Playing Dirty

FRIDAY
Thursday night they called to let us know that all of the tours for the next day were going to be canceled due to rain. We weren’t really sure why though because when we woke up it had FINALLY stopped raining, and we could even see the sun!! Since we had no plans for the day, and didn’t want to just hang out around the hotel, we decided to go into Jaco and see if we could find something there to do. We found an ATV tour that was still running so we signed up. Ryan wouldn’t let me drive my own (and I’m pretty sure that there was no way that I would have been able to figure it out anyway!!) so we got a little two-seater buggy.

It was just the guide and us so it was pretty neat. We first went up into the mountains where it started raining and the dirt roads were pretty bad. We were splashing through puddles and getting covered in mud! We got up a little farther and found that a huge tree had completely been ripped out of the ground and was laying in middle of the street. Our guide thought about trying to squeeze under the branch but finally we just ended up turning around.




No worries though, there were plenty of more back roads and puddles for us to discover! He took us up above the city for an awesome view. The ocean right now looks pretty nasty because of all the rain washing into it. I was pretty excited about how dirty I got…but it was just the beginning!!

We then went over to Hermosa Beach where the 2009 national surf competition is being held. We went along a few miles right next to the beach on this little road that was completely flooded in several spots. It was fun though, we were racing around and trying to not get stuck in the sand and getting so dirty! I was stoked to walk out onto the black sand beach; it was so pretty even with all the driftwood washed up along the beach. Our guide found this little rock type thing as we were walking off the beach and gave it to us. It was called an Ox eye, and his Grandmother had always given them to him for good luck. Its really cool looking, I think I’m going to try to make a necklace out of it when I get back home.

Ryan was pretty excited about the ride back down the road to get off the beach, until all the sudden we were off in the bushes! It turned out that some little piece controlling the steering had snapped off so he lost all control.


We were so lucky that it happened when we were there as opposed to next to a cliff. I think it was because the little rock really was good luck! After waiting a little while (and getting bitten a few times by flies) they came to pick us up. Only issue was that we had to drive back on an ATV, which had a warning on the back that said “DO NOT RIDE AS A PASSENGER, INJURY WILL OCCUR”. I was pretty happy to read that since I was going to be the passenger!! But Ryan drove slowly and we made it back to the store in one very dirty piece!

They recommended this awesome little taco bar place for lunch and even though we were covered in dirt we stopped in for a bite to eat. The seats for the bar were swings! It was great, the food was so good and it was way fun swinging while we ate!


We got back to the hotel and had to take advantage of the sun (and wash off the dirt) so we went down by the pool to enjoy another beautiful day in Costa Rica.

Stay tuned for the post about Saturday-It was my favorite day!!