Costa Rica

I always seem to take pictures out the plane windows when beginning a journey out of the U.S., either out of boredom or to be able to say "Hey look, heres Mexico!' when I return.

I actually don't know if this is Mexico or not, but I know its somewhere in Central America. I love those flights where they have a map on screen so you know where your flying over, but this flight was not one of them. I thought the colors of the delta meeting the ocean were beautiful, the rusty browns and greens fading to sands and blues.

I arrived in San Jose and was transported to my resort, Pura Vida, which is also a catch phrase in Costa Rica meaning 'Pure Life', so it was easy to find a magnet with my 'hotels name' on it. I always buy a magnet where ever I go, so every time I get into the fridge I can remember my travels.

This is a shot of my resort grounds that I think gives a good feel for the layout and design. I actually took this on the last day during some rare sunshine. I'm standing on the terrace where we ate our meals, the palms you see surround the hot tub where I spent every night after dancing and yoga all day. The building to the right of them is where we practiced the majority of our dance and yoga. Its a beautiful building with windows on all walls save for one which is mirrored, so it gives the feeling of being completely open and the balconies overlook San Jose.

On the left is peering thru the dance/yoga hall, and on the right is the view from the balcony when you walk through. San Jose at night is beautiful with twinkling lights, and the always cloud capped hills provide a different type of scenery every day. The cloud cover in Costa Rica is amazing. The weather there changes at the drop of a hat (rather like Ohio ;) One morning it was bright and sunny then as we practiced our dance the fog rolled in, at first so thick that we could no longer see San Jose, then it actually started drifting into the room with us. It was pretty surreal.

So heres my 'Livin ma vida yoga' shot ;) This is pre pedicure btw, my toes looked much nicer after Marcella got finished with them. It was very nice to do some free style flow yoga on this balcony on our off times.

One day was a free day for excursions to explore Costa Rica. I had thought I would want to do the zip line as I had always thought it would be cool to go thru the jungle on one. But after they explained the excursions to us it sounded like the zip line was more of a 'Weee---look at me!!' type thing and I wanted to see pretty plants and animals. So I opted to tour the Waterfall Gardens. I'm glad I did because this is where I got my favorite shot of the trip:

I loved these toucans, it was so funny watching them hop about. They gave us fruit to feed them and they'd tilt their heads this way and that before deciding to eat it. This guy here had finished his fruit and was trying to eat my braid, lol. They had us take off our earrings for that reason it seems.

I'm going to stop here for now and will continue on with more pictures on the next post. I'm still trying to work out whats easiest when it comes to blogging, adding pictures as I go, first, or last. I think I'll try adding pictures first next time, that way I can just type around them ;) Till next time!