Beauty of Costa Rica: Pictures from Semana Santa!

Here are some pictures from the week of Semana Santa here in Costa Rica. I was so blessed to have my parents come spend one week with me, getting to see a taste of this small, but beautiful country, Costa Rica. Here is my mom and dad on their anniversary, last Monday. I took them up to the Ram Luna restuarant which overlooks all of San Jose. This is the same place I got to go for Valentine's day with a group of singles here.












Here is my mom and I after dinner at Ram Luna. They really enjoyed it, although the steak there was not quite as tasty as the Argentine restuarant we ate at last Saturday. There is no steak better than Argentine steak.









From San Jose, we left to go to Playa Tamarindo, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. There, we were greeted by these 3-4 foot iguanas. One jumped eight feet down off of this roof right in front of my mother as she was wheeling her suitcases past. She screamed and jumped: welcome to Costa Rica!







Here is Tamarindo Beach. We spent three days here enjoying the upper 90's weather and perfectly clear, sunny skies. The ocean was surrounded by a mountainous backdrop. The ocean water here is almost as warm as bath water. It was truly beautiful!









This is my favorite picture of all the pictures I took: the pacific ocean hitting up against some rocks near shore.











From Tamarindo, we drove Thursday afternoon up to Arenal Volcano and Lake Arenal. The view was spectacular. We drove around this lake for nearly 3 hours, to get to the side closest to the volcano. This is Lake Arenal (lago de Arenal) which is the largest manmade lake in all of Central America. It is used to provide electricity to most of the San Carlos valley. It was beautiful to see the sun set over these mountains and this lake.




Around the lake, is Arenal Nacional Park, where we spent one afternoon getting a very thorough tour of the volcano and the history behind it. Here is a shot of the perfectly clear skies (very seldom and almost never are the skies clear here, as it borders the Monteverde Cloud Rain Forest). This is some of the rain forest that still exists up close to the volcano, even though a 1968 devestating eruption cleared all the forest off the slopes of the volcano.

Here is Arenal Volcano, with its baren, rocky slopes, covered in volcanic rocks. Daily, it smokes and you can see huge boulders and rocks spew out of its top. Before 1968, the locals here just though it was a pretty hill, as it was totally covered in rain forest. A huge explosion totally wiped out two local towns and 88 people died. Our guide told us that the lava traveled from the "hill" at faster than 1000 mph, giving people little time to leave. Since then, there has been several other eruptions, but none that have been devestating or deadly. It erupts constantly all day and night, with little spurts of lava and rocks.

We were blessed to have 2 clear days and 2 clear nights at the volcano. Our guide told us this practically never happens, and only about 15% of people can see any of the volcano. We saw it all, even at night lit by a full moon shining over it. It was so amazing to watch orangish-red lava flow from our hotel at night. Here are my parents and I in front of the volcano in the nacional park. You can see the years of piled up volcanic rocks around us. We hiked about 3 km to get to this point of "zone 1" which is the closest you are allowed to legally get to the volcano.

After the afternoon at the volcano park, we got to swim in natural hot springs at Tabacon hot springs. Here is a shot of some of the water falls we swam under!

Here is me looking like a nice gringo tourist in front of the Arenal Volcano! :)

Here is one last shot of the completely clear skies and Arenal Volcano. It was so beautiful.

Easter weekend we returned to San Jose and my parents stayed over at Howard's, where we made a big American-style Easter dinner after church, complete with easter candy, even jelly beans from the US. We had ham, mashed potatoes, and some vegetables ans strawberry shortcake...it was so good, but I think I'm still full:)

This is Helmer, Howard, and I in front of the house on Easter Sunday.

Here are my parents and I in front of the house on Easter Sunday.

It was a great week with them, but now its back tothe last week of classes here. I have three more days this week, and then over 2 weeks of break! Next week I'll get to head to a different beach and part of Costa Rica.

God continues to bless my time here in Costa Rica, some days opening up more doors and opportunities than I know what to do with! This morning I teach English at AMCA house and just pray for more fruit here, for more to accept Christ, and for more girls that may be interested in coming to our Bible study/Discipleship group. Pray tonight for us as we meet and begin a new study in Spanish over 15 core areas of the Christian faith. Pray that all invited will come!

Thanks for your prayers, Bethany