Thursday, March 24th, 2011

Today we left again for our last destination: Tamarindo Beach.  The "spring break" part of the trip was almost here!  We did a lot of traveling today, but stopped at a very luxurious peninsula, Papagayo, with hotels like Four Seasons, and real estate for those who could afford a "simple" vacation home along the beaches.  This entire area is still being constructed, but the parts that were done were simply amazing.  We were given a full run-down of everything about their conservation efforts, the things they do to protect the marina from oil spills and how they would respond, how they clean the water, how they conserve the land and have special specifications as to what land can be touched (or destroyed) when building a home here.  There were many regulations, but the people here were happy, I'm sure the guests who golf here were happy, and the scenery was amazing...

Papagayo.

These trees were so interesting! They grew in sections like that. 

An overview of Papagayo. 

Condos at Papagayo. 

The golfing club house.. not to shabby!

Our tour guide outside of the water treatment facility. 

One of four water treatment pools. 

Showing us how clear the water comes out.  

One of their somewhat odd rules was not being legally allowed to take sea shells home.  A picture was the best I could do. 

The marina at Papagayo. 

Getting a run down of the eco-friendly characteristics of the marina from the manager himself. 

We saw this iguana and puffer fish in the water. 

In case of oil spill, these sheets soak up oil out of the water. 

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Today:  the Cloud Forest. 

A cloud forest is different in a rain forest in that because of it's high altitude, typically, the moisture comes from the clouds from the sides instead of the rain from above. 

Our italian tour guide.  He knew everything about the cloud forest.  We would have been lost without this guy.. even though he didn't walk back with us once we got all the way out there... "just go left all the way back."  !

Some seeds and pods like these above are used for medicines throughout the world.  There are many, many natural plants that are used as both pharmaceutics and alternative medicine treatments.

We walked up and up and up and up and uP and UP! :)

The mist of the clouds. 

Our group at the continental divide between the Atlantic and Caribbean sides. 

After visiting the rain forest we were able to head into town for a bite before our zip-line tour. We were lucky to come across a place with a la carte locale cuisine with decent pricing! I had some delicious $2 steak along with a few other side things.

Next, we headed off to the zip-line tour.  We were not able to take pictures on the actual zip-line, but here is a picture of one of the bases.  It was one of my absolute favorite parts of the trip.  We were harnessed in, locked in, and told to hold tight and go!! There were a few times where I thought I might run into a tree, or not live to tell about it at all, but I did... and I would do it again given the chance!

After the zip lining we were able to do a tarzan swing!  A free fall caught by a zip line~