It's been a while

I think my last post was something like a month ago, so I have a lot to catch up on. My favorite people on earth (minus the little Indian) came to Costa Rica to visit. Now, I know that I'm not exactly in Siberia and Costa Rica is an amazing place to visit but it meant a lot to me that my loved ones would come all the way down here to see me. That just goes to show what amazing people I have in my life.

All in all the vacation was great, everyone played nice, and aside from the 32 hours on the bus, I enjoyed every minute of it. We went to Manuel Antonio Beach where we rented a villa that we thought was really overpriced. That is, until we checked out the balcony where we could see all the stars in Costa Rica's sky. We lugged the mattress up there and spent the night outside and woke up to this breathtaking view of the ocean. The day was spent on the beach getting a little too much sun, then we headed to Monteverde to hike in the cloud forest and chill. We got really lucky and rented little cabin in the woods where we got to watch a fantastic sunset and play with a really friendly monkey. He peed on Tara's head though. Sorry, that still cracks me up.

Tara headed out at the same time that Tracy arrived, then Tara came back due to flight trouble. We rented another overpriced hotel, this time in San Jose. The redeeming factor was supposed to be that they had a jacuzzi. Well, they did have one, and it was cute, problem was it was FREEZING! We all stood outside in our swimsuits taking turns sticking our toes in and pronouncing, "it's definitely getting warmer." After half an hour of this we came to the conclusion that it was "solar-heated". I tried to get the concierge to get us into the Holiday Inn next door to use their heated hot tub but all my effort was for naught.

After Alex left Tracy and I went white water rafting on the Rio Pacuare, which has class 3 and 4 rapids. The excursion was really fun, but four hours in the rain and icy river gets to be a little much and we got a case of raft butt, which is just bruising and numbness but it's much more fun to say "raft butt". The Caribbean was next on our list but we got rained out and I got a rash from the banana plant so that leg of the trip wasn't the greatest. We did, however, spend lots of quality time talking and catching up and looking forward which was priceless.

Eventually my friends had to go home, and here I stay in San Jose. My money is running out, papers are coming due and I'm getting ready to head back to Houston. Only 9 days folks.