I’m Home! I got home around 2PM and just got unpacked and all my email done. I had a great time and I’m glad to be home! Here’s my posts from the past few days. I had NO internet access at all! thesse were typed on my cell phone then transferred to my computer, then pasted here.

23Feb06 6:25PM
Today was OI Girls Birthday. We went to the hotel where her father is the manager and had breakfast and looked around a bit. We went out to lunch with some of her friends. then we went to a big shopping mall in San Jose and looked for jeans for her (but didn’t find any) I got a new bag for my laptop and some pants.
Now its dark and we just got home.
Tomorrow we are going to the rainforest and day after that to a beach even more remote the the one we were at a few days ago.
I am tired right now.
I’m looking forward to the beach.

24Feb06 4:34 PM

today was a kind of lazy day. The OI Girl slept late and I read. We went out and got pizza for lunch. then we went to this huge Agricultural market. We just now got back. Tomorrow we get up super early and vamos a la playa.

26 Feb 2006 7:04 am

Yesterday we got up at 4:30 AM and came to the northwest coast ofCosta Rica. we are at the IO Girls aunts property. It is a nice 2 bedroom place on a huge cliff and a 40 minute walk to the beach. My GPS shows us at 894 feet above sea level. the living area is outside and the master bathroom is designed with no roof! It is super-nice. the only electricity is from a generator. the stars were fantastic last night.
Yesterday I met Chang Diaz, a Costa Rican astronaut who works for NASA amd has been in space several times.
Here I saw my first scorpion and there was a poisonous snake found by one of the girls in a closet. this is called “dry forest” and it is very desertlike, lots of cactus and bees and eagles and wildlife. This morning, there are millions of small yelllow wasps that apparently, dont sting.
Today is my Moms Birthday and I plan on callng today. I expect max roaming charges as we are far from civilization with only a weak phone signal.
tomorrow morning we leave and go diving.

26Feb 06 4:29PM
We just got back from the beach and town. the beach was very nice and it was almost exactly a mile long. We saw whales out in the ocean from where we were on the beach. (We also saw them yesterday from the clifftop.) We went to town to get ice and coffee. Apparently last night there was a small confict between the OI Girls parents and her aunt so her parents left first thing in the morning, inadvertently taking all the coffee with them. So this morning we had some old thermos coffee and that was it.
The longer you drive here the better the roads seem. Im 4 wheel driving pretty good now, beating our poor rental car to death!

28Feb06 6AM
right now we are in Playa Del Cocos. Yesterday we went diving at Catalinas Islands. It was pretty good. The viz wasnt great but we saw mantas and sharks. There was a nudibranch that stuck itself to my head and everybody was taking pictures.

29 Feb 06 504PM
Aranol volcano
Wwe left Playa Del Coco this morning and came to the Aranol Volcano. i got a ticket on the way. We are at a fancy hotel called Tabacon. Our room has a view of the volcano. Soometimes you can see smoke rolling down the side and hopefully when it gets dark we’ll see some lava. This afternoon we went to these hot springs. It was like being inside a terrerium. The water is very hot from the volcano. Tomorrow it’s back to Alajuela. we left some of our dive gear at the dive shop and have to get it from San Jose. One of the divemasters is coming to San Jose and will bring it. Lucky.

2Mar06 504AM
came back from Aranol yesterday, it was a great drive’ through the rainforest then through a cloudforest. (rain then fog). There was very low visibility through the cloudforest. Then we stopped and got souvieneers and picked up our dive gear from the bus stop. we got to OI Girls parents house about 4 PM. I stared packing because I’m leaving tomorrow. Then we went out to a nice dinner with OI girls parents and brother and sister in law.
We were very tired when we got home, both from Aranol and from dinner.

3Mar06 0517AM
I am now at the San Jose airport and not too happy about it. I am sad to be leaving.
Yesterday, OI Girl, her brother and sister-in-law and I went to La Paz waterfalls park. It is a super nice park on the way to the Poas Volcano. we saw a lot of hummingbirds, frogs, snakes and of course, waterfalls.
Last night we had dinner and after dark the dogs started barking. 0I Girls father went out, came back, got a gun and went out and fired a few shots into the air. The neighbor fired a few shots in the air too. Apparently, there was someone down in the woods and they needed to be scared off.
Then we went to bed and woke up at 3:45 to take me to the airport. Right now OI Girl is having breakfast with her father and returning our rental car. In one week she’ll be returning to Cayman. My baggage was 11 pounds overweight and it costed me 25 US dollars. Bastards!
I’ll be home in time for lunch.