It’s been quite a while. Lots new here- Some good, some bad, some pretty and some ugly.

No need to mark it all down here. But, I did want to let you all know about some of the big stuff.

First, we now have the Movie Channel- BIG!
(Actually, no way, there doesn’t seem to be anything good on this channel.)

On the real, I have now updated some sections of this site and did some organizing (to make it a little easier to navigate).

I was able to do some traveling this year- Israel and LA. So check out the updated “Gallery” section for shots from those trips as well as some other new shots in various albums.

My sister also invited me to the Chihuly show at the Botanical Gardens, you can find some shots from that night in the same section. I highly suggest checking this out, especially at night, his work is amazing!

I also found a rad new thing. Incase you were wondering what the cool new tunes are- In the newly re-vamped “Audio” section I added a listing of my weekly Top 10 played songs (which is automatically updated every week thanks to Audioscrobbler).

And I need to dork out for just a sec. So, check out this new page for the latest update on my setup.

Hope that everyone is doing well.

Have a great summer!
a

I mapped out some of my travels and updates along this time line.

How it works:
- Grab the time line with the cursor and move it to the left or right to travel over time.
- Click on the events to see more details.

Enjoy!

Any of you have the LG vx5200 or 6100 cellphone? I’m tryna decide on which one to go with. They seem to make these phones more and more annoying. I just wanna be able to talk on it, that’s all! But, I do have to admit, speakerphone is pretty handy when put on hold.

Dude, your on speakerphone!

We went up to Warwick, NY and stayed at The Glenwood House. It wasn’t too far away, around 1 hour, so it was an easy drive, but far enough that we felt like we were in another world. And we were able to hit up Woodbury Commons on the way.

Pretty country up there! There are a bunch of wineries, so we decided to hit one up. Did a little tasting, but we didn’t find anything that special. The Appalachian Trail was just down the road, so we were able to walk on it for a few miles. Never been on it before. It was beautiful! They had this interesting “board-walk” constructed for a part of it. It seems that some of the land gets flooded, so this elevates the walk and allows for access. The artisan community of Sugar Loaf was close by, so we went to this little town and looked around at some of the shops. We also chilled out a bit in the B&B- saw a few movies, played scrabble, had some wine.

Take a look at some of the pictures from our trip.
Pic1, Pic2, Pic3, Pic4, Pic5, Pic6

Any of you guys ever go to a B&B you would recommend? I know Hay is gonna wanna hit up another one. So let me know!

Pic1
Pic2

I will give a prize to those that guess what we dressed as. Leave your answer in a comment on this page. Hint: It was a Disney themed party.

It was a fun time! They really went all out. A real popcorn machine, a real cotton candy machine and a mini-hot-dog vending cart. Nuts!

Happy (early) Halloween!

Please run through it and let me know what you think. I am going to be trying to expand on it, so check back soon.

I have a pod-cast idea. Just need to find some time to do it.

Bye all!
-A

After checking out this section, please read some more about our trip here.
or
Take a look at our picture gallery here.

Our goals were to spend the least amount on accommodations and have more money to throw around for the fun stuff. Ideally we wanted to spend $10 a night per person. Absurdly, we met these goals and even had our own private room and bath for the entire trip! They were all nice, clean, and some were even cute.

The only nights that we had a reservation were for our first two nights. We did this because we didn’t know where we would end up from day to day. We never had a set agenda outside of the first bus ride. Luckily, we never had trouble finding a place to stay or ran into difficulty figuring out where to go next or how to get there. Check out this map that lays out our route.

We flew into San Jose on the morning of July 17th and took the afternoon bus to Monteverde/Santa Elena. What a long a bumpy ride it was! We stayed at Tina’s Casitas. A very cute place! For our first morning we went on a great bird-watching trip with Freddy (who helps run Tina’s Casitas). We saw plenty of birds- toucans and quetzels- and got to see a few sloths. No one ever really mentions this, but the continental divide is right there, some folks said that the hike up there was nice. Later that day we went on the Selvatura Canopy Tour (zip line) and Tree Top Walk Ways. It was very both scary and exhilarating at the same time. We loved it.

After the second night we were off to La Fortuna which is known for its volcano. We traveled there via Jeep/Boat/Jeep. All of which were beautiful! The drive was through a bunch of coffee plantations and gorgeous rolling hills and valleys. And the boat ride is very nice, as we rode towards the Aerenal Volcano. We ended up staying at La Choza Inn for a 2-night stay. Here we arranged a trip- entrance to a private park around the volcano (not the national park), guided 3hr tour in the park, a stop at the side of the road to view the volcano at night, and entrance to Tabacon. What a time it was! Here we had our first encounter with monkeys, we were right up close to both Howler and Squirrel Monkeys. It started to pour on our ride to the Volcano. We were told that the best time to see lava flow is when the rain passes at night. And they were right, the lava erupted! We thought that the rain would spoil our night in Tabacon. But it passed and it was just perfect! We felt like we were the only ones there. The place is so huge, we actually got lost inside exploring.

