TARCOLES - After we landed in San Jose we waited at the airport for our friends from Boston to arrive.  We collected Moose, Lisa, Brandi and Eric, picked up our rental car, and headed to a house we'd rented in Nuevo Arenal.  On the first day we woke up to the sounds of cicaedas, howler monkeys, about a thousand species of birds, and this view...



On our first day we decided to take a hike around Volcan Arenal, an active volcano that had it's last full eruption in 1992.  In 2001 some hikers were killed here but nevermind that.  Here's the volcano...



Here's the warning sign at the head of the trail.  Eric was not afraid...



Here's a very strange beetle we encountered on the trail.  We also encountered more ticks, and we had fun pulling them off each other later... but I don't like talking about that.



Here's us across from the volcano viewpoint.  From here you could hear volcanic rock spitting out of the volcano and tumbling down the slopes.  Later on that night - from an hour's drive away - we could see the lava flow glowing and we heard an explosion as it erupted just a teensy bit.



Here we are after our trip to the volcano.  Moose is up to no good with that rocking chair...



One of the cool things we did was head to a little butterfly/amphibian farm.  The guide took us for a short hike and got us lost at the end of the tour, but we got to see a toucan.  At the farm they had a bunch of screen covered arch buildings with all kinds of butterflies... along with an awesome assortment of tree frogs, including the poison dart frog varieties.



For the last half of our trip we stayed in Tarcoles across from the beach.  Well, across from the beach and the livestock rather.  There were over two dozen scarlet maccaws that would fly back and forth and roost in the trees around the house so Anna was pretty excited.  Here's a shot of one tree with a bunch of them...



Here's the goat that lived in the field just out our front door.  He had a lovely bleat but smelled kinda funky.  Lisa fed him a mutilated banana, and I think he enjoyed it.



These are the crocodiles that lived in the Tarcoles River just down the street.  If you can't tell from the photo, these guys are BIG.  We saw almost 20 of them hanging around together - waiting for something tasty.  Our water went out for a day and one of the locals suggested bathing in the river like they do.  Umm, yeah... not a chance.



We also took a trip to Carrara National Park and saw some good stuff including lizards, bats, toucans, trogans, monkeys, agoutis, and my personal favorite, poison dart frogs.  Here's one of the many we saw... you´re not supposed to touch them as the toxins in their skin do bad things to folks.  Anna and Moose were the best at spotting them.



Fresh fruit was in abundance down here and we took advantage of all the pinapple, mango, bananas, and watermelon that was available.  Here's a shot of Brandi and Lisa cutting up some delicious mango with Eric in the back... he wanted to soak it in the rum.



When night came we'd usually be out chasing toads, cicaedas, and lizards around the backyard, drink in one hand camera in the other.  And believe me, Moose would usually take a thousand pictures of everything we spotted.  He took this very artsy shot of a favorite visitor we got...



All in all we had a pretty busy week.  Between the sight seeing, the rum, the food and the sun we were pretty darned tired by the end of each day.  Some of us even took a little rest now and again.  I know Moose will make me pay for this photo...



Lisa, Moose, Brandi and Eric dropped us off in Alajuela today after a fun and scary car ride with Brandi-Andretti at the wheel through the guard-rail-less mountain roads of central america.  Thanks so much for coming down to visit us... it was awesome to see everybody and we look forward to more adventures!