Black Friday Christmas parade in San Jose!

San Gerardo de Rivas

Now that we have regular internet again, here are some photos of what we've been up to for the past few weeks!  The first pictures are of the hostel we worked at...Casa Mariposa: a beautiful retreat near the bast of Mt. Chirripo and Cloudbridge Reserve.  It was such a cool place to be for a few weeks; mountains, rivers, jungle and nice cool weather!  The next photos are of a hike we did on Ashley's birthday to some waterfalls and gardens.  The last are of Mt. Chirripo itself....what turned out to be a grueling 2 day hike.  9 hours up, 6 hours down.  A great anecdote on that adventure will follow soon!  Enjoy!

Out of Touch

Hey guys!!! So the internet does not work too well where we are in Costa Rica...considering we are at around 5000 ft on the side of a mountain I guess it's understandable!  We have had a good time so far at Casa Mariposa...learning a lot about gardening, composting and how to build stone walls.  We will be in San Jose, Costa Rica next Friday and will be able to resume regualar posting!  Costa Rica is a wonderful country and soooo beautiful.  We went on a long hike this morning for my birthday and hopefully will be climbing the giant Mt. Chirripo next Monday and Tuesday.  We are sure some good stories will come from that excursion!  Thanks for bearing with us and be prepared from some amazing pictures at the end of next week!!
Love,
A&D...Venturing Out

Hitting the hills with a Harley

So we had quite an adventure yesterday....we rented a moped to go cruise around up in the mountains, see some waterfalls and visit a gorgeous (but super expensive coffee farm/resort).  So we spent 3 hours seeing the area...Derek drove the entire time except for the 5 min that I attempted.  We both agreed after that time that it would probably be in both of our best interests to let Derek do the driving!  Anyways, we made our way up to a beautiful lookout point that also happened to be a cafe and were busy with a piece of chocolate cake when the skies opened up and it started to pour.  Needless to say we were not going to venture out in that so we decided to wait.  After 30 min, however, we realized that if we didn't return the scooter on time we would be charged.  We're serious about our budget and there's no way we're wasting any money......so what do we do?  Put on our rain jackets and head out; it had lightened up a bit by now.  Little did we know it was about to come back full force. So here we are driving down the mountain, in the pouring rain, on a moped that we didn't have that much faith in...and it's probably 60 degrees so we're getting a little cold.  Add in the ridiculous looks we got from passing cars and people taking shelter and it was a pretty comical situation.

The pictures/videos below are obviously from earlier in the day...before the storm.  Enjoy!

Boquete

This town is amazing! Went on a "trek" down the river this morning. Tried to cross is but got half way and decided it might not be such a good idea considering the fast current and the fact that our feet were numb! Went on a coffee farm tour in the afternoon.... Amazing! Had the best coffee I've ever had and realized I can no longer blame my coffee pot for making bad coffee. If you have good quality coffee (apparently a rarity in traditional grocery stores) a $10 coffee maker works just fine!!

More Photos

Below are a few pictures of our time in Bocas del Toro...great views from the water, Mantis Restaurant on Isla Bastimentos and views of Isla Carenero.  We had a great time, but have arrived in our new destination...Boquete!  It's much cooler (60 degrees or so) and we plan to do a coffee farm tour and some hiking!  Time to head inside before this storm hits us!

A&D...Venturing Out

Pictures!!

Here are a few pictures of our time in bocas del toro! We are off to Boquete, Panama tomorrow! More pictures to come in a few minutes!

Our Humble Abode!

A short video of where we are staying in Bocas Del Toro. Enjoy

Hocus Bocas

I’m writing this new post as Derek is getting his palm read by a homeless man…literally, no lies. He says his hand is a book. He is telling him something about his energy and that he will have 3 children, a boy, a girl, then another boy.  Also he will get a promotion next July and will be married by January….we’ll see about that.

Sorry we haven't posted in the past few days.  We are trying to upload a video of the apartment and will do so tomorrow.  I went diving today for my first open water dive...Derek snorkeled haha.  We saw a wreck, a coral reef and tons of fish and plants. I'm definitely going to like diving!  More to come...

A&D...Venturing Out

Lost in Translation

So anyone that knows me (Derek) knows that my Spanish is horrible. The only words I know are “Uno cerveza por favor” and “La perro comia la chica”, why I know that last phrase is a mystery to even myself.  So when Ashley wanted me to get some icecream for us, I took it as a personal challenge to prove to all of central America that my Spanish is really not all that bad. That even in a bus station with only American fast food restaurants all around us I, Derek, could get my girlfriend, Ashley, the icecream she desired. The order was simple; get two small blizzards (yes they had a DQ there), one was to be chocolate, the other vanilla. Mine with M&M’s and the other with Butterfinger. I found out the words I needed to know from Ashley. Cocoleche means chocolate (not really, but that’s what I said), blanco means white, which I was going to use for vanilla since we were not sure what vanilla was in Spanish. If I had to guess, I would say it’s the same word but with a Spanish accent. Its thoughts like that that make my Spanish so horrible. I found out you can’t just add an ‘O’ behind every word and make it Spanish. But that’s ok because I know that somewhere deep down my hidden talent for Spanish was just waiting to burst out, so I strutted up to the counter where a young lady was standing. For you to appreciate the conversation I’ll just put it in dialogue:

Icecream lady: “Ola, jibber jibber jibber, jibber jibber jibber and jibber?”

Derek: (thinking I would impress her with my superior Spanish skills I pulled no punches) “Ola, Como est sta? Mue Bean? Dos blizzards profavor!”

Icecream lady: (looking at me in a crazy way): “Ummmm…. Name?”

Derek: (Finding out that all the jibber was her asking my name for the computer) “Ohhh….. Derek”

Icecream lady: “Que?!?! Jibber jibber jibber”

Derek: “Uhhh… D. E. R…..”

Icecream lady: “Que….?”

Derek:  “Nombre es Rico!!!!” (thinking that Rico would be an easy translation name, my sister once told me my Spanish name was rico, I thought it would be an easy name for the lady to type understand. I mean, there are lots of Ricos right? there is Porto Rico, Rico Swave...right??)

Icecream lady: “Rico!!! Oooo nooo, hahahahahahaha” (I guess Rico is a funny name).

Derek: “Si, Rico, Uno blizzard cocoleche, small, profavor, est…..”

Icecream lady: “Jibber Jibber, even faster jibber, 25cents, jibber?”

Derek: “Uhhhh, ci…. Es uno…..”

Icecream lady: “Ok, $5.50 por favor, jibber jibber jibber”

Derek: “Oookkkk” (handing over the $5.50 as I still try and find out what happened).

As I walk back to my girlfriend I recounted what had just happened between the evil icecream lady and myself, I think the part about 25 cents was asking if I wanted to upgrade to a larger size cup but I haven’t validated that theory yet. As far as the icecream for my girlfriend, I got the order 30% correct, I did get a blizzard but only one, not two. I also did not get the chocolate with butterfinger that she wanted but the vanilla with M&Ms that I wanted….and I got a medium instead of a small. But in the end, I feel pretty confident that that icecream lady will never forget Rico and his great Spanish skills. Thank you panama city for all you have taught me!