Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Costa Rica

Not a great Picture, but there are TONS of fruit stands on the sides of the road. There are also toll booths and people are just in the middle of the highway with food and souvenirs, they have a LOT of guts :)
Kind of a funny story from Jaco that Alex reminded me of, we went out to eat at a little restaurant. Most of the places don't have doors on them like we are used to, they are all really open. So, we were eating and talking and this guy, who did not speak much english, comes up with a guitar and "asked" if we wanted a song. We kind of ignored him and kept talking but he started singing anyway, pretty much just "amor" over and over....so, he got done and was asking for a tip. Neither Alex or I had any US Dollars or Colones with us, so he kind of gave us a smug look and walked out. He then got on the phone, so Alex and I were a little scared that he was calling in his "hombres" and that they were going to be watching for us :) Nothing happened though, just scared ourselves a little, haha. But, the next night we were at another restaurant called "Jaco Taco", it was delicious! Who'd of thought, the SAME singer came into this restaurant. This time we both said NO THANKS before he could even ask :) It was quite the eventful night at Jaco Taco. There was a guy who got kicked out because he was too intoxicated, and then our waiter thought we took the wrong receipt so he chased us walking down the street, along with like 5 other Americans that must have known him,who thought we needed beat down or something :) ....but the receipt just fell on the floor under the table. After that we just walked around Jaco for a bit and then headed back to the hotel.

So, Sunday we headed back to San Jose around 2:00pm. And when we got on the highway we noticed that people were passing pretty much anywhere and everywhere. The cars on the left side of the road, are driving on the road that we took to get to Jaco on Thursday. So, we were REALLY confused about why people were driving all over the road. (Costa Rican drivers are INSANE, they will pass whenever, wherever, and whatever they can if you are in their way) so we thought it was just massive road rage. Monday, Alex asked the guys at the company about it and apparently on Sunday from noon to 5 the highway is all 1 way because so many people go to the beach on weekend so its a bit of traffic control. It's a good idea, but they should post signs or something because we were almost positive for a while that there were going to be some huge accidents because of how they were driving :)

Monday and Tuesday Alex worked on installing the machines and training the workers. Sunday night and Monday night we went to a big mall that they have across the street from our hotel. It was fun to see the fashions that are the same as the United States, and then some that are just wild! There are TONS of shoe stores!

Tuesday night we ventured out to Alajuela for dinner. The roads have NO names, and the place we wanted to go was not in the GPS so we just looked it up on googlemaps, took the GPS with us in case we got lost and headed out on an adventure :) We found the place with no problems, thanks to Alex's awesome skills with directions! The food was pretty good, it was a little sandwhich place and it had AMAZING Gelato!!! I had Nutella and Alex had Cookies and Cream. yummm yummm yummm.

Wednesday we woke up and talked to the tour guide guy here at the Hotel. We found a tour to do today and tomorrow.
Today we went to Lapaz Waterfall Gardens. It was a little zoo-type area in the jungle. On our way to the gardens, we drove by a coffee plantation. It was pretty neat to see. It is 1 of 16 plantations in Costa Rica.
The roads getting to the gardens were SUPER bumpy.!!!! It was like a rollercoster with how much we were turning and bumping. I could not help but laugh most of the time!
There were quite a few people on our tour, all probably 40+ but they were fun to talk to. Our tour guide was AWESOME!!! He knew so much about the area and he was a great photographer.! He was giving me pointers about my camera and took a lot of pictures for Alex and I :)
Below is one of the MANY Toucans that we saw. The aviary was pretty big and fun because the birds were flying all around you. Alex got a good picture with the Toucan, when Alex was taking my picture with it it flew away, haha. It felt really cool though to have them on your arm!

Today was a pretty awesome day. It was long, but the waterfalls were AMAZING!!!! It got really chilly and neither Alex or I had a jacket, so that wasn't great, but it was still really fun!

The Jungle is SOOO beautiful and smells so good! It is amazing how green everything is here and all the bright colored flowers.

Tomorrow (Friday) we are going on a Volcano tour and then a boat ride to see some more Costa Rica wilderness :)

I will let you know how that goes and post some more pictures!!!

Buenos Noche! :)

This is Alex on the longest and fastest zip line. There is not a whole lot of Jungle in it, but its pretty sweet!! The tour guides were saying that people go about 40 to 80 mph on it, depending on weight and wind. He said that day it was about 40 to 55mph so, REALLY DANG FAST :D

It might mak you a little dizzy, but it's pretty awesome!

Jaco, Costa Rica

Alex and I were in San Jose Wednesday night and Thursday because Alex had to install a machine Thursday. After he got off work, we came down here to Jaco beach. We got in around 7:00pm so we explored the hotel a little bit, but it was exciting to wake up to this view out our window!
There is a big pool and a kid pool, Tennis courts, a grassy area and then TONS of beach!

This was my first time actually standing on an Ocean beach, so that was pretty cool. We walked on the beach for a while. There are tons of hotels right along it so we saw a lot of people swimming, playing with their kids and dogs and laying out.

Then we swam in the ocean, which was fun, but exhausting :) There are constantly pretty good sized waves coming in so we spent most of our time body surfing, jumping over waves, or getting eaten by them :) It is fun for about 20 minutes at a time but then it gets tiring, your mouth, nose and throat burn and it tastes nasty! It was nice being able to go from the Ocean to the pool and just relax for a bit!

The sunset on the beach was absolutely beautiful! It was funny to see how many people go sit on the beach about 45 minutes before it sets and then as soon as it goes down, the beach clears out.

After we watched the sunset we went to a little restaurant on the way to downtown Jaco, it was pretty good!

During the day we thought we found Downtown Jaco, but Saturday night we actually found it :) There are a lot of cute little shops and people EVERYWHERE! The people drive really crazy here and I think pedestrians and bikers are even crazier! lol.

Saturday morning we got up and went on an adventure ziplining through the jungle! We went to Herradura for it, which took about 10 minutes to get to on a shuttle from our Hotel. I was REALLY nervous the night before and when we were getting ready to go, but I think the scariest part was standing and waiting on the platforms between the lines. There were 12 lines and 10 platforms. The platform we took our picture on had the coolest view, but there were some AWESOME views when you were out in the clearings zip-lining. I tried to take a video and failed, but Alex got a good video on the last line, which was the longest and fastest(I will post it on here later). Alex also hung upside down on one of the lines that you can either free-style or hang upside down. There is also a video of him coming to the platform :) Crazy kid!!

We got done with that around 11am, so then we came back and swam for a bit and just hung out. It was a really fun and relaxing day. Then that night we had dinner at Jaco Taco, which was pretty tasty and then walked around for a while in downtown Jaco. It is definitely a tourist area, but there is a lot of cool artwork. !

Today (Sunday) we are just relaxing and might go for a swim and then checkout around 1pm and head back to San Jose. Alex is working Monday and Tuesday and then I think either Wednesday or Thursday we will go up to Arenal Volcano and then we head back to the U.S. on Friday morning! :)

I will post more about other adventures as they come!