Team Costa Rica Part 2

I just returned from leg two of my month vacation. Grad school is hard. Our friend Nollner arrived from the States last Friday and it was also Cristina's Birthday so of course we threw a party! Jello shots, 40's, dancing, Melissa's poi balls, and leg wrestling. Good times. After the party we packed up and headed to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica to Puerto Viejo. We camped at an awesome hostel, Rocking J's, but then started talking to people and they were all 19 year olds on spring break drinking in CR. We started to feel real old when we went to bed at 1o every night. But during the day, we lived it up. Some highlights:

1) Cahuita National Park. Endless pristine beaches, hiking in the forest, wildlife, turquoise water, and reef just off shore.

2) Riding bikes down a bumpy gravel road to more amazing beaches and discovering an awesome lookout in Manzanillo Nature Reserve. And of course took some awesome self timer photos on our bikes. The bad news is our buts are still kinda sore. Our 'friend' at the bike shop gave us bikes with low tires. Which got real old on a 20 kilometer, rocky ride. But every few kilometers there was a new beach to stop at and explore, and some good ice cream, so that kept us pedaling.

3) Swimming at Playa Negra, an awesome black sand beach with no people and great waves.
4) Chilling out to the Rasta theme of the Caribbean. They speak their own language there, a random mix of creole and Spanish, and pot leaves and Bob Marley flags are abundant.
5) Swimming in the natural pools in the coral along the beach in front of the hostel. You can walk out on the coral and there are open areas that form little pools that are really deep, some up to 15 feet, and they are only about 6 feet from the shore. It's not often that you can actually do a real dive into the ocean!
6) Running into friends we met on the Pacific side a few weeks ago and cooking macaroni and corn, our favorite hostel dinner.
7) Improving our awesome tans.

Now we are back in CC, doing the in between trip activities: laundry, internship research, trip planning, and going to the swimming hole. Tonight is shrimp alfredo and wine night with the girls and tomorrow I am off to Nicaragua for Holy Week. Woot!