What a trip we had to Costa Rica!!
It's such a beautiful country and we were able to see and do so many different things that we are not able to do in the US!
Saturday, July 20
We had to wake up at 2am! Oh my!! We boarded a plane, had a fairly easy layover in Miami and not too must later, we were landing and getting our rental car in San Jose, Costa Rica! First stop, lunch! We stopped at Olivetto's about 25 minutes from the airport! After a delicious first meal in Costa Rica, we made the drive to Monteverde, in the cloud forest of the country. The drive was so tough as it was, of course, in the clouds and it was raining(this was kinda a theme for our trip!)! We arrived at our cabin at Los Pinos about 5:30pm, made our first journey to a grocery store(all labels were in Spanish!!) and then walked to dinner at Don Ruiz about five minutes from our cabin.
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Waiting for TSA to open... it was so incredibly
early! |
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The lush fauna of Costa Rica never got old
the entire time we were there! |
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| The food there was amazing! So fresh! |
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| It was a LOONNNG day of travel! |
Sunday, July 21
We had an early breakfast and then me, M and C walked around the nature trails at the property! We then made our way to a local farm where we were taught to made bread and empanadas(these were the absolute best and we never could find anymore that matched them!) with coffee and sugar cane water. The family who owned the farm were so sweet and hospitable making it a great way to immerse ourselves in Costa Rican culture! We returned to our cabin and then took a walk down to Stella's Cafe and then to a local ice cream shop at a cheese factory that got their milk from the farm we'd visited this morning! Our evening activity was a naturalist night walk at the Wildlife Refuge in Monteverde. We spent a couple of hours in the forest and saw lots of native birds, frogs and a pit viper! Afterwards, we were getting quite hungry and found dinner back close to the cabin at Tortillas where we dined al fresca on the front porch of the restaurant!
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| Breakfast on the cabin porch |
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| Views from the property's nature trail |
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| The farm in the countryside of Monteverde |
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| Enjoying coffee, sugar cane water and EMPANADAS!! |
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| The walk to Stella's |
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| Stella at Stella's;) |
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| Ready for the naturalist walk |
Monday, July 22
This morning we went to Selvatura Park experience hanging bridges over and through the cloud forest, a sloth sanctuary and a butterfly garden! I think the sloths were our favorites;) We ate lunch there and then drove the short distance to Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve and hiked a couple of miles before going back to the cabin. M and C went for more ice cream at the cheese factory. As soon as they got back it POURED! The girl running the front desk area called it a "mini hurricane" It actually rained so bad all of our bedroom roofs were leaking! It cleared up enough finally to head into town for a little souvenir shopping and dinner at the Tree House Restaurant.
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| Avocado tree off our cabin porch |
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| Selvatura Park hanging bridges |
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| Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve |
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Taking time to catch our breath a bit while
the cleaners finished in the cabin and right
before the "mini hurricane" |
Tuesday, July 23
This morning we met a naturalist guide at Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve at 7:15am! We started our hike and of course it started to rain. Our guide was amazing and of our entire trip, he was the most knowledgeable and also spoke the best English! We saw hummingbirds, several species of birds and the smallest orchids I've ever seen! After we'd finished at the cloud forest, we went back and packed up our cabin and got on the road to our next stop - the coast!. Unfortunately, there was a several month project closing a main bridge that we needed to use to get to the coast, so we added an extra 1.5 hours to our trip to go up and around! It was a long day of travelling, but luckily the scenery was amazing! Then, as we got closer to the coast, the roads became so horrible! I mean, I've never seen such roads before! They were all dirt, pot holes that were like two feet deep ditches and quite a few of them were washed away or under water during the rains that we saw! But, alas, we made it to our VRBO and went to the grocery(were were the ONLY non-Costa Ricans in this place because this beach in particular was not a touristy place at all!!) then used the recommendations left in our VRBO to go to dinner at La Luna which was so nice and right on the beach with a lovely porch to dine al fresco!
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The guided hike at Monteverde Cloud
Forest Reserve |
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| Hummingbird |
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| Cute little mushroom |
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| Checking out a very tiny little orchid |
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| The drive through the countryside of Costa Rica |
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The cows there looked quite different than
the cows we have |
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| First look at Playa Pelada - so beautiful |
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We made the comment over and over again that
safety was most definitely not the main
concern of the people of this county - which
was a little unnerving in some of our activities
that we were to do |
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| La Luna - one of our favorite meal spots of the trip! |
Wednesday, July 24
We woke up slow and had breakfast at the condo. Then slowly made our way to the beach around 10am and found it to be a very private beach even during the day! We went back to the condo for lunch and then drove to the next town over, Playa Guinos, where we found there to be a lot more going on! M and C booked their fishing trip for the next day and then we went back to the beach for a bit and decided to go back to La Luna for dinner again and were able to get some beautiful pictures while we were there!
