Life in Costa Rica

Here we are eating "pipas" on the porch of our bungalow in Punta Uva. We're on the Caribbean Coast here, just next to Panama. Pipas are like coconut. The grounds-guy came in the morning and got a pipa from the tree, macheted it off so that we could drink the juice. Then later he came back and macheted the whole thing in half so we could eat the meat, which is what I'm doing.

The next picture is of Jared on a rope swing. We on the pacific coast there, and we hiked up a river (a very perilous hike, I might add, almost vertical at times holding onto roots and vines, hoping there aren't any eyelash vipers on them). This was one of three consecutive waterfalls on this river. This one was the smallest fall, but had a great swimming hole and a rope swing. It's rainy season, so you can see the river water is really muddy. But warm and pleasant. It was so much fun.

This is a typical bridge in CR. Very scary -- you cross your fingers and hold your breath the whole way across. Costa Rica is famous for having really bad roads: many of them are dirt or gravel, and most of them are full of HUGE potholes. I mean full. The whole drive is a video-game like experience trying to dodge them and not pop a tire. It's well known that you MUST rent a 4-wheel drive to get around CR.

Some of the places we stayed were holes. But a couple places were really nice. In CR, really nice is really inexpensive. This is a picture of our digs in Montezuma, a house on the hill with a couple of bedrooms and a hammock on the porch. Jared sneaked this picture while I was asleep in the hammock with a book in my lap.