Costa Rica
For this trip we were headed to Dreams Las Mareas in El Jobo, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. This trip was one of our favorites. Costa Rica is full of so much nature and wildlife and it is very beautiful. For being as small of a country as it is, it is packed full of animals, waterfalls, volcanos and beaches, although interestingly there are no natural lakes. It is the link between North and South America and is very apparent when you have animals like cows and jaguars living in the same place (we saw no jaguars). Our arrival to the country was introduced by a non-English speaking taxi driver. Texting and driving! Ha! Our cab driver processed our credit card while driving. Once we got to the resort we started to notice that all the staff would end interactions with the guest by saying “Itsa pleasure”. Everything was a pleasure.
White faced monkey
For our first full day we made ourselves more familiar with the resort. It had several pools and was very spread out so much that it took several minutes to get from our room to the beach or to the front desk. The resort was also on an incline so along with our steps we definitely got a work out just walking around. We spent the day learning about our tour options and lounging in the pool. One of which had a water slide which was fun but did not have a lot of pressure so it was easy to get stuck. After having fun in the pool we headed back to our hotel room to find a bunch of white faced (capuchin) monkeys in the trees. To say the
Do not feed the monkeys
view from the balcony was awesome is an understatement. The first monkey ran across our balcony railing and it was all excitement from there. Dispute several signs that said “do not feed the monkeys,” I figured the Red Delicious (non delicious) apples left in our room from the welcome arrival were probably for them…? We entertained ourselves for a long time biting off pieces of the apples and feeding it to them. Some of the monkeys will take it right from your hand. They were a little nervous around Kyle though. They liked the little pieces but they really wanted the whole apple. When you gave one the whole apple they’d take it and keep it close so other monkeys wouldn’t steal it. At one point we had three of them on our balcony. It was so exciting just watching and interacting with them. It did get a little scary at one point when they started showing their teeth…
LaCruz
Our second full day consisted more of the same but we booked a night jungle tour. The tour started out stopping in La Cruz where we could see the northern most point in Costa Rica and Nicaragua in the distance. It was an awesome view and there was an open air restaurant that you could eat at there as well. The next part of the tour introduced us to a unique outdoor wood stove in which that style dates back long ago in that area. You could still feel the heat from when they baked bread in it earlier in the day. When they have tours a woman from the community comes in the morning to bake three different types of local breads for us to enjoy. She makes a white bread, empanada with sugar in the middle, and tortilla bread. Kyle’s favorite was the empanada and mine was the tortilla. After that, we grabbed walking sticks and flash lights and headed out into the jungle. The first sightings consisted of a wandering spider, gecko and a baby scorpion. We then found more icky spiders and then the macdaddy – a male tarantula who was actually digging his burrow. It is a rare site to see and actually quite cool. We then saw another scorpion, giant cockroaches, toads, frogs, army ants and more male tarantulas. The tour was cool to do but I was kind of hoping to see some more stuff like colorful frogs or snakes…or a jaguar.
Blue River
The next day we had another tour booked which took us to the Blue River. Along the way we learned about the Costa Rican car massage on a 20km dirt, rock and pot hole filled road that took an hour to drive. The roads are terrible there and actually we got nauseous a couple times. We stopped at the Blue River Resort which served as our hub for the tour. When we were walking in, we saw a sloth way up in the trees. I’m surprised anybody noticed him. Despite how big they are, they really blend in with the branches. They are hard to spot because they don’t move a lot. We were fortunate to see this one moving and eating as it went. After admiring the sloth for a while we went to the resort’s butterfly conservatory. There is a lady that works there that walks around collecting all the eggs from the property and brings them inside the conservatory for successful hatching and metamorphosis. There are a few different butterflies in the conservatory including the most prized Blue Morph butterfly. If you ever go, wear a brightly colored shirt (like yellow) and they will land on you. After the conservatory we got back in our van and took our nature walk along the Blue River. It’s not a very creative name and the river changes its shade of blue depending on the season, but we were lucky enough to see the reason why they call it the Blue River. The blue is best described as a pretty, light powder blue color. The water is so organically pure that nothing lives in it. There are a few different waterfalls that feed into the river and we got to swim in one of them. After the
Toucan
waterfall we headed back to our hub where they had prepared us a traditional Costa Rican lunch (rice, beans, salads, and beef, fish or chicken) which was yummy. Our next stop was to the volcanic mud bath. We sat in a natural sauna (although being outside is practically like a sauna) which opens the pores and then we lathered up with a light layer of gritty volcanic mud. After letting it dry, you wash it off and your skin is left feeling rejuvenated and soft. So they say. I didn’t really notice but it was fun. Once we were cleaned off we took a dip in the hot springs. Apparently they built these three tile pools and then tapped into one of the earths veins to feed the springs. Each was slightly less warmer than the last. The resort did have a waterslide which the pressure was lots better than ours so we entertained ourselves on that for a while.
