Happy Anniversary to us!

Carolyn.  Today is our 21st wedding anniversary!  We find ourselves in a nice little beach town on the Pacific coast, called Montezuma.  It's on the tip of a large peninsula in the NW part of Costa Rica, so we took a ferry across from the mainland instead of driving all the way around (saving many hours).  It's stupidly hot and humid, but still lovely, and it looks like we'll be staying here for 6-7 days, enjoying Spanish lessons, surf lessons and yoga classes.

Tonight's anniversary meal was "Tipical Costa Rican Food" of rice and chicken.  We have been amused throughout our travels in Costa Rica that restaurants advertise their "Tipical" fare;  sometimes it's even spelled correctly as "Typical" - but either way, it seems a rather basic, even crude, effort at marketing.  We guess that it's meant to advertise "Authentic Cuisine", and at some point in history a bad translation just stuck.  Everywhere.

As our year away progresses, there will be more milestones celebrated in new places - three birthdays should spread out nicely across three continents - and if all goes well, we'll still be on the road NEXT Aug 6 to celebrate our 22nd Anniversary!

Vern.
(July 31)

It has been said that zip-lining was invented in Costa Rica, a rumour cleverly perpetuated by the local tour operators.  Whether true or not, sailing over tropical waterfalls through lush rainforest at 50 km/h is an experience not to be missed.

We elected to put our lives in the hands of Mundo Aventura , having confirmed that their guides and cable system would accommodate Cooper at 75 lbs and 4' 4".   (Many operators have a strict minimum height and weight policy and will refuse kids that don't measure up.  Cooper was accompanied by a guide on a few cables to provide the ballast required to get him across.)  Our adventure included seven cable runs, one of them a kilometre long, suspending riders over a 100 m drop to the forest below.  The safety briefing was thorough, though a dry run on a practice cable would have been appreciated before clipping onto the real thing and speculating on the adverse effects of gravity.

At the conclusion of our three hour tour, we agreed it was time well spent.

Carolyn. 

(August 1)

In the La Fortuna area of central Costa Rica, near the Arenal volcano, the choices in adventure activities seem endless.  There are MANY options that we declined (whitewater rafting, tubing, ATV'ing, bungee-jumping, hiking suspension bridges, horseback riding and more).  But the day after zip-lining, we decided to try "canyoneering";  all we really knew was that this would involve some rapelling down waterfalls - sounds great!   In fact, it was a fantastic half-day excursion hiking through the rain forest, moving regularly in and out of water, jumping into waterholes, free-climbing (sitting? slipping?!) down canyon walls, and yes rapelling down four sets of waterfalls - two sets were over 200 feet high and provided quite the adrenaline rush when taking that first leap off the platform at the top.  Add this to the list of cool things to do in Costa Rica!