Costa Rica... 1, 2 and 3

I warn you now.... I am posting a lot of stuff about Costa Rica! I wasn't going to but I realized that I'm never actually going to take the time to journal about it elsewhere, so this is where it goes!

Costa Rica was A.MAZE.ING. Of course. It was the trip of a lifetime for me. It was my first time out of the country (besides Tijuana Spring Break 2003... holla USU buddies!), first time I needed a passport! Collin was a different story.... he studied abroad there while at BSU, and this was his 2nd time taking a group of students there. Not to mention he's traveled abroad several more times on top of those. But a lot of the stuff we did was new to him, since we went to a few areas he hadn't previously been to. So that was cool. 

I LOVED getting to be so immersed in another culture for a week. It was really cool to me. I went in with not a lot of expectations of anything being "American" and it really wasn't... so that was fun! Everything everywhere was in Espanol, which made me wish I had brushed up on my crappy Spanish skills more than I did. But it was amazing to me how much my Spanish improved just over the 6 days we were there. I can see how living somewhere with a different language really forces you to pick it up quick! BUUUT, I can also tell you a lot of awesome stories about awkward moments in which we were in a 3-way conversation and I just nodded along so as not to look rude, which worked fine until they would ask me a question and then I would have to admit NO HABLO ESPANOL! ha ha ha. 

Day 1 (arrival day)

We arrived in San Jose about 8:30pm. It was a great traveling day with no flights over 3 hours. We had a fabulous group of 5 kids from CHS with us, they were really the best. One funny thing was that somehow on 2 of our 3 flights that day all 5 kids got seats in FIRST CLASS while Collin and I were always back in coach. So after the flights we would get to hear about how they had prime rib and steak on real china while all we got was a small cup of diet coke or orange juice. Oh the irony. We had to just laugh.

The worst flight for me was from Denver to San Jose. It was only about 3 hours but the weather was kind of rough and of course about half way through I had to pee so bad. I was having a freak out because they kept saying we couldn't get out of our seats and I had to GO! So I finally just headed over anyway, prepared to tell them whatever to let me go! No one bugged me so it was fine. But in addition to that situation, the guy in front of my seat was super loud and obnoxious, and his seat recliner was broken so he could recline SO far back! His seat was literally less than a foot in front of my face while I was sitting down! When I put my tray down it was touching my stomach! So annoying. And then the best part . . . when the drink cart was right by me (I was in the aisle seat), a rather *large* lady came hurrying down the aisle saying she needed to get to the restroom. She couldn't get past the drink cart lady very easily, and somehow in the weird scramble of her trying to get by, she tried to wedge herself into our row of seats so the cart could go by.... and she freaking sat in my lap! Like, full out, sitting on me. She hadn't even looked at me to warn me or apologized or anything. I looked at Collin and I'm sure my face was like, "Are you kidding me?!?!?" And he had the same look...she did quickly apologize as she got up and left and once she did I looked at the flight attendant with the cart and she was laughing as much as we were. All I could think was WOW. So then getting off the flight to hear how the kids got warm towels and had free direct tv and dined on steak and shrimp....  ha ha ha!

When we arrived in San Jose, after going through customs we headed outside to meet our tour guide, Jose. He was so great. He was about my dad's age and I think he's what the Costa Rican version of my dad would be! ha ha. He had a really sarcastic sense of humor but knew so much and was nice to be patient with my Spanish. He was bilingual and mostly explained stuff to me in English, which was nice!

We rode a shuttle to our hotel which was near downtown San Jose. I wish we had gotten to see more of San Jose, but we headed out early the next morning.

