Costa Rica!

We can’t believe it’s been two and a half years since our trip around the world! We’ve had a couple epic years starting new jobs and raising our two boys, now 4 and 2 years old. It’s been too long since we’ve traveled internationally.  We’re really excited to take Wesley on his first trip abroad. In fact, my mom, step dad, sister (Nicole) and brother (Robbie) are also joining us on this adventure to COSTA RICA! Thanks to my parents for giving us this trip as our Christmas present! Best gift ever!

We fell right back into our comfort zone packing for the trip, but it was a bit different adding another kiddo into the mix. We made sure to pack a ton of toys and snacks for the kids to play with as we had a looooong flight ahead of us. After over nine hours of travel with a quick layover in LA, we arrived at the Liberia airport in Costa Rica. My parents traveled there the year before and built a relationship with a driver that they’d asked to be our driver for this whole trip. My stepdad is a decent tipper, so the guy (Eduardo) was happy to oblige. He met us at the airport and we drove straight to McDonald’s for a snack. I know, not exotic, but it was quick and something we could all agree on. Our driver then drove us to a little grocery store where we loaded up on drinks and snacks for the next few days. They even had something similar to a frappuccino that of course I had to try. Wasn’t Starbucks but not too shabby.

We hopped back in the shuttle and drove nearly three hours to a town in the jungle called La Fortuna. Since we knew we would be arriving late that night and only spending one night, my parents booked a an inexpensive hotel to save some money. As we pulled up to the hotel, it looked so sketchy that I started to question my parents hotel research, lol. Personally, I probably would have considered it a sunk cost and drove to a more reputable hotel down the road but since my parents paid for it, we just sucked it up. At least I always have my pepper spray on me in case we encounter any creepos. Luckily there wasn't any issues other than the fact the hotel room was about the size of my bathroom at home. I also couldn’t quite tell if the sheets had been washed since the last guests so I decided to sleep fully clothed just in case.

The next morning we all met up at the outdoor patio of the restaurant and cashed in on our free breakfast. I was pleasantly surprised by the food which consisted of fresh fruit, eggs, toast and bacon. The kids noticed a tire swing across off in the distance so as soon as we were done eating we darted over to it and swung them around. We needed to kill time until noon before we could check into our next hotel so we took the boys to the pool that was next door to our current hotel. The water was freezing so only Marshall and Tyson were brave enough to get in. It wasn’t long before we all were ready for something else to do so we took a taxi into town to check it out. We walked quite a bit and worked up an appetite for lunch so found a restaurant to stop at. The boys noticed an ice cream shop on the walk back to our hotel so we had to stop to get them some chocolate ice cream. The kids had chocolate all over their faces, but loved every minute of it. I’d almost completely forgotten it was Valentines Day, but while the kids were gorging themselves, Marshall snuck off next door to a flower shop and bought me a rose. So sweet!

After a while, it was finally time to check into our next hotel which was just down the road. It was a gorgeous hotel with several thermal pools, a huge outdoor sauna and a swim up bar. We spent several hours swimming in the pools which all felt bathwater warm. We all loved it and the boys were in heaven and didn’t want to get out of the water! After we were all shriveled up like prunes we headed back up to our room to get ready for dinner.

We knew we’d be arriving on Valentine’s Day so this was the one night on this trip that we wanted to all go have a nice dinner together. We were all ready for dinner a half hour before our reservation so we went up to the rooftop bar which also had a foosball and pool table. We grabbed a drink and had fun playing the games and then headed down to the restaurant in the main area of the hotel. We had a nice separated area on the deck outside with a random guy playing the saxophone who maybe had 1-2 lessons prior. Good stuff. I had an amazing chicken dish (surprise, surprise). Although desert sounded amazing, Tyson and Wesley were getting a little restless so we took them up to the room to get them ready for bed. There was a ginormous jetted tub in our room that also had a tv in it. The boys had a blast playing in the tub and watching cartoons before bedtime. Marshall and I enjoyed sitting on the patio relaxing from the crazy travel up to that point and fell fast asleep after getting the kids in their jammies.

