Costa Rica - Brock's wedding

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In March of 2010 we were super excited to return to one of our homes away from home ... COSTA RICA. Andy was lucky enough to be asked to be the best man in Brock's wedding so we were able to escape the cold and snow of Wisconsin for a little fun in the sun in Central America. We were only able to be there for 5 days but we made the most of our time. We arrived early on a Saturday morning after having taught that Friday. Upon arrival we were greeted by our good friend Abel who would be our chaufer from the airport to the beach. It is about a 2 hour drive to get from Liberia to Nosara and Abel was a great driver. He filled us in on a lot of cultural information as we made our way to the Pacific. Between telling us about traditional celebrations for semana santa, to showing us some of the country side schools and agriculture, he also bought us a "pipa" which was a fresh coconut tapped for it's top of the line coconut juice. I can confidently say that each time I am making my way south from the Liberia airport I will be treating myself to a pipa.

We were very lucky to have a real nice place to stay provided by Brock. The whole crew stayed in a villa which had spacious rooms, a pool, kitchen and was located right next to the beach. We found the beach shortly after arriving @ the hotel and Andy and Jordan spent a good amount of time taking on the angry waters of the pacific. Sunday was wedding day and what a wedding it was! At the beautiful beach side setting we celebrated Brock and Larina by the beach and enjoyed an amazing vegetarian dinner.

Each morning always started off the same for us, waking up and making the 10 min hike to Lagarta Lounge where we enjoyed an amazing Costa Rican style breakfast complete with gallo pinto and great fruit! Oh if we could start every day like that. On Monday Andy was able to go stream fishing with Brock and Memo. This was very interesting because it was all locals fishing. It was fishing in on of its most simple forms, catch your own live bait and cut it up and put it on the hook. There was no fishing pole ... simply fishing line and you would whip it into the water. Needless to say there were not many tourists there!

Each night we went some different place to eat ... we enjoyed pizza, ceviche, and of course the traditional Costa Rican CASADO ... you can't go wrong there with this rice and beans dish! Andy also had his first international driving experience as we borrowed a SUV to go into town to go to some shops and get a crepe.

Our last full day there was filled with more sun than we probably needed. But we paid for that later with the sun burn. It really was amazing how calm and free of people the beaches were ... nice to see Costa Rica has not been run over with people. When we headed back we had received the great recharger we needed during the spring. We are not worried though ... we will be back to live the land of PURA VIDA before too long!

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