Map Embroidery/Costa Rica

   That's right, friends-I said "Map Embroidery" and in case that still sounds like nonsense to you, don't worry-it'll sound like the coolest thing ever in just a few minutes.
 
   As some of you may remember, I like to occasionally tackle a Martha Stewart project (and then feel super accomplished once I've tackled it), and there's a certain project that I've been wanting to do for almost a year now but just haven't buckled down and done it. I found it in the August 2011 edition of Martha Stewart Living, and it seemed like the perfect idea to remember my Costa Rica trip. The idea is that you get a map of a place that you've taken a road trip through and you embroider the path that you took with some nice-looking embroidery thread, and then you frame it and hang it on your wall. Pretty straightforward, I think it took me so long to do it because I didn't know where to find a map and then I got pregnant (aka super super sick) and forgot all about it.
   So to start, I found the journal that I kept during the trip which listed out all of the places that we stopped at in chronological order, which was helpful because I had forgotten some of those details in the year that has passed. Sidenote: Kind of weird to think that a year ago I was in Costa Rica. I think that I'll add some of those pictures to the end of this post to commemorate the trip. :)
  Anyway, I traced the path on the map (that I ended up finding at a flag store on University Ave. for $13) with a pen, then went through with the embroidery needle and poked holes along that path. I got my embroidery thread from JoAnn's for .36 cents, but shortly after beginning to embroider the path I realized that the red thread didn't stand out enough from the other colors on the map.

 So instead of continuing with the red thread, I gently cut it out and went back to JoAnn's to buy dark blue, black, and white thread just in case I needed more than one option. I went with the dark blue, and several hours later, I ended up with this:

I added an "x" to the places where we stopped for more than an hour. Some are more visible than others since I'm not a super great embroider...ist yet.

   I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Now all I need to do is get it framed. I'm planning on using one of the ubiquitous Michael's coupons that give you 50% off of a custom frame order. If my little man decides not to come for a couple more days, I think I'll go get than done tomorrow. :)

  Now for some awesome pictures of Costa Rica! If you're completely uninterested in looking at my vacation pictures (which is totally understandable), you can just stop reading here and I'll never have to know :)

So the first place that we went was called Zarcero, which was on the way to the first place we stayed the night. Zarcero has the most beautiful topiaries I've ever seen! Here are some pictures:

We were trying to imitate the faces in the shrubbery, but I don't think we were super successful.

Isn't this so cool?!

This is the town of Zarcero.

It cracks me up that my friend Brittany totally photobombs this like a boss!

Isn't this so pretty?

 After Zarcero, we got back on the road and drove through some crazy fog until we got to La Fortuna. We stopped there briefly to pick up some stuff (like rubber boots, cash, food) and then went just outside the city to a little village called El Castillo where we stayed for 2 nights. El Castillo's only claim to fame would be the Butterfly Sanctuary. It had 4 different Costa Rican habitats, which housed the different species of butterfly who live in those environments. Pretty cool stuff. We also had really close access to the volcano Arenal where we hiked up a nearby extinct volcano to look at the Caldera (absolute worst hike I've ever endured-and while wearing rubber boots which made my feet hurt somethin' fierce) and hiked up an old lava flow just underneath Arenal itself. There's also a great view of Lake Arenal from the lava flow.

This is what we found on our beds when we got to our little cabin in El Castillo

Look at those cute cabins!

This is me hiking Cerro Chato-the hike of doom-in rubber boots, because I was told that the trail would be so muddy I'd need boots to wade through it.

This is early on in the hike, which is evidenced by the fact that I'm still smiling.

This is the view of the Caldera (lake in a sunken volcano) from the top. Yeah, you can barely see it. The view was totally not worth it!

HUGE butterfly!

These are live cocoons with butterflies inside them. The green with gold trim cocoons were the prettiest, in my opinion.

I don't remember what it was that I was smelling, but I seemed really intent on smelling it.

We actually saw him on our way to the Butterfly place, but this little guy is a Basilisk! Very different from the Harry Potter variety.

It's hard to see right away, but there's a tiny little turtle down there.

This poor butterfly had been in a fight with another butterfly (for real-the guide told us that it happens all the time) and couldn't really fly anymore. I think that's why it was letting us hold it.

This is a poison-dart frog. Super cute, super dangerous.

Arenal Volcano

Me being a Geologist, looking at a piece of lava rock through a hand lens. Yup, I'm a nerd!

Lake Arenal

This is my little buddy Tanner-he was my seat-mate on the bus because we both tended to get really carsick. We became really good friends over the two week trip.

  After Arenal we went to another volcano called Rincon de la Vieja. There was a really awesome resort there called Buena Vista Lodge that was definitely the most legit place we stayed the entire trip. We went ziplining, hiked to some hot springs, took a night hike on bridges 40 ft above the canopy, and encountered a waterfall that was so smooth that we were able to go down it like a waterslide! Here are pictures:

On our hike there was this butterfly that really liked me and hung out on my backpack for a while.

Another butterfly friend

This is a piece of volcanic pumice. It's extremely lightweight and was very crumbly.

There it is: The Waterfall Waterslide

 And a super-flattering picture of my first time down the waterslide. I was pretty nervous about it.

This is either my second or third time down, and by then I was just having a great time instead of being scared.