The next morning my parents offered to watch the boys for a few hours, so Marshall and I booked a canyoneering tour with Nicole and Robbie. The tour bus picked us up from our hotel and drove us up into the jungle on this rickety old dirt road. When we reached the tour meeting spot, we changed into our clothes that we didn’t mind getting wet (which we were told was guaranteed). Everyone came out of the dressing rooms wearing regular workout clothes and here I am in my hot pink swimsuit and jean shorts. I felt ridiculous but I just assumed everyone else would be wearing a swim suit too. Oops! We all put on our gloves and helmet and walked over to a small waterfall which was the canyoneering starting point. The guide asked for a volunteer to go down first and I raised my hand since everyone else just kind of looked at each other like they didn’t want to be awesome.  We repelled one by one down the first waterfall. It was a small one to build our confidence before the real adventure began. When we got to the bottom of the waterfall our guide told us we had to cannonball into a plunge pool that was maybe 4 feet wide and 10 feet long. I really didn’t want to get my hair and face wet so I went last and tried to do a wimpy jump…. And I completely submerged underwater. Let’s just say it was a good thing they took lots of pictures before that point.

The second waterfall was about twice as long as the first and we only repelled about half way and zip lined down the rest of the way. At the bottom of that waterfall, the guides wanted to show us a cool trick. Marshall, Robbie, Nicole and I sat at the bottom of the waterfall while one of the guides laid his body across a section of the waterfall at the top to completely stop the water from coming down and accumulate in a pool area. Once the water was overflowing, he stood up and the water came gushing down the fall right over top of our heads. We all held on to each other for dear life so the force of the water wouldn’t knock us over. Such a cool experience and we got it on video!

After that, we all made our way over to the last waterfall which was significantly bigger than any of the others. We only repelled a few feet down the waterfall and then we were all told to let go of the rope, jump off the cliffside and zip line all the way down to the bottom. When I let go of my rope it got twisted and I jerked to a stop. I was just dangling mid-air like Fat Bastard in Austin Powers when his stunt rope broke. After a few minutes one of the guides untwisted my ropes and I zipped my way to the bottom. Of course, something like that would happen to me! Once we all reached the bottom, we had to hike up a long, steep staircase to get to the top where all our clothes were stored. We changed into clean clothes and sat down at picnic tables for an authentic Costa Rican meal of…rice and beans. After our meal we hopped in the tour bus and rode back down the old dirt road back to our hotel. We were all exhausted from our adventure and thank goodness I bought the package that came with a massage afterwards at the hotel. Right when we got back, Nicole and I went down and got a nice massage while everyone else hung out by the pool.

Later that evening we took the kids out to the pool for a swim. My mom and sister were hanging out at the swim up pool bar chatting with the bartender, Pablo, who happened to be our server the night before. My sister had just broken up with her boyfriend the week before our trip so my mom was asking Pablo questions and finally got around to asking if he was single. He smiled and said yes. I was sort of watching from a distance and couldn’t tell who was flirting with him more, my mom or my sister. Haha! Although Pablo only spoke broken English, they seemed to be having great conversation. While they were at the pool bar, Nicole ordered a virgin pina colada. Tyson and Wesley swam over and asked for a sip… and proceeded to drink it down in about 30 seconds. Then she ordered a virgin strawberry daquiri and they drank that up too. Those kids were on a sugar high for a while! So we stayed in the pool throwing them around and challenging them to monkey crawls around the edge until we were ready to call it a night.

The next morning, we all met up at the hotel restaurant for brunch before packing up and checking out of the hotel to head to our next spot. Nicole ran into Pablo again and made sure to get a picture with him and exchange phone numbers. When our driver arrived, we all hopped in and headed for a town called Jaco. It was a 3 hour drive of non stop turns going through a mountain range. Marshall got super car sick sitting in the back and had to lay down the entire way. It was a painful ride, so we decided to stop half way for lunch to break up the drive. We invited our driver to eat lunch and tried to ask him questions about his family, but he didn’t give much up…kind of a strange guy that Eduardo.

