Costa Rica...

The place we called home while in Costa Rica was in the small town (if you can call it that) of Samara in the Provence of Guanacaste.  It's population is roughly 1,500 people.  It is a village that is a couple of blocks long and home to local restaurants, shops, small supermarkets, and a very beautiful stretch of the Pacific coast beach.  You most definitely were not going to find any Burger Kings or Pizza Huts or Walmarts in this town.

Here is a picture of "Main Street" and some of the shops that you would find.

One of the restaurants we went to while in Samara - Coco's.

A souvenir shop...

One of the larger grocery stores... nothing near that of Walmarts of HyVee's.

One adventure that the four of us decided do was to go zip-lining through the rain forest while in Costa Rica.  After all, what better way to see the rain forest than from above?  I have to admit going into it, I was a little hesitant.  I had done it in Hawaii and had a blast, but I most definitely have a fear of heights, and zip lining puts me a little outside my comfort zone.  At least I had Ab, who I believe shared the same feelings.

Before zip-lining - all harnessed up.

A few pictures of us zip-lining... it was a lot of fun!

Once we had completed all 12 zip lines, we stopped at the platform attached to a large tree.  We looked around and saw no more cables getting us down from the tree.  One lady on the adventure with us jokingly said, "What are we going to do - jump down?"  To which the tour guides said, "Yeah, kinda."

It was then that we had to repel (or in other words, free fall) from the tree 55 feet up.  We were guided down by the tour guides who controlled how fast we went.  Let's just say they were not that kind to us.  At a free fall speed, we zoomed down the tree one at a time in seconds flat.  Yikes!!  I don't care to ever repel/free fall like that again - like EVER!

But all in all - a good time and definitely worth doing if you ever have the chance!  The sights from the tree tops and along the zip course were some of the best we could have asked for.  You could see the rain forest, the ocean and everything in between.

We also took a Sunset/Dolphin/Snorkeling Boat Tour.  I had been on a few boat tours before so I had envisioned in my mind what the boat was going to look like and what the tour entailed.  Boy was I wrong!!

I had to resort to a internet photo of a boat similar to ours, as I forgot to get a picture before our tour.  Ab and I were both too seasick to even care about getting a picture when we got off.  :) So this will have to do to relive the memories!

As our boat tour began... everyone is still happy!

The dear sweet boat captain, who clearly displayed a language barrier with us Americans, was able to find a family of dolphins for us and a sea turtle (no picture).

When looking for and finding the dolphins, the nice man turned off his engine.  This caused our boat to really rock and roll from side to side from all the swells of the waves.  After about ten minutes into the 2 hour tour, I was green in the face despite having taken Dramamine before the trip. But lucky for me, I had one hour and fifty minutes to go!

While sitting there on that boat rocking from side to side, I couldn't help but notice the life jackets that were not required for us to wear.  They were neatly and securely fastened to the front of the boat.  If that boat would have tipped, there wasn't a chance in heaven that any of us were getting a life jacket.  Maybe not our smartest move in hindsight!

Note the pretty life jackets...

After being out to sea for quite some time, Scott asked to captain if they (Ryan and Scott) could go snorkeling, to which our dear, sweet captain responded to him.  None of us are quite sure even to this day what he said, but the only word that we caught was "whale."  So we are concluding that either #1: he wanted to look for a whale out in the ocean or #2:  said, "Heck no, you will get eaten by a whale in these waters."  We proceeded to search for a whale for the next 20 minutes with no luck whatsoever.

Finally, he let the boys get out and snorkel. But with the waves as choppy as they were and with Ab and I feeling sick, the snorkeling was short lived.

Despite being seasick by this tour, the scenery and the ocean life we saw were incredible.  

I am thankful that we did it, but not certain that I will be taking a tour on that small of a boat again.  The free fall from the zip line tour wasn't looking so bad after all!

One more post of a few more adventures to come...!