Inspired

"People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it..."

Oh Elizabeth Gilbert, how I have fallen in love with your writing.

Quotes

Here are a few quotes about traveling that I enjoyed reading, maybe you will too.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." - Mark Twain



"To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” - Bill Bryson



“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” - Pat Conroy



and this one is perhaps my favorite.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” - Mark Jenkins

Tortuguero and Monteverde

Day 3, Tortuguero

We started the day early - a boat tour at 6 AM with Daryl Loth through Tortuguero National Park. (If you go to Tortuguero, definitely take a tour with him, so worth $20!!) Within a short period of 2 or so hours, we saw so many critters, but the highlight without a doubt was seeing a HARPY EAGLE. Many of the bird enthusiasts out there would know just how much of a treat it was to see this raptor. I couldn't even believe it.



Aside from that, we saw many other animals including Capuchin Monkeys, Spider Monkeys, a River Otter, baby Spectacled Caiman, Morpho Butterfly, Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Amazon Kingfisher, Parrots, a few other herons, a bunch of birds that I don't remember, and more.



Green Iguana, catching some rays high in the trees



Afterwards, we hung out around town and talked with Daryl about the Harpy Eagle. We ate dinner at the Buddha Cafe, with a beautiful view of the canals.

Our delicious pizzas at the Buddha Cafe in Tortuguero, accompanied by Sangria and Corona. Yumm!



We spent our evening going on a turtle tour, where we watched a Green Turtle dig a hole, lay her eggs, cover them up, and then return back to the ocean. We were not allowed to take photos because it would disturb the turtles. The turtles were SO much larger than I was expecting, and they weren't even the largest out there. It was an incredible experience watching one lay eggs. (About 100 eggs!!) The whole process took about an hour or so. We also got to see the most amazing view of the night sky while we were waiting for the turtles. It was so surreal.

Day 4: Headed to Monteverde

We took an early morning flight back to San Jose, and then jumped on the shuttle for a 4 hour adventure to Monteverde. The roads were horrid, probably the worst in the country. I guess it is better this way, to keep more people away :) On our way, we saw an IGUANA on the freeway!! (or whatever they call the main roads there) We pulled over and tried to steer it away from the road, but it panicked and ran, so we couldn't catch up to it. When we finally arrived at our hotel, Pension Monteverde Inn, we decided to stay in since it was POURING. After a few rounds of 13 and a long nap, we were starving, and it was still pouring, so, we headed out with our raincoats. This was an experience...we had to search for the Mercado..and this was not easy because everyone we asked gave us directions en espanol.



Enjoying our peanut butter sandwiches after a long walk in the pouring rain.


Day 5: Hanging Bridges

We had a full day to spend adventuring, and it was raining, again. We decided to tough it out and go on a tour in the Santa Elena Reserve. We walked across 8 hanging bridges in the forest, and saw a lot of strange bugs and a few birds. Overall, it was quite touristy, but we made the best of it and had a good time.






After our walk in the forest, we returned to our hotel and went on another hike, a trail that was right on the hotel premises, called the Hidden Valley Trail.

A Strangler Fig Tree, one of my favorite things in Costa Rica. So cool.



Later the same evening, we went on a third hike, but this time, with a guide. This was definitely one of the funnest hikes of the trip, our guide was very knowledgeable and we learned a lot of random fun facts. We saw the biggest ant hill (that I have ever seen, anyway) that was 10 YEARS OLD!!! It was SO big, it was hard to fathom the concept of it being made by ANTS. (Seriously, it was easily the size of a small bedroom.) Specifically, it was made and run by Leaf Cutter Ants. The workers live only for a short few weeks, while the queen can live up to 20 years or so. Crazy. Besides that, we saw a Porcupine!! It was sleeping in the Strangler Fig tree that I have pictured above, but we saw it later on at night. We saw some Wolf Spiders, Banana Plants, tons of moths, sleeping butterflies, stick bugs, grasshoppers, and so much more. To top it off, on the way back, we spotted a beautiful Blue-crowned Mot Mot, sleeping soundly, undisturbed by the many photos I took of it. Spectacular. Very high on my list of things to see in Costa Rica :)



