Mariner Inn Playa Flamingo

... a highly recommended restaurant called “Mar y Sol”. They came and picked us up at the hotel and whisked us off to the Cliffside restaurant with an amazing view of the beaches below. The interesting story behind this restaurant is that the chef is a 7th generation Catalan (Spanish) chef who had moved here and started creating really amazing dishes mixing old world cooking techniques with the amazing and fresh local ingredients from the Guanacaste ...

... discovered banana chips! They love them here. They're like potato chips only made from bananas, perfect for those who shun carbs! I'm sure they're not any healthier, they are after all deep fried, but they are tasty and come in different flavors, funny thing is they hardly taste like bananas!

We were about to head back to the beach when we decided to visit another nearby beach we had heard lots about called Playa Conchal. We had ...

... of Dancing Queen and Money, Money, Money!

Also, while Susie slept I kept Isabella entertained with origami, coloring and other silly daddy-daughter games (ie. mainly taking silly pictures!). As you can see in the pictures accompanying this entry.

After we got into San Jose, we found our driver and rode off into the sunset, Guanacaste was waiting. Our driver and his companion were awesome! Tico hospitality at its best. They shared many ...

... examined sore legs and skin lesions. I got my first taste of the tick born rickettsial disease, erlichia, that plaques the animals of Central America, causing anemia, bleeding disorders, fever, swollen lymph nodes and death if untreated. One example that I would like to use is Claudia. Dawn took us to Claudia's house on the first day. We drove down dusty sideroads as far as we could go, and then parked the car, scrambled down a ...

... we went out to a waterfall as a short day trip and came across a giant troop of white faced capuchin monkeys, that were absolutely adorable. They played with each other and did flips down to the water. We hiked around and swam....and headed to our hotel. Today we went out to Rincon de la Vieja Park, with was a great day of hiking. The first half took us past mud pots, fumeroles, and a weird yellow colored thermal lagoon, and the second part took us to the most ...

... the best part was when the horses ran tho because of that we are both suffering of soreness. We played a bit in the waterfall area then hiked back and took the horses first to an indigenous reserve and then explored a local butterfly/frog garden. Then Asaf and I did our first load of laundry on this trip...its so nice to have clean clothes, you dont even know. The 4 of us ended our time together over din and some ...

... 10 different pools with different temperatures - the hottest ones empty since it had about 65 degrees Celsius - and you couldīt even keep you hands in for more than 5 seconds. While we where in the hot springs the sky cleared up and we took another trip to have a look to el Adrenal - we didnīt see an lava streams, but at the top we could see an orange glow - since the ...

... even harder. Then we found out it was ladies night at a bar called Babylon. PARTY! Ladies drink for free all night, which means MAX drinks for free all night. They had all my favorite music from South America, a bunch of nice Americans, a skate ramp and a big old dance floor. The night was very good thank you, no more questions please. The next day, ummm, was a write off. The day after that was fantastic because we left Tamarindo and Costa Rica and headed into Nicaragua.

... for our Canadian friends, and a guitar case for Nick's guitar. (Delta forced him to check it in a soft case on the flights down. Miraculously, it survived.) A few spins of the wheel, & I found myself in a market. Coffee. The gift that keeps on giving. Did I mention that I only had 1 bad cup the whole time? The car is returned, & we wait outside the terminal. Package tourists, fat, pink & happy, waddle out of tourist ...

... hot here and I envy anyone fighting the cold and scraping snow from the hood of the car... yeah, right!!! I've met a few very nice people at school, from Switzerland and the States mostly, and we have lots of fun talking with each other, getting to know different habits and cultures (like Popcorn for breakfast...). Next weekend we will travel to the highest (and still active) Volcano Arenal, which promises to be quite an adventure.