One hundred ten degrees. I summon the strength to walk towards the hole. This hole is surrounded by dried mud walls. The hole is full of animated rice, some kind of colony of small white worms. One hundred ten degrees. I squat over the hole, with beads of sweat rolling down my face and into my eyes. Red dust brutally swirls in the air and sticks to my face. My throat is sore from breathing the dust. One hundred ten degrees. I have to stomp my feet to keep the cockroaches from running up the hole and up my legs. I [View Full Entry]

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September 8, 2005 We caught an early morning bus to Manuel Antonio, the last destination in our wonderful escapade. Again, traveling in Costa Rica provided us quite an adventure in and of itself: passing on winding roads which barely fit a single car on them; steep dirt roads into cloudy (read: blind) turns; sprawling coffee fields; dilapidated bridges which were actually missing planks that we actually drove over!!; crocodiles in the rivers below us (which we were in mortal fear of falling into!); and Playa Hermosa, a famous beach on the Caribbean sea for surfing. Perhaps the most memo [View Full Entry]

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September 6, 2005 On this morning we awoke, packed our belongings, and waited for a small bus to pick us up at our hotel. I forgot to mention that yesterday we arranged for a “JEEP - boat - JEEP” trip to Monteverde. We chuckle just thinking about them pronouncing that, jEEP boat jEEP. Anyway, they packed us in tight and headed to Lake Arenal - a giant man-made lake at the base of the Arenal volcano. From there, we jumped aboard a boat and were whisked away. The scenery here was like something from Jurassic Park (seriously) - the islands [View Full Entry]

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September 4, 2005 On this bright and sunny morning we caught a bus to La Fortuna, a misty mountain village nestled near the base of the active Arenal Volcano (Volcán Arenal). This 4 1/2 hour trip on the bus was an adventure in itself! We were the only English speaking people on the bus which seemed to slowly drift from one remote village to the next, picking up passengers at any point along the way. The narrow and curvy roads through the mountains made Laure quite nervous. And if we didn’t know better, we would have thought that the bus driver [View Full Entry]

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September 2, 2005 At seven o’clock in the morning, we busily scurried to the airport and merely two and a half hours later, we were landing in the capital of Costa Rica - San Jose. Actually, the airport is located in Alajuela, a short 15 minute bus ride from San Jose. And yes, we did fight our way through the hundred taxi cab drivers offering rides to find the bus stop where we took a public bus downtown. From downtown San Jose, we nabbed a taxi and headed straight for our hostel. The ride was quite… interesting; insane drivers honking their [View Full Entry]

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