Costa Rica

Costa Rica was beautiful and we did so much stuff. I figure pictures are the easiest way to tell about our trip. :)

When we finally got into Costa Rica Saturday night and got to our hotel with our friends Anne and Nick, we walked to a little corner restaurant for dinner. They had mostly sandwiches and desserts, so we ate while watching a soccer game on the little t.v. and marveling that we were actually in Costa Rica. We stayed at a cool little hotel in San Jose the night we got in and before flying out on Sunday which is famous for its breakfasts, unfortunately we never got to eat breakfast there. :( Both times we had to leave too early in the morning. We caught the 6:15 am public bus to La Fortuna the next morning. La Fortuna is a little town near Vulcan Arenal. The mountain partly covered by a cloud in the background is Vulcan Arenal. It is an active volcano.

After settling in at our hotel and having lunch, the girls took naps while the guys did some exploring and tour price shopping. :) Then we went for a hike in the rainforest! We got a cool picture with Vulcan Arenal at one point in the hike.

We arranged a tour for the next day which included a strenuous hike (they weren't exaggerating) with views of the volcano and a lake made by an extinct volcano as well as a visit to a local waterfall. :) Our guide was very cool, he had actually studied in Wisconsin for a while. We learned all about Costa Rican bull riding and how it differs from American bull riding. :)

We swam in the river at the bottom of the waterfall. There were lots of fish and if I sat still enough in the water, they came pretty close. So I had fun watching them and then I asked our guide what they were. He said they were part of the piranha family! They are omnivores and apparently have pretty wicked teeth. Nice to know!

After our seven hour tour including one looong hike, we were pretty beat. So when we got back we had dinner and then went to a hot springs place to soak for a few hours. :) It was very neat, the hot springs are heated by the volcano. The place we went had lots of pools with different temperatures ranging from one too hot to get in to some more like a heated pool. That was really nice after the hike.

The next day we went white water rafting, which y'all already knew. :) Altogether, with the ride there, rafting and lunch, it also took about seven hours. So when we got back, we did some shopping and had dinner at our favorite little restaurant so far. Then the guys hung out while the girls did our nails and Anne wrote postcards. :) Between the hot springs and the nails, Anne and I satisfied our spa trip per visit requirement. :)

The next morning we boarded a bus and headed to Playa Dominical, a beach town we decided to go to for the beach part of the trip. It was about a six hour trip and the temperature and humidity increased as we left the mountains behind. We had booked a cabin with two bedrooms at a nature reserve just outside of the town. It had rainforest trails, beach access, a butterfly garden and sounded very neat. We didn't realize there was no A/C and lots of bugs. It was a beautiful place, just a bit more rustic than we realized. So we stuck it out for one night and then moved to a different hotel in town. 

This is the cabin.

We played our first game of Settlers of Catan of the trip. :)

We did a zip line tour of the rain forest before leaving the reserve. It was a lot of fun. :)

The beach was beautiful and we mostly spent our days in Playa Dominical going to the beach, walking in the little surfer town, interrogating real estate agents and relaxing. It was very nice. :) We were told that about 300 people lived in Dominical and there were only about 3,000 people in the surrounding area. I kept thinking that if Disney did a surfer/beach town themed place, this is exactly how they would do it. It was amazing.

After our lazy days in Dominical, we boarded a bus and headed back to San Jose. We got there in the early afternoon, with plenty of time to do some last souvenir shopping and catch a movie! We mostly went to see a movie at the mall because you can get fresh caramel popcorn at Costa Rican movie theaters and because Thor had just come out. Our friend Nick's middle name is Thor, so it was fitting to go see it. :) And it was the equivalent of a couple dollars per movie ticket, so why not see something? :)

After the movie, at about 11pm, we headed back to the hotel to sleep for a few hours before getting up way too early to take our 4:30am taxi to the airport. 

Fortunately, Burger King serves platos typicos (typical food) breakfast at the airport or we would have had to have American food for our last meal in Costa Rica. :)

Then we said good-bye and left Costa Rica. Probably more tired that when we landed there, but oh well. It was great anyways.