http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Chris y Nikki/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Chris y Nikki en-us Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:22:27 BST Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:22:27 BST Goodbye to Quepos.....againnbspCentral America Caribbean raquonbspCosta Rica raquonbspQuepos By Chris y NikkiApril 6th 2007Chris and NikkiOur last weekend in Quepos before heading to Panama the family took everyone up to a waterfall for lunch. It was a bumpy drive to get there but very fun. Climbing around rivers jumping off rocks into waterfalls...Nikki even ate tunaFor Easter we http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Quepos/blog-148041.html During our many hours of relaxation at Punta Mala we read through a local advertisment magazine and found a hotel that caught our eye. Timarai Bamboo Resort The ad had pictures of surfing kiteboarding paramotoring wakeboarding etc. Slightly more entertaining than raking so we went to check it out on our free day. There we met Kent and Pablo who had just recently been hired to run the res http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/blog-147402.html Monday the 19th we had Juan drive us up to Punta Mala to begin our volunteer work. Punta Mala is about 5 km north of a small town called Estarillos and a little bit further south than that from Playa Hermosa. Almost that whole stretch from Estarillos to Playa Hermosa is protected beach for turtles and other marine life. Punta Mala means Bad Point and you can probably see from a picture or two http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Guanacaste/Punta-Mala/blog-146145.html Waterslide PicnicnbspCentral America Caribbean raquonbspCosta Rica raquonbspQuepos By Chris y NikkiMarch 18th 2007Chris and Nikki Before we left for Playa Hermosa Punta Mala our Tico family decided to take everyone to another ranchero for the day. We spent the day playing washers soccer eating and of course sliding down the waterslide tobogn en espaol. The highlight of the day http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Quepos/blog-146130.html Last Week In Manuel AntonionbspCentral America Caribbean raquonbspCosta Rica raquonbspManuel Antonio By Chris y NikkiMarch 11th 2007Chris and NikkiOur last week in Manuel Antonio was pretty low stress. No major events or trips just some beach time and some bar time. Although we did manage to study Spanish and do all our homework up to the last day. Friday however I Chris couldn't http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-141304.html We decided it was finally time to see the park. We hired a guide so we'd actually have a chance to see some animals. Our guides name was Mauricio and he knew his stuff. He also had a really nice telescope that gave us great views of the animals and some good pics too. That said it was pretty freakin expensive for a 3 hr tour. Here are some photos from the walk.Hasta luego... http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-139338.html Tuesday morning I went diving with Jaime. He is getting his DiveMaster certification as well as taking Spanish classes. It had been almost 4 years since my last dive so I took a refresher course that reviewed some theory and had a practical in a hotel pool. That was actually Wed and Thurs the previous week but the dive wasn't till Tuesday.Not a whole lot to say about the dive. It was fun to b http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-137166.html Last Saturday we went on a canopy tour near Quepos with three other students from the school. You wear a harness similar to rock wall climbing and they hook you onto a wire cable that spans from one platform to another anywhere from 50 meters to 400 meters. The longest on our tour was just over 400. If you can zoom in on one of the photos I think it says the length. So they hook you on to the http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Quepos/blog-136332.html Hello All we've fallen behind in blog entries again. We currently have 4 to upload so we're not going to do anything interesting for the next few days.Here are some miscellaneous photos we took that range from Feb 22 Mar 3. Pretty much all from school or a hotel we crashed for lunch. Hasta luego http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-136270.html We're playing catchup with photos here. We got back from the Arenal trip around 4 and shortly after our Tico family invited us out the Quepos Festival. There was some live music rides bumper cars was the best junk food and bull riding. I'll let the captions and the pictures tell most of the story.The next day we had a 3 hour surf lesson and local surf spot that took us through some pretty i http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Quepos/blog-130823.html Here are some photos of our trip to Arenal. http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Alajuela/Arenal/blog-130816.html Okay this will probably seem like a condensed entry which it is. There was so much stuff going on the first week it was incredible. Herersquos a brief summary and the rest will have to be told in picture captions. Irsquove reduced the picture quality to speed uploading. If any images look like crap or therersquos one yoursquod like to see in full res send us an email and we can http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-129473.html The first weekend we stayed at El Mirador de Pacifico. We got lucky I think and the owner upgraded our room to the ldquoJungle Villardquo because he had a big group that booked all the basic rooms after we made our reservation. If you look around on their website perhaps in the lsquofor salersquo section I think you can find a floor plan for this room. Itrsquos pretty cool but no http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-126764.html This was our travel day. We didnrsquot finish packing our bags till nearly 1 AM so getting up at 3 AM to leave the house by 4 basically made it feel like wersquod pulled an all nighter. And the shuttle that was supposed to pick us up by 4 was about 20 minutes late and had a headlight out. We were starting to think these were omens But really after that there wasnrsquot anything intere http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-126746.html Well the first blog update probably doesnrsquot have the pictures you expected but it was the start of the adventure so I thought Irsquod include it anyway. Nikki and the tow truck driver thought I was un poco loco for taking the pictures in the first place. I wonrsquot argue with that.So Nikki and I were headed home the day before departure and we were just finishing up our last coupl http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Missouri/Kansas-City/blog-126745.html Hello everyone and welcome to our TravelBlog We hope to keep this up to date as much as possible with stories photos and maybe even a video clip or two as our trip progresses. Check back occassionally and send us some slackermail if we haven't posted anything in a while.In the last couple weeks Nikki and I have had to answer some common questions many times so here is a brief FAQ sectionQ1 http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-124360.html