Dowlings on tour

Oh my gosh, what an experience, first it was about a 40km drive in going around 20km an hour on old road that we thought we were going into the beyond. We passed a huge windmill farm, Costa Rica is powered by sustainable energy. Geothermal power which is supplied by the volcanos and from what we have noticed there seems to be plenty of wind farms around. Everyone has told us power is very cheap here. We first went on a tour to see the dinosaurs. 23 in total     As you can imagine Boston loved it and was in his element and wanted to see them all. He was completely overwhelmed by the whole thing and was practically speechless for most of the tour. Only really beginning to talk at the end when we come down to a beautiful waterfall.   We saw some creepy crawlies that were everywhere, bullet ants,  which sting you and spiders that were bigger than your hand that the kids were really interested in. Noah and I were not that keen on touching them at...

We went to the Blue River Resort to stay for a night. When we got there we went to the Dino Park and saw lots of dinosaurs. After that we went to the resort to go to our cabin. Then we got into our tog and went into the hot springs and got some lunch. About an hour later we went to have a volcanic mud bath and look at all the animal exhibits. We did the same things on the second day, then we went home. I had a great time.

Today we headed over the hill to a outside bar on the beach to watch the soccer. At a place called Playa Hermosa. Many bars are sports bars where people gather to eat and watch a game and there is the beach lapping up in the background.   by Dani:  We went to Hermosa to go to the beach there and we were sitting in the water and all of a sudden a stingray leapt out into the air I felt amazed and scared at the same time I got out of the water because there were quite a lot of them leaping about and I didn't want to get stung. Later we saw some Howler monkeys climb to a mango tree to eat. Some of them had babies with them and when they ate they only took one humongous bite out of the mango and then dropped it. I had an amazing day.  

We made it to Coco and headed down to the beach and a quick look through the town. Cute little town, one thing that has surprised me is there are five big supermarkets here and many many small stores and all seem to be busy and all the prices are low. Lots of competition manages to keep prices down. We are loving the small fruit stalls all around the sides of the street. Where  you can buy fruit from the side of the road. Not only that you can buy large quantities of fruit for very little money. A water melon and pineapple for around 25cents. Boston is beside himself to try everything and eat everything. Dani and Noah are a little more reserved about trying new things. The first morning here we headed out to the beach nearby, it was a bit of a walk down to the water, a very flat beach in a bay we could see all around it was flat everywhere. We put on our swimming glasses and used noodles to watch the fish swimming around the mini reef around the sea floor just a few ...

We woke up to find that Iveth had organized a trip to a place called Frog Heaven, we piled into the van and headed over the hill into the rain forest and through the mist. It was raining and we couldn't see a great deal. We headed into a small area called Sarapiqui, Heredia. It was about an hour drive from our house we were staying in but in a straight line it would have been about twenty minutes. We were met by a man named Jose who said that we were there for a fun time, fun time not really Boston stepped right onto a fire ant hill and was quickly screaming covered in ants and they were crawling everywhere. I picked him up  and tried to brush all the ants that were quickly crawling all over him and in his shoes, they were everywhere. Boston wasn't keen to try put back on his shoes or carry on into the rain forest. But we convinced him to keep going and that all the ants were off him. Where we were the frog heaven was about an acre of planted rain forest behin...

Costa Rica-San Jose🐍🐸🐸🦈🦈 We arrived at San Jose and we met my Auntie's parents and went in the car to the mall because Uncle Richard's flight was delayed for three hours so we had three hours to spare. After that we went to pick up my Uncle and Aunty. When we got to our holiday house I was amazed it was so big and had an awesome backyard. I walked to the door and something licked my leg. It was a big fluffy dog!🐕🐕🐶🐶His name was Silka. The next day we went to a market place and I fed a pigeon and it jumped on my arm and then onto my head. KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/KL;/...

I'm going to quickly touch on the Costa Rica bakeries, there are bakeries that are out of this world. All you do is walk in and put food onto trays and head to the lady and the counter and she adds up the price. so the other day Richard and I went into one and we brought massive amounts of baked goods, and I have to add MILK for 5.500 colonies.... $11. The ones directly below are sort of like a pie, one is filled with chicken and rice and beans the other is filled with rice and beans. We went for lunch out near where we were staying in San Jose Richard ordered for me, I wasn't hungry however the meal came there was so much food on my plate, rice, beans, pork and on top was tomatos.  You could never ever find the bottom of your bowl. Another item that has popped up a few times is patacones made out of plantains which look like a banana but are not a banana. "Straight from google" Fruit.  Plantains  can be used for cooking at any stage of ripeness, but ri...

Yesterday we headed into downtown San Jose to look about. We found a park and walked to a mall part where it was kinda like a square, we were approached by people handing the kids corn to feed the birds and Dani was right into it. Boston was a bit wary after seeing them all swoop in on Dani and land on her head. The outside mall was a interesting place, it was also quite busy as they were gearing up for a gay pride parade down the streets of Costa Rica. There were rainbow flags everywhere.  Down the mall vendors were selling their wares all down the mall which they are not really allowed to do but as the police come near they quickly pack up and move along. There were also fruit vendors and vendors selling lotto tickets, many many many people calling out for you to buy the lotto.  LOTTO there are lotto sellers everywhere on the street. Apparently the lotto is drawn every night. People with little booths calling out the numbers they have for the lotto. It app...

I think Lindsay and I had almost 36hours with no sleep. A flight from L.A to El Salvador, Our seats were right beside the toilets and people kept walking past all night long bumping into us and putting their hands onto the tv screen and turning off my movie all the time. Boston Fell asleep easy, sleeping across everyone. Dani and Noah didn't sleep either. So when we arrived in El Salvador Boston was a box of birds and we were all the walking dead. We had to go through emigration. Which involved walking to the gate and getting on our new plane. Emigration was tight.... A quick up and down to land in Costa Rica. Something that you need to prepair for is the lack of impulse to get off the plane. Costa Ricans and others take their sweet time getting off the plane, slowly getting their stuff and getting off. stopping to greet people and chat. Blocking the exit ways. This wouldn't happen in NZ you would grab your stuff and go. We headed through customs and we were asked where w...