Costa Rica Day 10 ATVs in Manuel Antonio

We woke up this morning and enjoyed breakfast overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Our driver came to collect us and took us to our ATV excursion. We had an absolute blast!! 

We covered A LOT of ground on these things and topped 60km/h a few times.

We made every effort to get absolutely filthy and I am absolutely convinced that I'll be scrubbing dirt out of my pores for months to come!

Both boys had a ball and the parents did as well. In the middle of the ATV trip we did a short hike (less than a km each way) up to a fabulous waterfall and went for a swim. In no way did this make us any cleaner by the time we were done the excursion.

We'd had some minor issues with our first room, so we returned to our new room and THIS VIEW. 

I'm never leaving. Not ever.

We topped off this day with a dinner reservation to eat inside a train car.

Cameron was obviously thrilled.

Malcolm ate half a pizza and then ordered a hamburger. It's safe to say that he'll be taller than Dave by the time we get home from this trip!!

 

Costa Rica Day 9 Arenal to Manuel Antonio

We got up this morning and ate in the shadow of the obscured volcano before our driver came to pick us up for the 6 hour drive to Manuel Antonio.

We saw alligators (or were they crocodiles? The driver said crocodiles but they had very pointy faces...) along the way

and generally chilled out while thoroughly enjoying the fact that someone else was driving and navigating. With every rest stop the air got warmer and stickier AND I'M LIVING FOR IT.

We checked in to our hotel

and are immediately in love with this view!

We are steps from the pool and monkeys keep running past the balcony!

Cameron and Dave hit the pool while Malcolm and I came in to town and explored the shops and he started scoping out restaurants for his birthday dinner.

We ate dinner under the wings of this cargo plane

and overlooking the Pacific Ocean as the sun went down.

I think we had the nicest table in the entire place.

I'm writing this while sitting on our balcony listening to the birds and cicadas sing and the monkeys discuss life. I'm sticky and a little sweaty and this is everything that I want out of life.

Costa Rica day 7 and 8 Arenal

We had a quiet day yesterday with nothing planned, it was glorious.

You could almost see the volcano during breakfast. We walked down in to town and had a good wander around the local stores, touristy places and even the local chocolate making place. We definitely did not leave empty handed!

Today we ate breakfast at the base of the (very misty, seriously I can only assume this alleged volcano has been removed for maintenance) volcano and got ready for our nature hike.

Our driver brought us to the Danaus Reserve which is a secondary forest full of neat Costa Rican plants, birds, animals and bugs.

There's even a butterfly sanctuary right on site!

Our guide toured us all around and we saw all sorts of cool nature.

By the end of the tour it was absolutely POURING rain so the guide was all but sprinting to get us off the trail. We did see a sloth that someone on our tour group spotted.

We sat and enjoyed the birds for about 20 extra minutes

and then came back to the hotel. While we were sitting there, this GIANT cricket looking thing landed on Malcolm's arm, just out of his sight, but he definitely felt a large big land on him. He called an immediate code brown and started yelling and "dancing". We got it off and his blood pressure eventually returned to normal.

I'm really glad that we came in on a clear day as we have certainly not seen the volcano since then.

We had a quiet afternoon and then walked down to the town for dinner in the pouring rain. We leave Arenal tomorrow morning, and I'm hoping to leave the rain and damp behind when we go.

Costa Rica Day 6 Whitewater Rafting on the Balsa River

We ate breakfast at the base of the volcano and then headed off for a day of white water rafting on the balsa river. This is the view of the volcano from the back deck of our bungalow.

I will tell you now that the phones stayed on the bus the entire time, so there are no photos of the event. Instead, I'll draw you a word picture: see a family of four jovial and laughing people. They are perfectly coiffed, makeup done, bathing suits showing all of their lithe muscular physiques. You are awed by their obvious athleticism and natural talent.

The boat glides on to the water and they dip their paddles expertly and execute every instruction that is given with grace and ease...

We saw those people and we definitely waved to them on the way by...seriously though, it was a blast! The rapids were mainly level 2 and 3 and our guide was excellent. We saw FOUR SLOTHS, a couple of vultures, cormorants and some herons.

I am pleased to say that the only time our family went swimming was the allocated swimming time. We got to glide along in the water floating on our backs behind the raft. One family did manage to flip their boat through the level 3 rapids which appeared to be a terrifying experience. I am pleased to say that we experienced the rapids from our positions inside the boat!

We stopped after about 9km of rafting and enjoyed fresh pineapple and watermelon. Having been keto for the better part of the last 2 and a half years, I can't even remember the last time I ate pineapple and I wasn't about to turn it down! It was absolutely delicious.

We had a delicious lunch of traditional Costa Rican foods and then came back to our hotel to hang around in the hot tub.

While it has definitely been warm here temperature wise, it is almost always misty or raining, so we have not been too hot. We've definitely not had to worry about the sun, though we've been cautious just in case.

Costa Rica Day 5- Monteverde to Arenal

Merry Christmas from Costa Rica! 

This morning we said goodbye to Monteverde and the cloud forest and made our way to Arenal. Our driver picked us up at the hotel and Cameron grabbed his favourite spot right up front.

The pot holes on this road are enormous! At one stage we saw a little Hyundai Elantra white-knuckling it through the terrible road conditions and we high-fived each other for having chosen not to do the driving ourselves on this trip!

 We drove about 90 minutes on this road and then arrived to this organized chaos to get on to a boat to take us across the man made Arenal Lake.

Cameron was in his glory with all of the vehicles and modes of transportation. We took the boat for 30 minutes, 

which apparently shaved about 5 hours of terrible driving-high five to Edmundo our travel agent, once again!

The Arenal volcano was clearly visible as we cruised in. We later found out that this is not at all common. Many people visit and never see the volcano because of the fog and mist.

We checked in to our hotel and are amazed that we are sitting right at the base of the volcano staring up at her majesty. Here's hoping the fog clears at some stage.

We hit the hot tub

and got to hang out with this toucan 

 They were really close. They ate some fruit and then flew right over our heads INSIDE the hot tub area. It was so cool!

We had a full contact game of Jenga over happy hour in the bar on our way to Christmas dinner.

What a blast! 

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you. May this new season bringing you many blessings.

Costa Rica Day 4 Monteverde, Christmas Eve

Today we went to the Santa Elena Reserve 

and got a 3 hour guided tour of all of the flora and fauna in the cloud forest.

We saw monkeys, a huge assortment of birds, insects

, a tarantula,

cool plants, hummingbirds that loved our brightly coloured rain jackets and lots more. We absolutely loved it. 

We have yet to see a sloth. Apparently Arenal has heaps of them and that's our next stop, so stay tuned for sloths in the days to come!

We came back and spent a few hours laying low by the pool.

Which is when this handsome fella came to hang out with me.

This rythm works well for us. Some fun adventurous time and then some relaxing. Monteverde is very close the cloud forest. The cloud forest is usually misty and almost definitely cloudy. It's a super interesting microclimate.

If anyone's curious, the floors at home are coming along great. It looks like they got varnished today, the are super shiny!