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Costa Rica Adventure Part 1: Cloud Forest and Zip Line
Hola Everyone! We had a wonderful trip to Costa Rica from Feb 14 to Feb 21. That's one more day than we planned on thanks to TACA airline overbooking our flight home. Costa Rica is an incredible place, you should all take a trip there. Find a way, make it happen, it's worth it! Besides, you deserve a vacation. >

We started our trip with a hike in the Los Angeles cloud forest about an hour outside San Jose,the capital and only real city in Costa Rica.

I know, I know, I look like a total dork in this picture (what can I say, the camera dosen't lie) Behind me is the home of a huge colony of leaf cutter ants we saw them all over the place, they were facinating to watch.
As its name implies the cloud forest is almost allways covered in a cloudy mist. Because of all this moisture the trees are all dripping with moss, vines, ferns, and orchids.

The cloud forest was very cool. It had a kind of prehistoric Jurrasic Park feel to it. I was watching my back the whole time waiting for a velociraptor to attack. "clever girl"

This was a nice waterfall that was just off the road on our way to Arenal.

A view of the river downstream from the waterfall.

This bridge connected the 2 parts of our hotel the Arenal Observatory Lodge it was a great hotel very close to the volcano. Unfortunately the volcano was covered in clouds the whole time we were there so we never saw the eruptions, but we did hear them.

We started off day 2 with a hike to the lava fields on the base of the volcano. It was drizzling on us most of the way there.

You can kind of see the slope of the volano behind me. The eruptions were pretty loud there. We would hear a loud explosion like thunder followed by the sound of lava rocks tumbling down the mountain.
On the way back the rain stopped and the sun started to peek though.

We wanted to go on a zip line tour but they said we only qualified for the special ED rainforest tram.

The tram was very cool. It was totally silent so we could hear all the sounds of the jungle as we floated by right at the tree top level
At the top they have a great observation platform with beautiful views ofLake Arenal

We finally convinced the guides we could handle the zip lines so after some basic instructiions we were off. You can see someone on the line in the middle of this picture.

The zip lines were a ton of fun. The lines went from one ridge to another over a valley, so when we were in the middle of the line we were probablyy 300 feet from the forest floor.

You can see in this picture how the whole thing works. You sit in the harness which supports all your weight, you hold on to the pulley just to steady yorself. You actually feel very secure in it. Even Brooke wasn't scared once we got started.

The zip line tour was a blast! you get going pretty fast and the feeling of dangling out there with nothing underneath you is quite a rush.

After the morning hike and the zip line tour we needed to relax so we set off for the hot springs Part 2 :Hot Springs, Waterfalls, and Kayaks
Part 3: The Caribbean
Part 4:Jungle Hike
We hope you liked the pictures. You can Email me at lookmf@sbcglobal.net

We started our trip with a hike in the Los Angeles cloud forest about an hour outside San Jose,the capital and only real city in Costa Rica.	I know, I know, I look like a total dork in this picture (what can I say, the camera dosen't lie) Behind me is the home of a huge colony of leaf cutter ants we saw them all over the place, they were facinating to watch.	As its name implies the cloud forest is almost allways covered in a cloudy mist. Because of all this moisture the trees are all dripping with moss, vines, ferns, and orchids.
		The cloud forest was very cool. It had a kind of prehistoric Jurrasic Park feel to it. I was watching my back the whole time waiting for a velociraptor to attack. "clever girl"
This was a nice waterfall that was just off the road on our way to Arenal.	A view of the river downstream from the waterfall.	This bridge connected the 2 parts of our hotel the Arenal Observatory Lodge it was a great hotel very close to the volcano. Unfortunately the volcano was covered in clouds the whole time we were there so we never saw the eruptions, but we did hear them.
We started off day 2 with a hike to the lava fields on the base of the volcano. It was drizzling on us most of the way there.	You can kind of see the slope of the volano behind me. The eruptions were pretty loud there. We would hear a loud explosion like thunder followed by the sound of lava rocks tumbling down the mountain.	On the way back the rain stopped and the sun started to peek though.
We wanted to go on a zip line tour but they said we only qualified for the special ED rainforest tram.	The tram was very cool. It was totally silent so we could hear all the sounds of the jungle as we floated by right at the tree top level	At the top they have a great observation platform with beautiful views ofLake Arenal
		We finally convinced the guides we could handle the zip lines so after some basic instructiions we were off. You can see someone on the line in the middle of this picture.
The zip lines were a ton of fun. The lines went from one ridge to another over a valley, so when we were in the middle of the line we were probablyy 300 feet from the forest floor.	You can see in this picture how the whole thing works. You sit in the harness which supports all your weight, you hold on to the pulley just to steady yorself. You actually feel very secure in it. Even Brooke wasn't scared once we got started.
The zip line tour was a blast! you get going pretty fast and the feeling of dangling out there with nothing underneath you is quite a rush.