Pura Vida!

June 14-22 was my big adventure for the summer...I went to Costa Rica with some friends. It was seriously the best vacation I've ever had! Even with all of our adventures and problems we still had lots of fun. Too much happened to put it all in one post though!

The trip started for 3 of us with a long drive to Denver on the 14th (the other 2 went a few days before us). You might wonder, why Denver? Well, we got a better package deal flying out of Denver. Anyway, we arrived at our hotel close to midnight and checked in for a short nap. We were supposed to be on the 4am shuttle to the airport but it left us...even though we were standing in the lobby! That was the first of many problems with the hotel "park and fly" service. More to come about that.

We arrived in San Jose early in the afternoon
and this is what we saw:

After clearing customs and renting a car we experienced a miracle. The 3 of us realized we were relying on our cell phones (which didn't work!) to be able to meet up with the other 2. We hadn't really set a meeting time or place other than the airport. On our 3rd time circling the airport I said a quick prayer to myself that if they were there to help us see them and a few seconds later we saw one of them walking down the sidewalk!

After lunch we had a beautiful drive to Arenal which took a few hours on the narrow, windy roads. That night we went to the Baldi Hot Springs, a resort with pools filled with water naturally heated by the volcano! All I can say about their water slides is they don't make them like that in America! They were steep, fast and the kind that makes you check to see if your swim suit is still on at the end. It felt great to relax after so much traveling.

That night we stayed in a hostel in Arenal after finding out our hotel was a 40 minute drive from where we were! The door lock broke on my room and the security guard told me to climb in through the window and they would fix it in the morning.
Yes, it's true!
The next morning we went hiking at
the base of the Arenal Volcano.

This is what we were hoping to see:

This is the view we actually had (thanks to the clouds):

We also missed our "yellow arrow" the trail guide told us to turn at
and ended up hiking through the jungle with several large spiders like this:

We joked that it was like hiking in the fire swamp (Princess Bride). There were strange popping sounds from the volcano and some loud rumbles that sounded like thunder. Plus we saw spiders of unusual size. We went back to the beginning, crossed this bridge:

After finding the right trail this is the view we had:

We saw butterflies, a huge frog, monkeys, lizards, and even a wild boar! It was a beautiful hike and it was much better that hiking with the spiders. Yuck!

That day for lunch I had the best piña colada ever! The fruit is so fresh in Costa Rica! That afternoon we hiked to La Fortuna. After going on what felt like a million stairs we arrived at the waterfall (notice the people, it gives you an idea how big it is):

That night we drove to Monte Verde. It seemed like it took forever! Mostly because the roads weren't paved. During our trip the GPS took us on some interesting routes and that night it took us up a hill so steep we had to get out an push! We checked in at the Hotel Montaña and then went dancing at the local bar. We didn't stay long because the 5 of us made up almost half the crowd and the guys there looked like they were maybe 12!

See what I mean about too much for one post. This is a long one and I've only covered the first 2 days! It only got better!
I'll post more another day.