Friday, December 27

We stopped on the way to the airport for bagels, and had an uneventful trip to Atlanta.  Josh ate two bagels, and we bought him an anonymous sandwich at the Rochester airport advertised as egg and bacon.  It was inedible.  Peanuts (two bags) on the way to Atlanta, and then we stopped at TGI Friday’s for lunch; Josh had baby back ribs and fries, but wasn’t really full.  I bought a big bag of Hershey Kisses and Joyce and I ate a few; Josh ate most of the rest.  We were bumped up to Business Class out of Atlanta, and finished dinner—chicken, salad, roll and butter, drinks, and gelato for dessert.

 Then Josh finished the Hershey Kisses.  I’m not sure there’s enough food in all of Costa Rica for him!  He’s growing!

Anyway, all is well, the flights are jammed and Delta was begging for people to take being bumped for all kinds of money and extra tickets.  We arrived at the San Jose airport around 9:00 PM and were in our hotel room and settled in by 10:30.

At 9 AM today we met our traveling companions: a family of five, mom, dad and three girls 8, 10 and 12, and a mother and daughter (16).  We drove two hours to Carara National Park, where we took a wonderful hike.  Along the way we saw an enormous variety of flora and fauna, including iguana:

Strange bananas:

And trees with enormous “buttress” roots, as the soil is not very solid, and the trees need huge and wide root systems:

We saw macaws nesting:

And we crossed a river full of scary crocodiles:

We finally arrived at Manuel Antonio National Park on the pacific coast of Costa Rica, and rested for a little at the pool (which has a phenomenal water slide).  We’ll begin to explore the national park here tomorrow.