 This was our hotel room that first night. I had set for myself really low expectations for hotels and I was nicely surprised that they were better than I had expected! They were definitely different from American hotels though. The room's floor was all tile. There were no clocks and just one light in the ceiling, so it was pretty dim. This particular room didn't have air conditioning, though thankfully it had a ceiling fan or we would have died, not used to sleeping in that humid heat! The bathroom was pretty normal, although the shower wasn't in a tub, just a little separate tiled section in the corner. And there was no counter around the sink, just a small glass rim about 5 inches wide. When I plugged in my hair straightener I had to set it on the toilet while it heated up. Small things...

Our meals were mostly provided by the hotels we stayed at, unless we were en route to a new location then we stopped at restaurants. I REALLY liked being on a "tour" because everything like that was taken care of for us. I didn't take any pictures of our food which makes me mad... but oh well. We had rice & black beans or gallo pinto (if you know what that is--basically a fancier version of rice and beans) with almost every meal. There was also usually fruit and some sort of eggs and toast for breakfast, then fish or chicken or other meat with lunch and dinner.

Day 2 

 This is the only shot I took in San Jose.... let me just say that driving through downtown was insane! We had a huge travel bus (there were 48 people total in our group) and a very experienced bus driver. I should have taken some video to fully get the effect. They seem to have generally the same traffic laws we do . .  but very minimal enforcement. And the motorcycles... oh the motorcycles. They were everywhere. And they didn't follow the traffic rules at all. Driving on the wrong side of the road, riding like 8 across in a lane, cutting off left and right . . . I'm amazed we didn't run any of them over. I was beyond in awe of our driver's skills! He drove like he owned the road---probably wasn't following many traffic laws himself! Anyway, I took the picture of McDonald's because there were a lot of them there. You know how I love that place. (sarcasm) But it's a good picture of the ugly power lines that were everywhere also. Everything was in Spanish which was fun to try to figure out.

 Our first stop that day was in ENBio Parque, a zoo/wildlife reserve/education center on the outskirts of San Jose. It was fun because we got to see a lot of the wildlife and plants that are found throughout Costa Rica.

 This boa constrictor was behind glass! creepy though!

 A for-real beehive. Supposedly the bees don't sting and their honey is even sweeter. I didn't stick around long enough to find out!

  Caymans (Caimanes in Espanol) - they are like mini alligators. They look fake but they aren't!

 These pictures are for Tara, the Harry Potter addict.... look at the maze! I was a little nervous that the bushes were going to eat me up any moment.

 These turtles were having some fun, if you know what I mean!

I was surprised to see Iguanas up in the trees... I guess they climb up there to get warm during the day so they will stay warm at night.

 We saw sloths! This is the best picture we got, bummer it's so blurry. In Espanol they are called perisosos--lazies.

 We had a good amount of driving the rest of the day. We stopped at a local restaurant on our way to Poas and had some delicious strawberry smoothies. I got brave and asked for a water in Spanish...all by myself! I cannot describe the sheer terror I felt any time I tried to engage in conversation in Espanol with a local.... It never really went bad but I was always so scared that they would say something I wouldn't understand at all!

 This is the only food picture I took. We had some yummy desserts that were usually some sort of flan. It was better flan than I had ever had in the US though. Coconut or banana or some other flavors.. yummy!

 A funny thing we saw was while we were waiting for the kids to finish shopping in that little village the restaurant was in-- rainstorms would come out of nowhere there and pour super hard (like in LOST!) for like 10-15 minutes, then it would stop and often get sunny quick. So one of those downpours happened while we were there and watching these workers up on a super high satellite tower. It was pouring, like sheets of rain. Once it kept up for a few minutes they started shimmying down... they weren't tethered on with any safety gear at all, they were just holding on tight and trying to climb down as quick as they could. It was kind of scary to watch but it looked like they had done it before. It took them a good 10 minutes to get all the way down, and by then the worst of the rain was over. It was just something I don't think you'd see often around here!

