Costa Rica Part I

My mom treated her children and grandchildren to a trip to Costa Rica last week. Our family decided to go a few days before the reunion started to see the central part where Arenal Volcano is located. My mom and Jim decided to meet us early too. First, we had our 24 hour layover in Fort Lauderdale. Believe or not, it was cheaper to fly to Fort Lauderdale and rent a car, book a night's stay in a hotel, and catch a flight to Costa Rica the next day, than it was to fly directly to CR.

Flying on the airplane was a real treat for Erik and Austin, especially. It had been a few years since they have flown on an airplane, so Erik barely remembered it!

What's better than this?!

In FL, we rented our car and had lunch, then went to the local LDS branch for sacrament meeting. Fort Lauderdale reminded me of Puerto Rico, a lot! The branch members were very friendly. The trees surrounding the building were gorgeous! They had greenery growing out of the trunks and branches.

After going to church, we checked into the hotel and got ready to check out the beach. The waves were perfect! Small, rolling sequences of waves that we all enjoyed jumping over. We told the kids we would only be there an hour since we woke up really early that morning and had to catch our flight the next morning, which, luckily, wasn't as early! At one point in the ocean while Jason was taking his turn sitting with our stuff and I was in the water with the kids, I had an interesting visit with a 14-year-old boy from Venezuela with a mustache. I don't know how old he thought I was, but when I told him that I'm 39, he seemed very surprised! He was definitely hitting on me which was comical to me, since I am old enough to be his mother! I waved at Jason to show him where my husband was. After conversing with him for a few minutes, the conversation starting getting more weird. He kept asking if I was American  and if I had papers. He couldn't believe Victoria was 12, thought she was "a child", which I agreed to. He also thought she looked like a "weirdo". He asked if they or I knew martial arts, to which I responded to negatively, but assured him that I am very strong. When he wanted to touch my 6-pack, that was the last straw! I told to kids we were getting out of the water to get a drink, expecting them to resist. Luckily, they were obedient and got out of the water quickly! They did hear most of the conversation and knew this kid was the "weirdo", so they could sense my discomfort. After getting out of the water, I didn't notice him for a while. I thought he had gone on to the group he was spying for to tell them whatever he learned about me! After a little while I finally saw him with what must have been his family. turns out he was just a kid trying to pick up on some "young" chick.





















The next day we flew onto Costa Rica. We met my mom and Jim at the airport and went on a very twisty ride on the shuttle to our hotel in La Fortuna. At one of our rest stops, I came out of the bathroom to see a friendly man speaking to Austin, in Spanish! I kindly told him that Austin doesn't speak Spanish and he laughed as if that explained everything! It happened a couple more times on the trip. A lot of people thought he was a native there. I downloaded an app yesterday so he can start learning Spanish now!

Part of our hotel in La Fortuna.

View of Arenal from the hotel.

Breakfast by our pool!

The first day in La Fortuna we went on a safari float down the river. We saw many animals, including White Faced Monkeys, Yellow Monkeys, Howler Monkeys, a porcupine, bats, vultures, herons, other beautiful types of birds, a sloth rolled up in a ball, so he was hard to see, and two basilisks (aka Jesus Christ lizards because they can walk on water). My boys have watched Wild Kratts so many times that they knew all about most of these animals. There was no stumping them! At the end of the float they served us fruit, cookies, and drinks and we got to see turkeys, roosters, and chickens walking around where we were sitting.  I am not including many pics of the animals we saw becasue it's hard to point them out in the picture. My camera shots weren't great, but we had great shots with our eyes!

Basilisk

Vultures

Pretty bird I don't remember the name of. 

We took a dip in the pool after our float and got some lunch before heading off to our next excursion: the Volcan Arenal hike. We rode the tour shuttle there, took a nice group shot in front of the sign and then it started to rain, HARD! Since the volcano is active (it last erupted in 2010) we weren't going to be able to hike up the actual volcano, but up to a certain point. They don't stop for rain in CR, because it rains most afternoons, so we went on our hike trying to keep dry in our slickers, but failing, and walking through deep puddles. They explained a lot about the volcanic rock around us and pointed out a few animals, but I don't remember any of them except the small viper on the tree that Erik informed us eats humming birds (he learned that from WK). We also saw some big spiders on their webs, yuck! Other than Erik being extremely happy because he loves the rain and was at the front the whole way up, and Austin being somewhat miserable because he's the opposite, I don't remember much except being soaked. I couldn't even take many pictures since I didn't want my phone to get wet. I tell the kids, we will never forget our adventure hiking the volcano in Costa Rica in the rain!

Lunch before the hike. We got empanadas at a type of panderia, but my mom and I also got some fruits and veggies from the stand next door. Yum!

It was dry ay the top for a few mintues, but the view wan't great due to the clouds.