 Pat and Carrie crossing the border into Costa Rica from Nicaragua with another backpacker. |
Latest News (Updated 11/14/2006): After enjoying Granada and Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua we traveled south to Costa Rica. Once again, our experience with a taxi driver in Nicaragua left a lot to be desired, but we made it to the border without being too severely ripped off. In Costa Rica we spent a week at the Flamingo Beach Resort in Flamingo Beach (clever name, huh?), a few days in the Santa Elena / Monteverde Area and a few days in the Volcan Arenal area. We spoiled ourselves at the Flamingo Beach resort, hiked in the rain forest and zip-lined through the canopy in Santa Elena / Monteverde, and watched in awe as Volcan Arenal spewed rocks and lava into the air. Background Photo: The leaf covered path in the Monte Verde Nature Reserve. |
All
roads lead to Liberia. We went through this city 3 times while
visiting Costa Rica. Liberia wasn't bad for a hub city and had
some really good Chinese food. We were shocked however when the
bill for the meal came to over $4,000! Well, not really, the
exchange rate was $517 colones to the dollar. Pat thought we hit
the jackpot when he asked the ATM for $200US and got over $100,000
colones!Left: Hotel Liberia. A nice little hotel in downtown Liberia with a really cool kitten.
Below Left: Jackpot! Woohoo! Look at all that dough. We laid it out on the bed and rolled around in it for a while.
Below Right: A waiter at a diner in Liberia. He was wearing a t-shirt commemorating the 9/11 tragedy. We are still amazed at how much Central Americans like people from the USA.
All
of that backpacking can really wear you out, so we treated ourselves to
a week at a timeshare resort. We stayed at the very nice Flamingo
Beach resort right on a beautiful beach on the Pacific ocean. Ok,
the beach and ocean were nice, but what we really got excited about
were hot showers, air conditioning, unlimited ice cubes and cable
television!Left: The pool (with swim-up bar!) at the Flamingo Beach Resort.
Below Left: A huge iguana that inhabited the grounds of the resort.
Below Right: A view of the Pacific ocean.
We
celebrated one year (!) of retirement while at Flamingo Beach. In
honor of the occasion we went out for a muy romantico dinner at Mar Y
Sol. The food was great and the views were killer.Left: Carrie (prior to a much needed haircut) digging into a wine-soaked pear and ice cream dessert. Yumm!!
Below Left: The view from Mar Y Sol.
Below Right: We enjoyed beautiful sunsets from our balcony almost every night.
