Saying our goodbyes...

We were able to get a late check out at Hotel Tramonto in Playa Hermosa, so we got to spend one more day at the beach. It was a hot, gorgeous sunny day and we soaked up as much sun as we could! The waves that day were out of control and I had a moment of panic as Andy went swimming and seemed to instantly be getting sucked out to sea with the tide! Of course he was fine, and assured me as usual that I was over-reacting...but I'm pretty sure I saw some panic below the surface in him as well (although he would never admit that). Just a reminder to us how incredibly powerful the ocean is and to always respect it. Playa Hermosa is beautiful, but not much of a swimming beach, unless you don't plan on coming back from your swim! Once again reinforcing our love affair with Samara. Being able to spend hours each day swimming & floating in the ocean, we realized, is extremely important to us and our happiness on this grand life adventure.

Just as we were leaving we saw 6 more scarlet macaws flying over us, giving us a final send off. This area is worth visiting just for the scarlet macaws alone, I will never cease to be amazed by these magnificent creatures flying above us. They will make a birdwatcher out of anyone. Apparently they mate for life, which is why you almost always see them flying in pairs. Once I saw one flying solo, making me wonder if he is too young to have found love yet? Did he lose his mate? Or does he just have commitment issues? I guess these are the things you start to think about when you no longer have a full-time job to distract you from life's simple pleasures.

We stopped again at the Tarcoles river to snap some more crocodile pictures. There are signs everywhere saying not to feed the crocodiles, but a bunch of selfish idiot Americans were throwing food and rocks at them. No wonder people dislike Americans...

It turned out to be a very foggy evening, we couldn't see 2 feet in front of us. After driving most of the day, we finally made it back to the treehouse in Escazu. Only to realize the gate is locked, we don't have Leroy's phone # saved, and he is very hard of hearing and didn't hear the buzzer at the gate, or our yells and whistles. Julia to the rescue once again! We called her and she called Leroy for us so he would open the gate. Julia is our Costa Rica whisperer and we can never repay her for all her kindness. Friends for life!

The next day we woke up to a delicious treehouse breakfast prepared by Carla. Then we head over to Julia's new apartment to check it out, very nice! She has a big storage closet that she is letting us keep some stuff in, so we don't have to take it home with us only to pack it up again. We head out for coffee and to meet her Spanish teacher Imelda for a quick trial Spanish lesson to see if we like her teaching style. Which we do! She has connections in Samara and offers to come for a month to give us lessons, assuring us that in one month she will have us speaking Spanish!

Next we head over to a bar we've been to before, and enjoyed the segua red ale, very similar in taste to Mirror Pond. Andy orders the liter of beer, for himself, and all the servers are applauding him and laughing. And again when he orders a 2nd! Apparently they are not used to beer-drinking Americans. So we tried to put on a good show for them!

We wanted to do a brewery tour of the craft brewery that makes the delicious segua ale, but they were closed for construction, so we plan to do this another time. Instead we stop to buy some food and head back to Julia's for homemade dinner of rosemary chicken and wild rice salad, very delicious. Then her and her friend Jessica take us to a really cool bar in downtown San Jose. It is in a huge, old house and they have tons of delicious craft beers on tap. Andy was impressed by the detailed list of all the hops on the wall, including Cascade and Willamette hops. It seemed just like a Portland hipster bar, so again we feel at home (well, minus the hipster part). We meet some cool, new friends and then head out to our first San Jose dance club. We were probably the only people over the age of 18 there, and the only Americans, so we felt a little out of place. But we did meet some more cool new friends, once again the people are so nice here. One guy we met kept saying how happy it makes him that we love his country so much.

It was a pretty late night so we slept in this morning and took it easy today. We fly out at 1am and get to Cabo at 10:30am Sunday. We'll be arriving on no sleep, but I'm sure that won't slow us down! Viva la Mexico!