Last week my parents came to visit Costa Rica!!! It was great to see them and get a little taste of home to carry me through the end of my internship! Their visit was also a great excuse to do some of the traveling that I have been itching to do! This country is so beautiful and there is so much that I have left unexplored! Fortunately, this little excursion allowed me to cross a couple beautiful destinations off my list!
My parents took a non-stop red-eye flight from Denver that arrived in Costa Rica at 530am! They were joined on the flight by Steph's parents and sister. Even though they were completely exhausted when they arrived, their spirits were high and they were ready to start the adventure. We went directly from the airport terminal to the rental car lot to pick up our vehicles for the week. After a quick bite an Denny's (yes, you know the one), we hit the road!
The first leg of the trip involved a 3 hour drive on the narrow, curvy, fog-covered highway toward La Fortuna. The drive was gorgeous and amazingly uneventful. La Fortuna is a quaint little town that lies at the foot of Arenal Volcano, a quite impressive, lava-spewing monster that has been erupting everyday since its awakening in 1968. We pulled into town, struggling to pull our gaze away from the cloud-covered volcano, and quickly found our hotel.
After settling in and taking a quick walk around town while my dad caught up on some sleep, we rallied the troops and headed off to the Baldi Thermae hot springs. This was the cheaper of the hot springs options, but turned out to be absolutely incredible! If the other place is actually worth 3 times the price, I can't even begin to imagine the extent of its extravagence! There were dozens of pools at various temperatures ranging from 98 to 145 degrees!!! There were acres of beautiful tropical gardens surrounding the hot springs as well as the most extreme water slides I have ever seen and numerous bars that you can just swim on up to. We must have spent over 4 hours at that place... and it was still difficult to leave when they closed down!
The next day we woke up early to find the best deal on canopy ziplines. This is one of the largest tourist spots in the country, so there is no lack of options for the common tourist. We ended up finding the best (as several parties claimed) zipline experience in the country! The excursion consisted of ten ziplines, including the longest one in the country (980 m), a horse back ride, and frog & butterfly farms. It was such a blast!!! Being quite the adventure seeker... this one tops the charts for me (even surpassing skydiving)!!! The ziplines were fast and exhilarating, and the incredible wildlife was the icing on the cake! During our couple hour excursion through the rainforest, we spotting several animals including a sloth, a blue jeans dart frog, and toucans! So awesome.
It turns out that Steph's dad (Steve) is quite the social butterfly, able to strike up a conversation with absolutely anyone that he comes across! As an introvert, it was very interesting to witness him in action and benefit from his boldness! All of us ate at a small, locally-owned restaurant right across the street from our hotel 3 times in 2 days! As a result, and with Steve's help, we ended up making pretty good friends with the owner and waiter of the restaurant. On our last night in La Fortuna, Steve invited our new friends over to our hotel for drinks and conversation. It was so fun to get to know them and learn more about each other's countries and cultures. It was especially memorable because a local high-school musical group was staying at the hotel that night and entertained us for hours with traditional Costa Rican serenades. The night made complete with a dance from my new tico friend and we finally turned in around 2am.
Our experience in La Fortuna was beautiful. We were very blessed by relatively clear skies, being able to see the tipity top of the volcano at several different instances, beating the typical visibility odds. It was sad to leave, but we were beach-bound and ready to see more of this incredible country.
On Sunday afternoon, after about 4.5 hours on the road, we rolled into the beach community of Tamarindo. We quickly checked into our hotel, dropped our stuff and headed to the beach for sunset! It seemed a little odd that we didn't really see anyone else swimming in the water at sunset, but we decided to take a quick dip anyway. The water was warm (seriously... like getting in the tub) and the sunset was breathtaking.
The next morning we made our way to the tourist booth to plan out our next few days. Steph, Jen, and I immediately booked a surf lesson for that afternoon! I was pretty nervous about the whole situation... being from the Rocky Mountains and fairly intimidated by the big blue ocean! Despite my nerves and fears, we had an awesome experience. Our instructor was very patient and knowledgeable and encouraging. I was stoked to pick it up pretty quick and catch several waves. I think the years of snowboarding may have helped! It was sad to see our lesson end, but it would not be our last time on a surfboard.
