Blog... check!

Sixteen days from now, I'll be on a plane to Costa Rica, on what I'm calling my self-imposed sabbatical.  I'll spend four weeks in Spanish school, do some volunteering with a sea turtle conservation organization, and then travel a bit through Costa Rica and Panama.

First, I'll spend three weeks here, in Flamingo Beach, Guanacaste:


My last week of school will be spent, along with my brother, in Monteverde, haven of eco-tourism (and wildlife!) in Costa Rica.  Here's the school:

Then, I'll travel to over to the Caribbean coast where I'll help patrol the beach at night for a week looking for sea turtle nests.  I'll be doing something similar to what these people did (love their honesty!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRVZz9ZQ8K0

Then, I'll head back to San Jose to meet Dan and join a tour back down the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and into Panama.  Here's our planned journey:



We will spend our last couple of days in Panama City fully exploring the Panama Canal.  Dan is, of course, an engineer.  He's also a history buff.  He will happily spend hours perusing the museums, staring at the locks, and contemplating their design.  I, meantime, will be happily speaking Spanish with any random person I meet nearby, or photographing monkeys in the trees.  (Or talking to the people nearby in Spanish about the monkeys.)  We'll both be quite content.

I'll blog periodically once I get to Central America!  Y voy a tratar a escribir todo yo escribo in ingles, tambien en espanol. (We'll see... :) )