Latin America

Pura Vida means directly translated “Pure Life”. It is a saying here in Costa Rica that you will hear ALL the time. People use it as a Hello, a Goodbye, and simply as an everyday expression. It puts a smile on someone’s face when you hear or say “Pura Vida”. Can you all practice sayingt [...]

We did not want to leave Costa Rica without sharing a picture of the typical Costa Rican dish. It is called a “Casado”, which means “married”. Why do you think it is called that way? As you can see in the picture, the casado always has rice, black beans, some kind of meat (chicken above) [...]

I am sitting on the beach of the Pacific Ocean at Manuel Antonio National Park near Quepos.  For those of you tracking my location, the coordinates are 9.5N, 84.2W.   This one of most beautiful beaches I have seen.  The jungle seems to come right next to the ocean.  It so peaceful listening to the sounds [...]

Walking with a nature guide through the park A white tailed deer is the national mammal of Costa Rica. This one was a mommy of two twin fawns. We saw many two and three toed sloths. Did you know that they only have to come down the tree once every 7 days in order to [...]

They say that they are more monkeys than humans in Manuel Antonio. We were fortunate to spot various little monkeys playing while on our tour through the National Park.

As we have mentioned before, the camouflage ability of some animals are incredible. If it were not for the trained eye of our guides, we would have missed some of these animals completely. Can you spot them?

We continued our journey to Manuel Antonio National Park. At around lunch time we took a break and were taken on a Crocodile Safari. We took off on a boat with Hansel, a guide, and Santiago the boat driver. Hansel was very knowledgeable and pointed out soooo many different animals to us along the way. [...]

While Jose was waiting for his coconut to be cut, a cute little parakeet flew on his head. He introduced himself as “Paco”. Since he was such a friendly little fellow, Jose thought he may be able to help us in our search of the crystal skull. He asked Paco, if he had ever heard [...]

It was time for a snack. We saw a roadside stand filled with fresh coconuts. Did you know what a coconut looks like when it comes off the palm tree? It is different than what you see in the grocery store. The owner of the stand brought out a cold coconut for all four us [...]

Jose got so wet from his adventure on the hanging bridges, that he needed to rest and dry off at the hotel. Mrs.P. and Mrs. T. dried off a lot easier than the fur of the bear and headed out one more time into the rain to join a guided night hike at the  Valle [...]