Surfing With Crocidiles!

Kyle and I arrived in San Jose on time at 4 pm yesterday. We could already see Costa Rica´s beauty from the plane ride in. Mountains covered in tropical rainforest paint the land a deep green for as far as you can see. After grabbing our surfboards and loading them in our taxi we got a taste of San Jose rush hour. What should have beena 30 minute cab ride took about an hour and a half. We thought we might miss our bus to the beach but they ended up having a later one than we thought. Our first meal in Costa Rica was perfect! A gaint plate of chicken, rice, beans, and vegetables for about $2 was exactly what we needed after a long day of traveling. Now we were off on our bus ride to Manuel Antonio. After winding through the mountains for 4 hours we had finally reached our hostel. Vista Serena sits on the side of a mountian over looking the Pacific ocean. The porch has many hammocks that provide a great place to watch the beautiful sunsets. Our first morning here we woke up and headed to the beach. The beach is only about 10 minutes down the mountain. The last two days we surfed for at least 10 hours. My shoulders are definitely asking me to take a break. But its so hard with perfect waves pounding the beach all day. The water is a great temperature and the sun is not too bad when its behind the clouds. The spot we surf at is at the far right end of the beach from the picture above. The beach looks like something out of Jarassic Park. Today, Kyle had an encounter with a living dinasour himself. He came running out of the water and I knew something was up. A 7ft croc was patrolling the surf and decided to get uncomfortably close to Kyle. Crocs are not uncommon here, so it was not a huge surprise. Needless to say we took a little break from surfing until he decided to go bother other unsespecting beach goers. Crocidiles are not the only widelife we have seen. Yesterday on the was back from surfing we saw a whole group of monkeys and two sloths in the trees. It is really amazing to have such diverse plant and wildlife around us. Costa Rica has more species of both than the U.S. and Europe combined! The food is good, the surf is up, and the weather is perfect. I just got here, but I´m already planning my return.