Jon and Sandy's Most Excellent Costa Rican Adventure

Day 1
Was a travel day. We were up at 3:30 to catch a 5:30 plane to Atlanta from Huntsville International. Dumbass me never got my passport updated to my married name so the nice woman at the counter changed my tickets to my maiden name. We had a 3 hour layover so we twiddled our thumbs in Atlanta and met up with the couple we were going to stay with, Mark and Elizabeth.

Mark is a skydiver and I've always liked him. I had met his wife before but she's quiet too so we never really talked. She is a really nice person with a wicked sense of humor. I think we got along well with both of them during the trip.

Flight over - uneventful. The movie was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban so I watched it again.

We landed in Liberia, Costa Rica which is in the Guanacaste Province. It is essentially the Northwest corner of the country. This time of year is referred to as the Green Season (A.K.A. the rainy season) and there was a light rain when we landed. We cleared customs fast but it took a little longer getting our rental car.

We finally set out for the Sanctuary Resort, which is... somewhere...

Mark does the driving, and the roads are okay at first; we had heard that Costa Rican roads were fairly hairy. Once we got off the main Liberian highway onto a secondary road, we encountered the first of many potholes. Then we get onto the dirt roads. Whee! It was a kidney pounding experience. I ooh and aah over all the cows, chickens, cats, dogs, and pigs all over the place. No, really; I thought they were neat, but where are the monkeys, dammit!

We get to the Sanctuary, and get our room. Jon and I have 2 twin beds which we shoved together. We didn't do much that Saturday but look at the empty swimming pool and gape at the remarkable prices of things in the little market at the resort.

-A little editorial side note here: My only complaints during this entire vacation are aimed at the resort. I had no problems with the staff, either. The owners, well; I'll just shut up now. -

So we buy beer, go to dinner, where I finally got to try ceviche which is fish pickled in lime juice. I thought it was quite tasty. We drink some more and go investigate the beach. It's night time by now but we had a mag light. We really didn't get to see much except for many different varieties of crabs, especially hermit crabs. We found a whole gang of them going to town on half of an opened coconut.

That's it for day 1, except I woke up with a headache and I had to go throw up. I had only 4 or 5 beers and I'm a professional beer drinker, so I can only suspect my tummy had problems with the food. Or the water.

Not an auspicious start to a vacation. It gets better, I promise. Preview to day 2: Monkeys for real! And a crocodile.