***WARNING: LONG POST WITH LOTS OF PICTURES!***
In June, we will celebrate our 10th
anniversary. So we knew that we wanted
to take a trip, just the 2 of us, to celebrate.
We decided to go over spring break (for a variety of reasons), and we
decided on Costa Rica because neither of us had been there, and we like warm,
tropical climates.
Last week on Wednesday we headed to the airport bright and
early (well, it was early, but not yet bright…). We had made arrangements with my mom and
Josh’s parents to watch the boys.
We flew into San Jose (following a 4 hour flight), and then
had a 3 hour drive to get to our hotel, Nayara, which was near Arenal
volcano. It was kind of gray &
gloomy, and we even had a little rain on the way. But, a rainy day in Costa Rica is still
better than a sunny day at work. By the
time we got to the hotel, we didn't really have time to do anything, so we just
walked around & explored for a little bit, then we went back to our room
& enjoyed the beautiful patio until dinnertime.
We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. I won’t say that I was in love with what I ordered,
however…let me tell you about the guacamole.
They asked us if we wanted to order fresh guacamole, prepared
table side. I’m sure that’s their biggest
“tourist trap”, but it was so worth it.
That was the best guacamole I've ever had. I’m pretty sure it was the grilled tomato and
mandarin lime that set it apart from any other guac I've ever had. We had a nice view of the volcano while we
ate – where else do you get to do that??
On Thursday we had our big rain forest day. We started off with the Hanging Bridges
hike. It was about a 2.5 hour hike
through the rain forest, crossing these hanging bridges every so often. It was a little un-nerving (both the hike,
which was very uneven, and the bridges, which swayed once everyone was on
them), but it was beautiful! We didn't see any monkeys or sloths, which was kind of a bummer, but we saw some birds, a
blue morpho butterfly, and a lizard. And
we saw a coati when we got back near the parking lot. I felt like I was going to see Diego at any
minute!
That afternoon, we headed out for our volcano hike. We actually didn't know that the volcano hike
was part of our tour. We’re not really
hikers, so when we were told that we had another 2.5 hour hike ahead, we were
thrilled. It was a bit more difficult than
the morning hike, mainly because it was steeper in parts, and for part of it we
had to hike over large, loose, lava rocks.
But, when we got to the top of the lava flow summit, the view was so
beautiful, that it was worth it getting up there. We were nowhere near the volcano – well, we
could see it, but we weren't even at the base of it or anything. We were as close as is considered safe.
Once we hiked back down, we got back on the bus, and dropped
some people back at their hotels, while the rest of us headed to the hot
springs. We got dropped at the Eco
Thermales hot springs, and it was AMAZING.
We had about an hour & a half in the springs, which wasn't nearly
enough – I could have stayed in there all day.
It gets dark around 6 or 6:30 in Costa Rica, so it was dark by the time
we were in the hot springs, which was just so cool. It was amazing to be sitting there and look
up and see the stars. Crazy.
After we were finished in the hot springs, we had dinner as
part of our evening. The dinner was OK,
and looking back on it, I wished we had thought to go back to the hotel
restaurant when we got back, and order some more of that guacamole! But we didn't think about that. It was a long, tiring day, but ending at the
hot springs was the perfect ending.
On Friday morning we were picked up again for the 4 hour
ride to the coast. We had to drive
around a very large lake, which took about an hour & a half of the 4
hours. The ride wasn't too bad. I had heard that the roads were terrible –
someone even told me they call it the “Costa Rican massage”. I didn't think it was too bad, but it
definitely wasn't a super smooth ride.
The worst part was that the roads were so twisty & winding. Our trip went from 10-2, so of course we
missed lunch. Our driver had told us
he’d be happy to stop somewhere if we wanted, but we would have had no way to
know where to tell him to stop. Luckily,
the Nayara breakfast buffet had some pre-made wrapped-up sandwiches and
homemade granola bars, so we had snagged some of that to have as our “lunch”.
