On June 17, Kyle and I celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary. We decided on Costa Rica because we wanted a place where we could do some fun outdoorsy activities, but also relax at an all inclusive resort. We went to an all inclusive in the Riviera Maya region of Mexico for our wedding and really enjoyed not having to worry about meals, etc., so we wanted to do that again. We were gone for a little over 9 days and it was AWESOME!
We flew out of LAX a little before midnight, direct to Liberia, CR. We arrived about 6:30 in the morning and our shuttle driver took us to our first resort, which was about 3 hours from the airport in La Fortuna. The La Fortuna area is known for the Arenal Volcano, which erupted in the 60's. The area is very built up due to tourism. We stayed at the Tabacon resort, which had a very nice hotel, and then down the street (we could take a quick shuttle or walk), they had a river of hot springs and several larger pools with water heated by the Volcano. We made our way to the hot springs a couple of times. It was beautiful to see it during the day, but much nicer to enjoy the hot springs in the evening as the sun got very intense during the day.
We stopped for breakfast on the way to our first hotel. We ate out on the porch and it was like we were eating in the rain forest.
There was a small view of Lake Arenal from our breakfast view.
Walking around and checking out the hot springs at our resort.
There were so many beautiful flowers and interesting plants.
The view of the volcano from our hotel room.
The roots of the tree - there were a bunch of trees that would do this.
I think this was my favorite type of flower/plant - it was really intricate and cool looking.
The first full day we were there was our anniversary and we spent it doing a full day of activities we had booked with a local tour company. First we went to a 2 mile walk with 6 (I think) hanging bridges over the rainforest. It was pretty cool, until it started POURING. Kyle and I's jackets turned out to not be very waterproof and we got soaked. Then we went to La Fortuna Waterfall, which was about 300 stairs down (and back up) to this beautiful waterfall. Unlike in the US, we were able to swim at the base of the waterfall, so of course we did. Then we had a delicious local lunch. They eat lots of beans and rice there with every meal. It was usually white rice with seasoned black beans at lunches and for breakfast they eat also eat 'gallo pinto,' which is black beans and rice mixed together with seasoning. I liked it at most places we had it, but Kyle is not really into rice & beans in general. Finally, after lunch, we went on another 2 mile hike at their national park by the volcano. It was very level until the end when we climbed up a bunch of lava rocks to get to a good view of the volcano. It happened to be pretty clear at the time we were up there, but was often covered by clouds. We could also see the very large Lake Arenal when we were on the lava rock. It was a great day.
The views of the Costa Rican countryside before we started the hanging bridges tour.
A poisonous viper snake in the parking lot of the hanging bridges. It was very small.
Cool flowers
More cool flowers.
Poisonous Blue-Jeans Dart Frog I happened to see next to the path.
The first hanging bridge.
Don't look down!
More cool flowers/plants
This was taken just as it was starting to rain. Then we pretty much just booked it through the forest.
An idea of what it felt like up at the top.
La Fortuna Waterfall. This is the view from the top of the stairs.
View from the bottom of the stairs.
Handsome guy :-).
We swam at the bottom (although the video is not of us).
These flowers were surrounding our lunch tables.
Small yellow viper along the path in the National Park.
'Jesus Christ' lizard. These can run on water when they are small. We saw these at both resorts.
Can you spot the lizard?
The end of the hike - a great view of the volcano on the lava rocks from an eruption in the early 90's.
This was the view of Arenal Lake when you turned around from the volcano. It is a man-made lake and the towns destroyed by the volcano in the 60's are at the bottom of it.
The next day, we booked two more tours with the same travel company. In the morning, we went Canyoning in the Lost Canyon. It was awesome and probably the favorite part of the trip for both of us. We were repelling down waterfalls and walking down a stream for about an hour and a half. We got a 'Costa Rican massage' as they drove us on a super bumpy rode up to the drop off point. We repelled down a 10 foot waterfall to start off, then 150 feet, and then 200 feet. There was also a point where we had to cannon ball into a part of the stream that was too deep to walk and a part where the workers laid down to block the water flow, only to release it when we were sitting down below - quite a rush. At the end, we climbed up a ton of stairs (think hundreds) and ended up at a building they have where we could change and were served lunch.
At the start (we are still dry).
View from the top of the 2nd waterfall.
Katie near the top on the 2nd waterfall.
Katie
Kyle at the very top of the last and biggest waterfall.
Kyle
When we got to the top of the stairs, there was a slot in the tree (center of picture).
View of the volcano on the way back to our hotel.
In the afternoon, we took a trip a 2 hour trip down the Penas Blancas River. We had our first (and best) glimpse of monkeys during this trip. We saw, and heard, howler monkeys and a lot of birds. It was a nice relaxing trip and it started raining just as we were finishing up.
Here are some pictures from our last breakfast at Tabacon. The restaurant, where we also ate dinner a couple night, was open to the pool.
Then, after 3 nights, we took a shuttle about 4 hours to the west coast to our all inclusive resort.
(Sorry if it is too much detail, but I want to remember some of these things myself :-).)
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