So I just got back from one amazing trip to Costa Rica. I went with my 2 buddies, Ken and Mark and we had a great time. The resort we went to was called (as you’ve probably guessed by the title) Occidental Grand Papagayo, a 5 star resort. On the shores of the Pacific, I believe the exact Google Maps location is there.

We spent a full week there, from Saturday March 24th till finally Saturday March 31st 2007. I spent most of my days enjoying the scenery, eating amazing food, participating in fun activities like pool volleyball, snorkeling, shooting. I did one trip with Ken that Mark didn’t participate in, it was the 4 hour ATV tour which was amazing, we got quite dirty from all the dust we kicked up as we fishtailed what seemed like every corner and curve in the road.

I should also mention it was pretty much our first time riding ATVs and the sheer fact that we were brave enough to go crazy nuts on them (hop almost any and all hills in our path). I only wish that I grabbed the bandanna that we got for the ATV tour, it would have made a great souvenir.

The 2nd and full day trip we went on was a 3 1/2 hour drive eastward from out Resort to Nuevo Arenal Volcano. Basically imagine the west coast being all dry and burnt (very little rain falls here) and then driving up the mountains and coming out into vivid lush rain forest regions with an active volcano. Well that was the start of the trip. It consisted of basically an assortment of local meals (2 restaurants: lunch & dinner). The amazing SkyTrek tour, plus just before dinner (at the foot of the volcano nonetheless) we got to enjoy the natural hot springs (before the 30 or so bilingual school children showed up and took over the place). We shot some videos while on the Skytrek tour:

The following day Mark went to do Whitewater rafting (which Ken and I weren’t up for) he was really pleased with it, and swore it was a lot better than what we experienced on the Ottawa river.

And our trip ending wasn’t bad either. Our flight took us to Newark airport (30 min away from NY city), so we first thought about getting a cab out to the city and doing some touring around. But quickly we found out that nobody at the airport wants to hold on to your luggage (especially since our flight came in at 9pm that day and we left 6am the following morning). So seeing as we had no immediate way to loose our luggage for awhile we rented a car and drove into Manhattan. It was quite the adventure, avoiding collisions with crazy NY city cabbies while at the same time having both Ken and Mark take photos of Times Square and almost anything that was lit up like a Christmas tree.

When I have some more time I will put all the photos of the trip up to the usual photo location here.