The next day we enjoyed an afternoon catamaran excursion. We sailed for several miles to find a calm and prestine snorkeling location! We spent almost an hour marveling at the incredible underwater world. God is so creative! We saw some incredible things including blow fish, angel fish, parrot fish, puffer fish, octupus, and an eel. After eating some yummy food, we pulled in the anchor and headed back toward shore. The experience was topped off with an incredible golden sunset! Unbelievable.
We planned to hit the road the following day and explore another beautiful beach town further down the coast. However, some sickness in Steph's family convinced us that it would be wiser for us to avoid any extended travel and take it easy in Tamarindo for a couple more days. We finished out with week with several days of surfing and a small snorkling excursion to a quiet beach called Playa Conchal, named after its unique entirely shell-pieces sand. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the beach and my shoulders are sufficiently sore from the five straight days of paddling around on a surfboard. It was also such a treat to be visited my large families of howler monkeys right outside our beautiful hotel!
On Saturday morning we finally bid farewell to the beach and headed inland to introduce my parents to my little town called Atenas. It was really cool to see my parents meet my host family! When we left their house after dinner my mom started crying! She said she was so happy that I lived with such a nice family... Aw. I also took my parents to the little church that I attend here in Atenas. I think they appreciated the experience, but it was a long service entirely in Spanish! Oh well, at least they got to witness the church sing happy birthday to me and enjoy some cake!
It was sad to say goodbye when my parents had to head back home, but I am so thankful to have shared this place with them. Now it seems like no time at all until I will be back with them in Colorado. Love you mom and dad!
P.S. Check out the link on the left to my online photo albums!!! Now you can see many more pics, with much less effort on my part! Enjoy!
5 comments:
wow. sounds absolutely amazing! and very well written too. ;-) i must admit i'm jealous. wish we could have been there. :-( love you, sis!
Hehe, "amazingly uneventful" drive... that made me chuckle.
So how exactly does a zipline work? Are you just strapped in there and off you go, just from one end to another? What do you do with your hands?! And the animals you saw - so cool!!
Ah, staying up 'til 2am sounds exhausting (but at least from fun stuff). Do they have the "late" kind of culture like some places (such as Spain) where people eat dinner really late and all of that?
Great pictures!!! Do you and Steph have the same ones? I noticed a lot (though not all) are the same, or same-looking? Did she ever get another camera? That could explain things...
I'm glad you had such a great time and both of your parents and her sister could come out! Sounds like you had a blast. :)
Wow Laura! You get the best blog reader/commenter award! Thanks for your enthusiasm! It makes blogging fun! Now, on to your inquiries...
A zipline works by gravity. You are clipped in to a harness and connected to a pulley that slides along a metal cable. As long as the zipline has a constant downward slope and you don't lose too much energy due to friction, etc, you can easily glide all the way to the end. As far as the hands go... it kinda depends on the situation. The company that took us had us grab our clip-in line with our 'weak' hand and then let our 'strong' hand slide along the cable behind us with a heavy-duty leather glove thingy. You could get going really fast on some of the lines and the crew guys would gave to 'catch' you more or less by means of heavy-duty ropes tied to the cable in the path of your pulley.
Costa Rica definately does NOT have the late-night culture. Especially in small towns (like the I leave in), everything seems to close by 9pm or earlier and most people are in bed by 10pm! The rules change slightly in big cities and tourist towns.
Yes, Steph and I shared all of our pics. Steph's family did bring her down a brand new camera, so she is free to take millions of pictures again! Which is a relief for me. After meeting Steph's dad, I can see where she gets her picture obsession. He must have taken over 500 pics in the week he was here!
I hope these answers satisfy your inquisitive nature!
Love you.
Aww, well, thank you... *pins award thing on self* ... it's easy to be enthusiastic when I have such enjoyable posts to read from you!
And you answered them perfectly, thank you! And so much detail in the zipline answer. Interesting stuff. See, I saw the pictures - particularly the one of you sitting still and holding on - and that just looked like you could get a painful rope burn!
Hi sis!
Wow, what a well written post. I felt like I was right there with you, but then I realized that I wasn't. Your post made me really want to go on an adventure together! I didn't realize that we both had an adventurous spirit! I'd love to go snorkeling or ziplining with you. I can't wait for you to get back into the state. We should go on an adventure together when you do!
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