The Mystery Vacation...take two

I will tell you a little about our Costa Rica trip which was fun. It was not our favorite trip ever, but it had its good points. We described it as a polar trip because some things were really fun and cool and sometimes there was just not much to see and do and we just sat around. We flew into the capital and then left the next day because all the books said there was not much to do in San Jose. Then we took the public bus system up to an area called La Fortuna and saw an active erupting volcano and swam in the hot springs. Then we took a bus to Monteverde where we hiked through the rainforest and saw some monkees and birds and then went zip-lining through the rainforest and then went on a tour of the cheese factory (I do love cheese!) and then went on a guided night hike. Then we took a bus to Manual Antonia with a really short stop in Puntarenas (just long enough for someone to steal my really cool carry-on backpack.) and then on to the Manual Antonio national park where we saw lots of monkees and a sloth (a trip highlight) and spent some time on the beach. Then it was back to San Jose on Saturday to fly out on Sunday. Before flying out we went to church and they had a really nice ward in a new building and there was an Elder from Idaho Falls who had two weeks left and you could tell because his belt was hashed! All torn up like it had been put on two to many times!

We stayed in a lot of fairly cheap housing that was nice and clean but did have the occassional cockroach and always at least one friendly lizard. When we had more than one lizard then they would chirp to each other which helped wake you up in the mornings. We travelled by bus, like I said, which was an adventure although we never were able to hold the friendly natives chickens like I had promised Alan because, oddly enough, none of the locals carried chickens on the bus. We did enjoy all the activities we paid to do, but there was very little to do in the areas we went that you did not have to pay for. On our down time we did a lot of walking around town, but the towns are small so that took about an hour per outing. We did a lot of reading and sleeping so it was more relaxing than most of my out-of-country trips. We returned home safely and here are some pictures we took. Also a trip highlight was the bounty of fresh pineapple!