Day 6: Zip Lining and an attempted Bird Tour

We headed out with the Original Canopy Tour for a morning of zip lining. We started our tour off with the Tarzan Swing, which is exactly what it sounds like. You climb to the top of a platform, hook your harness up to a rope, and step off! I was the first one to go, of course. (why am I always the guinea pig??!!) Needless to say, it took our fear of zip lining away! It was SO fun. Next, we began the zip lining. We were with another couple from the States, and we had two guides, one holding our cameras. He was the 'paparazzi'. I actually did not get any pictures because my camera was too big to bring, but Scott has some awesome pictures and a video of one of the zip lines. The highlight of this tour, for me, was definitely when we rappelled from a platform to the ground (from the forest canopy) and then climbed inside of a Strangler Fig tree (they are hollow inside). We climbed half way to the top inside the tree and then the rest of the way on a little wooden/rope ladder. (I was a little nervous!!!!) When we finally reached the top of the tree, we looked over and saw the elusive Resplendent Quetzal, just hanging out in the canopy. It was a female, and although the male was higher on my list of things to see, I was THRILLED to see one at all! Our luck was incredible, and seemed to just get better as the trip went on!

When we returned to our hotel, we booked a bird tour at the Monteverde Biological Cloud Forest Reserve, in hopes of seeing the male Quetzal. It ended up POURING, again, but we had a lot of fun anyway, and made friends with our awesome guide, Esteban. We did not see many birds at all due to the heavy rain, but we did see a Viper!! It was a really fun tour even though it was raining so hard. (We were used to it at that point haha)

Our stay at the Monteverde Inn was great. The receptionist, Anthony, was VERY helpful, and we were so grateful. We would definitely stay there again.

Happiness and Suffering

"In our real lives, we are constantly hopping around to adjust ourselves around discomfort - physical, emotional, and psychological - in order to evade the reality of grief and nuisance...grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life, but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass" - Elizabeth Gilbert


Nothing is permanent.

The Experience of a Lifetime

I pretty much spent the majority of my down time this summer planning for the trip that I had anticipated for so long. I wanted everything to be perfect (no surprise if you know me well) and I wanted to get the most out of my time in Costa Rica. So I looked at all of my options, and decided to plan everything independently. It worked out better than I expected. Actually, it was just about flawless :)

Day 1: We arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica at around 1PM. Customs and Immigration were a breeze, and getting to our hotel was even easier. We spent pretty much the rest of the day recovering from the exhausting two red-eye flights.
Day 2: Early morning flight out of Pavas to Tortuguero via Nature Air. These little planes are so much fun!



What an amazing view of an active volcano!



When we arrived in Tortuguero after a 25 minute plane ride, we were greeted by our water taxi driver. Water taxis are the main source of transportation there besides foot :)



Once we arrived in town, we got a delicious breakfast at the Casa Marbella, where we would be staying the following night. We straightened out our tours for the next day, got to hang out with an awesome cat, and walked around for a while until our room at the Rana Roja was ready. We were delighted when we reached the hotel grounds, a very good choice :) We also got to kayak (for free!) in the canals.



Within a few short hours, we spotted some fancy critters such as the Chestnut Mandibled Toucan, Spectacled Caiman, and Collared Aracari just to name a few.

I even got to touch this cutie when it flew into the restaurant because of a bad eye.



All in all our first actual day in Costa Rica went wonderfully smooth. We had no problems and I would definitely go back to the Rana Roja.

Pura Vida

My Dream

Pura Vida is the saying all throughout Costa Rica, and it is no mystery why. It is a country of Pure Life.

I had dreams to go to Costa Rica for about 5 years. I don't know why, but my heart told me to go. So after some intense planning and convincing, Scott decided to come with me. It turned out to blow my expectations away.

Upon returning, I have done so much contemplating. Am I really living pure life? Do I do the things I want to do, or the things others expect me to do? Lately, I've been feeling the latter. Society (in the US at least) puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on people to go to school and graduate with at least a Bachelor's degree and then spend the remainder of their lives making money. Well, I am on my way to my Bachelor's degree and I have a full time job, but I don't feel like it's pure life. I feel like it's pressured life! I have too many interests to figure out one thing to do. I love what I am studying, but I always get side tracked and want to study other things at the same time. Recently, I have become fascinated with photography and languages. So, I will propose a goal -
I will push my self to become fluent in another language. FLUENT. I want to be able to have a conversation and express all of my thoughts in another language without having to use a translator or dictionary. This language will be Spanish, because I already took one college class, and I have a large interest in Spanish-speaking countries. Why not?

On to the next thing: Back up plan.

I will be applying to San Jose State University this fall, attempting to get in for Fall 2011. If I do get in, I will buckle down and put my studies first. If I don't get in, I will travel. I will make plans to get out of the country for at least 1 year. Why the hell not? What should be stopping me from living pure life? I will make plans to quit my job and try to work in another country (ies?).

Yeah, this sounds pretty good to me.