On the recommendation of a local, we took the CR Arenal Canopy tour at the base of the volcano. This is my second zip line thing and it was more intense than the last.

There are 12 platforms and 10 ziplines. The platforms are way up in the trees about 150 feet of the ground and the longest cable zipline is just over a quarter of a mile.

It begins with a horse ride up the mountain – a horse ride that we later learned results in the death of many horses on the trail during the tour itself. I am not sure if this knowledge would have been handy before embarking on the tour, but I am pretty sure it would have. The best thing was that we could be fairly assured that if one of the horses were to die, it would have been Will’s.

Here is a collection of some of the pictures of the event:

And here is the final picture. With that helmet and expression of distant disdain, it makes me think that Monty is preparing for an Arian Nation rally.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

Well it was a tiny one… but it did knock over all the chairs on the balcony. I think Will slept through it, but he sleeps through a lot of cool things. It probably explains why he does not wake up when Lauren jumps on his bed.

It was a magnitude 4.4 earthquake off the coast of Nicaragua. Here is a link to the site with the details.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

We spent the weekend up in the Arenal area of Costa Rica near the border of Nicaragua. We stayed in a quaint little hotel called the Linda Vista Del Norte. It was one of the only three hotels that had a view of the active side of the volcano; the lava flow seems to switch sides every year or so. We looked at another hotel in the area, but it was a little sketchy because it was only $20 a night. The last time I paid $20 for a night I woke up with Will in my bed covered in plastic. I don’t know what that means.

So here are a few pictures from our balcony. There was a view of the volcano and of Lake Arenal. This is the latter – I am still putting the finishing touches on the volcano pictures. The second picture below was of a flower on the property that I took right after an afternoon rainstorm.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

Inside the foyer of the Teatro Nacional were various marble statues that were created in various countries around the world. The three statues – Dance, Music, and Fame – in the foyer are real, and the ones on the roof are reproductions. They used to have the originals on the roof, but the birds’ poop was overly acidic so they moved them to a safer place.

This one is the Muse of Dance and was sculpted in Milan.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

Here is a collection of pictures from within the Teatro. We had a very spunky girl tour guide who was over-the-top happy to be showing us the theater. When we got down to the main stage, I thought it was inappropriate of Will to ask her if they really have donkey shows at midnight.

The first one is a famous painting on the ceiling by Arturo Fontana of Milan in 1897. It features coffee harvesting and export. The painting is actually fairly inaccurate because coffee beans don’t grow on the beach. They grow up in the mountains where migrant workers eat plantains in the evening and then sing tunes about old mehico.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

We went into downtown San Jose to explore the Teatro Nacional, which is one of the finest examples of classical architecture here in the city. It was completed in 1897 and remained property of the Costa Rican military until 1948. Costa Rica then got rid of their military all together and decided to be friends with all other countries. They even like Canada.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

After 18 hours in planes and airports, we made it to Costa Rica. We met my dad in Dallas and he flew down to San Jose with us. My internet access will be in and out down here, especially when we head up to the volcanic region this weekend. Since we have been here, I’ve done a bit of exploring and gotten some interesting photographs. The pictures in this post are not that great…this is just some of the miscellaneous stuff along the way.

Here are Will, Monty, and Dad outside of the Teatro Nacional, which I will detail in a later post.

Here is Will and I at lunch at a pretty sketchy looking place that turned out to be very good.

There was a store we found called “Carrion” that was covered with birds, which was strange in itself.

And look! No international city is complete without a Church of Scientology.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

Those aren’t my hands, by the way. They are a dummy’s hands. Well…try not to picture that Venn Diagram overlap.

