I actually would never have gone if not for Kathryn, a friend from California, and I'm so thankful to her for the opportunity!

I kept pretty meticulous journal entries on a yellow letter pad of paper - about 20 pages worth! I took 14.5 rolls of pictures, and have scanned many of them here.

My plane was scheduled to leave at 5:31pm, but we were delayed. I had fun in the airport, and then we sat on the plane for 3.5 hours. They said something like, "the radar in the nose cone has a hole in it." Nice. We still had fun though.

Arrived in San Jose' around 1am. I am SO thankful to have Lori and Kris as my guardian angels. Foreign language, foreign city at night... I woulda been nervous as hell. Went through customs and then taxi ride to drop off Lori, then Kris, and then me at the hotel.

Took a taxi to Tabacon at Volcano Arenal, the most beautiful resort I've ever been to. We spent 1.5 days here, including a hike to Arenal Lodge, and a longer hike beyond the jungle behind the spas of Tabacon. I took no pictures, but we got to see the volcano erupt a little bit!

To leave Tabacon and the La Fortuna area, we rode horses to Monteverde. DO NOT DO THIS!!!!

Then two days at Arco Iris in Santa Elena, where we went through the cloud forest on bridges and zip lines, saw humming birds and butterflies, also where I held a cockroach and ate an asthma beetle!

After two days in Monteverde, we took a taxi to La Playa Manuel Antonio.

Then we spent two days in Manuel Antonio National Forest. Kathryn and I were mostly separate during this time. I hung out all day the first day with Jake, exploring beaches, rocky hills, and rain forest.

The next day, after saying bye to Jake in the morning, I got trapped on a rocky peninsula for a couple hours! After being rescued by a guy with a plastic bag, I saw a bunch of monkeys!

Thursday morning, we took a small plane to San Jose', including a 30 minute diversion to a small airport. Chilled in the San Jose airport and then flew home to Houston with almost no delay.

Maggie and Molly picked me up. We helped Molly and Will move into their new house, ate pizza, and Eric dropped me off at home around midnight.