The last 4 days of our trip

We took a 3-4 hour shuttle and it was once again packed and once again we were in the back row but it was a shorter ride so it wasn't too bad. We were about 40 mins away from our hotel and the driver pulled over to drop people off in the town of Jaco. Right as the driver was pulling off to the side and parked police car who was not paying attention decided to just pull out and hit us. It was completely the police guys fault but of course he wasn't about to admit that so they blamed our driver who will now probably be fired for nothing. This little accident caused about an hour delay for us. They sent out some guy to take pictures, called more police in and we just got to sit and wait for it all to be over. 

Once we got to our hotel (Plaza Yara) and it was really nice, huge and right against the jungle.

We headed to town and explored a little and did some grocery shopping since this room had a little kitchen.The city closest to us (Quepos) was really small and didn't have much going on so it wasn't that exciting. 

Since we spent Christmas there I brought us a string of Christmas lights and little stocking to hang to make it feel Christmas-y. 

The next day was Christmas and Kelly was super cute and surprised me with a present even though we agreed no presents. We woke up to birds in the jungle behind our room ..it was like something you would see in a movie. 

We ate breakfast at the hotel and then we had a tour of the national park scheduled. while we waited for the tour bus we hung out by the pool. Right then a troop of monkey were passing through and came down. They got really close to Kelly. One walked along the pool railing then jumped into a tree and Kelly grabbed a leaf and the monkey looked so pissed at him.

It was so funny.

Right after the monkey got mad we saw all these lizard guys just falling out of the trees. 

It was so weird.

The hike through the national park was a lot of fun. 

It was definitely worth having a tour guide vs. going on your own. The guides were able to really spot out tons of animals and had telescopes to help you see them up close.

 We got to see a ton of sloths (yay) and some other crazy animals. 

Originally we planned to stay at the beach that day but with it being Christmas we wanted to do something extra and decided on a snorkel & sunset cruise.

The snorkeling was....nothing special but we had fun. On the ship we had dinner and our tour guide brought out his guitar and took requests. He passed out musical instruments and we all joined in.

 It was silly but it made it a memorable day and the sunset was beautiful.

The next morning we hit the beach and it was gorgeous. Manuel Antonio had great, hot weather every day. The water was warm and had pretty good waves.

 Originally we were supposed to go horseback riding on the beach that morning but they asked if we could reschedule for that afternoon. It worked out better because we got to the beach around 8 and it was really really hot. 

Horseback riding was a lot of fun.Kelly made friends with the  owner of  the horses and by the end of the day the guy was giving us his info so if we come back he will hook us up with horses and places to stay.The guy was really nice and would say some of the funniest things.

Ive been horseback riding on the beach in Mexico and this we 1000 times better,although the time in Mexico has some pretty funny memories to go with it, We were able to control where the horses went and how fast.

 We rode for about two hours with a group of people from...Europe, or Canada...I think? All the girls were overly terrified to ride the horses and one girl fell off her horse which was more like a pony. It was pretty funny...because it was really her fault. 

That night we went to the restaurant at our hotel called salt. The food was so good. 

The next day we checked out and headed to the airport. 

We flew to Houston, had to recheck our bags, go through customs, run ( yes think of the Home Alone airport scene) to the opposite side of the airport just to miss our flight.

 

Our plane was there but they had just closed the flight. So we had to wait for 2 and a half hours for the next flight and we made it home around 1 am and got to come home to a lot of snow. 

P.S. Never fly United Airlines. Their customer service is terrible and so many of the employees were incredibly rude.

La Fortuna & Arenal

The next day Interbus picked us up and we headed on a 6 hour bus ride. WORST THING EVER. we were sitting on the tiny back bench, 3 of us, behind a smelly European man. Yuck

.I was sitting by the window with one leg up on the wheel well and it was so hot by that window. Probably 2 hours into it I was getting so hot and ornery, Sorry Kelly :)

We got a break half way through which helped and reading books on the kindle app on my phone is probably the only thing that got me through it. Puerto Viejo was all sunny, palm trees and beaches and La Fortuna is up in the mountains in the middle of the rain forest. It was really pretty, really rainy and kind of cold.

We stopped at a little store 30 minutes before the hotel to see all these

 

Right when we got to our hotel, San Bosco we checked in then headed out to explore the city. We  asked around to see where was a good place to eat and ended up going to Don Rufio's. It was good but really expensive.we shared an appetizer (

and an entree. It was our most expensive meal of the trip. After we went to a Pan store for pastries. Best Pan store of the trip. Back at our hotel we went hot tubing then to bed. I guess travelling for 6 hour in a bus with a stinky man wears you out or something. The next day was our big day of adventure. We started the day out with a complimentary basic breakfast from the hotel then we were off to Volcan Arenal for zip lining. I have never really done any zip lining except at Park City and that's pretty lame. This was amazing..and maybe my favorite thing of the trip. If you ever go to La Fortuna, Costa Rica do this!! The zip lines consist of 8 lines down the Volcano.

 

 The first two are little ones to learn on. We had a large group of maybe..15-20. So we do the 2 short practice lines and its raining and foggy like crazy and kind of cold. While were waiting on the platform to do our first big zip line . We watch the people ahead of us go and we can see them for a while and then they disappear into the fog. I go before Kelly on this one and the rain in hitting me in the face so hard and that's when I find out why the fog is so thick. That spot is a valley of the volcano and I'm now 650 ft above the trees. It was so amazing. Most of the zip lines were like this, you would zip over hills and valleys of the volcano. By the end of the zip lines we were soaked because it poured rain the entire time and I was kind of cold. Brrr.

We had a two hour break at our hotel then we were headed out for a rain forest hike.It was still raining, a lot.

 We didn't get to see many animals because they hide in the rain but it was still fun. We then headed to Baldi Hot springs for swimming and dinner.Dinner there was OK but the  hot springs were a lot of fun. 

 They were water slides into one of the pools. Since I had my camera I thought it would be funny to take a picture while going down. I thought the slides would be pretty boring but the one I went down was pitch black and near the end threw you to the side and kind of flung you around before you skid out onto the water. I captured my pictures at just the right time.

 

The  next day we headed out to our last destination Manuel Antonio on the Pacific side of Costa Rica.