I thought it was funny that it looked like I'd wet myself.

This snake was coiled up in a tree reeeally far away from where we could watch it.

This tree was full of huge caterpillars. Kinda gross, but also awesome.

I thought this flower was awesome because it looked like a little man in a super cool robe.

   After the Buena Vista Lodge (which we called BVL for short-and cuz it sounded cool), we went to a historic Casona where the Costa Ricans kept this crazy cowboy American from taking over their country like he had taken over Nicaragua. It was raining pretty heavily while we were there, but it was still a really cool experience. We even learned some recent history about the Casona in which two hunters were trying to hunt on the Casona grounds, which is illegal because the grounds are a national park,  so they were thrown out by a park ranger and their stuff was confiscated. They were so angry that they came back later and set fire to the historic Casona, thinking it was the ranger's station, and are currently serving prison terms for destroying an historic landmark. They didn't ruin the whole thing, but it had to largely be rebuilt. Interesting, eh? Here are a couple of pictures:

This is my friend Brittany, one of the only two people I never got sick of throughout the trip!

This awesome lizard was just hanging out on this fence outside the Casona. He was nice enough to let me snag a picture before he took off.

 Going down the Pacific side of Costa Rica, we hit up Tarcoles, where we saw tons of crocodiles, then Manuel Antonio National Park, where we saw a 3-toed sloth up close (definitely one of the highlights of the trip!).

Here's the 3-toed sloth, who came down from the trees just to do his business.

This is a Halloween Crab. When we found it, it was dead, so it was easy to snag pictures of.

Can you see the 3 crocodiles in this picture?

This is a Howler Monkey, eating some fruit.

This is me about to drink straight coconut milk, which ended up being super gross.

This is the crocodile tour, where the guide lures a croc out of the water and feeds it raw chieken.

This one's a bit too close for comfort.

This bird's beak is so sharp that it can stab right through human flesh. This same type of bird killed a Costa Rican a few years back by stabbing him right through the heart!

   After the Pacific side, we went high up into the mountains (which was extremely cold) to Cerro de la Muerte. We stayed at a cute place run by a Costa Rican family that was dedicated to the Quetzal bird and hummingbirds. There were more hummingbirds there than I've ever seen in my life! We also went on a hike to find some Quetzal birds and we totally did! They're beautiful! The only downside was that it was freezing and constantly wet. The family who ran the "hotel" would give us hot water bottles to put in our beds at night so we could sleep. It was really shocking to go from the Pacific Beach where we were drenched in our own sweat to the chilly mountain top where we were wet from the cold, damp, ever-present mist.

  On our way down to the Atlantic side we stopped and went rafting down the Pacuare River. There were lots of intense rapids, but I never fell out of the boat!

    Pretty cool, right? That was definitely another highlight of the trip!
Next we went to the Atlantic, first to a place called Cahuita-where our hotel was literally on the beach. After Cahuita we went to Tortuguero, which was amazing! It's the place where giant sea turtles come out of the ocean to lay their eggs on the beach-which we got to see happen!

My friend Tyler, and Maverick. Tyler was the other person besides Brittany I never got sick of. :)

This is the same perspective, minus the people. This is how close we were to the beach.

On our way to Tortuguero our bus ran off the road. I think it's a miracle it didn't roll!

This is the prettiest (and most delicious) restaurant we ate at in Costa Rica. It's right on the river, which was beautiful.

Me and my friend Tyler at the nice restaurant.

I thought that the currency was waaay better looking than American currency, so I wanted to get a picture. 2 Mil (2 Thousand) colones is approximately $4.

This is Rafa, our guide through Costa Rica. He's very knowledgeable and just a great guy all around.

This is us waiting at the Tortuguero airport for our flight back into San Jose. The only ways to get to Tortuguero are by boat and plane.

The sun rising on the runway. P.S. It's like 5:30AM. Costa Rica only gets 12 hours of sunlight year-round and those hours are between 5AM and 5PM.

  Once we were back in San Jose, we were pretty much exhausted and ready to be done, but because of a flight change, we had to wait another day for a flight back into the US. This ended up being good and bad for me-good because since we had a 5-hour layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth I was able to see my Uncle Jared, Aunt Lindsay and their cute kids, which doesn't happen very often, and bad because it was one more day that I had to spend away from Jeff, which was killing me. But we at least hit up the San Jose Central Market for an hour or so before we walked back to our hotel and did nothing the rest of the day.

In case you don't speak Spanish, this sign says "Ducks In The Road Don't Kill Them" which I kinda thought should go without saying.

Central Market in San Jose

The biggest, and most delicious-looking avocados I've ever seen! I wanted to put my hand in the picture for scale, but the guy selling them was already leery of me taking pictures of his avocado stand, so I didn't want to make it worse.

My cute little cousins Harley, Ella, and Briel.

My awesome uncle Jared, who I love to pieces.

  That was pretty much my trip! If you've made it this far-I'm super impressed! Most of this was just journaling for me, so you get extra friendship bonus points if you've read this whole thing! And again, it's just so crazy to think that a year ago I was in Costa Rica and now I'm home with my sweetheart who has an amazing job, gets to work from home, and we're getting ready to welcome our little Henry into the world! As fun and adventurous as Costa Rica was, I'm extremely glad to be where I am now!