Mar 8, 2012 - Day Five

Thursday morning the whole crew got up early to drive to a new beach for the morning. Little did we know that we would essentially get our own private hide-a-way for a few hours. A beautiful sandy beach, bright blue water, caves that extend all the way out to the breaking waves, and a fresh water pond created a dream-like atmosphere for our last beach day. Girls spent the day lounging around (also known as working on their tans), surfing, boogie boarding, reading, and bowling or playing bocce with stray coconuts. A few hours later we left...

Mar 7, 2012 - Day Four

Today was a day full of Costa Rican wildlife. The first stop was a trip to the Hacienda Baru, which is a wildlife reserve here in Dominical. We had some very experienced guides that found us all kinds of creatures to observe. Sloths, monkeys, lizards, hummingbirds, and everyone's favorite, cockroaches, were just some of the exciting finds. Through out the hike there were cables that attached one side of the jungle to the other and we were able to zip-line throughout the canopy. When we returned from the tour the creator of Hacienda Baru was...

Mar 6, 2012 - Day Three

Day three started with a drive down to Dominical. The ride was about three and a half hours long, but we took a few pit-stops for lunch and site-seeing along the way. At one point the bus stopped on one side of a bridge, and as we walked across the river we could see about two dozen crocodiles below. Big, small, sleeping, or swimming, these animals were incredibly fun to observe. They came alive when little bits of food were dropped into the water, and the girls were given a nice healthy dose of crocodile fear for the duration of the trip....

Apr 12, 2011 - See A Sloth ... Be A Sloth

One month in Costa Rica stretched into two. On our way to the beach one day, we had to stop and wait for a sloth to cross the road … a perfect metaphor for our time here! Our first month we settled in a very small community called Dominical in what is known as the Central Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. It’s a one-street beach village with a very laid back attitude made popular by consistent surf and little to no development (yet). Costa Rica was always planned as our “reward”, thinking we would need one if we got this far. Truth is, we...

May 26, 2009 - Costa Rica: Manual Antonio and Dominical

We have spent the last week sunning ourselves on the Pacific Coast. First stop was the National Park Manual Antonio which is one of the more popular parks in Costa Rica, and the first one we actually saw lots of people in (as in the rest of the country, most of these were Americans). The park was beautiful although extremely hot and sweaty, surrounded by a number of gorgeous beaches. We saw lots of iguanas and monkeys chasing each other around in the trees which was entertaining. Tourists feeding the monkeys is a big problem here though, so...

Feb 14, 2008 - San Jose to Dominical, Costa Rica

Feb 14. San Jose to Dominical 135 miles 2871 miles from McAllen. 3920 miles from home. Got our of San Jose early, intended to miss rush hour but all morning is rush hour there. After leaving San Jose we climbed and climbed and climbed, from the 3400 feet in San Jose to 11,400 feet at the summits, about 30 miles of challenging roads, another Dragon, several times over. And then down to sea level in another 40 miles or so. Had to pass long lines of trucks, big ones and small ones and many cars intermingled. Challenging ride but one of the...

Oct 1, 2007 - Beach break

This will be a short update, with no photos. We spent a day in San Isidro after the descent from the mountains, lying in bed sweating and coughing, both of us sick with a respiratory infection. We were supposed to be preparing to get to Nicaragua, but suddenly the thought of more travelling was exhausting. So we hopped a bus for the coast, as it began to rain in San Isidro. That's another thing we didn't really factor into our planning - it's the rainy season here. That means it's usually sunny or partly cloudy in the mornings, then the...

May 18, 2007 - Dominical: Back onboard folks!

Thankfully the only hiking to be done over the next month or so involves only dragging my backpack no more than half a kilometre to the nearest bus station. Everything is just about the surfing now as we make our way west along the Costa Rican Pacific coast stopping at one surf town after another in search of 'some gnarly waves dude!'. First stop was Dominical via San Isidro a very large town where Tamara who tells me she isn't a girly girl came over to me grinning saying "I've just seen the biggest shoe shop ever!" Thank God I was a true...