Byron & Mary Beth Visit!

 I am just off another week being Costa Rica's coolest tour guide! Byron and Mary Beth came down to visit for a whole week and we had lots of fun! We spent a lot of time just bumming around the country. Unfortunately, most of you have heard about most of the places we visited on this tour. ( I said I was the coolest tour guide, not the most original.) Below are a few fun snapshots from the trip.

 First stop on the tour: the beach!!

 The key to a good Costa Rican lunch is a giant fruity beverage.

 Our first stop was a hotel right next to Manuel Antonio National Park - La Posada. We LOVED this place and did not want to leave. Byron especially enjoyed the hammock on the porch.

 On our first morning, scores of monkeys came to breakfast at the hotel with us. They were everywhere and super close. Mary Beth snapped this great picture of one of the monkeys with a baby on its back. So cute.

This is one of the raccoons from the park that has no problem reaching inside your backpack for a quick snack. It apparently also had no problem scratching itself right in front of us! I just love that he put his foot up in the air in order to reach maximum scratching capability.

On our second day, we went to La Selvita to do their zip lining tour. Here we are all harnessed up and ready to hurl ourselves off a platform into the jungle. 

Our guides at La Selvita were fantastic. One offered to carry my camera and take great pictures and video. Here is Kendall (the guide) zipping along one of the longest lines they had. Pretty, cool, right? Yeah, I did that. :)

 After we got back from the beach, we decided to head to the town of La Fortuna which is at the base of the Arenal Volcano. Unfortunately it was very rainy and cloudy, so we got no glimpses of the volcano. The rain did, however, make for perfect weather for the natural hot springs at the based of the volcano. We visited the Baldi Hot Springs and Resort and enjoyed dipping in their 20+ pools with temperatures ranging from 90 degrees to 150 (that one was impossibly hot by the way.) The springs felt great and are all heated naturally. They also had 3 big water slides that dumped you out into one of the pools. It was a lot of fun.

Overall we all had a really great week enjoying some of the best that Costa Rica has to offer! I only have a few more days and then I will be back in NC for 2 weeks - hooray! See you all very soon.

<3,
Amber