Laowai

I have a few more photos from the second part of our trip to Costa Rica. We went to the Pacific coast side to a town called Jaco. 

Our hotel was right along the beach and unlike Monteverde – it was hot.

We climbed up a hill on the edge of town to a ruined structure of some sort. It was interesting and sort of disappointing too. 

The view from this area was great and on the way down we were delighted to see a bunch of monkeys.

My wildlife photos are terrible but there was an iguana that hung out at the pool for a long time. Claire and I were very entertained watching him confidently strut around.

Brian rented a bike and went for some sweaty rides up into the pretty hills.

One big thing that we have zero pictures of is Bea and Brian's adventure learning to scuba dive. Bea really wanted to do this – so they signed up for a two day course/dive trip. The first day they spent a couple hours learning in a pool and that night they both felt nervous and intimidated about the diving trip. On the day of the trip Brian sort of bowed out – not feeling confident enough, but Bea conquered her fears and had a great time. She was happy with the guides that helped her and she listed off a ton of creatures that she saw. She even learned all the hand signs for the creatures which is fun. I really wish we had a photo of her all geared up. Her high school has a scuba diving course that she can take in her junior or senior year so maybe I will get some photos then. 

While Bea and Brian were scuba diving Claire and I rode horses. This was a first for Claire and we had fun. The horses in this area are small and they don't use a bit – just some ropes around their noses. They were nice horses – although Claire's had a mind of his own and he went at his own pace. We laughed.

So we ended our trip with some more pool time. It's nice to get away to a warm place but I have mixed feelings. I'm fascinated by the forests but I'm not really comfortable in them. And that feeling sort of translates to the whole country. I guess I'm just in love with all things north.