Tamarindo

So this past weekend we went to Tamarindo....basically a small tourist beach town. We left the school at about 1:30 for our 6 hour drive. Tamarindo is on the west coast of Costa Rica so we were going to be going through some interesting terrain. One of the ISA women was handing out Dramamine to everyone at the beginning of the trip so I knew it was going to be a little rough. I took one to help with the motion sickness but then I decided to take another one to completely knock me out. The seat I had chosen was directly below a speaker and for some reason the volume was MUCH louder than on the front of the bus. Well my plan failed....I was not able to go to sleep but was instead completely drugged up and loopy for about half of the drive! But after it wore off I was able to look at the beautiful scenery. The topography is very different depending on where you are in the country. In San Jose we're in the mountains and we have to go through, I believe, another mountain range and then down to the flat land. When we arrived at our hotel, we threw our bags in our room and went to find some food! About half of the total group (San Jose and Heredia) went to a restaurant on the beach. After we placed our order we all walked down to put our toes in the ocean! At that time it was low tide and we had to walk about 50 yards to get to the water! There is a HUGE different between the tides! My food was nothing to write home about but everyone else seemed to like theirs. After dinner I crawled in my bed about 10:30! The next morning we had a mangrove tour at 5:50...that's right I said 5:50! It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't rained! (I later learned that there was a tropical depression/hurricane in the upper part of Central America and only the top portion of Costa Rica, where I happened to be, was affected.) Our little boat had a tarp over it, but the tarp was to keep out the sun....not the rain. I guess the animals didn't like the rain either because we saw about 5! One crocodile, an iguana, some parrots, and a vulture. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty neat to be able to see those things but I'm not sure it was worth sitting in a cold rain! The mangrove trees were probably the neatest thing we saw. Their roots weren't underground, you could see them sticking in the water. Even the limbs/branches on the trees grew towards the water. (You can see what I'm talking about in one of the pictures.) After that, we went back to the hotel to eat breakfast and to get ready for the zip line tour! We were really excited about that...although Kayla was freaking out because she WAS afraid of heights! When we got there, they gave us some quick instructions, strapped us up, and we were ready to go! Above our first platform was a tree full of howler monkeys! We were supposed to see those on our mangrove tour....but that didn't work out! I don't think they liked us being there because they were howling at us! Our first line was short and they got bigger and faster after that. On about the third line, one of the instructors went upside down. That prompted some of the guys to upside down and another girl to go upside down with one of the instructors. I didn't want to miss out on anything, so I went upside down once with an instructor and another time by myself! It was really fun! After that we went back to the hotel to change into our swimsuits and head to the beach. Once we got out there it was cold, the wind was blowing and it was raining off and on...not exactly sunbathing weather! We stayed for about fifteen minutes! But during that time I experienced another first....a woman in a thong bathingsuit! It was one of those times where you don't want to look but you can't look away! When we left the beach, Kayla and I decided it would be a good idea to get in the hot tub...however it turned out to be a lukewarm tub with bubbles! Trying to remain optimistic, we gave up and went to our rooms to get ready for dinner. For dinner, we went to a beach side restaurant where the food was very good and we were even serenaded by a mariachi band! There was also a super cute dog who I gave my leftovers :) After a quick walk on the beach I went back to the hotel and went to bed! The next morning the weather was beautiful, of course, and we were able to spend a couple of hours on the beach. On the ride home I decided to only take ONE Dramamine and the trip was much better!