The next day it rained a bit more. We used that time to check out town and recoup ourselves. Later that day we went over to the waterfalls. We took a taxi up there and walked back and spotted many beautiful birds flying about in the rain. From La Fortuna we were able to arrange transport (bus to Caliari and a boat down the canals) to Tortuguero.

The next day we were off to Tortuguero. The canal trip was unbelievable! You can see all sorts of reptiles - iguanas and lizards (we saw the Jesus Christ Lizard pictured above)- as well as more aquatic birds during the trip over. We ended up staying at Miss Miriam’s II which is maybe 25 feet from the Caribbean Ocean. For that night we set up a guided tour to see the turtles lay their eggs. This was an amazing experience. Daryl, a highly recommended tour guide in Lonely Planet, set us up with his friend Ross for a canoe tour the next morning. He was great! We saw so much that morning, poison dart frogs cayman, quibbling monkeys and interesting birds. Later that day we went back into the park and walked the trail by ourselves.

The next morning we slowly made our way down to Cahuita. First, we took a boat ride down the canals to Moin. There were so many unforgettable sights- more caymans, lizards, birds and the best: dolphins (swimming right next to our boat in freshwater). The Ocean meets the canals at times, and it is just glorious. From Moin there was a taxi waiting to take the boat load to Limon. Then we took a quick bus ride down to Cahuita. We bumped into the chill guy who works at Atlantic Surf and he gave us a deal at his cabina. We liked it soo much that we decided to stay for 3 nights, (so far the longest we said at any one location). Very chill, and beautiful spot. Our first night we were able to catch the sunset on the Black Beach, with it’s soft as silk sand.

The following day we went back to the Black Beach and than went to the National Park, which spills out onto another beach. After walking a bit we hung out in the Caribbean and got some fried plantains and shakes. Yumm!

The next day we originally intended to go snorkeling, but some travelers said the visibility they had was poor and the water was a bit rough. So we walked most of the park and took a sunset dip in the Caribbean.

From Cahuita we wanted to stay at Finca La Flor, a vegetarian farm outside of Cartago that Lonely Planet mentions. This was the first time that we had to head back to San Jose. But on our way to the farm we wanted to check out the Lankaster Botanical Garden (just outside Parisio) which we read was beautiful. To get there we took a direct bus to San Jose, taxi to the Cartago bus terminal, another direct bus to Cartago, and lastly a bus towards Parisio which let us off up the road from the Lankaster Garden. (My sister works in the Botanical Garden’s in NY and Lankaster wins hands down.) There were so many incredible species of vegetation everywhere. They have bamboo forests which Hay was blow away by. Getting to the farm from the gardens was an ordeal, but we eventually ended up taking a taxi to the farm, just in time for a home cooked veggie dinner.

Our first day we worked pretty hard. Aaron took a machete to plenty of grass and smaller shrubs and Hayley helped prune shrubs. Later we fed the goats, cleaned up after the goats and the Hayley fed the cows. It was fun! Unfortunately, later that night Hay got very sick with a 24 hour stomach bug. We ended up staying an unexpected 3rd night so she could recover.

The following morning Hay was feeling better and well enough to move on. Aaron is a HUGE bird lover and just had to see wild Scarlet Macaws before we left. After some research, Hay found that the only other park outside of Corcovado (which is a ways away) that they can be found in abundance is in Carara National Park. So our travels from the farm looked like this: a bus to Cartago, a direct bus to San Jose, taxi to the Punterenas terminal and than bus to Jaco.

The next day in Jaco we took a taxi to the Carara National Park in great hopes of finding these birds. We were a little disappointed when it started to pour (the animals disappear than) and we still had not seen any Macaws. After all this effort we decided to wait out the rain and went to another entrance of the park and actually got to see several of the beauties, right before it started to pour again! We were very lucky.

On our last day we went to the beach and the pool at our hostel for a little bit. We than packed our stuff and took the bus back to the airport on the 31st for our departure.

Wow, two weeks went by so quickly!

-Hayley and Aaron

(photography by: Carrol L. Henderson & Richard Shirley & David L. Ross, Jr & TermészetBÚVÁR)

And after checking out this section, please read some more about our trip here.
or
Take a look at our picture gallery here.

The Otter Familia

The Magical Scarlet Macaw

A Tale Of A Poison Dart Frog That Could

Quetzel Tales And Toucan Sams

Long Live the Sea Turtle!

Lions and Tigers and Monkeys OH BOY!

Whether it’s two-toed or three-toed, it’s still a Sloth to me

The Otter Familia
Neither of us have ever seen a real life otter, other than in the zoo. During our canoe trip in Tortuguero we ended up seeing an entire family of otters in their natural habitat! It was pretty nice. We made sure not to move our canoe as to not scare them. They are very cute, wet animals with little faces. There were two adults and one little one. They swam single file on the edge of the water closest to land. Every few seconds an otter would plunge down into the water and then poke its little head up. We learned they were searching for crabs to eat. They were an adorable otter familia.
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The Magical Scarlet Macaw
Ever since we landed in Costa Rica Aaron told me how badly he wanted to see these Scarlet Macaws. The area that is recommended to go see them was too expensive for us to get to. So we went to Carara National Park which is one of the only other places they can be spotted. It was our last full day in C.R and we still hadn’t seen the Scarlet Macaws yet.

