Costa Rica

Costa Rica was great. We spent a week there with a group of students and spouses from the University of Chicago - it was one of the Random Walks that pre-students go on every year to meet other people prior to starting school. The country is similiar to say, Hawaii, in terms of landscape and topography. It's near the Equator so it's hot, humid and gets a lot of rain. The rain part was especially true last week due to Hurricane Dean. Fortunately, it wasn't enough to keep us from going or from enjoying all the activities we had. There are small mountains, thick jungles, white-sand beaches, and black-sand beaches, which I think are unique to that area. The language is Spanish, and Heidi and I were able to use ours to help the group, although tourism is a huge income source for the country and many people speak some English. It's main exports are coffee, sugar and bananas. The country also has loads of bugs, many of which we had never seen before and wouldn't mind never seeing again.

Our first resort was on the beach and the views were spectacular. This was the view from our room.



Here are more pics from the resort.





We went zip-lining twice. This is where you go to a jungle area and fly between tree-top platforms, sometimes 100+ feet in the air, secured to cable by equipment. Not for the faint of heart or height-averse folks.




One neat part about it is that you see monkeys in the trees. At the end, I got to hold a baby one.



Heidi went for a slightly more dangerous creature.



Snorkeling was probably the most fun activity because we saw tons of different fish. We went to two different areas - one pretty far out in the ocean and one closer to a cove (see pic below). Sea kayaking was also a good time.




Other activities included seeing a volcano...



and hiking to and swimming in a waterfall...



All in all, a great way to spend a vacation. We were once again awed at the beauty and vastness of God's creation. It was so different than the purple mountains and sprawling tundra of the Colorado Rockies, yet equally amazing.

Hope you all are well.

Josh