Off to Liberia

We left our home for the last 6 nights today and just in time. We had 3 scorpions in our room last night! After dealing with 2 spiders on me the other day and these 3 scorpions, I think we are starting to see the real Costa Rica. We see amazing and colorful lizards and iguanas and birds, though which are awesome. This was an iguana that we passed just walking down the street! It´s great to be in a place that has so many creatures living all around you. We´ll just have to get tough with the scorpions, I guess. These are pics from our cabinas that we stayed in. It was a great place to spend our first week.

Snorkeling

I have no pictures today because we forgot our camera and we were in the water and couldn't have used it much anyway. We went snorkeling, where we took out a boat to a good spot a bit south of here. The water was not as clear as we saw in Hawaii, but we saw some pretty cool creatures. One of the guides kept diving down and reaching under all of the coral and rocks and grabbing different sea creatures for us to see and hold. He first pulled up a pufferfish and let us hold it. He spoke no English, but we were able to communicate by giving thumbs up's under the water. The pufferfish was so cool! When he first brough it up, it was puffed, but still a little soft. The more we held it, it became very stiff - it was crazy! He also brought up a porcupine fish, which puffed up like the pufferfish, but has the porcupines to try to keep creatures away. He also brough up an octopus and put it on our hands and it suctioned right to us - it was so neat! We saw a huge starfish at the bottom at one point and tons of awesome fish.

Yesterday, we went to Playa Negra another beach south of here. It was a beautiful beach with some big waves. We didn't get into surf those waves, but have been trying the smaller ones.

Our Spanish is still very slow, but we are trying to speak more and more every day. Habla Espanol?

Pura Vida

We have been really enjoying our visit with Kristin, Will and family. Kristin has been an amazing cook for us all. A few of us went out surfing yesterday - it was Scott´s first time. He did so well and got up quite a few times! Tamarindo is a nice town, but is very touristy and much more expensive than what we saw in San Jose. It is CRAZY hot here, but we´re starting to get used to it. Our whiteness is attracting the bugs like crazy, but we´re hoping that we start to gain a resistance so as not to have huge welts every time we get bit. The food is great, but we will probably loose some weight as we never want to eat huge meals because of the heat. That is good for our pocketbooks, though! The birds here are really amazing too. I´ve never been a huge bird lover, but the colors and sizes of them are incredible. The iguanas are so huge too - this is a nature lover´s paradise!

Exploring Tamarindo

We have been having the most amazing time in Tamarindo. Kristin and her boyfriend Wil are here, as well as his dad and step-mom and sister and brother-in-law. We all went on a kayak tour in the estuary by the ocean yesterday. I am not sure I have ever had so much fun. Our guide was absolutely amazing. His name is Lilber, but we all called him Burrito, which is his nickname. Did you know Burrito actually means little donkey? Anyway, we kayaked out into this estuary, which was just beautiful and then stopped at a point and hiked. We saw a nest of a black hawk and the hawk was flying around and making all sorts of noises to try to get us away. We did walk on. Burrito knew everything about all of the plants and bugs and animals, so we learned so much. He chopped open two fruits that we had never had and let us try them. He also showed us a ghord-looking thing and said that when he was a kid, they would cut them open and clean them out and use them as bowls and cups. He has grown up in and lived in Tamarindo all his live and really knows everything about the things around here. While we were hiking, we heard this really loud noise that sounded like a huge gorilla. It was actually a group of howling monkeys, which we saw in a tree. First walking up, we thought there were only 4 or 5 in the tree, but there were actually about 15 of them! We saw them all when Burrito started hitting the tree to shake them up a bit. It was amazing! They didn´t love us being there and one of them crawled over and tried to urinate on one in our group. Smart little things! It was an amzing tour!

New Friends

We found new friends at our cabinas in Tamarindo and had a blast hanging out with them. We went to a disco and danced the night away and then sat around our rooms and talked until we got scolded at about 3AM. :S

We´re in Costa Rica!!!

No Pictures yet, but we are in Costa Rica. We arrived in San Jose today and walked around for a little while. We´re staying in a hostel tonight and going by bus to Tamarindo tomorrow. We´re pretty exhausted, but hopefully will get some rest soon. We´re safe and sound!

Padres game in the Ghiablo

We went to a Padres game in Scott's friend Ghiablo that he has made himself. We had a great time! The best part was seeing the looks on other driver's faces when 7 of us were all piled in driving back home.

Bye-Bye BBQ

Some of Scott's friends had us over for a BBQ for a goodbye get together. In case you're wondering what this aweful outfit is that Scott has on, listen to this: we made a bet based on our college bball brackets and for some crazy reason, I won! I got to pick out his clothes for an evening, so I picked out the tackiest Hawaiian shirt and hat that I could find. We went to a bar that had people dressed all in black with lots of tatooes and very grungy - they looked at us funny all night - it was great!

Last day of work dinner!

To celebrate our last day of work before our big trip to Costa Rica, Scott and I had a few people over for dinner. This was early in the night when we had almost all Keckers here. Look at Caleb giving me a great big kiss - what a sweetie!