Life o' da Hahn's!: March 2007

I know its taken me forever to get this update on here ... but here it is. As expected, Costa Rica was amazing and of course we had a wicked time!! Our journey en route to Playa Hermosa was certainly not without adventure, though. We (Chris, Ryan, Ash and I) spent the night in Birch Bay at Ryan's cabin so that we could get an early start on the day. We ended up leaving around 4:45 am to catch our 7:15 am flight out of Seattle. Turns out that WASN'T enough time. To make a long story short, we ended up missing our flight by about 3 minutes thanks to the weather and some stupid woman at Continential airlines. It was far too early for that type of mayhem! Good thing this was Ash's first first international experience. .. we had to make it one to remember. They ended up getting us on the next flight free of charge so we were able to make our connecting flight in Houston. Thankfully, we made it safe and sound without any other hiccups!

Our villa at "Villa Sol" was sweet! It was huge with two patios (no soaker tub, which Chris was a little disappointed about), but nonetheless a gorgeous villa with an incredible view. It's situated on the mountain, so we had to take the shuttle to the beach everyday. We kept busy everyday holding down the lounge chairs by the pool (I know it sounds extreme, but it was hard work); whenever we felt overly ambitious, we partake in the organized activities: snorkelling, aqua fit, kayaking, beach volleyball, boat tour etc. Have to admit, after my snorkelling experience in the Dominican, I wasn't so much it that, but the kaying tour was awesome! We saw dolphins when we were out in the kayak. It was particulary cool when I got HUCKED out of the kayak by a huge wave! Thankfully, I only got a mild concussion! LOL, just kidding. Chris and Ryan kept busy with diving. They went three times and claim that it was pretty impressive ~ but not very clear. Can you imagine seeing a manta ray? Makes my hyperventilate even thinking about it. No thanks!

I have to admit the food was a bit of a let down, but the non-stop flow of alcohol certainly wasn't! Sitting at the swim up bar proved to be an excellent way of meeting people. We quickly befriended a couple of super cool chicks from Atlanta (Jess and Lisa) on our second day there. It worked out wicked for me since I was flying solo with three dudes and was missing some females to hang with! We ended up hanging with them our whole trip and teaching them the proper use of "eh" ... American's just love that saying, eh? Props to them for "becoming Canadian" before we had to part ways!!

Costa was smoking hot!!! It was nearing the end of their summer so it was relatively brown and not as lush as the last time we were there, but I'm not complaining. It was about 35 - 40 degrees every day. I can proudly say that this was the first vacation that I have gone on where I didn't burn myself (well, okay, a little bit on the first day). Unfortunately, my poor brother can't say the same. He got SCORCHED on the second day there. It was so bad that it turned into second degree burns!! He got a scolding from me! SMARTEN UP and put on a 100 more applications of sunscreen silly boy! He was in the water all day sipping on some liquid lunch (a.k.a Imperial beer) and just seemed to forget to re-apply!!! Anyways, he had to pay the price for the rest of the trip. Poor guy! Chris and Ryan also got a little torched when they went snorkelling, but neither of them will admit to being burnt! They're mighty brown now though!

We ended up renting a car on one of the days and went to a few surrounding beaches (Conchal and Tamarindo). Soooooooooooo nice!!! Getting there was a bit of an adventure, we had to drive past an animal farm on the road and drive through a river that had taken out half the road!! Good thing it was a rental car and not our own. Before we returned the car we decided to take in a little zip-lining action! The pictures from that are priceless! Great times!!

Without further a due, here are the pics! I've attached a few pics from our last trip to Costa as well ... from the south! That was from "before my blog time"! They're just wicked pics though so I thought I'd share.