Costa Rica 2011 (Part 1)

So here it is!  Pictures from Costa Rica...Part 1 :-)  Of course I wasn't able to narrow it down any further than I already have, so I just had to divide them into 2 sections!  If you know me at all, you shouldn't be surprised, I seem to have a need to make it feel as if you were actually on my trips with me (kind of like Trina's trick of posting all those pictures of her incredibly adorable girls, making it almost unbearable to be away from them).  Maybe one of these days it'll finally convince you to come enjoy one of these fabulous adventures with us!

Matt and I at the San Antonio Airport awaiting our flight, so excited! We flew from San Antonio to Mexico City (yikes!) and then on to San Jose, Costa Rica.

The first night we got there so late that we just stayed in San Jose. In the morning, we caught a bus that drove us to La Fortuna/El Castillo where our first stop would be :-) The ride between cities was crazy and exactly what one could expect from driving 80 mph up and down and around jungled mountains.

Pictured below is Matt in front of our hotel near La Fortuna. It was the cutest little room with the best view of the volcano and lake that we could have asked for, without actually being on top of the volcano looking in (which is what Matt wanted to do but I said no...crazy guy!)

The pool/hot tub

One of the best things about Costa Rica was the fresh fruit!  Every morning we had fresh pineapple, mango, papaya, and little tiny bananas!  These bananas were sweet and creamy, so good!

But they were so tiny (as you can see) that you sometimes had to eat 3 or 4 of them :-)

Arenal Volcano, we were excited to see that the top was open (no clouds covering it) so that we could actually see the smoke coming off it.  They said that it's only open 70 days out of the year, so we were pretty blessed to be able to view it most of the 2 days we spent there.

Arenal and Matt

Lake Arenal, view from the volcano

Video of a really cool plant we saw on our volcano hike.  It may be kind of hard to see, but for whatever the reason if you touch this plant, it'll close up:

Traditional meal at a local restaurant, chicken, rice, beans, calabacitas, and a fried plantain.  It was so yummy!

That night, after the volcano tour, we went to some really nice natural hot springs (not creepy and gross like the one we went to in Peru lol ;-) 

There were several pools that drained into each other, with the hottest one being at the top, cooling as it progressed down.

After hiking and hanging out in the hot springs, Matt and I decided to swim in the pool :-)  It was really cool because it empties over the edge and you have a great view of Lake Arenal and the volcano. 

The pool, our room, and Lake Arenal

Here are several pictures from our room of the volcano and surrounding area at sunrise. 

So the sun rises at 5am and sets at 5am. Kind of a cool schedule, but that means the birds wake up around 4:30am! 

Eating breakfast

Waiting for our Hanging Bridges hike

The Hanging Bridges were so cool!  There were 15 bridges that were built in the tree tops of the jungle that we walked across.  As an added bonus, I didn't realize I had hired a personal tour guide for the hike, but I did!  So we had specialized attention from Graving, who pointed out everything to us, it was so neat :-)

The best part of the whole hike for me was when Graving caught these 2 poison dart frogs for us :-)  I've loved these little guys ever since I saw them in a book when I was in 2nd grade and I couldn't believe I got to see some and hold them!

They were SO tiny and cool!

Just like the picture in my book, but I took this one :-)

View looking down from the bridge

 

 

Iron wood tree, so hard you can't cut it down with a saw!

Matt attempting to get Giardia....thankfully he didn't succeed!

 

Poisonous eyelash viper

 

Leaf cutter ant!  These guys were so cool, there were like highways of them just truckin' along the path, each carrying a gigantic leave.  Graving explained to us that there are 3 types of leaf cutter ants.  The big ones are Army Ants, then there are the Worker Ants, and then the Saliva Ants...the army ones protect, the worker ones carry the leaf, and then if you look really really closely you can actually see several teeny tiny ants that work on breaking down the leaf as it is being carried down to their nest!  Quiet the system they've got going on!

 

More leaf cutter ants

Video showing a small path of ants

 

After our hike, we got to go Canoyning, repelling down waterfalls :-)  It was a lot of fun!  This was the longest waterfall that we did, doesn't look like much, but it was far!

Me going down

Matt's turn, like a pro!

 

Ok, so this isn't me and isn't Matt, but a girl that went with us and I thought this was a pretty cool picture of this waterfall. As soon as you jumped off that first part, you swung inside a little bit into a crevice and got soaked!

Me coming down another one

And Matt

A video of Matt, he zoomed down a little too fast to make a good video, but still pretty cool!

 

The next morning we got up bright and early to catch our ride to our next adventure, white water rafting!  Here's a picture of the sunrise/volcano from the deck.

One last look at our little cabin and Lake Arenal.

On the drive from La Fortuna to our rafting site.  We saw these two rivers intersecting, one coming from a part of the mountain that had just been rained on, making it muddy.

On the Pacuare River, class IV rapids and oh so much fun!

 

Really cool bird we saw called a tiger heron

 

Local kids jumping off the bridge, they then swam up to the rafts, jumped in and ate our left over food!

We love rafting!  It's so much fun!

Just beautiful

And that's where I'm going to leave you!  Floating down the Pacuare River until we get to the town Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean...I'll finish up this week, promise!