WHAT THE: Pura Vida: Day 1-4

spotted: 20 of salt lake's socialites gallavanting around the beaches and towns of Costa Rica. J and I got HOOKED on Gossip Girl when we were in CR. She starts her blogs with "spotted" so I thought I'd give it a whirl :) We had a fabulous time in Costa Rica--many adventures--some unexpected, some involving the law, some involving the rain, some involving a volcano, some involving crocodiles, you get the point. I've tried to condense the stories but it was all so great--I could talk about it for hours...

Day 1: we kicked off the trip with a dinner at the Gateway before boarding our redeye flight. I don't think any of us had any idea what we were in for. We had to sit in Atlanta for nearly 5 hours and being that it was 5 aM, it was not fun. Also, our section of the airport was about 45 degrees--no kidding. I eventually had to go buy a blanket at the Brookstone store that was constructed for a 2 year old. I curled up in my tightest ball and still wasn't entirely covered. Greg snuck off and found Delta pillows and blankets behind a gate counter and took them all for himself. Anyway, we eventually got to CR, rented our cars and made it to the Tamarindo Diria, our home for the week. We immediately threw our swimsuits on and the adventures began...lunch at Walter's at the end of the beach, the boys rented surfboards for the week, we wandered around town, got dinner, played poker, etc..etc...

selfish Greg and his pillows and blankets

lunch at Walter's
Nate RIPCURL Richins
a little Texas hold'em before dinner

Day 2: the rains came and stayed all morning. We played some more cards down by the pool and waited for the rain to stop. J and I laid out a bit with Watty and Greg and we started making plans for a little roadtrip...Two other girls showed up, Sierra and Marie (how they even got to CR, we are still confused. they were standby and it was quite the adventure they had just to get there. fave quote from a phone call we got: "We're coming. We've rented a car to Atlanta and we've got a guy. Gotta Go") We had a nice group dinner at Joe's and J and I opted out of ladies night at Aqua and watched a few episodes of Gossip Girl

J and A
J, G, N and M
view from our room Joe's. They claim to serve nachos bigger than your a**.

Day 3: We set out on our roadtrip. I had affectionately named our cars Pepe and Julio. Original plan: Monteverde zipline tour on Tuesday, raft the Pacuare River on Wednesday. back to Tamarindo on Wed night. Modified plan: try to outrun the CR police-unsuccessful--spent 3 hours at the police station, Dave loses his license. We had two negotiatiors that luckily got his passport back and they agreed to only impound our car and give us a reckless driving ticket. We sent the other car on their way while we waited for the rental company to bring us another car. We said goodbye to Pepe and welcomed Felix, which was way more deluxe than Pepe. Not a bad trade. So five hours later, we're on our way. The road to Monteverde was AWFUL. 2 hours of the bumpiest, rockiest road I've ever been on. We pull into Monteverde grumpy and hungry and find that it's pouring rain and there's no way we can get in a zipline tour before dark. To try and bring us back to civility, we ate dinner and determined our next steps. The group consensus was to stay in a hostel. J shed a few tears and I was on the verge but we sucked it up and were troopers. It could have been worse. I will say, though, that I do not recall a time when I've laughed so hard than when we were hanging out in our room at the hostel. it was four to a room so we had two and we had our own bathroom. a bonus, i guess, in hostel world. I'd like to not venture to that world again. It was an awful night's sleep but you can't have any expectations for $6. J and I shared a queen bed where we laid out all our towels. J used her rain coat to cover her pillow so all night it sounded like a toddler on protective plastic sheets. I once again curled up in my 2 foot by 2 foot atlanta airport blanket and hoodie...

the po-po station in CR

police station

the line-up of criminals

the road to Monteverde--before it got annoying

picture opp

welp-here we are in Monteverde. it's raining. i did not sign up for this.

the tree-house dinner

why do we have to stay here?

hostel living

the gang

Day 4: day 4 was probably my favorite day on this trip. we woke up early and headed to our zipline tour. this tour had 14 zips (some over 2200 ft long), a free rappel, and a tarzan swing. Marie and I didn't brake well on one of our zips so we had to go tandem the rest of the time. I was pretty bummed at first, but it turned out to be really fun. My guide, Rolo, would spin me around and flip me upside down when we were careening across the canyon so that was way better than sitting upright and the tarzan swing was sooooo cool. We decided to scrap river rafting and head to Arenal to the volcano. We had another couple hours of super bumpy rocky roads, but the company was awesome. We laughed the entire way. (Apparently the other car had deep conversations and listened to Greg drum every song they listened to on the dashboard) We got to smooth road and went around Arenal Lake to the base of the volcano. We literally stumbled upon a thermal resort called Tabacon and we had to go. We got a day pass to go around to their pools and hot tubs and natural hot springs all scattered around. It was literally one of the coolest places I've ever been. We also had a nice yummy dinner. We were a little nervous to drive back to Tamarindo late at night, but none of us could stand another night away--none of us had packed anything--so back to Tamarindo we went. It wasn't as bad as we thought and we were back by 1 AM.

funny moment: Since Dave had his license revoked, Andy became the driver of our car. A number of times along the way to the volcano, we passed signs painted on the street that said "ceda". Both Andy and I speak Spanish and he casually mentioned he didn't know what that word meant. I kind of spaced the conservation but a few mintues later, replied, "you know what, I don't know what it means either" and I guess I must have said it in a tone that implied this trip is over--I don't know what it means. So, I got ripped for it. They're all like, "well Nancy doesn't know--we better turn around and go home...." etc... etc..... Well a number of hours later on our drive back from Tabacon, it dawned on me what it meant and without thinking I starting yelling, "Yield, Yield". Andy freaked thinking I was yelling at him to yield. Anway, all was fine and crisis averted but minutes of laughing ensued...