BFN Blues

So, I was really hoping this was the cycle.  But I was wrong.  I have been getting BFNs, but today is 14DPO, so I'm sure that means I'm out this month.  And then I started spotting after I got my BFN this morning.  So now I'm really mopey. 

And on to Cycle 7....

Honeymoon (The volcanoes and the trip home)

The next place we went to was the Arenal Volcano area.  We drove from the Pacific beach straight towards the center of the country.  It was a nice, relaxing drive, up and down pretty hills.  Eventually, we came upon Arenal Lake, which is huge and we had to drive from one side to the other.  That was 1/2 the trip.  We stopped at a little cafe and I had an awesome veggie sandwich with avocado. 

Here is a pic of the lake as we came upon it:

We got to our hotel and found out why they said you should have 4wd to get there.  The road in was a bit rocky:

 

And this was the drive to the bungalows from the reception:

 

We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the porch of our bungalow and enjoying the weather:

 

The next day we went and did the thing I most wanted to do of anything: zip lines!  Since L is deathly afraid of heights, it did not even occur to me that he might come with.  But when I went to pay, he said he wanted to.  I asked multiple times if he was sure and he said he was.  So I paid for both of us.  And up we went.  We took a cable car to the top of the mountain:

L looks scared:

 

I look excited:

 

Here we are at the top, ready to go, with the volcano in the background:

 

After 2 test runs, we got ready to do the first one.  I asked (for the 10th time) if L wanted to go back...it was his last chance.  He went, then I went.  It was AWESOME!  It was 45 stories up and you could see the volcano and the lake and trees way below you.  It was like nothing I've ever seen before.  When we got to the end, I looked around wondering how you get down.  It had not even occurred to me to ask any questions.  I was going no matter what.  I had assumed it was 1 zip then you're done.  Wrong.  A fellow zipper pointed out to me that there were 7 more to get to the end.  Uh, oh....pretty sure L wasn't aware of that either.  I was thrilled, he did not seem quite so thrilled.  But I got him to let me take pics of his second zip for proof that he'd done it.  Here is the sequence:

 

 

 

It was seriously the most fun I've had in a LONG time!  After all that excitement, though, L wanted to relax.  So we just hung out and relaxed at the bungalow.  The next day I was hoping we could do an ATV tour of whitewater rafting, but L was still a little shaken by the zip lines and wanted to stay low-key.  We walked around La Fortuna and shopped and ate.

The next day we took off for the airport really early.  We were really sad to go.  We went out a different way than we came in.  And the scenery was beautiful!  Here are a few shots from the road:

 

At one point, we realized that we were actually in the clouds:

 

 

On the map we had, it showed that the road went straight back to the main highway.  So we were very surprised when it forked right before we hit San Ramon.  We weren't sure what fork to take, so we stopped and asked a woman and her son.  They seemed very sure we should take the right fork.  Until they started gesturing the other way and seeming very certain we should go the other way.  I suppose that's what we get for going to a Spanish speaking country and not speaking any Spanish ourselves....  We took the right fork and ended up a a number of T intersections.  We randomly chose what direction to turn at each.  And were THRILLED to see this:

 

How we navigated through that city with no directions and successfully found our way back to the right highway I will never know.  But I'm sure glad we did because we would have missed our plane I think if we had gotten lost!

We didn't miss our plane.  We made it back in one piece.  It was tempting to just not get on, but seeing as we had already paid for the tickets and we'd just have to buy more if we didn't get on, we figured we might as well.  I can't wait to go back!

Honeymoon (The Beach)

Monday morning we got into San Jose.  We got through the ridiculous customs line and went to pick up our rental car and the people in line tell us "they ran out of 4x4s".  The hotel we were staying at said you need 4wd to get up their road, so that's not going to fly for us.  We haggled with them and they set us up with the same car for the same price with another rental car company.  Crisis diverted!

We got going on the road.  It was a straight shot on the main highway through the country from the rental car place to Liberia, where I had detailed directions the rest of the way to the hotel at Playa Ocotal that included "when you come to the top of the hill with a lot of signs, keep to the left".

The roads are a little treacherous at times and people are definitely not defensive drivers in the least!  At one point, we came around a curve and saw two semis coming straight at us, one in each lane, directly next to each other.  It's a good thing there happened to be a shoulder at that moment....it was one of the only times there was a shoulder in the whole country!  I caught a pic just as he was pulling in between the other semi and a car (right before I took it, the red semi and white semi were almost next to each other and the white one slammed on his brakes and got over--we were going approximately 50 mph at each other):

4 hours later, we made it to our hotel.  It made me sad because even though it was only 5:30, the sun had just gone down, so I didn't get to see the view.  We went to dinner at the hotel's restaurant and had a great steak with mashed potatoes and sauteed root vegetables.  It was absolutely delicious!  Unfortunately, we don't speak Spanish so when the waiter asked our order, DH said "I'll have the same, but with a Pepsi instead of a margarita".  The waiter nodded and said "yes".  So we figured he got it.

He came back with 2 of the strongest margaritas I've ever had (other than shots of tequila) and no Pepsi.  DH figured he would just drink it.  Neither of us really drinks and we were exhausted from traveling, so we only drank 1/2 of it because it was so strong.  When we finished eating, our waiter came over and asked us if something was wrong with our drinks.  We said no, they were good, just strong.  He then insisted on remaking them for us.  We argued back and forth with him but he insisted so we agreed that he'd bring us 1 new one to share.  A couple minutes later, he came back with 2 new margaritas, still strong, but drinkable.  We had to force ourselves to drink them because at this point, the manager, the waiter, the bartender, and the bus-boy were all staring at us from the other side of the patio.  When we were done eating and drinking, we had to walk our happy butts up the steepest ramp ever back to our room.  We actually thought when we turned the corner that there would be stairs.  I'm just glad neither of us rolled down it in the dark!

Here it is in the daylight the next day:

We got back to the room and went to bed.  When we woke up, I started some coffee and walked out to the patio to find this view staring me in the face:

Not so shabby!  Too bad I missed the sun setting over the water, but it was a pretty awesome surprise to wake up to!

We went down to breakfast and as we were walking there, we noticed this odd sign:

 

It was especially strange seeing as it was stuck in a flower bed that didn't even have bushes you could hide in...

Breakfast was equally strange.  There were tons of iguanas begging for food on the patio and the staff were chasing them away with a broom.  Some crazy lady was feeding this one (despite the sign that said "Please do not feed the animals"...):

When the staff told her she needed to stop feeding it, she asked "why? will it hurt his tummy?".  They did not know what to say to that, so they just let her keep feeding it.  It reminded us of my mother!  :)

After a quick stop at the beach, we headed out to the Arenal Region (another 3-4 hour drive).  Bye-bye Pacific!

 

It was a little sunny if you couldn't tell!  :)