You asked for it... you got it. Here is part one of the summary of my Costa Rica trip:
Day 1
Our flight out of San Diego isn't until about 1pm so we spend the morning getting our final packing done. We are off to the airport and after a stop over in Phoenix and the flight down to San Jose, about 5 hours I think we were on foreign soil. Special thanks to Teri's Aunt for setting up our itinerary which included just about everything, so when we showed up in San Jose there was our driver Victor with a little sign with our name on it (I felt like some VIP). Victor whisked us away to the bed and breakfast, where we arrived about 10:30 local time. This puts us at 8:30 San Diego time, and since Sara and I didn't eat on the plane we were looking for some food. After a quick walk down to the nearest restaurants only turned up closed kitchens, we were stuck picking up some snacks from AM/PM an inauspicious start our trip.
Day 2
Early rise (this was a recurring theme for the trip) after a quick bite to eat a bus showed up to take us out of the city to Arenal. A four or so hour bus ride later (another recurring theme) we were in this country town in the shadow of an active volcano. Although when we showed up it was pretty cloudy and you couldn’t see the top of the volcano, a little later it peaked through. Sara and I walked down to a local café and had some lunch, which was pretty good, and really cheap, like $4 for the two of us. Later that afternoon we took a taxi up to a resort built right up near the volcano that is known for it’s hot springs. They basically took the water from the hot springs and diverted it into their own man made rivers that braided down through this lush forested area, then they also had it going into some more swimming pool areas, with your requisite swim up bars and such. It was pretty sweet, basically jacuzzi’s and waterfalls everywhere, really relaxing. The buffet that was part of our package was mediocre at best, nothing noteworthy at all, and if we went back I think we would opt to just order some burgers or something from the bar. We were able to take a shuttle back into town and while we were waiting we made small talk with some guy who was probably in his late 40’s and rolling solo all over Central America, he was getting ready to head up to Nicaragua I think. Just the idea of it kinda freaked me out, but the guy seemed pretty ready for it, just kinda weird.
Day 3
Horseback riding. Another early rise, about 7:30 local time, with our bodies working on somewhere between San Diego time and Costa Rica time, it feels pretty early. After breakfast we wait in front of the hotel for the arranged transportation to pick us up… and wait, and wait. Once we are about 15 minutes late we talk to our front desk clerk, who makes a phone call and tells us it’ll be about 20 minutes. After finally getting picked up we take the one minute bus ride from hotel to the stables. Once we arrive (we can still see our hotel), there are about 20 others already perched atop their trusty steeds. Sara and I are hurried through filling out a waiver and placed on horses. Mine wasn’t a particularly large horse so my feet were not even that far off the ground. What “Po-boy” I think that was his name lacked in stature though he made up for in the moxy department, and then some. At one point my horse took a little nip at another horses flank, and was rewarded with a swift kick in the chest. After another couple of similar encounters I was pretty worried my horsie just wasn’t a team player. However we made it safely to the destination waterfall. It was pretty sweet and a dip in the river at the base was pretty refreshing, as it was about 85 degrees and really humid. It only took me about 2 minutes after getting out to be in a full body sweat again, awesome. After an uneventful ride back to the stable and a five minute walk back to the hotel we relaxed awhile before hitting downtown La Fortuna. Nothing too impressive about the walk around town with the exception of three kids of about 14 playing keep away with a soccer ball. The skill level and moves these kids had were just silly.
In our next episode Sara and Iwan go speeding through the rainforest on thier "canopy tour," encounter monkeys galore, Iwan has a "slow-off" with a sloth, and in our most dramatic rose ceremony yet...
