Kris rolls in the dough...
At our first hotel in Costa Rica we exchanged $100 for 55,000 colones. (The rate is $1 = 550 colones).
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Rachel rolled in the dough. It's the closest we'll probably ever come to being able to roll in 55,000 whatevers of anything.
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The next morning, before departing for northern Costa Rica via car, Rachel and I traveled to a random little restaurant and had our first cup of Costa Rican coffee.
And Kris got to bust out his first lick of Spanish with a non-English speaking native.
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This is where we breakfasted. We tried to make it a point to photograph every restaurant we ate at... by pointing at the sign and making a goofy face.
Rachel got to go first.
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After checking out our rental car, and purchasing extra insurance, a GPS and nearly every other thing they tried to tack on... we finally set off across the country to our first major destination -- Arenal.
The truck entered fifth gear at about 60 kph. Which it like 40mph here.
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Halfway through the cloud forests, we stopped at our first random place to pick up some local cheese called Palmito. It comes from either a cow or a goat and basically tastes like mozzarella -- only more prounounced.
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Bread, quinze and palmito -- it's like a Costa Rican PB&J
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Rachel insisted on taking photos of every waterfall along our journey. There's like a hundred more of these photos not in the highlight reel. Seriously.
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As the morning rains cleared up, the full beauty of the land hit us.
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Which is why we stopped to take a picture.
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Almost all the bridges in this country are one-lane. One direction has the right of way, the other has to wait.
This is, surprisingly, one of the more modern bridges.
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More than halfway to our destination, we stopped at a roadside bar for some plato tipico.
Kris was entranced by the TV...
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Which had bad salsa-electronica on it, with scantily dressed women dancing so poorly... they had cuts like every three seconds to cover up the fact that most of them didn't know the moves.
Good thing this isn't their audition tape for So You Think You Can Dance...
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The camera focused on Rachel. Kris tho... was checking out the locals. ;-)
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Our second restaurant (outside of the hotel)...
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Okay. Of all the restaurants to import into a foreign country are Burger King and Church's Chicken???
I'm sorry Costa Rica... truly I am.
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This is the view of the Arenal volcano from the balcony in our room at the Arenal Observatory Lodge.
Best room in the whole place. No joke.
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Rachel isn't smiling in this photo because she's still shook-up from the two mile rocky road we had to travel to get up to our resort.
(We have a video of it elsewhere... the locals call driving on it, "A Costa Rican massage.")
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After a short nap, we ventured out into the local forests next to the lodge. And were immediately hit by the humidity and the sheer size of the vegetation.
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Every tree in the forests here hosts at least three other plants using it to crawl toward the sun.
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Rachel discovers the Catarata waterfall.
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The Catarata waterfall.
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Elsewhere on the trail, we crossed the Danita hanging bridge. These were prevalent on the property we stayed on, criss-crossing the ravines lining the mountainsides.
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Apparently, Rachel didn't like me shaking the bridge with her on it.
Hey, who said it was me and not her?
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