After that stop we continued on our way to Volcan Poas, a Lagoon-Crater sort of volcano. It was about a 1-mile hike up to the view point (on a nice, paved path by the way), and about 5 minutes into the walk another super downpour began. I had an umbrella but I still got totally drenched! And sadly right after the rain the clouds moved in so quick there was absolutely no view into the crater basin, so we didn't get to see it at all. We hung out up there for about 20-30 minutes waiting to see if it would clear up, but it didn't at all. Bummer.

 This was seriously the view. Supposedly it is a huge boiling blue lake in the bottom of a crater.... but I may never know!

 These were a funny joke... "poor man's umbrella." Definitely no leaves this size in Idaho!

 If you look close enough at the picture they're in front of you can see what the volcano supposedly looks like under all those clouds! (note--when Collin was here 2 years ago they were lucky and it was clear enough to see it, so I know it's legit! ha ha)


After that disappointing (but still fun) stop we headed along on our way again, this time stopping in a little town of Sarchi for about an hour to do some shopping. It is where the world's largest ox cart is. I guess it really is in the Guinness Book and everything. We just drove by and I didn't get a picture, but we were nearby it. Behind the souvenir shop we were at was this beautiful little courtyard and also a big carpentry shop and artistic workshop. I wish the pictures showed how beautiful the landscaping and painting were. Collin really enjoyed chatting with the artists. I guess some of them helped in painting the giant ox cart a few years ago.

 

We also walked the streets in a small neighborhood for a few minutes until rain once again drove us back indoors. But it was so interesting to see typical Costa Rican neighborhoods. SOO different. Of course. Everywhere has bars over the windows and usually high metal fences around their house in addition to that. It makes me grateful for the security we have here. Also, the houses were crammed together so much, like either connected or with a foot in between them. And it was a nicer, pretty safe neighborhood we were in too. I really enjoyed checking it all out. Collin was having fun taking pictures of the traffic signs, I guess he wants to use them for his classes in the future.

We also drove by this cool park with all the trees cut into animals and funny faces. It's a little blurry because of the rain on the bus window. Also, check out the legit pay phones!

After a cold, wet bus ride through a lot of little villages and some scary roads we made it to our next hotel, which was just outside the town of La Fortuna, in what is called the Arenal Region. Our hotel was at the base of the active volcano Arenal. I guess it had been super active (you could see the sparks flying nightly) over the past 20 years, but the past 18 months or so it has been more quiet. So I was bummed not to see the lava, but it was still a cool view.

This is our hotel room there. I loved the beautiful view from our room. The only bad thing was, well, see the curtains? That was all we had for privacy. And they were not opaque enough to really give privacy at night! So we had to always change in the bathroom and it was a little weird to know people could see us from outside our window. It was mostly students around the hotel so it wasn't like, creepy people spying, but still I didn't really like that. But what can I complain about, we were in Costa Rica!!

 One thing that was definitely weird to me was that it gets dark there by 5:30pm! Like, pitch dark. And then it's light by 4:00am. It was mostly weird at night because by 7:00 it felt like 10:00. It was nice because it somewhat encouraged us to go to bed earlier than we would back home.... and we really crashed into bed each night exhausted. Thankfully without a kid it was possible to sleep all night! And we were up by 6:30 every morning, sometimes earlier. I was surprised at how little I minded that--being the non-morning person I am! But I was in Costa Rica--I didn't want to waste any time sleeping I didn't have to! :)

Day 3

The next day was my favorite day. We started out ziplining through the jungle. The zipline company we used was literally down the road from our hotel so it was nice not to have to drive hardly at all. With our huge group of almost 50 people everything took a while. It took like an hour to get everyone suited up in harnesses and helmets, so we had fun taking some pictures.

 Here we are with our "kids!" These guys were really the best we could ask for to go on a trip with! They all loved each other's company, were excited about all the activities, and weren't into getting into trouble! They made it so fun and easy! Plus they really cracked me up!

