Guachepelin

Hey everybody.
So our stay at Guachepelin was RIDICULOUS! So great. By far the nicest place we've stayed so far. It was just outside Liberia in a more dry forest area outside of the national park Rincon de la vieja. So they had a sweet pool, a restaurant where a buffet breakfast was served free. They actually had tvs in all the rooms ... very nice rooms might i add! A/C and candles in the rooms haha and also they had all sorts of things to do around the resort (which was like a working ranch theme). So the first night we just chilled at the hotel played some cards and watched my best friends wedding which was playing on TV. Then the next morning we went on a 3 Km hike around the Pailas portion of the park which had lagoons and active geiser type activity. Then we went to the Symbiosis spa they had and got the volcanic mud treatment. Its normally 20 dollars but its free in the downseason (now) so we just had to hitch a ride to the place. Then you do a short sauna, spread hot/warm volcanic mud on your skin, let it dry, and rinse it off in one of their hot spring mud baths and it is supposed to be good for your skin. It was fun anyways just to smear mud on ourselves.
The next day we got up really early and did the bigtime hike to the crater of the inactive and active volcanoes. The people at the tour place said it takes 7 to 8 hours round trip. We made it to the top in about 2 hours 15 minutes. Chilled there for a while, then on our way back we climbed the inactive crater. Then when we were about back we took a detour to another little site which was the rio blanco pool, which was 95 stairs (i counted), we did it all in 5 hours... needless to say our legs were dead. It was REALLY cool though. The ranger kinda made us nervous the day before because he was surprised we were going alone. He said not to get separated or lost he didn't want to have to search for us. Some kid from the US tried to do the hike by himself August 11th and they never found him. He must have fallen in the crater or something. It was sad...i saw his missing person poster in the office...crazy. But the hike wasn't really THAT bad. The next day our butts were SO sore though. We had big plans to splurge on a massage at the spa place but when we got there turned out in the down season you have to like call to liberia to get a massage person out there...so we just did the mud spa again. Then we went to rio negro crystal hot springs for a bit. then went back. That about summed up our amazing trip to Guachepelin...it was REALLY great though.
Right now we're back in montezuma. Just relocated 2 nests to the hatchery last night. The hatchery is officially in working order and has 10 nests in it already. We'll be here until monday then we're going to Jaco/tarcoles/and manuel antonia for like 5 days. Then back to montezuma for another week. Then san jose to panama and back home. Thats where the trip is right now. I'll keep you all posted on the exciting things going on :) Did i mention guachepelin was amazing...?