Bathing Optional

Costa Rica: June -July 2006

Continents

Continents

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Flying into San Salvador
Flying into San Salvador
Flying into San Salvador
Costa Rican Flag waving by the government buildings in San Jose
Historic homes in San Jose
Bush supporters can be found everywhere!
Church tower and monolithic concrete building, San Jose
Some old colonial type buildings still stand in downtown San Jose.
Some government building.
Another government building.
Liked this one.
City church, San Isidro.
Typical street, San Isidro.
Shopping for fruit.
The Golden Arches, very popular in Costa Rica. Did the Arches come first or the American tourist?
Waiting for the cattle to clear the road.
Typical valley home.
Valley home -- wood and tin.
Out in the countryside it seems that everyone has two modes of transportation: a horse and a motorcycle.
Ashe crossing the swinging bridge over to the Finca 3 Semillas farm.
Ashe crossing the bridge.
View across the bridge.
Enjoying the cool waters of the Rio Division.
Ashe in the river.
Ashe in the river.
Walking up to the Finca 3 Semillas home.
Beautiful flower garden in front of the home.
Flower.
Not sure.
Fruits by the kitchen window.
Another unique flower.
Lots of fruit trees fill the yard around the home.
View out the kitchen window.
View out another kitchen window.
Beyond the flowers and fruit trees, a huge organic garden. Here, the corn fields.
Each evening at the farm, the clouds and mist would roll in just a bit (it is rainy season, after all).
Geraldo, TamaraÂ´s husband, has been working these lands for more than 30 years.
Day 2 at the farm and we got down to work too. Here, Maciej is doing what he does best -- painting the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Ashe gets into the gardening with Tamara and Geraldo.
Maciej, still painting.
Walking along the river towards the swinging bridge.
More Costa Rican flora.
On the road to the nearest town (of 40 families only!), El Brujo, (a 1 hour walk from the farm) we came across some hard working ants.
Ants.
As Tamara says: Everything is large size in Costa Rica.
The sprawling city of El Brujo. Every town, no matter how small, it seems, has a soccer field at its center. Maybe thatÂ´s why Costa Rica made the World Cup.
The 10 student school attended by TamaraÂ´s son Judah. He walks 1 hour each way to get to school daily.
Roadside scenery -- lots of green and lots of variety!
Mist.
Cows along the road.
The almost dry waterfall behind the farm.
Ashe at the waterfall.
Path through fruit trees back to the farm from the waterfall.
More green-ness.
Palm.
Sunset skies over the farm.
One of the kids, Salvador, with AsheÂ´s sunglasses.
Maciej with Maryalba and Salvador. Fantastic kids!
Maryalba pestering Maciej as she did for almost the entire 2 days!
Maciej with Maryalba in the hammock.
Us with the Maryalba, Joshua, and Judah.
Us with all our hosts -- Geraldo (holding Salvador), Tamara, Kimberly and Maryalba below.
Setting out for our 2-day jungle trek. Ashe crossing a small stream along the Rio Division.
Early on during the trek, the path looked great (then things got hilly and muddy!)
Along the way, we had lots of streams in which to escape the intense humid heat. Here, Maciej is almost carried away by the current.
Ashe taking a dip in the waters.
River scenery along the hike.
On the trail.
Beautiful!
More scenery from the trail.
The first village we came across -- only 3 homes in sight!
Ashe working hard to get to the top of the mountain we had to traverse in order go from the Rio Division to the Rio Savegre Valley on our way to the coast.
The rains came fast and hard and before we knew it our trail was all mud. Maciej decided go barefoot.
Rain mist.
The path down the mountain.
Our campsite in the jungle -- some kind of abandoned shelter just outside the ghost town of San Cristobal.
Next day. Pigs right on the road. Good thing we got our Hep B shots.
