Costa Rica Trip, Day 10 – Playa Hermosa

The next morning, we ate Cheerios on our balcony and gawked at the view. This area reminded me a lot of the Southern California coast – except way less developed. Maybe this is what Southern California looked like 50 years ago. We saw all kinds of fun things from this balcony. Dogs wandering happily on […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 9 – Getting to Playas del Coco

In the morning, we had our final breakfast at Hotel Tangara. By this time I was going to weep if I had to eat another banana, but fortunately they switched up the fruit so we got to have pineapple and papaya instead. We drove in the rain most of the way back to Ruta 1. […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 8 – Ziplines and Rafts!

We spent our final full day in the Arenal area doing the most adventurous stuff we could handle – ziplining and whitewater rafting! I’ll admit that I was a little nervous about it. I’d never ziplined OR whitewater rafted before this. I’m not really afraid of heights, but I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 7 – Hanging Bridges

We spent Friday exploring the hanging bridges at Arenal Sky Adventures. It was a very warm day, and there was a lot of hiking to get to each bridge. We saw many cool trees and plants, and we even saw capuchin monkeys! The hanging bridges were neat, since they let you walk up in the […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 6 – Thanksgiving with Hurricane Otto

Thanksgiving has long been a favorite holiday of mine. Getting together with my loved ones and sharing massive quantities of food – what’s not to love? Thanksgiving 2016 strayed a bit from tradition for us. Not only were we in a foreign country, far away from family, but said country was expecting to be hit […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 5 – Baldi Hot Springs

So many hot springs, so little time… Ecotermales, Tabacon, Baldi, The Springs Resort, or the free springs by the side of the road? We decided to go to Baldi Hot Springs because a.) it was the cheapest, and b.) it offered so many different pools (supposedly 25, but that’s counting the little cooling-off pools next […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 4 – Arenal Volcano & Ecocentro Danaus

The main attraction of La Fortuna is Volcan Arenal – the tall, nearly-perfect cone that lurks just west of town. The history of the volcano is so interesting to me – people used to live and farm at the base of it, either not realizing it was a volcano, or thinking that it was dormant. […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 3 – La Catarata Fortuna & The Rainforest Chocolate Tour

On Monday morning, while our friends and family back home were commuting to work in the cold and snow, Dave and I were preparing to visit our first Costa Rican waterfall! Of course we had to start with the hotel breakfast – fruit, eggs, gallo pinto, and toast – which was just what we needed […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 2 – Exploring Fortuna

On Sunday morning, we woke to the sounds of exotic birds and animals chirping and calling in the trees outside our room. Ah, vacation. More adventurous folk may have chosen to rise early and run off to explore the volcano, or glide through the canopy on a zipline, but not us. We leisurely woke up, […]

Costa Rica Trip, Day 1 – Getting There

Getting to La Fortuna de San Carlos, Costa Rica is no simple trip. After staying up until 11:30 to pack, we had to get up again at 1:30 am to go to the airport. We got there so early that the check-in counter wasn’t even open yet, which meant that we stood in line for a […]