quepos, costa rica

thought i'd just post a little about the town i'll be in - at least for my initial training - quepos. from let's go costa rica 2003 (yes, a very old version, which i bought used and cheap since the new version will come out just after i arrive and there was no point in buying a full priced version that will be out of date in a month):

"three and a half hours south of san jose, the city of quepos is one of the central pacific's most well-trodden destinations, not so much because it has anything of real interest to see, but rather for its proximity to tourist-magnet parque nacional manual antonio and the dozens of tour operators who run adventure trips into the raging rivers and wild mountain terrain just outside town."

so a quiet town near (expensive, i hear) adventure travel. mostly i'm hoping to come back at christmas time with a tan and to be a slightly better surfer. oh yeah, and be certified to teach english as a second language. :) i'm very excited about my trip and if i manage to meet some people half as cool as the people i met teaching in japan, then it should be a great time.

in 48 hours from now i should have actually touched down in costa rica to begin my adventure. buen viaje!

hang loose redux

i've long since recovered from the frustration of losing my post at the shipboard internet center... and i'm not really 100% sure of what i was planning on saying anymore. so instead i'll just post a few more pictures from hawaii as a reminder to "just hang loose".


towards the end of the cruise there was a shift change for some of the crew. and we finally got a cabin steward who knew how to make towel animals. which of course is one of the more amusing things about cruises. we also got a bunny. but out of a 7 day cruise, 2 towel animals does not an extra tip earn.


the zipline in kauai was probably one of the cooler things i've done in my life. here's meg en route across the zipline. the guy in the blue shirt works for the zipline company. but he was once a mere vacationer who never went home and found this job. he's my hero. plus he's from nashua and says he would like to open a zip course in north conway someday. i'm so there. :)


on the last day of the cruise we did some "scenic cruising" past the napali coast on kauai. which was amazing and beautiful. and perhaps due to the proximity of the bar to our viewing spot on deck i took about 100 pictures that all look relatively the same. but none-the-less it was cool.


the sunset on waikiki beach. sadly it's never really an *amazing* sunset in hawaii because as the air gets cooler the clouds pretty much always move in or something. so no crystal clear sunset, but still really nice.

hawaii is definitely somewhere i could see myself being happy for a while. it's beautiful, warm, there aren't any of those bad things that i hate, and the people are nice. but alas - i'm off to costa rica in less than 2 weeks. hopefully i have a similar reaction... and hopefully my spanish improves.