Back in the US of A

What a great trip we had. Costa Rica was all we expected it to be and more. We traveled over nine hundred miles in the six days of traveling and visited three national parks, a volcano, and stayed in five different hotels. We drove through many of the towns and villages and spent three days along the Pacific coast. We had two guided river tours viewing birds, monkeys, sloths, crocodiles, and lizards, and hiked the rain forest at two of the parks. We hiked the hanging bridges at one park and rode an Arial tram at another park.
Our tour, the hotels and all of our meals were top notch as was our tour guide LeLe and our bus driver Barilio.
We were with thirteen other couples and got to know most of them quite well. They came from Canada, England, New York, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, California, and Florida and were all travelers and adventurers.
 We learned a great deal about the ways of Costa Rica and the efforts that the government is making to promote and build tourism since it is the primary driver of their economy. Agriculture is also important there with pineapples, bananas, coffee and oranges as their main exports. Pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, and software development are the main industries in the country and they have a high level of education since it is a priority of their democratic government. (They abolished their army in 1949 and instead used the money to fund education. They have the highest educational level of all of Latin America).

Here are some pictures from the trip...