Future Rockstar??

I couldn't help but post these. I took them a couple of days ago. Sabrina, future rockstar? Maybe!

Costa Rica- Volume2

Okay, so I left off with us going to Baldi hotsprings. Baldi is a hotel/resort built around a natural hotspring at the base of the volcano in La Fortuna. They have funneled the water of various temperatures (ranging from luke warm to peel-you-skin-off boiling!!) into something like 22 different pools and lagoons for guest to swim in. Some of the lagoons have swim up bars which is where we happened to spend quite a bit of time. After getting a little tipsey at Baldi, Kevin decided to call it a night and Ronda and I decided to hit the discotech. We were suprised to learn that in Costa Rica the discotech doesn't even really get started till midnight and there is no set closing time, they just close when the last person goes home. Anyways, we danced, had a few more drinks and finally made it back to our hut about 3:00am. The next morning Kevin took these lovely photos of Ronda and I....

Who knew dancing an drinking till the wee hours could leave someone so tired??After we finally got up and dressed we headed to town for lunch and then to go hike to the La Fortuna waterfall. before I tell you about the hike and the waterfall I must tell you about one of my new favorite meals. For lunch we hit a friend chicken stand, fried chicken is pretty popular there, you'll see stands and restaurants selling it everywhere. Well the way they serve it in Costa Rica is with a side of corn tortillas. They also set out a little condiment tray with salsa, hot sauce, ketchup and mayonnaise. this is not just regular mayonnaise though, it has lime in it! I know what you're thinking, lime in mayo? Eww! But let me tell you , squeeze a little on a piece of fried chicken just pulled from the bone and wrap it in that corn tortilla and you have a tasty little meal! It's the Costa Rican version of Chik-fil-a. I have even just found in the latino section of my local store, mayo with lime, and I intend to use it on my next chicken sandwich. Try it sometime! Okay enough about lunch, on to the waterfall hike. We drove out to the park entrance, paid out 5 or 6 bucks and then strted hiking down the gorge to the waterfall. Right before you start the hike down theres a platform where you get to see this view.

Thats what we were about to hike down to. Keep in mind that waterfall is about 90 yards tall and you have an idea about how far down we were about to hike. And I mean virtually straight down. So we stared the trek down the path where I took these shots of the terrain and of a massive tree tha Ronda decided to hug.

The water was a little cold and it was overcast but it didn't feel to bad once you got in. It was beautiful! the water was crystal clear. We swam in the pool under the waterfall for a bit then got out wlakaround to the otherside of the trail and got into the river which was nice and calm. We discovered some little friends and fed them some of our crackers, they would actually jump clear out of the water fighting for the crumbs.

I shot some underwater video of them as well. I will have to upload that sometime too. The biggest fish was probably about 12 inches long. Really neat!

So that ended our 2nd day in Costa Rica. We returned to town that evening, chilled in the pool at our cabina and then went out to eat. The next day would be our last day in La Fortuna and we planned to hike to watch the volcano, and that is where I will pick up next time.

Costa Rica-Volume 1

Okay, so I finally have a spare minute to try to blog about our Costa Rica trip. We flew out of DFW on April 25th at 7:00am to catch our connecting flight in Houston which left at 9:30am. By noon were landing in Costa Rica, getting our rental car and heading for La Fortuna. we pulled into La Fortuna about 7:00pm and found a place to stay for the night. Below are pictures of our first nights accommodations...

Yes, the last picture is indeed a picture of our shower, live wires, switch and all! This is what many of the "cabinas" called a hot water heater. Not sure if it worked or not as we didn't use it.

We went out an got a bite to eat and a few drinks at a local restaurant, Jardins', it was really good. I decided to go with my first taste of a typical Costa Rican dish and ordered the Arroz con Pollo, or rice with chicken. It was very good and I plan to try to make it sometime. We of course were beat from having been up for nearly 48 hours straight and went back to our little room at Cabinas Hervi and tried to get some sleep because the next morning we had scheduled our trip to go zip-lining through the jungle. I say tried to get some sleep because our room had no air conditioning. This would probably not have been to bad except that it was REALLY humid and I had a bit of a head cold and cough. I woke up many times that night coughing up a lung and feeling like I was breathing through a straw the air was so heavy. I finally sedated myself with a few benadryl so that I could get at least a few hours in so that I wouldn't be totally dead the next day. We got up the next morning and had a typical breakfast, which consisted of eggs scrambled with ham, black beans and a small slice of fresh homemade cheese served with a couple of corn tortillas. we then got picked up about 10:00am to go do the zipline tour.

