Updated 8/26/02

Leanne is keeping a paper journal, maybe we'll scan in some of her pages from time to time.
The following are Larry's feeble ramblings.
 

Costa Rica, part 1
8/12/02 - We spent the previous night at Junior and Liz's (Angels' brother and sister-in-law).  At 7:00am we headed for the Hampton Inn where Liz works,  had breakfast and took the 8am shuttle to the airport.  We hung out at the AA business lounge and feasted on last minute phone and Internet opportunities.  Our business class tickets got us first class on the 2-class service flight to Costa Rica.  It was great.  From the airport we took a local bus to San Jose.  It was then that we realized that we were out of practice: we hadn't changed money, where should we stay, how the heck do these phones work anyway?  After many failed ATM attempts we cashed some travelers checks, bought a phone card and quickly realized that we had to get out of San Jose.  It's dirty, polluted, crowded and very third world.  After an hour wait we were on a crowded bus to Quepos, 4 hours away on the Pacific coast.  Yeah it was hot and sweaty.  I won't describe the bathroom stop, but if I did I'd use the word "trough".  From San Jose I had called ahead for a hotel room.  The woman spoke no english, but somehow I got it done ("bathroom good" I said in Spanish).  The room was questionable, but acceptable and we had a fine pizza dinner before we went to sleep.

8/13/02 - Was it a rooster or a siren from hell - it's still unclear.  I got up earlyish and ran around town.  Paved and dirt roads with lots of run down houses and chickens.  Leanne and I caught a bus around 11am to Manuel Antonio, a national park 7km away.  It was great.  Beautiful beaches, complete with monkey and iguana.  Leanne swam, I thought about our web site.  We hiked for about 3 hours and saw more monkey and a great slow moving sloth.  A nice dinner and a couple hours in the Internet cafe rounded out the night.

8/14/02 - Why don't car alarms sound like roosters?  We packed up our room and waited for our 7am pick up for our "5-in-1” tour with http://www.gaialinktours.com/ExclusiveTours.htm.  We drove about 45 minutes and then got our horses for another 45 minute ride into the rain forest.  This is the real deal, just a river, a lodge with no electricity, cold running water, bugs, birds, etc.  After arriving we headed off for our "canopy" adventure.  Check out the photos it was pretty great.  Leanne was a champ.  Next was a great lunch and some relaxing.  I even began a short novel.  Later we bobbed in a hot spring and I went for a trail run.  That evening I canopied again in the dark.  Leanne's cold kept her at the lodge.  I finished my novel with a head lamp and went to bed.

8/15/02 - Breakfast was rice, bans and scrambled eggs - excellent.  We waited around until about 11am and joined 2 new arrivals for yet more zipping around on cables.  In the afternoon we saw 3 or 4 small toucans flying around the lodge!  I thought of froot loops.  We were then supposed to ride our horses back out, but we opted for hiking out instead.  This then required a river crossing by, you guessed it, another cable.  After that I got a trail run in before we drove back to town.  Ready for luxury, we went to the best hotel in town, the Best Western.  Thirty nine bucks later we had A/C, hot water and a 14" color TV with cable.  We've gone soft.  Pizza in the room and more geeking for me at the Internet cafe.