Cruisin through Costa Rica like a crackhead

After travelling through Panama, it was time to check out the western coast of Costa Rica. Given some time constraints, we had to blow through Costa Rica on a schedule I normally wouldn't even entertain. However, I had a friend from LA I wanted to catch up with in Montezuma, so Ash and I pretty much blazed through San Jose, Manuel Antonio, Puntarenas, Montezuma, and Monteverde in about 7 days.

Manuel Antonio was not as special as I had expected-- just another nice expensive beach town filled with mostly American gringos. There is a national park there but we decided just to get down to what we do best, boozing it up with random people we happen to bump into wherever we go. It's been cool to have a travel buddy like Ashley, since he is doing an around the world trip as well. Between the two of us, telling random people we meet of our adventures and stories tends to get people thinking of, or at least considering doing the same. We've told some of these stories a few times already, (they never get old, do they?) so key details and punchlines are always delivered on cue. Between the two of us, we could probably make some money on the lecture circuit!

We only spent one night in sketchy Puntarenas, and headed out to Montezuma the following day to meet up with Cathy and Char, friends from LA who were in Costa Rica for a short while. It was nice to hang out in Montezuma for a few days, given the hectic schedule I was on. Funny story about Char... we went to the beach one day, and the waves were pretty rough. It did not really deter me, nor Cathy from heading into the water though, but Char was a bit ambivalent about the whole idea. Char had actually studied at the University of Hawaii, so her reluctance to getting into the ocean was a bit of a surprise to me. Upon further goading and peer pressure, and against her will, she slowly inched her way into the water. By the time she got knee-deep into the water, Cathy said, "It's not so bad, right?!" I followed up and chided her as well, "And you said you studied at U of H!!!???" Not one second later, and I am not exaggerating here, a wave (whitewash, really) not higher than her thighs washed past her and the next thing you know, two legs shot up into the air, synchronized swimming style, scoring (in my opinion) a perfect 10! Char got up and said, "I'm outta here guys." We left shortly after for happy hour, a much safer option...

After Cathy and Char left back to San Jose for their flight back home, Ash and I headed over to Monteverde after a couple of days, and the main reason was to hit up the canopy tour, where you can zipline through over 1.5 kilometers of rain forest. It was totally worth the 7 hour bus ride from Montezuma. We chose Extremo canopy tours and highly recommend it as it had one of the longest ziplines at over 700 meters. For those of you who are not familiar with the metric system, that is about the length of 7 football fields. And this is not just a regular zipline-- you are probably going about 15-30 mph, high up through this huge freakin canyon, with wind blowing you around like crazy with nothing but a strap connected to this cable. Needless to say, it was quite an adrenalin rush and the most fun I have had in awhile.

From Manuel Antonio, Montezuma and Monteverde, Costa Rica