Vina Romantica Alajuela

... American food (i.e. Pizza Hut) and speaking English to our hearts content. Overall an awesome start to an awesome adventure. <br><br>By the way, I added pictures to my May 25th entry.<br><br>I would like to dedicate this blog to my main boys, Jared, Alex, Grant and Pete. You guys have been there for me through thick and thin and like Tupac said¨"Things will never change." I love you fools!

... Rica are stick shift, which I prefer so I had no problem with it. The journey onto the streets of San Jose (actually Alajuela) began. I drove with directions given to me by Vivian. There are NO street signs, a stoplight here and there and the street lighting is not good. Needless to say, go, with caution and follow traffic, yield, stop or whatever works. The only sign is "ALTO" (stop) and that is about it. Oh ...

... pralese a byl to velmi prijemny trek. Odpoledne vyrazime na cestu do tropickeho destneho pralesa Monteverde zpusob jeep-boat-jeep, ktery ma udajne vest nadhernou krajinou, takze se uz tesime. Na obed pujdeme do "Soda", jak zde mistni nazyvaji sve typicke restaurace / vyvarovny. Preji vsem dobrou chut. ;)

... be done so might as well do it and be done with it. It would have been a normal tour except for the fact that they were all stinking drunk! They were russian immigrants living in New York, so they sounds like the mob. They were funny, but so drunk! Then I had to do the inside part of the tour (which is normally done first, but other people from another tour were going to join up with me at the end to see the bugs and spiders) and they are ...

... going to take the short way...using the FWD car we hired to go along the East banks of Lake Arenal...lucky the little car was FWD or we never would have made it as far as we did...there were a few river forgings...a very very rickety bridge that I wasn't quite sure would hold us up...altho I did give everyone the op to get out and walk while I drive over...blind faith or stupidity they all stayed in the car. Thats not to say the athe white knuckles weren't showing everynow and then or ...

... in. So as Vicky and I were sailing across a massive valley at mach 10, I noticed the two guides that went ahead of us were about two-thirds of the way down the cable and not moving. I had to brake as hard as I could to not crash into them - which is done by leaning my right hand (in a special glove) on the metal cable. I swear sparks were flying from my glove heh. We managed to avoid a major fender bender, but then all four ...

... town. I was thrilled to see them but in reality there is nothing much to see. From below they are just scruffy balls of fur, and they are very hard to spot (Freddy gets all the credit for spotting the sloths which would never have noticed and would probably not have recognised even if I had). The first one was just a dark circle in the tree above and not really identifiable as a sloth at all. in fact this whole sighting business might be a hoax, I only have ...

... STARING A VOLCANO IN THE MOUTH You will be delighted to know that Carolina is a stickler for accuracy. These next few entries have been meticulously reviewed and edited by her detailed eye. As an example, if Caro weren't with me, this section would have been erroneously titled "Staring at the eye of the volcano!!!" In addition, there should be less typos going forward. Another perk of her demand for ...

... turtles, but since we saw none the trip was not notable. From there we take the long boat ride out and head up to Rara Avis, this is always my favorite part of the journey. This particular group is a lot of fun to party with so I brought extra rum just to make the stay more memorable. Backing up a bit, the first night, before I even knew their names, I had 2 Russian women celebrating their birthday. In honor of the night they brought 2 bottles straight ...

... and staff signed it though! Well all I can say is this is the place to be if one has to feel pain because the natural, emerald-green beauty all around, the carino of all the people, all the fresh fruit one can eat and the delicious food help to balance things out. This is still PURA VIDA! Larissa has taken over my duties, and she is just awesome!! I really love her!! More later hopefully with photos!!