 After my first zip! I made it! We zipped 9 different lines total. I loved the zipping and it was really fun. What I didn't like was some of the platforms we had to stand around waiting on before we could go down the next line. That is where my intense fear of heights kicked in! They weren't all bad, but one of them was awful. It was this rickety, old rusted metal staircase with nothing but chainlink for you to stand on, suspended with wire from a big tree, 50 feet or more above the forest floor. I had to just distract myself with practicing my Spanish with Collin, the kids and the zip guides and practically anything else to keep from looking down or freaking out!!

 Quite often some of the lighter kids (not me! ha ha) would go too slow and get stuck before they made it to the end of the line. So one of the guides would have to zip out and pull them back in. Jeeze. Some of them got a good workout. I was glad I never had to have that weird moment with them! I didn't get stuck until the last one--and I was close enough to just pull myself in!

 Collin got stuck too!

 ugh--I look like such a gomer!

 Stuck!

Ok, so the funniest part of that whole morning was once we got to the end of the ziplines, got un-harnessed and had to head back up to where our bus was parked. The tour guides (these jolly Costa Rican twenty-somethings who were always just about crossing the line in checking out las chicas....) loaded all 50 of us into an old, beat-up school bus that said maximum occupancy 35... so we were sitting 3 or 4 to a 2-person seat, and the guides all crammed into the front... it was like 100 degrees on the bus and we seriously off-road bushwhacked it up this super steep hill on the bumpiest road I have ever been on... I was laughing my head off because to me it really seemed the epitome of a Centro-American experience! ha ha!

After lunch we stopped in La Fortuna for a little while to look around and shop. There was big pretty church there we checked out.

 Culture note: It was so interesting learning how some small and some bigger things are so different in a country like Costa Rice compared to the U.S... One of the things that was very interesting was that there was no such thing as a cross-walk. Which meant there was no such thing as jaywalking either! People would just run into the street and across it whenever, wherever. It was definitely a different experience seeing that as we drove through the streets, but also actually crossing the streets ourselves! The cars don't stop! It's like, every man for himself!

Another thing was a bigger deal to me than probably to others. Going into the trip, I was worrying about being able to get enough water throughout the days. With my health history, I have to drink almost twice the amount of water "regular" people do so that was a big issue for me! I made it work, but we seriously spent a LOT of money on water while we were there. The reason? There are absolutely no drinking fountains, anywhere. In the U.S. there is a drinking fountain (and public restroom) in pretty much any business establishment, or at least at visitors centers, parks, or other public places. But not in Costa Rica! I don't know that I ever saw one. So even though I had a water bottle, after I filled it up once that morning in the hotel, pretty much anywhere else that day we had to buy water. Not my favorite thing to spend money on but oh well.


Our next stop that afternoon was La Fortuna Waterfall. We hiked down about 500 steep steps to get to the base, where we played in the water and took some pictures. It was seriously paradise. Warm water, beyond beautiful waterfall and scenery. It was a good workout climbing back up the steep steps afterward but it was actually nice to break a sweat for once. Right after we got back to the top the sky opened up and it poured again, so we were lucky that we missed that while we were swimming. (although it was so warm there, even when it rained it wasn't really cold.)

After La Fortuna Waterfall we headed straight to the most amazing natural hot tubbing resort I could ever have even imagined, called "Balti." It was ritzy. I don't have any pictures because we left everything on the bus. It had probably 30+ natural hot pools (fresh water, not the stinky kind) which had been man-made nestled in beautiful landscaping, jungle scenery, across a couple of acres. They were different sizes and hotness, it had a bunch of swim-up bars and some water slides also. It was so warm out of the water too, hopping from pool to pool and just walking all around in swimsuits was so fun. The only bad thing was that I got talked into going down the "fast slide" by a Tico and when it whipped me around I smacked the back of my head HARD right before I flew into the water! Not cool. I had the hugest goose-egg on my head for the next 3 days, and still today, over a week later, it is still tender to touch. But luckily it didn't give me a killer headache and I was still able to enjoy everything.