We went to the National Park and walked around for two hours without seeing them, and then it started to pour. We waited out the rain to try another entrance to the park where an employee said they frequented. On the other side of the park I saw red spots in a tree. And Aaron was able to recognize their call. I started screaming I was so excited. Aaron got to see several of the birds. They were all on this one tree in pairs. Love Birds! I got to see them fly, which was beautiful. They looked huge flying over me with their wings spread out. After we watched the Scarlet Macaws for ten minutes it started to pour even worse then before. It was almost magical, as if someone cleared the sky for a few minutes so we could see these awesome birds.
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A Tale Of A Poison Dart Frog That Could
Because Ross, our guide through the canals of Tortuguero, was a biologist and worked at many ranger stations he knew the land extrememly well. During our canoe trip he had us pull our over and take a walk through the jungle. He was really hysterical- a Canadian expat who was just fed up with life up there. He walked through the thick of the jungle in his flip-flops and shorts all this while smoking a cigarette- it was a sight! At one point Ross suggested that we keep our eyes on the ground as it was the time of day that snakes would be taking naps on the trail. We didn’t encounter any snakes, however, we walked passed a dozen or so of these little poison dart frogs as pictured above. Some were a bright iridescent red and blue.

During our walk in the jungle he picked the berries from a plant and offered us some. Instinctually, Hayley declined while I was busy being macho and accepting the fruits of the jungle. But Hayley ultimately talked some sense into me and I never ended up eating any. Ohh, and after the tour Hayley, myself and Ross grabbed a few beers at a bar that sits right next to the canal. We ended up having some interesting talks with this disenchanted expat and than walked into the jungle a bit tipsy. It doesn’t get any better than that!
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Quetzel Tales And Toucan Sams
We were able to see one of these glorious birds the first day of our trip! Freddy, our tour-guide, knew exactly where we would find one. Luckily we beat a whole slew of other eco-tourists (bleh!) to their little nesting spot so we had the prime view. Freddy was really amusing- he literally ran around with his binocular and tripods spotting these amazing creatures. The quetzel’s tail is soooo long that when it sits inside of its home (in a hollow of a tree), its tail wraps around and pops out of a crack of the tree right over its head. Its feathers are so bright and vivid, like you have never seen before. Apparently not too many folks get to see this bird so we felt really lucky!

During this bird watching expedition we spotted so many variety of birds that we can’t even remember. It was our first encounter with the toucan. But, during the trip they showed up everywhere, flying overhead, just like any common bird. It is really funny seeing them fly with their short and stout bodies, shadowed by their massive, colorful beaks.
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Long Live the Sea Turtle!
Seeing a turtle lay eggs on the beach was probably one of our all time coolest experiences. We were told that these sea turtles on average pop out between one hundred to one hundred and eighty eggs at a time. We witnessed probably twenty of those births right up close, maybe 2 feet away from her. The reason we were allowed to watch the turtles give birth is because they are in a trance and aren’t aware of their surroundings. The gov’t attempt to be very organized with these viewings, as not to disrupt any of the process. No white flashlights (only a red color which the guides use) are permitted as well as no white clothing. This distracts the approaching turtles.

The turtle eggs were large and white and came out every few seconds. After she deposited all the eggs we watched her cover up the hole that she made earlier to birth the turtles. This is a long process as the turtle is tired and uses her feet to kick the sand over the hole. She then travels back to the sea where the male waits for her during this whole procedure. With the bright moon, waves crashing and the turtle making its way back to the sea it was really a special moment.

In the morning Aaron and I took a walk and saw all these trails from the tip of the beach to the water, and we knew they were made from turtles. The sad part about this is that out of the numerous eggs the turtle lays only three of these will make it to adulthood. Although this is an example of natural selection it is still upsetting to think about. Long live the Sea Turtle!
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Lions and Tigers and Monkeys OH BOY!
To be truthful, there were no lions and tigers (that we saw anyways), but there were plenty of monkeys! We saw a dozen or two monkeys encompassing three different species up close and personal- Howler, Spider, and the White-Faced monkey (Capuchin). We even had a troop throw fruit at as we stepped foot into their territory. Ross, in Tortugerro, told us that monkeys have a distict smell based on the different plants that get digested and end up in their feces. So by the end of the trip we thought that we were full fledged biologists, we swear that we could tell when we were approaching monkey troop. Just test us!
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Whether it’s two-toed or three-toed, it’s still a Sloth to me
As nasty and hideous as I find Sloths, Hayley became obsessed with these guys during our trip. But, as much as I make fun of Hayley for this, she has one on me. In Santa Elena/Monteverde I asked our guide (Freddy), “Is that oil I see on that sloth’s fur?” He further explained that because they lay out all day long, and it rains nearly every day, they grow algae and fungi in their fur. The most that we ever saw one move was when one scratched its head for a little bit. We don’t have anything like these nocturnal creatures in The States.
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disclaimer: we did not take these shots; I have included credit when provided.

Did my office duties today.

Eating some Indian and looking foward to some music tonight.

And that’s all folks…night!