Thursday, July 25
M and C got up very early and went deep sea fishing. They ended up catching a LOT of fish but it was some very rough waters! Even with the Bonine they'd taken, C ended up getting sick over the side of the boat more than once, but it didn't keep him from still mostly enjoying it! S and I got up and watched a movie at the condo while we ate breakfast before going to the beach for the rest of the morning. C was still somewhat recovering when they got back to the condo after lunch and S was more than happy to chill in the cool condo, so M and I went for a walk along the beach. The tide was just right to see a phenomenal blow hole in the rock formations on the beach. Very neat! We went back to the condo and got dressed for a nice dinner and then the bottom fell out of the sky and it RAINED!!! We talked to someone that was living in our condo complex and they said it was more rain than they'd ever seen in 20 years there. It flooded the roads and washed out the road we were going to take to dinner. We had to turn around. We tried another restaurant but the roads were so flooded we didn't want to even park and walk through the river that had formed. We ended up letting M go into the Super to get groceries for dinner and cooked back at the condo. It rained ALL.NIGHT.LONG!!
Friday, July 26
We got an early start this morning and headed over to Playa Guiones arriving around 8:45am and set up a surf lesson for C. He got up first try, of course;) After his lesson and us hanging out on the beach, we went to lunch in the downtown area, then went back down to the beach, and came back up for a mango gelato before heading back to our condo. We ate dinner at il Baslico where we brought the mahi mahi that M and C had caught and they cooked it for us! It was such an elaborate meal and delicious!
Saturday, July 27
Thankfully, the bridge that had been closed on our way to the beach was open for our drive to La Fortuna! The roads were much better and it was a lot faster route! We stopped for lunch at Restaurante Hummingbird and then hiked to the bluest, most pristine looking waterfall, Rio Celeste! It was a very strenuous hike, but boy was it worth it and so interesting too why the water was the color that it was! When we finished we were all exhausted and thankful for the fresh, delicious mango they were selling across the street! We devoured it! We then drove the rest of the way to La Fortuna arriving about 4:30pm at our resort, Arenal Springs. We enjoyed the hot springs for the remainder of the afternoon and ate dinner at the resort which was much needed after a full day of traveling!
Sunday, July 28
We were up very early this morning so that we could beat the crowd to La Fortuna Waterfall. We had an amazing breakfast at the resort. We had anticipated making the short hike down to the waterfall and the swimming hole. Unfortunately, there had been so much rain lately, that it was too dangerous to swim. We did enjoy the waterfall and were lucky enough to see four howler monkeys, including babies, playing right above us. We went back to the hotel and had lunch at the swim up bar area which was a new experience for all of us! We went back to our room, showered, and then went to Don Juan Chocolate Plantation for a tour. So good! And YUMMY! We bought quite a bit to bring back with us;) We then went into town to Don Rufino for dinner and then returned about 8pm just in time because the rain was starting!
Monday, July 29
This morning we were up early again to enjoy the breakfast at the resort and then went to Sky Adventures. M and C had a reservation for zip lining and S and I rode the tram up to see them off! The zip lines were so fast and went so far! I would have loved to have done it, but S was very glad she was not included on this activity;) Once the boys made it back to the starting point, we had a guide lined up to explore the hanging bridges. We were able to see another pit viper, capuchin monkey and a great, yet somewhat cloudy, view of La Fortuna Lake. We found lunch after our adventures and tried to wait out the rain, but it just didn't let up so we finally gave up on our plans of going to Arenal Volcano National Park where we'd have had the chance to walk on hardened lava fields. Oh well! As much rain as we had during our time in Costa Rica, we were lucky it didn't prevent us from doing any of our other activities! We went back to the resort and had dinner at the final of the three restaurants on site!
It was bitter sweet this morning to pack up and make the drive back to San Jose to catch our plane. Everything was smooth until we reached our layover in Charlotte and were stuck there for hours!! Whew, by the time we got into our beds that night, we were very glad to be done with a long day of traveling!!!
