COSTA RICA

I've been back for over a week now, and still haven't updated the blog. Why not? Because my BFF Janessa was here and I didn't have the time to write a post. She left this morning and I've been doing a lot of catch up today.

I had SO much fun in Costa Rica! Pretty sure that was the best vacation I've had. This was my first time to put my Passport to use. I went with 5 other girls, and 1 guy. Interesting combo huh? Here was our itinerary:

Thursday, September 3rd-

• Leave LAX at 1:40am
• Arrive in San Jose, Costa Rica at about 10am (we had a stop in El Salvador)
• 3 hour shuttle ride to Manuel Antonio/Quepos. First we stopped to see some alligators under this bridge. It was a touristy thing. Then later we stopped to eat lunch at this place on the beach.
• Finally arrive at Manuel Antonio Estates--we stayed in this house called Jacana Villa. It was so nice. 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, private pool, amazing view.
• Played in our private pool for a little bit before we went into town (Quepos) to buy food
• Made dinner and went back in the pool
• Our house had a Jacuzzi bathtub...so all 6 girls got in it together.
  

Friday, September 4th- My favorite day of the trip

• 7:30am white water rafting trip. They picked us up and took us back to their place to eat some breakfast before heading out. We made a few stops on the way to do more touristy stuff. They got one flower, can't remember the name of it, and had all of us smell it. It was a flower that they use for the Chanel #9 perfume. They did a lot of things like that, that is just the one I remember. We had 2 rafts for our group. 1st raft: Me, Mandy, Nacolynn, and Karen. 2nd raft: Wendy, Doug, Amy, and 2 other random girls. It was 8.5 miles long, and took about an hour and a half to get done. We made a few stops, and that is why it took so long. I cannot even express how fun this excursion was. At one point I did feel like I was going to drown. Honestly. Our guide, Mono, took us back into the rapid, so we were getting slammed with water over and over again. Mandy and I were in the front, so we were getting the worst of it. I kept swallowing so much water because I couldn't breath...I mean really, it was non stop water in our faces. They like to call that "Costa Rican jaccuzi". When we got done we went back to their place for lunch, which was so good. The black beans were amazing. Definitely don't taste like black beans here in the States.
  
• Manuel Antonio beach. We rented surf boards and the guy threw in free surf lessons for us. He worked with us for a little over an hour then had to leave to do "his taxes that he was already 4 days late on." When he was "helping" us, he would hold the end of the board and push us into the wave and tell us to get up, or get to your knees. But every time he would push me my board would wobble and then I would do a nose dive. Needless to say, I had very little success with this guy. I only got to my knees a few times, were Wendy was getting up all the time. She got really good. Then these other 2 ticos (that is what the Costa Ricans call themselves) surfers were helping us. One of them spoke English the other...not at all. And the one who didn't speak English was helping me. When this guy was helping me by telling me what to do, I stood up on the surf board for the first time. Which was weird because I don't speak Spanish, nor understand it.
  
• We went back to our house and had "girl time" in the pool. We made Doug go to his room while just us girls were swimming.
• Went to Si Como No (a very nice resort) to eat dinner/dessert.
  
• Wendy, Karen, Mandy and I went salsa dancing at Bamboa. We were supposed to take a taxi home but didn't. We ended up walking/running back to our house. It was pretty scary but more funny. The roads there are really scary. They are very windy and the drivers are crazy. The roads are barely big enough for 2 cars to pass at the same time. So anyway, we decided that when no cars were coming we would run until we'd see lights, and then hurry to the side so we didn't get hit. It sounds stupid on our part, and maybe it was, but it was a lot of fun.
  

Saturday, September 5th- Grady's 1st birthday (which I missed)

• 8:30am horseback ride to some waterfalls. To be honest, I was a little scared. Mostly because I was afraid my horse would start running and I couldn't control it, or I'd get thrown off or something like that. But the longer I was on the horse the more comfortable I got. Our ride took us through the rainforest, which was really pretty. On our way to the waterfalls the horses went through mostly water to get there. Then on the way back to the ranch we went a different way. It was longer and more land. One time my horse and Amy's, Naco's, Karen's, and Mandy's horses were all trotting/running/racing each other just to get ahead. So my legs would be right by someone else's horse, and I felt like I was going to get bit or something. And then once we got into single file line again we stopped so everyone could run their horse up this hill. We didn't have to, but we all wanted to. Then when we got back to the ranch we had a really good lunch. It was my favorite meal that we ate the entire trip.
  