Anyway, this is an interesting picture that I took inside the castle because it shows how enterprising cartographers tricked up regular playing cards by adding maps to help educate the bored, ignorant, and card-playing masses.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

Okay after a lot of monkeying around, I finally got the css and php set up for the new theme. I have no idea why I spent so much time doing it, but I occasionally get pretty anal about some things. I re-jiggered the columns to allow the medium sized Flickr pictures in here. So I will test it out with one of my favorite pictures from Costa Rica.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica

Here is a weird sign I found from my trip to the Poas Volcano. It was posted near the entrance to the protected volcano area. Here are a few highlights:

“Do not trust people that offers you easy business”

I wish I had read that before I hooked up with Eidos.

“Try not to walk along mainly at night.”

Every time I am pretty sure I understand this statement, I say, “Well, it could mean … errr …”

“Do not let to know to strangers your plan trip.”

It’s a little late by the time I read this, since my van is being driven by some tour operator I have never met in my life.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

Well, it’s really not a hummingbird “farm.” What is the word, a pod of hummingbirds? A pride? A gaggle I think.

Near the waterfalls of the Poas Volcano here in Costa Rica, there was a cool area that had a few hundred hummingbirds. They were not kept inside an aviary, but they were just flying around free. Nearly two dozen hummingbird feeders crowded the area, so I figured that word just got around the rainforest that this was a sweet place to hang out.

There were all sorts of weathered-looking American naturalists milling about with cameras larger than the Hubble. They could be seen jumping out from behind ferns in their flopsy khaki hats saying things like, “Oh my God, that is a purple-throated worble-meister,” and “I think that is the blue-tongued channa hummer — NO! It is the blue-tongued worble chunnle!”

I have no idea what kind of hummingbirds they were, but they were definitely pretty. I’m not one of those people that takes pride in being able to identify obscure species of animals. I’m great at identifying rocks from back when I used to have a double-major in Geophysics, but I don’t go around telling people what kinds of rocks they are admiring.

In that, I think there are two kinds of people in the world and their attitude towards self-education. Some people learn things so they can say smart things and impress other people; others like to learn to impress themselves. I’d like to think I’m the latter. Ooops, hold on, there is a guy over there admiring the granite counter – I think I better go tell him that the tiny black spots in the granite are actually radioactive. Oh look, there is a red-throated super floofer…I wish those naturalists would just shut up and go hug another tree and stop ruining my bird watching experience.

I’m also proud that my pictures with my tiny little digital camera probably came out better than the pictures from their 50 pound cameras. Thus, I continue my quest to annoy self-important naturalists.

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel

Okay, there is nothing that sounds more lame than a butterfly farm. Ironically, it was the COOLEST thing I did while I was in Costa Rica. It was just part of this tour I took, so I reluctantly went along.

We entered a huge enclosed area that had thousands of exotic butterflies fluttering about. There were hundreds of types of flowers and plants. Every other leaf had some crazy-looking caterpillars on them and under each plant was a new type of chrysalis.

Here is a picture of some rare blue butterfly with a crazy Latin name that not even Nero could pronounce.*

They had a wall on which they would take chrysalises and pin them in long rows. They had about 1000 of these things pinned up, and you could literally stand there and watch a new butterfly being born every 30-45 seconds. Here are a few of the colorful ones – many are covered in shiny gold, silver, jade, and other iridescent colors.*

Below is a picture of one of the butterflies just after it emerged. It spends the first 30 minutes of its life pumping out fluid from its bloated stomach into its wings to help them unfurl and strengthen.*

Here is another row of some green chrysalises. I am still not used to writing the plural version of that word, and I don’t think I ever will be.*

Here is a picture of another butterfly that was just born. If you look at the left side of the wing, you can see the pattern has evolved to look like a snakehead to scare away birds.*

And last, no trip to a butterfly farm would be complete without me doing something stupid like licking a caterpillar I found. It actually numbed my tongue for about 10 minutes. It was ill-advised, but I am slowly building up a resistance so I can lick insects and not have to worry about the aftereffects. That’s planning ahead.*

*(Pictures in metamorphosis.)

Filed under the categories: Costa Rica, Travel