Hotel el Prado Alajuela

... it was HUGE and tall (see photo) and nothing I would ever want to jump off of recreationaly! That night we went up to Bob and Pat's house for an incredible homemade Italian feast complete with a game of Mexican Train dominoes..anyone heard of this? Oh my..oh my, what a fun drinking game it would be! I'll teach you when I get back. After dinner we headed back to town and met up with friends at Zanzibar, had some drinks and good times. And when that bar closed, Libby said ...

... very good after the treatment. The great thing about the spa was due to the time of year, the deal was 40% off your first treatment and 50% off any additional treatment. I wish that I had more time at this hotel, I would have gone back.<br><br>Necia and grandpa also went to the spa today. I don't know what treatments they got, but they really enjoyed them.<br><br>I had to take a work call, and while I was on the call there was a very bad lightning ...

... thinking how we really never went the speed limit this whole trip and that we really deserved the tickets. Oh yea! We didn't get any! We hit the Ferry that crosses the Golfo de Nicoya at Playa Naranjo just as it was getting ready to close the gates. We scooted on after paying a few bucks and enjoyed the 1.5 hour cruise. We hit the Puntarenas dock and stopped to check a map nd get a cold drink. Jene and I decided to push on and see what we found. we ...

... don´t have to even travel into the depths of the jungle as one day we spotted a sloth in the trees outside out hostal. He didn´t see to mind being photographed and even came right up towards us. He moved surprisingly quickly. The weather was so miserable and many activites so expensive we decided just to try some ziplining and treking through one of the reserves. The ziplining facility was high up in the ...

... springs range from 27oC to 42oC in temperature and are 97% rain-based and 3% magma-based - basically it just felt fantastic! Annoyingly our waterproof so called invincible camera decided it no longer liked water and died. Unfortunately we didn't see any lava on the volcano so hopefully tomorrow night we'll get lucky. After a wicked nights sleep (hot pools are definitely the way to go), we set out on the 'Lost Canyon ...

... cost. We did this and it was fantastic, but we wish we had taken the opportunity to go in the daytime as well as some of the most colourful ones only come out in the daytime. We had a great guide and it was a really interesting tour, it was really hard to take photos as you are not allowed to use a flash, but we did manage to get a few. We just had a sandwich for dinner as we couldn't afford anything else!!!!

... 15 miles up the mountain. Thank god for the 4-wheel drive!!! Monteverde is considered a "cloud forest" as opposed to rain forest that are more common. This morning we took a 4-hour tour of the preserved park with amazing vegitation and animals (you'll see in the pictures. Not much more time to elaborate here. We'll keep you posted. Love, Shirin & Babak

... yourself from a series of flying foxes going through the forest, you get a different perspective on the flora. This is a flimsy theory to be sure, because in practise you fly through the jungle on this zip lines using only a leather glove to brake yourself on the cable above you, and get thrown off tall structures at regular intervals. What a blast!! The first 4 lines weren't all that scary, but just as we were getting comfortable with the situation, we arrived ...

... both had obligations back at home be we decided to put that all behind us and make the best of the two next days we were going to be in Costa Rica. I called Tricolor to come pick up the car and when the guy arrived, he said the car was too dirty and caked with mud to make sure that we hadn't damaged it in any way. He said that he trusted us and tore up the credit card imprints what would have covered any damage that the insurance did not. He also didn't charge us for an extra day even ...

... galleries! We all wanted something! I bought the a Kuna Mola which is a intricately hand-sewn "applique" cloth panel taken from the Kuna womans traditional garments. The designs are beautiful and plan to strecth it across a piece of canvas and hang it in my house! The views of Volcan Arenal from the town are Incredible! "It is the most active volcano in Costa Rica. Recognized as a volcano since the 19th century, it was known by foreign investigators as ...