center for showers, a change of clothes, a hearty buffet, and alcoholic bebidas. A kayaking photographer snapped some photos, so we all chipped in for the cd and will have pictures. <br><br>It was one of the most fun things I've ever done on any trip and want to do more rafting when I get home...Colorado River, here I come. The only hazard was getting whacked in the face by Sue's fist as she lurched back at one ...

... a Cayman, a crocodile, little blue herons, kingfishers and I´m sure I´m forgetting something. At a lodge in the rainforest, we saw poison dart frogs, spiders and birds. We heard the howler monkeys, but after navigating a river via a very bouncy suspension bridge, we found the other side to be locked and couldn´t go any further into the rainforest. We had breakfast at a coffee plantation and saw cloud forests ...