We finally made it to the Westin Playa Conchal around 2, but
then found out that we couldn't check in until 3. They were nice enough to give us our
wristbands though (it was all-inclusive), so we just sat in the open-air lobby,
and sipped some cocktails while we waited for the hour to pass. By the time 3:00 rolled around, we were
pretty warm (it was about 15 degrees warmer there than it had been near
Arenal), and we could not wait to get in the pool. The pool was pretty warm (and not terribly
refreshing), but once we swam over to the bar & had another cold drink in
our hands, it made the pool better. That
night we had dinner at the international buffet restaurant – they were having
Costa Rican food that night.
On Saturday, we decided to take the hotel shuttle over to
Tamarindo – we needed to do some shopping, and figured that was our best
opportunity. The only downside to the
shuttle was that we left the hotel at 10am, and the shuttle didn't pick back up
in Tamarindo until 3pm. We didn't really
need or want to be there for that long, but it was only $10 per person
(compared to $25 each way for a taxi).
So we made it work. We walked
around & got all of our shopping done.
Then we had lunch at a place called Walter’s – it was right on the
beach, so we sat outside where we could see the beach while we ate. We also scoured every little market in
Tamarindo looking for these strawberry cookies we had eaten after the hanging
bridges hike. They were so good, and I
was super excited when we finally found them!
We also found the iced mocha drinks that we had from our mini bar at
Nayara. After lunch we went for a shaved
ice to cool off and pass the time. The
“Costa Rican” way of serving shaved ice is to put sweetened condensed milk on
top. We passed on that, and just had
ours the “regular” way. Still tasty! By the time we got back to the hotel, we were
once again ready to get into the pool.
That night we dined in the hotel’s French-themed restaurant.
Sunday was our last full day in Costa Rica, and we had
nothing planned – just the way we wanted.
We went to the pool for a bit after breakfast. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling great, which
was a bummer. But the pool was nice
& refreshing in the morning, and then we just sat on some chairs & read
our books. We don’t get to do that sort
of thing at our neighborhood pool in the summer! After lunch, we checked out the beach for a
little bit. I wasn't a huge fan of the
beach there – the sand was really coarse, with lots of broken shells, so it
kind of hurt to walk on it. Plus, the
Pacific was much colder than I thought it would be. I figured as far south as we were, that it
would be pretty warm all year round.
Nope. Josh was brave enough to
get all the way in, but I couldn't do it. So we headed back to the pool. It was so sad when we packed up to head back
to our room that afternoon because we knew we wouldn't have time to go to the
pool the next morning.
We dined in the hotel’s Italian restaurant that night. The food was OK, but the service was
terrible. We were there for close to an
hour & a half. I was so ready to
leave by the time we finally finished.
Monday morning we arranged
for transportation back to the lobby (it was walkable, but it was a long walk,
and we knew we didn't want to heft our luggage all the way there). We got all checked out, because we were being
picked up at 8 to go back to the airport.
8:00 came & went, and we double checked our itinerary and realized
it was actually 8:30. Sadly, they had
taken our wristbands when we checked out, so we couldn’t even go grab something
to drink while we waited (non-alcoholic, of course – it was only 8am, after
all!) Our ride finally came, and took us
to the airport in Liberia, which was only about an hour away. Unfortunately, Delta didn't open their
check-in counter until 10:00, so we had to wait for them to show up & open
their counter.
Liberia’s airport is very
small – only 7 gates (4 on the right, 3 on the left). There was a Quizno’s, a sports bar (where we
had lunch – 2 burgers & fries and 2 bottles of water for $58 – yeah!), a
Britt coffee shop, a body lotion shop, and a duty free shop. There wasn't much to it. And of course, no free wifi (we had been
spoiled with free wifi at our hotels, and Nayara even had free phone calls to
the US!). We had upgraded to Economy
Comfort, which was nice – the extra legroom was fabulous! When we landed in Atlanta, of course we
landed at terminal E, which meant that we had to walk what felt like half a
mile to get back over to the new international terminal for customs. Once we got there, there was no line. But it was a LONG walk to get there. And then luckily we didn't hit any Final Four
traffic on our way home.
All in all, we had a great
time! I would definitely go back
sometime, but I’d want to spend more time near Arenal, and less time on the
Pacific coast. I think there is just
more to do in the rain forest area, plus, it’s something we just don’t have
here – we have plenty of beaches. It's definitely somewhere I'd like to take the kids someday.
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