Kudos to the Gallery project, providing very easy software for making the gallery work, and to Zachary Wily, whose iPhoto-to-Gallery plugin makes it ridiculously easier.
I won’t try to digest the entire trip here, but needless to say it was amazing. My sister-in-law Lauren had been living in Costa Rica for a couple of years, and worked at the Hotel Punta Islita for most of the last one. (She’s just moved back to the States since we were down there.) I can’t believe we took so long to get down there to visit her.
Anyway, Islita is pretty much at the end of the road as far as tourism in Northwestern Costa Rica goes; it’s about a three hour drive from the airport in Liberia. Well, in dry season, it might be quicker, but June is the beginning of the rainy season, and the Rio Ora was already too high to take the direct route, so we had an additional 45 minutes or so to get to a better crossing — on unpaved, very hilly roads. People who go to Punta Islita stay in Punta Islita.
I generally don’t think of myself a resort vacationer, but it was really a pleasure to just relax and do nearly nothing for a week. A lot of hanging out by the pools and walking on the beach; the beach in Islita is not the greatest for swimming and sunning, but the hotel has a nice “beach club” with a pool and a lot of grassy area with lounges and seats.
Given that I don’t think of myself as a resort vacationer, it’s probably not surprising that my favorite part of the trip was the day when Lauren arranged for a driver to take us around the country side where the regular Tico (native Costa Rican) people live. Given the fact that this isn’t tourist country, I was surprised to find at least one web site with some information about this area, including a map which pretty much covers that day’s trip. (Well, we only went as far as San Miguel.)
Maybe if I have some more time later I’ll tell some more stories; you can also leave comments and ask questions in the gallery — I’m hoping its anti-comment-spam features are more effective than the ones for my version of MovableType.