Our Costa Rican Honeymoon (Part I)

I'm sure you've all been holding your breath for this... well not really, after the video this probably won't be too exciting. But here's the story behind the video.

Day 1: Miami-San Jose-Liberia

We flew into San Jose and had a private driver meet us at the airport and drive us four hours across the country to our hotel in Liberia. The plane tickets for San Jose were $250 each, whereas flying into Liberia was about $590 each, not to mention 3 hours of travel vs. 8 hours. It was much cheaper to have the driver, and much prettier to drive across the country.

The view along the ride. It was so nice to see some hills and valleys! Florida is SO flat!!

 Marc was tired, and slept most of the ride. But when he did wake up he wasn't impressed with my picture of him sleeping, so I took another picture of him. It looks much better hun :)

The view outside our hotel window

Our hotel room. They really are proud of their coffee beans here - to the point of decorations.

Meet our hotel pet. This is the top corner of our shower. Luckily, this wasn't new since we got one in our bath tub a week before. Marc is getting good at catch and release.

Our dinner at the hotel. I got on a pizza kick and had it for several nights. But all the others had fresh pineapple on top! YUM!

Day 2: Gauchipelin

This was the craziest day. In short: Marc got thrown off a horse, I got dumped in the rapids from my tube, we got shocked by lightning while on a platform over a river in a slot canyon during a down pour, and ended the day covered in mud at a hot springs on a volcano.

This is our group and our bus. There were fourteen of us, from all over the U.S. They were a good group, and we had a lot of fun together. We met at the hotel, and then headed out.

Horses:

We had to wear these lovely helmets for all the days activities... it was probably best.

The trail we took was pretty, through lots of trees and over a stream. It is the rainy season there and so the trails were muddy in some spots. There was a really steep, muddy hill that the horses were struggling to get up. Suddenly there was a loud slipping sound and we looked back to see Marc running up the hill. His horse had slipped and when the head went down Marc bailed off so it wouldn't land on him. It could have been really bad, but luckily he got his feet out quick and only got his jeans a little muddy. But as the saying goes, when you fall off the horse you just have to get back on, and so he did and rode the rest of the way.

Tubing:

We're ready!

After some instruction!

We don't have many pictures from this, since we were floating down the river. There is some fun footage in the video from the previous post. Unfortunately blogger still won't let me upload videos... I have no idea why. The rapids were class III, so big enough that they were fun and we got wet, but not really dangerous. I went over one, and so my tube was a little tipped, and then someone came down on the back of my tube and flipped me. It wasn't too intense though, I just had to float down the river a little until I was out of the rapid and then a guide had grabbed my tube and I got back in. We were the accident prone couple for that day, Marc: de-horsed, Me: de-tubed. But no injuries!

Yeah, they use old school buses as a lot of their transportation. I was pretty impressed at the steep, muddy roads this made it through. We even drove through a pretty big stream. Unfortunately this one was struggling. It stopped on us twice, and twice the driver jumped out and worked on it for a couple minutes and got it running again. 

After a break to eat lunch at this beautiful indoor (but outdoor because there aren't any windows-just openings) restaurant we walked across the street to start the zip lining. This is also the restaurant to our hotel.

Zip Lining:

They buckle us in...

and we're ready to go!

But first we need to get a little bit of instruction. Don't we look really engaged in our instructions?

And now I get hooked in and take off!!

Once again, check out the video for some actually footage. We started off with this nice weather, and then two zip lines in it started to rain. You can't really go backwards on the zip line, so we waited for awhile in the pouring rain for it to stop. The trees don't really protect you from the rain, so we stood and got completely soaked. Luckily the helmets kept the rain from our eyes.

The rain just got harder....

Then our guides decided it wasn't going to stop, and we should get through the next seven zip lines (and one Tarzan swing) as quickly as possible. So we went on. This got pretty intense. It was pouring with plenty of lighting and thunder. Since I don't have a good picture, let me give you a visual. The rest of the lines end on little platforms, between 3x3 and 6x6 feet, bolted to the cliff sides. We would land on the platform, then they would clip us onto a wire bolted to the cliff wall while we waited, and then clip us onto the next zip line when it was time to go. One platform was right beside a waterfall, and it had a little slide that we slid down until the line went taut and we finished zipping to the next platform. Other platforms were over a river in a big slot canyon. Needless to say, being hooked to a cliff wall by a metal wire during a lightning storm while you are soaking wet isn't the safest feeling. Twice the line I was next to sparked from lightning. One time three of us (me, Marc, and another guy) were holding onto it while we waited and we all got a nerve racking zap-shock that left a little tingle in our hands. The thunder after that shook the whole canyon. Though terrifying, it was one of the coolest thunder I have heard. Like the fireworks that feel like they boom in your heart, but longer.

GOPR6221.MP4 - Google Drive 

That's why in the last zip line video (click above to see) Marc looks so thrilled/relieved to have made it to solid ground on the last line. It was fun, but it was intense! Because of the humidity and packing and changing hotels, it took Marc's jeans three days to dry.

Volcanic Hot Springs:

Costa Rica was formed by volcanoes. It isn't even really on a continent, it is between continents. So it has a lot of volcanoes, some active and some dormant. Therefore, there are also a lot of hot springs. This volcano had a history of healing mud baths. They heated the mud in the very hot hot spring, and then we used brushes to paint it on each other. I painted Marc first, and just put the mud on his face with my fingers nicely... he used the brush on me.

This is nice...

...and a little less nice




Yuck!

Afterwards, I brushed his face much more thoroughly!

Then the "treatment" says you rinse off in cold water and jump in the warm hot springs that runs off from the main hot spring. They had nice cold water showers (pictured in the right of the picture below) to clean off in before walking into the springs. It felt wonderful, especially after being soaked in a drenching downpour for over an hour.

Day 3: Monteverde, to be continued in the next post...