Just down the road from the restaurant was a river that had tons of alligators just hanging out under the bridge. We had to stop and get out to take a quick picture! The kids enjoyed going to the little shops nearby. After another hour further of driving we arrived at our hotel which was on a beautiful secluded beach. We hurried to put our bags in our rooms and then walked around the property to check it out. The kids immediately ran straight for the playground that was right on the beach. They played for a while until they realized they were in their bathing suits at which point they ran straight for the water with Marshall. It was a little too cold for my taste, so I was good with just laying on a towel by the beach sunbathing. When the boys got out we spent a lot of time on beach playing in the sand with a bucket and shovels making sandcastles with moats.

That night, my mom, sister and I hit the town for a girl’s night out. We took a ten minute taxi ride to downtown Jaco and was dropped off in a new, more modern part of town that had several nice restaurants and bars. We stopped at one bar that had a pretty outdoor patio for a cocktail. I had a sangria that was delicious! We then walked across the courtyard to a nice restaurant for dinner. We sat out on their patio that overlooked the courtyard and noticed several kids riding around on little cars. I was excited to see you can rent kids cars there and the parents get a remote control to drive their kids around. I made a mental note just in case we’d have a chance to bring the boys back to try them out. Such a fun place to hang out for both kids and adults!

The next morning after breakfast we went back into town to stroll around. I told Tyson and Wesley about what I saw the night before and they got super excited about driving in remote-control cars so we started the day in that area. We asked the boys which car they wanted and Wesley wanted to climb into each and every car (around 10) before finally deciding on a white Cadillac Escalade. It was a one-seater so the boys just took turns riding it around for 30 minutes. Tyson especially enjoyed remote controlling himself around, lol. After their time was up on the cars we stopped at a restaurant nearby for lunch before heading back to the hotel.

That night my parents offered to watch the boys so Marshall and I could have an evening out with Nicole and Robbie. I had found a bat cave bar while researching unique places to go in Costa Rica and really wanted to check it out. It was an hour drive away but I thought it would be well worth the experience. We called a taxi and had the driver take us to a small town along the water called Manuel Antonio. We first stopped at a pier that had a several nice restaurants and chose one that had live music and a beautiful water view. The food and drinks were great and the sunset was even better. After taking a few pictures of the sunset we hopped back in the taxi and drove to a nearby hotel called La Mansion Inn which is where the bat cave bar is located.

We had made reservations in advance because we thought it may be packed. When we arrived to the hotel the front doorman told us that the bar was closed to the public that night!!! We reminded them we’d made a reservation and the manager said they’d open it up just for us. We were thinking it wouldn’t be that awesome with just the four of us but we didn’t care, we were just excited to see the bats. The host walks us down the hall, around a curvy staircase, and opens a secret door that leads to the bat cave bar and when we walked in we look everywhere and….. saw NO bats. We asked the bartender where the bats were and he said they only come in the bar during the day to sleep. Dang it! We drove all that way to see the bats and on top of that that the bar was completely dead.

At that point we’re thinking we just wasted a whole lot of time and money driving all that way. Then all of a sudden the bartender busts out a sweet speaker system and plugs in his phone. He let us be DJs with his phone and pick whatever we wanted to hear all night. We were jammin’ out all night while the bartender was concocting delicious drinks for us. He gave out several for free and let Robbie and Marshall taste some of his finest top shelf liquor. Lucky guys! 
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After a few hours we walked outside for some fresh air. We saw a pathway that went over the top of a swimming pool and led do a beautiful rooftop terrace. We gazed up at the stars and we had wished that we had come during daylight because we could tell that it would have been such an amazing 360 degree view of the water and jungle. Nicole had even mentioned that she would plan her wedding with Pablo there if it all worked out. Haha! Since it had been several hours that we were at the bar and knew that we still had an hour drive home, we went back to our taxi who had waited for us the entire time we were there. That night turned out to be one of the top highlights of the whole trip!

