Hotel de Campo Cano Negro Alajuela

... I'm ashamed to say that I had never played it until that night and man was it fun! We didn't quite finish the game, but my team was in the lead when we quit playing...we have sculpting skillz! (inside joke for cranium players)<br><br>Wednesday we met up with Max and decided to take a little drive through the countryside to some places that my mom hadn't seen yet. It was beautiful to say the least! We drove all the way up the mountains that surround the town ...

... We had a very nice Costa Rican meal, and met up with the rest of the group. Everyone had a great time. Shaeleigh was not certain that she would go again, as it was a pretty big adventure, but Parker and I would go again if given the chance.<br><br>The tour guides took us back to our hotel. The rest of our group, grandma, grandpa, Malesa, and Necia were in town. They came back to the hotel and got Shaeleigh and went back to town to do some more ...

... walking into the center of the road up ahead. As I got closer I noticed the uniform, the bike parked in the shade and his hand gesturing to me to pull over. The cop had us both park and get out our papers. He showed us the reading on the radar gun blinking 96! He told us in Spanish that the limit was 60 kph. The fine he told us was $20 American and that he was going to give us both a ticket. I asked him what we needed to do to take care of it and ...

... a not very impressive stopover on the way to Monteverde. It is needed because the journey to Montverde, a cloud forest in the mountains about halfway between the Atlantic and Pacific is notoriously cumbersome. The next morning is an eary start for the first of 3 bus journies, each journey gets more and more off the beaten track and alot slower. The final leg see us travel 40 km in about 3 and a half hours ...

... cut the tree and move it so we could pass. We got into Monteverde at about 6pm and we had to go to dinner in our rain gear because the rain was so heavy! We went to a nice restaurant for dinner where I had soup and a chocolate cake for dessert, which was delicious! After dinner we went back to the hotel and to bed.

... those at some inflated exchange rate. The other side of security there were many branches of the same few shops, mostly selling Costa Rican souvenirs. John &amp; I were approached by young shop assistant Diego who, instead of trying to sell us something talked about interesting details of the English and Spanish languages for about 20 minutes, bless him. Jon

... do a nature walk in the morning (last chance to spot a Toucan) and Zip wiring in the afternoon. We also decided to go today to visit the butterfly and frog gardens and just have a look around. We went for lunch as we were starving after our 6am alarm call, but we despite being really nice we nearly died at the price. We have decided to cook for the rest of the time here! The butterfly gardens were good ...

... was extremely manic, fast talking, loads of fun and from Los Angeles. Contessa was absolutely hilarious and had ridiculous amounts of energy. Exhausting to be around though. We spent the night chatting with her and a big gentle giant of a man from The United States, he was a rough looking bikie that looked like he would eat children for dinner but was actually a soft, vegetarian book reader with a nice heart and even offered to cook us dinner.

... a road, otherwise he may have died from exposure. Back at the entrance we went on a short walk while waiting for a mini van to take us back to town, but were very disconcerted when our Peccary friend kept following us - even taking shortcuts through the bush to emerge right next to us. After successfully avoiding him, we spent a bit of time up a observation tower that looked over the reserve, hoping the clouds would clear enough for us to see distant Volcan Arenal ...

... trucks. After leapfrogging ahead we would get in front of the trucks and have a few minutes of unobstructed driving only to find ourselves stuck behind another line of slow moving trucks. We passed the debris of a really bad accident that occurred a few days earlier involving two big rigs and a few passenger cars where three people died. On the side of the road was a wrecked tractor trailer and a lot of debris. After seeing that, we decided to take it easy the rest of the was back into ...