A quick update from Costa Rica

Hi Everyone -

We are in Costa Rica, and while we have mostly been out on the beach getting a very safe amount of sun, we thought we should post at least a little update to let people know how our trip is going.

This is a picture of me with Caroline's co-worker from the San Jose office, and his wife. They offered to take us around for the first weekend when we arrived, and they were such amazing hosts! Here we are at a lunch stop on the way to the beach. This restaurant had pretty good food and a great patio view.

This is a typical Costa Rica dish. The rice and beans is called Gaillo Pinto, and it was really tasty. In this case, it also came with eggs for breakfast, and some friend plantains.

Caroline's friend organized a trip on a boat with a local guide at Playa Hermosa on the Pacific Coast. The guide went by El Capi (spanish and short for The Captain, an awesome nickname). The weather was amazing, and quite hot. It was probably about 90-95 in the sun, but really comfortable in the shade with a breeze.

Caroline got a chance to drive the boat. The guy behind her is El Capi.

We went snorkling and saw some amazing fish - blue with yellow stripes, blue with spots, bright yellow and orange. It was very cool. While we were snorkling, El Capi's friends did some diving and brought up all sorts of oysters and seafoods, to make a very fresh dish of ceviche on the boat. As vegetarians, we didn't try it, but our friends enjoyed it - and we got to hold a starfish and many other cool sea creatures (before throwing them back in the water, of course).

On Monday we went to Playa Samara, another beach town. We had reserved a room in a guest lodge ahead of time, and didn't realize that the place was actually a good 20 min outside of the town. On the one hand, that meant it was kind of a hassle to get there and we had to take a very pricey cab. On the other hand, it meant that the next morning we were on the most deserted beach I have ever seen. You can see the beautiful and huge beach below, and I think there were probably 5 total people on the entire mile-long stretch.

We went back in the evening for sunset, and it did not disappoint! At first we thought it was only an ok sunset, but then the sky turned more and more purple and the water started reflecting the sky really beautifully. I think I managed to get a pretty good picture of it below! Also, check out how deserted that beach is...what a cool place to be.

Tomorrow we'll spend a lot of time on public buses to get back inland to a rainforest area called Monte Verde. It comes highly recommended from Caroline's friend and the guidebook ranks it in the top three sights in Costa Rica. I hope it is great!