The next day was our last day in Jaco and we decided to just take it easy. We spent most of the day hanging out by the beach relaxing  with my family  and taking in the scenery. Tyson really enjoyed jumping in the waves with his Nana and Grandpa while Wesley enjoyed building sandcastles with Marshall and me. I tried to lay out on the sun chairs to work on my tan, but it was a little difficult when also trying to entertain the boys. I at least was able to get a little color during the trip. The most important part is that the kids had a great time and we all enjoyed the time with my family.

That evening we ordered room service for dinner and let the boys watch a movie. Out of the corner of my eye I see a GINORMOUS spider! Naturally, I start screaming and ask Marshall to kill it. Instead, what does he do? He grabs a glass cup and a piece of paper and slowly puts the glass over the spider. Then he slips the paper under the cup and tips the cup over with the paper on top to trap the spider in. He then walks the spider outside and around the corner near the pool area far away from our building and let’s the spider go. Let’s just say he’s a lot nicer to that spider than I would have preferred.

The next morning as we are packing up our stuff to get ready to check out, what to do we see in our room? That dang spider again! Same size, same color, same evil eyes…same spider. This time Marshall trapped it again in the glass but decided to leave it there for the maids. Hopefully they didn’t get too freaked out when they saw it. Maybe they put it into a circus as Costa Rica’s largest Houdini spider. Once our driver arrived to the hotel, we piled in again and headed two hours north to our last destination, Playa Hermosa.

When we arrived to our hotel, we walked past a pool that was surrounded by huge sprawling trees. We looked up and saw several monkeys climbing around in the tree above the pool. The boys were so excited! We went straight to our room to change into our swimsuits and then go hang out at the pool to watch them. It was fun sitting in the hot tub and looking up at the monkeys swinging above us. We ordered some lunch poolside and hung out there all afternoon. Most of the monkeys just chilled and watched us while eating the fruit on the tree, but there was one that must have gotten ahold of someone's cocktail and decided it wanted to hoop and holler and shake the limbs of the trees. It eventually calmed down after it's buzz wore off. Super interesting to watch!

That evening we all met up at the hotel restaurant for a nice family dinner. We got as far as getting our drinks and ordering our food, but the kids were not wanting to sit still for any longer. We ended up taking our food to go and eating it in our hotel room. At their young age their attentions spans are not guaranteed to last long enough for a sit down dinner, but that’s ok we just snuggled up and watched a movie in our hotel room which was nice and relaxing.

The following day was our last day in Costa Rica. We spent the morning hanging out by the beach and building sandcastles. We wanted to explore the nearby area so we ventured out into town to have lunch with the boys along with Nicole and Robbie. We went to a restaurant that was actually a nightclub in the evenings. They had good reviews online so we thought we’d try it out. The food was great and it wasn’t very busy so the boys walked around the restaurant while they waited for the adults to finish lunch. There wasn’t a whole lot to explore near the restaurant so after lunch we took a taxi back to the hotel. We spent the rest of the day playing at the beach and soaking up the last bit of sun on our trip.

The next morning, we packed our bags and waited in the lobby for our taxi. My mom, stepdad, Nicole and Robbie stayed an extra day because of the way the flights worked out using airline miles. We said our goodbyes to the rest of my family and headed to the airport for what was going to be about 11 hours travel time back home. We made it to the airport and through security without a hitch and got the boys to run around the airport as much as we could to wear them out. Luckily, they did and both the boys did great on the flights.

Costa Rica is an amazing country and we’d love to go back. It’s a great place to relax, meet wonderful locals, and enjoy beautiful scenery. Traveling with family adds a totally different dynamic and the boys had a blast having my family there to play with. We’re excited to continue traveling as a family of 4 and adding to our adventures in the near future!
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