Our first destination on every trip - Restaurant Mariscar with chicken roasted over coffee branches.
Some people ... some statues.
El mercado! Our first visit in all this time.
Chiles, , pepper, beans, curry, chiles, cinnamon, cilantro, and chiles.
And everything else.
The Andean band is a fixture in el Plaza de Cultura.
Our guides
for the Canopy Tour in the Rio Lorenzo.
On a platform, in a tree, about a hundred and fifty feet in the air.
The last cable - eight hundred metres long, 500m above the valley.
La Traviata with the chunky but beautiful and enormously talented Soledad de la Rosa as Violetta, Carlos Vittori as Alfredo, Luis Giron May as Giorgio, and the Orquesta Lirica Costarricense.
Another regular visit - Ojo de Agua
Joe had no problem communicating with the locals.
Bob did a photoshoot with Eliecer around the playing field behind Ojo.
Just W of San Ramon - stopped for lunch and to buy cigars from the guy who rolled them.
Our place in Manuel Antonio, the Verdemar,
was under construction.
But it was conveniently close to the Playita.
Harvested, husked, chilled, carried in, opened and be-strawed, and finally cracked in half, all by the same guy.
"If we don't get out of this dull routine, I am simply going to lose my mind."
Ayer, hoy, manana.
The standard Costa Rica event format - in this case a horseback ride,
a swim in a mountain stream, ride back, then a meal.
Horse food.
A toucan that's too far away to take a picture of, is still a toucan.
Killed by an earthquake in 1991, but tracks still remain here and there in the country.
The nicest restaurant in Puerto Caldera
with dangerous wildlife.
Sorry, these people got in the way of taking a picture of the bridge.
The Hotel Jenny (or Yenny) in Nicoya town had more than the usual share of plumbing and electrical issues.
But getting lost on the way to Barra Honda the next day made up for them.
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Our cave guide Miguel.
Time exposures. People moved; the cave didn't.
Norval: "The most beautiful decorative plants in the world."
You know you're in the country when ... traffic stops so a guy can do some business with the live chicken truck.
Snorkelling and scuba diving trip. If we don't get out of this dull routine I'm gonna lose my mind.
Skipper Venecio's ("Ben EE see o")
first task was to show off
- by picking a roc k off the bottom 45' below.
Norval got help from Venicio.
Columbian dive guide David.
And local, Emerson.
Rice irrigation system just N of Bagaces.
Smile? Or no smile? You decide.
His turtle was for Dan's friend Georgina. His eagle was for a magazine stand in Mike and Phil's bathroom. His, umm, gun, never made it to Canada - it had a tiny worm hole in the butt.
We got back to San Jose just in time to go to the Claroscuro's last concert - a handful of fezbian leminists singing beautiful protest songs - to a packed house in the Teatro Nacional.
Another day, another guy, more cigars.
Travelling with friends is truly a joy.