Costa Rica
For the next day we just hung out at the resort hopping from pool to pool to beach to slide and so forth. In the evening we decided to go on a romantic snorkel and sunset cruise which turned out to be anything but romantic. An overcrowded fishing boat that had six obnoxious drunk girls on it was not our idea of fun and despite us staying all the way at the front and keeping to ourselves, they found a way to step on and hit us several times. We took the snorkeling option (the boat didn’t even have enough equipment for everybody) and swam with it (get it, swam with it). The water was so cold but it was better than being on the boat. The snorkeling wasn’t much. It was over a rocky part of the ocean so you got to see some fish and rocks and I even saw a backpack. We went in when we were numb and I ended up losing the mouth piece when I took the mask off. Down it went to be with the backpack. On the way back to the resort we got to see a bunch of dolphins jumping which was really cool and the first time we’d seen that.
White Water Rafting
For Thursday, we went white water rafting on the Tenorio river. This was our second time (the first in British Colombia with 42degree water) and we were really looking forward to it. We were fortunate enough to get a raft for just the two of us plus the guide. Our guide’s name was Oscar and was super fun. In fact, our raft was the most fun raft. He asked us if we wanted to flip and I was really not interested but he said “you’re not rafting if you’re not flipping.” There were two spots that we could “safely” flip at. The first was a 3ft rapid which I consider our practice flip. Everything went fine and it was pretty fun. It all happens so fast you don’t really have time to think about it. The second was a 12ft (class 4) rapid which was maybe not as fun. My side went down first and Kyle came flying over top of me. While under water he accidently kicked me in my right thigh leaving me with a baseball size black, green and purple bruise (it’s actually pretty cool but was very sore). On my way back up to the surface I went right into the side of the raft so I couldn’t get air and that was real fun. When I came up for good the current took me right into a rock which I scraped my left knee all up. It was bleeding pretty bad so our guide called over the ambulance (the raft that had the first aid kit) and I got all patched up. Other than that, the rafting was a great time. We saw lots of different birds, a white faced monkey, tons of baby frogs smaller than your fingernail, and even wild cows! The river was so scenic and warm. We even were able to get out and take a small hike to a waterfall where we got to swim in it. The trip was definitely worth the injuries.
White faced monkey
Our last day we did nothing but lounge in the pools and ocean. We watched the monkeys for a little while and just relaxed.
The day we left we scheduled the bellman for 4:15AM to get our bags and take us in the golf cart to wait for the taxi which was to arrive at 4:30AM. We waited 10 minutes and the bellman never showed up. Then our taxi was half an hour late. It was the same driver that brought us to the resort and he wasn’t concerned about our safety any more than our first trip. It was still dark in the morning so it was a surprise when we came across a lone horse trotting down the road. Shortly after we ran into a herd of cattle walking down the road and almost hit one (thank god for brakes). After tailgating a bunch of cars and a motorcycle, and driving way, way over the speed limit, we finally made it to the airport. It was a great trip and we definitely would like to go back.
