¡Pura Vida!

There is nothing so wonderful as getting away from the daily obligations and duties for a whole glorious week.  It's even better when you get to go to a new country where the wildlife and scenery are lush and green, the people friendly, and the weather is delightful.

This morning at 2 a.m., we finally fell into bed after a wonderful spring break trip to Costa Rica.  Our travels took us to a volcano, a cloud forest (think rain forest in the mountains) and a rain forest that runs right up to the beach (on the Pacific side).

I will be blogging about various parts of our vacation all week long, but suffice it to say, the Costa Ricans (Ticos) know how to live the great life. ¡Pura Vida! Literally translated, it means pure life, but it is used as a greeting or farewell, or to express much that is great about life.  We heard this term from so many with great smiles, people who spoke English very well, or kindly put up with our extremely limited Spanish and hand gestures.

Tourism is Costa Rica's number one industry, and this country has a great infrastructure to handle the influx of people from all over.  We met people from Canada, Wales, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand and Australia, France, Japan, and, of course, all over the US (including the used book seller from Norco, CA).

Today, while unpacking and getting ready for the week ahead (I always like to give myself a day to recuperate after travel), I will be sorting through the 450 pictures (I deleted over 200 others on the camera before we even landed at home) and putting them on my Flickr site.