Costa Rica might be my second home and I ached to come back
granted I realize now that we are back there is plenty of chaos in this country I had forgotten about and erased from my mind
as well the beauty I had underestimated in my memory and still takes my breath away
I am completely head over heels in love again with this country and I am pretty sure mom & dad have questioned on several occasions what they were thinking (probably still are)
If you go back to my very first posts (see the column to your right screen with dates) you will see our first adventure, where Kevin and I unknowingly just went along with plans to take this trip the first time not thinking a whole lot of what we may be getting into
we went along with whatever Cory thought seemed to be a good idea
and Cory was so very right and treated us to our first worldly adventure
that gave us a taste of things outside our comfort zone
we never would've done this without him and now that we have we have a taste for seeing so much more of our world
So we planned our trip and now I will catch you up on adventure
April 21 we left the comforts of our English speaking wealthy city on a 14 hour trek that included 2 flights of about 4 hours and a lengthy stop over in Dallas, TX to a Spanish country full of crazy drivers, extreme lush rainforest, bugs that look like they will eat you if you turn your back, grocery stores with unfamiliar food, monkeys, birds and reptiles that are as common as our deer.
Casey handled the flight better than I (it's official that my fear of flying is increasing with each day and I fear even more that one day (already has) it will impact my wish to travel). Then it was off to to our one night stay at the Holiday Inn in an attempt to sleep before a very long day of driving to Tabacon. Sleep evaded most of us adults, the kids slept and slept.
April 22 - The boys went and picked up our rentals from Vamos Rental Cars (fantastic rental company) and then drove the rentals back while going the wrong way down a one way, taking the wrong turn in the roundabout intersection and then finally having to drive over curb to get around a chained off parking lot to make it back to the hotel.
"Welcome to Costa Rica" (dad's first driving experience)
Miss C is Ready for our road trip
Our drive was completely socked in fog, which is unfortunate because the hilly and winding roads are beautiful and we didn't get to see an ounce and it was a little bit scarry. Half way we made our stop at a Soda for lunch, to have Tipical meal (rice, beans, plantains and our meat of choice)
This Soda we stopped at had ok food, nothing exciting, but the hummingbirds were wonderful. One bird got stuck inside and the owner helped Logan scoop it up and free it out the large open windows back to the forest surrounding us. See Logan holding the birdie.
We arrived at Tabacon on a cloudy day in the fog at about 3-4:00pm. Tabacon has made some changes from our last trip - no vehicles are on site so it's always Valet and added some rooms. This was good because it meant no fighting for parking and it was much quieter on our patios, not great because we were forever calling for our car and tipping our valet boys. We met a wonderful guy on arrival who took care of our cars and luggage straight away, Mike, who was our favourite valet boy. His english was very good and he had lots of little tips for us and a great sense of humour.
We hit La Fortuna for dinner that evening at another ok restaurant and then to the much anticipated Tabacon Hot Springs.
Look a Jesus Christ lizard
(named because they appear to walk on water as they skim across)
Mom making friends with the Korean tourists wanting to see her pics of the lizard
see mom and dad under the falls
The morning April 23 brought a clearer sky opening up to the amazing view of Arenal Volcano outside our rooms.
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