Sweet Condensation..

Its been quite the jampacked past few days if i may say so...

I figure since i´ve just done so much it´d be better if i just wrote a brief outline because i now have, well, only 15 minutes before i´m outta here!

Here goes...

The first night i arrived in san jose around 900... and after customs, immigration and all that crap i somehow got my bag after a bit of a struggle, found my way to the curb where i had to basically drop my shoulder and ram my way through the sea of taxi drivers offering me ´good price´. .. Found the bus to san jose city meeting people all along the way, still without my travel buddies at this point. Got off at the wrong bus stop (duh) then had a bit of a hike which i´m sure when observing from a birdseye view looked somewhat like... well.. a bird maybe. Anyway, got to galileo hostel, met my friends and crashed. Got up at 4 to catch a bus to la fortuna where we were immediately greeted by out new hostel owner (although we didnt know it yet)... he took us to his - ´Cabinas Jerry´- place and got us all set up foro $7/night.. which would become the new standard. Anyway, he took ud on a 7 hr tour of the ´hot spots´in the area... first was a 2.5 hr hike up to a lake inside of a volcanoe crater! No kidding.. it was pretty bomb... Got up there and had a spread of mango... papaya.. and some other stuff i´m not sure i wanna know what it was. Anyway.. we hiked back down and continued to walk about another hour to a hotel Jerry said cost its customers circa $500/night... mainly because they have a bomb view of the lava from Arenal... anyway.. we basically snuck on the bunch of us and got to the viewing spot just in time to see a freaking HUGE cloud roll right in place of the lava... awesome. We could still hear it and see some of it coming down the mountain because by now its night and easy to spot.. woulda been great to see it in action tho... oh well.. can´t win em all. Continuing! NExt stop was the hot springs.. which was (i´m laughing right now thinking about it) basically a sketchy part of a river under a bridge apparently below the ´real´hot springs... haha. It WAS pretty amazing though... our group of 12 or so was all having a great time, maybe because Jerry had also brought a cooler full of native bebidas for us... mmm. But seriously, it was pretty sweet, we had caves that we could swim in and we turned this one section into a big slide.. again, kinda sketchy, but greatgreat fun for sure! Oh ya.. the water was crazy warm! Hot i guess... hence hot springs. Way to go luke! Whoa... that night we got back around 930 ish and Jerry had one more thing in store for us.. ladies night. Not much to say here other than it was pretty sweet learning to dance marangue from the locals... Hawt! Casey and I did get denied by some chinitas though... whatever..

Day 2! We´re rollin!! We woke up early and booked a Jeep-boat-jeep trip to Monte verde! What a breathtaking trip.. especially the boat portion going across lake arenal... Anyway, we get there and meet our new friend eddy... the owner of Cabinas Eddy. Ha... apparently Jerry and him are friends.. it wasn´t long before we learned that neither jerry and eddy were actually named that, and apparently they just don´t want to dissapoint people, so when i would ask if ´their name is jerry/eddy´ they would say ´jajaja´... anyway, we get there, drop our stuff, and head out for a tour of a coffee farm! Something totally new for me, and pretty awesome to see the crazy amount of work that goes into finding the perfect bean... it was also kinda funny/sad hearing all the workers whenever they would talk about the 4th grade of coffee (the worst) they would follow it by saying... ´the one that starbucks uses´... once we got it, he would just refer to it as starbucks´coffee... is it really that bad?? Whatever... Casey and I decided we wanna come work on the coffee farm for our next seasonal gig next winter.. potential amazingness! Ok ok ok... That night we made our own dinner because we´d been spending juuuuuust a bit more than we had planned (why would they care about that luke??) ha.. OH! That night i payed a dollar for a washington apple.. i mean comeon, i had to right?! So after a night filled with fun games among my now group of 7 travel buddies, we crashed so we could be ready for yet another crazy packed day...

Day 3... Zip line tour!! No words for this really... I mean how can you explain flying across the greenest canyon you´ve ever seen 300 feet in the air traveling for 1 kilometer?!?! you just cant! And there were 14 of em! not to mention the tarzan swing which was sent my man factory into my stomach... shoot! AFter that, also following a good hike around the perfectly beautiful city of monte verde, we jumped yet another bus to the city of Puntarenas... we weren´t really sure what to expect just because we were getting such a late start.. anyway, it worked out that we got there fine and in time to catch a ferry across to the nicoya peninsula. We hoped to find a ride from the ferry drop to Montezuma while on the ferry... our girls (hats off to them) worked their magic and found a ride for half of us... the other half (and a new friend darren we met on the ferry) had to take a cab and split it among all of us.. (again, why do they care.. gah!) Finally got to Montezuma late, late enough that all the hostels were shut down... except for one.. Jenny´s place. So, this place miiiight have been a brother, were still not sure, but for 10/night (total rip off for desperate late night travelers) we had no other option... The night ended with a not so quick trip to ragae night, then back to good ol´jennys for really our first thick night of sleep.

Day 4... Not much here.. our first real relax tay with no travel, we decided to just hike up to a series of waterfalls which were pretty spectacular, then hitchihike our way to the surf beach just down the road... this is all after switching hostels of course to a place right in town for cheaper... anyway, playing in the ocean i felt like i was 12 again not wanting to get out EVER. You seriously could stay in this water forever its so dang warm! Gosh.. today, day 5, were gonna pack up and make our way just up the coast a bit via a short bus ride to Mal Pais (thanks for the tip J) and get some surfing in...

Thats about as rough as you could get for the past few days... Soooo much between the lines (obviously), and I finally bought an authentic banana paper handmade in costa rica journal with a sloth on the cover!! Point being.. i´m excited for time in my hammock simply capturing snapshots of this blessed experience. We are so blessed are we not!?

Allora.. my time´s about spent... I´ll try and not go more than a day or 2 before my next entry.. and hopefully i´ll have more than 15 minutes.. gahh!!

love to you all!!