• Manuel Antonio beach again. We did a little shopping and then played in the ocean. The water was so warm there, it was amazing. It was a little dirty, but what can you expect...it was rainy season there. So it was dirty with debris, like wood. Not the kind of dirty that we have here.
  
• Back to the house again. We went swimming in our pool again and ordered in pizza. It was surprisingly good. Some watched a movie, some packed, some slept.
  

Sunday, September 6th- My least favorite day

• Manuel Antonio National Park. We hired a guide so he could point out all the animals. Good thing we did, because I doubt I would have seen anything if he weren't there. We saw lots of monkeys, sloths, iguanas, crabs, and one very poisonous snake, the eyelash pit viper snake. We would have walked right by the snake, but our guide pointed it out. That was the only snake we saw on the trip. Then we played in the ocean for a while.
• Back home to do last minute packing
• 5 hour shuttle ride to Arenal. Yes, 5 hours. Wendy, Karen, and Amy get car sick. And these are the worst kinds of roads, very hilly and windy.
• Finally, we arrived in Arenal and checked into Hotel Campo Verde.
• Ate dinner and then went to another restaurant for dessert.
  
• We went back to Hotel Campo Verde to go to bed. This place was far less fancy than Jacana Villa. The place smelled, it was small, 1 bathroom for 4 girls, and a very hard bed. That's not the worst part. When we wanted to go to bed we pulled the sheets down and what do we see? Fleas. Not joking. Fleas. Good thing I packed an extra sheet and pillow case because I definitely had to use them. I had to put on bug repellent and socks just to go to bed. This place was very different from Manuel Antonio. And Arenal had a lot more mosquitoes and other bugs. But we had to stick it out for the night.

Monday, September 7th- Another favorite day

• Woke up early to do a canopy tour. But it was raining so hard that it got cancelled.
• Ate breakfast and then made arrangements to stay at a different place...one with no fleas.
  
• Moved to Los Lagos Resort. This place was AMAZING. We spent $10 more per person than at the flea bag place to stay there. And it was WELL worth the $10 more. It had 3 water slides, 2 regular swimming pools, and then a lot of hot springs. It also had a canopy tour, restaurants, a crocodile and butterfly exhibit on site.
  
• Mandy flew home that day, so she didn't get to see the resort other than the front reception area.
  
• We got settled into our new room and went straight for the pools. We didn't have anything planned since the canopy tour got cancelled. We played around on the water slides for quite a while. Then we went to the swim up bar to get some virgin cocktails and to eat lunch.
• We booked a canopy tour and did that on site, which was also really fun. On the 3rd line we did, we got to do it upside down. (it was the slowest line they had and that's why we could do it upside down.) On another line I got to do a "supergirl", where I basically felt like flying through the rainforest . Awkward part: I was supported by one of the guides, Anthony.
  
• More swimming in all the pools. We attempted lots of trains and all sorts of ways to go down the slides, and I do mean all sorts of ways. Then we went in all the hot springs, and then back to the slides again.
• Chela's Bar. There was supposed to be karaoke and dancing going on there. When we arrived it was practically dead. There were people, but nobody was dancing and no karaoke was going on. I guess the karaoke machine broke before we got there. While we were eating a very late dinner, some random ticos came to our table and started talking to Doug. They found out that it was Wendy's birthday (at 12pm) and told the DJ. He gave a "shout out" to her and then later played "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. That was all we needed. The girls started dancing (maybe on the table at first, maybe) and then made our way to the dance floor. Amy got a video of all this and you can see in the video that we got that party started! You see people coming onto the dance floor with us, and that's how it remained until we left. The DJ was playing American songs, but he kept playing the same songs!
  

Tuesday, September 8th

• I was so tired from the night before. I didn't want to wake up to go to breakfast or to go on a hike that the others did. So I slept in, and it was fabulous.
  
• Traveled 2.5 hours back to San Jose to fly out.

That is my very condensed version of what happened. There are so many funny stories and quotes from the whole trip, but nobody would think they were as funny as I do because you weren't there, so I won't even bother writing those in. But all in all, best trip ever and I can't wait until my next vacation!!!

*I have a lot of pictures, so if you want to see them you'll have to look at my facebook page. Maybe I'll post some later for you non-facebook users. Or maybe you should just join facebook.