horsey horsey on your way

Last weekend we went with some people that Curtis works with from the Embassy to Horseback ride to a waterfall! I was at first hesitant to go because we didn't know the people, but of course, I love horses so we went. I am glad we did. We had a blast and it was fun meeting people from all different sorts of places. After  being with them we found out that our group consisted of people from: USA (Hawaii, New York, DC, etc.), Costa Rica, Canada, India, Nicaragua, Columbia and Mexico. It was so neat and we only had like 15 people with us! That has been so great about being here so far, is that we have met all sorts of people.
So we drove for about 1 1/2 hours to this place, rode the horses up a mountain, then dropped them off for a little to hike to the waterfall then went back the same way!
Here are pictures to prove it:

A freaky Snake!! 

                                          We were literally hiking in the Jungle! It was beautiful.

The waterfall

Curtis and one of the other guys decided to be crazy and jump into the waterfall pool! We all planned on going in before hand but it was so cold by the waterfall that we all were too chicken to get it. 

 The people that led us on the trail made us all little lunches. They were homemade tortilla like bread with beans on one and a potatoe mixture in the other. They were really good! Or it could be because we were SO hungry!

They wrap their food in Banana Leaves. They are very thick and durable.

A miniature orange Tang drink! 

More of the waterfall..

During the hike you literally had to climb under and over trees that had fallen or trees in the way. It was hard core.

We are so attractive

We then found a Jungle Vine that the guys just had to swing on, of course!

They swung out over a ledge.. we were all just hoping it didn't break over the ledge as someone was on it! 

Curtis over the edge, it doesn't look like it, but it was a big drop down that he was over. 

Our horses waiting for us! 

So after the hike back , we decided to go to a little outside restaurant. It was a place were you catch your own fish and they will cook it for you. It was fun watching the others catch their dinners! Curtis and I drank our Coca Cola's while everyone else got drunk and ate their fish. haha We still had a good time! We all danced to our hearts content and some even taught me some latin dance moves.

Watching them catch their fish

The guys

Us girls dancing

This guy was from Nicaragua and didn't speak any English but was teaching me some dance moves

This is a video of me trying to dance .. haha

I don't know what was happening but I guess it was funny

Curtis and I danced a little too! I wish they filmed it but we only got two pictures and this was one right after we stopped dancing. haha

It luckily never rained on us

The dancing crew. I'm pretty sure the workers loved us. They blasted the music so we could enjoy dancing even more. 

The vast array of alcohol that they were all drinking. Don't worry, we stuck to Coke! 

We had a blast and everyone was so nice! The people were fun and it made for a good little day trip. 

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GOAL!!!!!!

About two weekends ago, we were able to go to a Costa Rican Futball (soccer) game. It was intense! I mean, the crowds go CRAZY here for soccer. I was pretty nervous to go because I have heard stories about soccer games outside of the US. It wasn't as bad as I had thought though, which was a good thing. The game was against El Savador and the end result was a tie. It was a bummer. We watched a fight almost break out, (it may have started but I missed it at the first) but a bunch of the Policia stepped in and made the people seperate. It was so much fun cheering and getting into the game (even though I couldn't understand what was happening... my Spanish is not quite up to par yet.. lol)

The view from outside of the stadium. It was neat looking. I wish I got a better picture of it.

The Game!

 So almost half way through the game, all of the lights went out (except for a couple random lights..). They had to stop the game for about 30 minutes. It was pretty funny. Apparently the stadium was built by the Chinese so people weren't very happy that this happened.

A video that we took while we were bored waiting for the power to come back on.. 

The blackout stadium

Curtis got me a Costa Rica Soccer shirt so I could fit in. I love it! 

The Beach Adventure

I am a little behind, but I am going to post about the 2nd weekend in Costa Rica. We decided to go to the beach for the weekend and enjoy the beautiful scenery.
The beach that we went to was about 1 1/2 -2 hr drive and it was beautiful.
While we were driving to our hotel, Curtis pulled over to this little store on the side of the road and I was so confused why. He told me to follow him onto this bridge with a river running under it. Cars were driving by and barely had a sidewalk for people.

This is the river...

 As soon as we were in the middle of the bridge he told me to look down... 

This is what we saw...

CROCODILES!!!

I was in aw that there were like 15 or so crocodiles just on the side of the road. It was insane! They were big too!

This was a little shop on the side of the road that had a fake alligator outside of it. 

So after we saw all of those things, we headed to our hotel. It was literally right on the beach! It was so nice. We just walked around that night and watched the surfers and explored.

The beaches were gorgeous!! 

The surfers

Curtis and I almost took lessons to surf because it looks like so much fun. But we saw they had horseback riding on the beach so we did that instead :) (I have pictures of that too, later :))

Got to love the Coca Cola!! haha

We decided to play tic-tac-toe on the beach :)

If you can't tell, Curtis was the 'O' and this was him trying to make one out of his body. lol

 A cute little swing

A mermaid that is out on a little strip of land in the water. When the tide is low you can walk out there. So of course we did. 

She was a little scandalous 

The beautiful colors of the sunset

Me being a frog I guess. lol

The next morning we woke up early and were able to go on a horse back ride on the beach! It was something I have ALWAYS wanted to do (especially because horses are my absolute favorite). 

It was quite the experience. 

We were the only two that were on the tour (with our tour guide of course) and it was amazing. We were able to trot with our horses along the beach and also Contour. (Which we learned is a different rythm of horses running which is quicker than the trot, and a little scary at first, but feels awesome)

Curtis and his cute helmet :) 

My horse was very stubborn! haha The second half he was alot better with me. 

Curtis was a pro! I need a little practice riding horses. lol

The tour guides puppies followed us and had a blast! You can tell they just love life! They were also chasing all the little crabs. It was hilarious seeing the crabs run for their lives. 

Then the ride was over. I didn't realize how allergic I am to horses though. The rest of the day I had the worst allergies! But it was so worth it. 

After the horse back riding, we went to our next stop which was Manuel Antonio beach. It is a national park there and was so amazing. You walk on this trail a little ways in the jungle to get to the beach and you see so many forms of wildlife. We saw sloths, monkeys (they were adorable!), iguanas, and a few other creatures I don't know what they were. But here are pictures 

This picture is kind of hard to see, but its a sloth and it had a baby wrapped around it. So sweet 

The monkeys were everywhere! 

It was hilarious, this monkey was just chillin on the wires. Then it started walking across them, just like that. It was so funny. 

Cutie monkey. I told Curtis I want one of these one day. haha

A deer on the trail. 

The beautiful beach

Well that about concludes our beach trip. Good job if you got through the whole thing. I didn't realize how many pictures I had of that weekend! I hope you enjoyed them!
We had such a great time. It was a little overwhelming to me doing and seeing so much in one weekend. It was crazy, but so great. Its also nice because since Curtis has been here a few times before, he knows things that other people wouldn't, like the crocodiles and everything. It is fun having him as my tour guide.. and he is cute.. so I can't complain. :)