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89-Costa Rica in Pictures @ CherieSpotting     Oct 08 2002 - 09:15 PST cherie writes: Have you ever made firey passionate love at the base of an erupting volcano? Neither have we. But after you look at these pictures, you'll discover that Costa Rica is pure, raw paradise. Click on each picture to see it full size. read comments (1) | write comment| views: 10746    | rated: 0.0    printer-friendly version   Cherie on Scirocco in Marina Flamingo, Costa Rica. Flamingo Beach. Marina Flamingo with amazing clouds. Costa Rica has clouds that mean business. When the going gets tough...the tough relax in a hammock. Two men of the sea. Gene has been coming to Costa Rica since 1978, and moved to Flamingo Beach 14 years ago. Everyday you'll find him drinking a beer at the Spreader Bar, the where all the fisherman hang out. Doug, Greg and I on an exploration bike ride. Cruiser bicycles cost $1 an hour to rent, mountain bikes cost $2 an hour. A "Tico", which is a nickname for a male Costa Rican. View of Flamingo Beach. A beach house, Costa Rica style. You too can own ocean front property at a very reasonable price. An apple on steroids? I'm not sure what that is...except that it is NOT an apple. Greg and I both got cruiser-style bicycles and then carried or walked them over half the terrain. A tropical island off of Brasilito Beach...or is that a muppet holding his breath under water? Marina Flamingo, Scirocco's home for the last 4 months. You never know who you are going to meet at the Spreader Bar. Maybe Lynn, the model for this painting. Yancy, our favorite waitress at the Spreader Bar. We felt something wet dripping on our heads? We looked up to see this little furry guy drinking straight out of the coconut and spilling half of the milk on us! Scirocco. The Fun Fisher 1, with two cool eels. We rented a 4x4 to drive through the back roads of Costa Rica. Here's a typical view. Los Angeles, so close...yet so far away. Unique trees. Costa Rica is full of more than just pot-holes and pot-heads. But it does have both. Here's a picture of the former, not the latter. Greg reading the Lonely Planet "Costa Rica" guidebook. "What is that?" The second most common question we ask in Costa Rica. (The first being..."Where are we?") Our 4x4 Toyota Rav4 ready to take whatever Costa Rica can dish out. Here I am playing around in the cement-circle-thing off the side of the road. Pretty purple flowers. There is colorful foliage wherever your eyes look. Greg by the nice white car before we got it stuck in a mud-slide. A white-nosed coati, poised to attack us. Jungle view off the side of the road. I've never seen such wild, natural beauty just waiting to be appreciated. Even the muddy rivers are beautiful. Greg by a stream. Cherie on top of a waterfall. The view out our hotel window at "Montana de Fuego". The view from our hotel balcony. The lonely palm tree. Greg at Tabacon Resort, where we stayed the second night of our road trip. The thermal water is so hot it almost burns! We decorate pumpkins, Costa Ricans decorate melons. That bug blending into the grass is about 6 inches long. Greg sliding down the water-slide at Tabacon Resort. I made him slide down that slide a ton of times before I could even "catch" his feet on film. I finally caught Greg coming down! Blow-drying the video-camera after it got a little wet from taking too much water-slide footage. It survived. I'm going to guess that the sex of this flower is male. Twins? The therapeutic water sucks all the stress out of your bones. Greg and I in the hot springs at Tabacon Resort. Another day, another pretty flower. Greg smiling, how can you not be happy here? Tabacon Resort at the foot of Arenal Volcano. The cheapest massage in Costa Rica is given by a waterfall. Greg and I with Arenal Volcano behind us. The volcano erupts all day long spitting smoke and lava, a show not to be missed. Greg taking a shower the natural way. The volcano in the mist. Me and my favorite active volcano. Arenal Volcano with the lush tropical gardens of Tabacon Resort. I'm letting the water and the worries slide right off me. Crossing the river is an act of balance and courage. Tabacon Resort, a four-hour drive from Marina Flamingo. Christmas is here, even the plants are celebrating! Look at the brilliant red and green! A waterfall at Tabacon Resort. I'm just hanging out on a little dock at "Montana de Fuego" hotel. We had our own cabin at "Montana de Fuego" with a spectacular view of the volcano. Another flower, simply beautiful. Typical breakfast in Costa Rica. The spikey fruit "mamon chino" and the fried-bananas were delicious. Perhaps a relative of the porcupine, the fruit "mamon chino" actually tastes sort of like a grape. You suck on the white fruit inside and throw away the spiney shell. "Mamon chinos"...enough for everyone! Good thing we had a good breakfast, so we could "stomach" our 4x4 getting stuck in a landslide. Greg raises his hands and says "What now?" Fortunately, we waved down another truck to pull us out of the mud. Now that is off-roading! Three cows on the side of the road. It really sucks when you come home from a long day at work and you realize your house fell over. One of many landslides we avoided. Come on...can't we play in the landslide just a few more minutes! Please! Greg sitting in a pot-hole thankful that we didn't get one flat tire in our entire 3-day road trip! Now that's a tree with some roots.