Backpacking trip

Crossing the bridge into Panama. According to the locals this can be a dangerous bridge. There were guards on both sides with machine guns and it had rotten boards laid across with huge gaps in between. I had to pay close attention and keep my eyes down to make sure I didn't fall through. Yet, the small Panamanian boys could have crossed with their eyes closed.

The Monte Verde cloud forest. It's purrdy.

Bet you have never seen an animal like this. Ryan only knows the name of the animal in spanish so I just remember it as the rodent monkey. After our hike we missed the bus so ryan and I had a two hour hike down the mountain into the town of Monte Verde.
At first I was bummed we missed the bus and I grew bitter with each rich gringo that passed us in their luxury rentals without offering a ride. However, I ended up being so grateful we walked when we got to this point. Beautiful. We surely would have missed this on the bus. We also ran into some adventures when Ryan teased a rodent monkey and it ended up chasing him.

Ry in the cloud forest

The vacant beaches of Puerto Viejo

Ryan and I rented cruiser bikes for the rate of two dollars a day.We rode them up the coast. On our ride I was able to see some howler monkeys (called that for good reason, they make the most horrendous noise). It was the perfect little bike ride up the coast until we got stuck in a down pour.

On the jeep ride up in the mountains to Eddie and Mariany's house they pulled over and took this picture of us.
Sunset, green rolling hills, flirting with Ryan....

These are our friends Eddie and Mariany. Ryan and I met Mariany on a bus ride. Mariany and Ryan chatted up a storm in espanol... I smiled, nodded my head and smiled some more. When we got off the bus in some obscure town, Mariany offered us a ride to our destination and to sleep at their house for the night. We took up that offer and ended up spending the day with her, her husband Eddie and their two beautiful kids. They were so kind to us! Sweet Mariany even woke up with us at 5am to feed us breakfast before we caught the bus. Eddie was a elementary school teacher who taught up in the mountains close to Monte Verde in a very small town where the children of coffee bean workers lived.

Tamarindo

Here we are with a family I had heard all about before I even met them! These are the Lezamas. They are an amazing family that Ryan Baptized on his mission.They consider Ryan to be part of the family. Their reaction of seeing each other after 18 months was priceless. This was our first day in CR so I was still shy about trying out my Spanish and my translator (Ryan) went out to play soccer with the Lazama and neighbor boys. I was inside with the rest of them and needless to say it was a painful conversation that probably made zero sense but as soon as Ryan was back I was able to get to know the family a little bit better. They insisted we stay the night even though they only had one small room with bunk beds for the kids. A few of them stayed the night on the back porch to make room for Ryan and I.
This picture wraps up a huge part of our trip, public transit. We did it Tico style by taking the bus all over the country of Costa Rica. Some of the bus rides took up to seven hours but it was all apart of the Costa Rica experience.