Costa Rica - the wrapup

Since I never quite got around to blogging about the second half of my Costa Rica trip (and have been back over a full month...), here's the speedy breakdown of the rest of our adventure:

During the week, we hung out on campus since Rob had classes and group projects before enduring a racuous party on Thursday night, complete with Milwuakee's Best beer. Yikes.

(Andrew, Mark & Rob)

Toward the end of my trip, we jumped in a slightly larger SUV with the Germans and headed to the coastal town of Dominical for some surfing. Many of the beaches in Costa Rica are named "Playa Hermosa", and we surfed at one of them on Saturday:



I made one minor mistake while surfing: forgetting/refusing to reapply sunblock. Whoops. I flew home in full lobster mode and proceeded to flake alllllll over our apartment and my office for the following week. It hurt. Mother Nature won. As in whooped my ass. I learned a hard lesson. Everything worked out in the end...yay.

owwwww.

We swung by Playa Ballena (Whale Beach) before heading back to Alajuela:

a sign warning that there were crocodiles in the brackish water where the river met the sea...

...and the families obviously paying close attention to the signs
HAH!

On our way home, yet another bridge had collapsed, and we were forced to take the lonnnnnnnng and winding road dubbed "Cerro de la Muerte" for its perilous turns and many fatalities. Greeeeaaaatttt. Six hours, fog that wouldn't quit, and a few missed exits later we finally ended up back at INCAE.

my wobbly view from the back seat. clearly there ain't much light. there were moments when we literally couldn't see a single inch beyond the front of the car, and we literally continued by feel along the dots in the road...scary might not begin to describe it

I was suuuuuuuuuuper bummed to leave on Sunday (to the point that I may or may not have alarmed the customs agent with my puffy eyes and florescent red face), and endured an far-from-eventful flight back to the States. Monday at work was ugly, but I'm almost back into the swing of things now...almost.