In the first pic you can actually see a couple of the ziplines behind us going over the waterfall. It was VERY high. We went swimming at the waterfall the next day and saw other people doing the ziplines and they looked like little dots in the sky. Crazy! The waterfall itself was probably at least 150 yards behind us if not 200, just to give you some comparison.

After the zipline part was over we got back down the mountain on horseback.

we then went and took a look at the butterfly and frog gardens they had where I took pictures of these guys....

We went back into town and found accommodations for the next night, had dinner and decided to go to Baldi Hotsprings to relax. I will post more about this in my next volume of of blogging about our trip.

I've been tagged!

Crap! I have always hated in school when the teachers would ask you to write about yourself or when at a job interview they ask"what's your greatest strength? weakness?" So now I have to list 7 interesting things about me.... Hmmm....? I guess this is always a hard question for me because I have to then wonder, what is interesting?

1. Like Jenny, my friend who tagged me, I have a prized childhood possession. It's not a doll though, or a blankie, it's a pillow. Or maybe I should say it's what used to be a pillow, it's so old it's actually squished to a thickness which is less than that of a comforter. It was my dads before it was mine and it was already pretty flat when I got it. In fact, that's why my mom gave it to me, when I was nearly a year old she wanted to give me a pillow but she didn't want some huge fluffy death trap so she stole my dads pillow which was nearly flat already. That pillow has since been everywhere I have been, it has traveled to more destinations than any inanimate object should. Kevin says that my pillow will probably be the death of mankind, as he is sure that some horrible bacteria,yet unknown to man, is probably growing in it's bowels. Not true. That pillow has been washed many, many, many times which accounts for the fact that hardly any of it's original exterior fabric remains and I have to encase it in 2 zip-up pillow cases. I swear my pillow will probably be put in my casket someday.

2. I just got back form Costa Rica, I think that's interesting and I plan to blog about it soon.

3. I was once an honorary Filipino. In high school and part of college I was a dancer for a Filipino Association in Austin. Yes I even learned to sing the national anthem of the Phillipines in Tagalog. Can't do it anymore, so don't ask. Why?, you ask, didi i dance for this association as I am clearly not a Filipina? I had a good friend who was and they needed an extra dancer for one of their conventions. She knew I liked to dance and that lead to not just one convention but the Christmas party, New years, summer fiesta, and performing at various street festivals in and around Austin for the next 4-5 years. We did traditional Filipino dance as well as Tahitian and Hula. In fact, if I ever visit the Phillipines I plan on joining right in if they bring out the bamboo poles and start doing the Tinikling.

4. I used to have a HUGE collection of unicorns. Started collecting them before I can remember and kept it up till highschool. Have gotten rid of all but a few of them which are in boxes in the attic right now, save for one, which is a music box that is in Sabrinas room.

5. I have a weird curiosity about serial murderers. No, I am not crazy or morbid. I just like to read about them and try to wrap my brain around why they do what they do. It really dumbfounds me that the human mind can be such a dark strange place.

6. I love the water and love to scuba! I have always been like a fish. Sabrina and Aidan seem to have both gotten that gene as well. Sabrina has absolutely no fear of water whcih means we have to be even more careful with her when we are around it. She will just walk right in till shes completely submerged without an ounce of hesitation.

7. I am not a big sports fan. I really don't see the point of most of it. I actually do like to watch a good boxing match every now and then, but for the most part sports are just dull to me. It's not that I don't watch them or enjoy the games I do watch from time to time, it's just I can't stand it when people think that life just stops when a game is on. Really annoys me. Kevin is not like this, thank God! But I have known plenty of people, mostley men, who think that everything else should take a basckseat to watching the game, whatever game that might be. I just think there are more important things and thats why God created Tivo.

Okay, I managed 7 things. Not sure how, but I did. Thanks Jenny, now my brain hurts ;) lol!