At the town of Silencio we met up with these two young soccer stars.
This nice man fed us and gave us water following our day of fasting out in the jungle. Thanks!
Our only parrot sighting in Costa Rica.
Blurry but somehow interesting.
On the road connecting Silencio and the coast.
Great butterfly!
We got dropped off by our underaged driving friends at this in-the-middle of nowhere Â´sodaÂ´ (canteen).
Ashe taking a break as we waited for our bus to Quepos.
Lots of options at this canteen.
Children on the bus.
Coastal village with soccer field as main square.
Sunset in Quepos.
On the bumpy road down into the Rio Division valley.
Roadside scenery.
Hill homes.
Misty mountains.
Green everywhere!
Doing laundry on the road. After washing our sfuff in the bathroom sink of our hotel room, Maciej made his own clothes dryer.
Ashe relaxing on the 2nd floor patio at our hotel (Hotel RamuÂ´s) in Quepos.
Ashe looking out onto the street in Quepos from our hotel balcony.
One of the beaches at Manuel Antonio National Park, perhaps Costa RicaÂ´s most visited Park.
Ashe on the beach at Manuel Antonio.
Beach scene, Manuel Antonio.
Sleeping off last nightÂ´s party.
Great coastal scenery at Manuel Antonio.
More beach scenery at Manuel Antonio.
Our first iguana sighting!
Another iguana (Manuel Antonio is great for animals!)
Iguana.
Raccoon. Different than the North American version, though -- this one has a long, long tail and eats beach crabs (I guess ours would too if they were available).
Ashe hugging a local mangrove-ish tree.
Beach.
These crabs were everywhere (except where the aforementioned raccoons lurked).
Monkey sighting!
Can you guess what this monkey is doing?
Believe it or not, thatÂ´s our best monkey picture. Our camera is not so great...
Another monkey.
Another iguana.
Our favorite beach at Manuel Antonio.
Another look at our favorite playa.
Beach.
Nice scenery!
Ashe on our favorite beach in Manuel Antonio.
Another iguana -- theyÂ´re great!
Last iguana picture!
Ashe on the rocks.
Maciej in the water.
Ashe on the beach.
Us on the beach.
Sloth in the tree doing what it does best: nothing.
Flowers and coast.
Flower.
Coastal scene, Manuel Antonio.
Another look at the coast.
Ashe sporting a huge leaf!!
Our table condiments for lunch.
Back street in the non-touristy side of Quepos.
Quepos home.
In the local part of Quepos we came across a bunch of school kids doing some kind of drum performance recital. They were good!
Some proud moms watching their kids play the drums.
The drummers.
A night club we didnÂ´t go to.
Flowers.
Fruit market!
Ashe at our roadside food stop
On our way up to La Fortuna and Volcan Arenal, a pit stop in the town of San Carlos and a girl in the next bus.
Same girl, closer up.
Our scooter for the day in La Fortuna.
Maciej on the scooter.
Ashe with her Harley-Davidson scooter helmet.
La Fortuna River Falls, our first stop on our scooter tour.
A closer look at the Falls.
At the bottom of the Falls following a long, steep staircase.
Us at the bottom of the Falls.
Maciej checking out the Falls.
Ashe in the pool by the base of the Falls.
Ashe making her way up out of the waterfall valley.
Our half-view of the Arenal Volcano.
Cruising on the scooter.
Maciej loving the thermal waters!
Ashe is loving the hot waters too!
Tree by the thermal creek.
Arenal Volcano over Lake Arenal.
Muddy waters.
Cruising on the scooter, part 2.
Back in San Jose. Typical residential street.
Large church in the Bario Mexico.
San Jose is truly a mix of old, decrepid and new, shiny.
One of the nicer churches we came across in the capital.
ItÂ´s tough to come by but there is some nice colonial architecture in San Jose.
Streets of San Jose.
Fruit vendor.
Squirt ad and taxis.
Reading the morning paper.
The very welcoming entrance to the hostel we spent our last two evenings in Costa Rica in. Most buildings and homes in San Jose are surrounded by bars and barbed wire.

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