This one time last August....
Jake, Maura, Ryan and myself decided to take a little trip to Costa Rica and I never posted the photos. This is all with very good reason! One week before we set out on our adventure, Jake and I found out we where expecting a BABY!!!! Oh my gosh! After 2 years of infertility treatments and tears, God finally blessed us with the gift of life. What a gift!
So we packed our bags and headed to the airport.
Jake and Ryan made sure he binoculars where in working order!
Maura and I are SOOOO excited!
I think this is around hour 10 or 12 of our trip.
We slept on the floor of the Ft. Lauderdale airport.
This is not very comfortable at 6 weeks pregnant!
Finally we have landed. When we where sitting in the airplane trying to taxi, apparently the only working tow truck on the tarmac broke down, haha! We had to wait 30 mins on the plane and then they brought a staircase to the plane where we un-boarded the plane and boarded shuttle buses to the terminal.
After 16 hours in airports and on planes, and 4 hours in a van with a lead foot named Manuel, we finally reached our destination. Nosara, Costa Rica. We missed daylight upon our arrival, so we grabbed dinner next door at the Gilded Iguana. We also tried to walk down to the beach in the dark, but didn't have flashlights and got freaked out by all the jungle noise!
First thing first, lets head to the beach!
Pura Vida doesn't even cover it. This is the most LUSH, beautiful place Ive ever laid eyes on!
The water was warm to boot!
We continued our first day by walking into the actual town of Nosara. It was about a mile from where we where staying. The property manager had told us that there where "shortcuts" through the jungle areas to get there faster. We couldn't find it on the way there, but did run across it on the way back.
This is around 11am in the morning walking through a "shortcut". It was scary and dark!!!
We laughed about being mauled by puma's. This shortcut was serious business!!
When we surfaced from our jungle walk, it started to POUR rain. I mean POUR rain. We all had raincoats, but weren't ready for the massive amount of water that dumped on us. Ryan has some of the best photos of us walking back in the rain. If your nice, I'm sure he will post them somewhere!
Back to the Gilded Iguana for lunch and drinks...
Although the only thing I could drink was virgin smoothies...
When all I really wanted to try was some of this!
Day two - lets take a hike!
Into the forest again, and down another found shortcut. (Though this time it wasn't as dark or scary)
We happened upon this staircase. Where does it go?
To the craziest hotel we've ever seen!
We lost Maura at one point. A minute later we heard what sounded like a wild pack of dogs barking. I swore she was dead or something and I was going to have to explain to her parents that we lost her in Costa Rica! A moment later we see her on one of the balconies! It turns out that the hotel was run down and closed some time ago, but two gentlemen had purchased it and where making repairs to live in the old place. Not a bad investment if you ask me.
On the other side of the hotel we came to another beach, Playa Pelada,
Here we found an awesome restaurant, and decided to come back for my birthday dinner the next night.
This was our walk home.
We walked all the way back to Nosara and had some treats!
Today is my birthday!
The gang let me plan the day. So we rented a car and drove about two hours inland to a town called Nicoya. There we walked around, shopped, and ate weird pizza!
On our way back, the guys really wanted to do the zip line. So we got directions to the nearest zip line tour and headed into the mountains. The guys at the place where glad to see us, we where the ONLY people that showed up that day!
Since I couldn't take the trip on the zip, Maura stayed back with me and we watched to boys.
Surprisingly this was our only group photo!
Here they go!
You can barely see Jake!
The sound of the zip line is incredible!
We met up with them at what I called "Home Tree". This thing was massive!
They got to rappel down the tree and then take a swing from this bridge.
It was really cool!
Buddies!!
That night we walked back to the restaurant we had found earlier.
The food was amazing, even though we made funny faces! We decided to come back here for our last night in Costa Rica to eat and watch the sunset.
When we got back we made a plan for the next day. Ryan and Jake where going to surf and Maura and I where going to walk down to Nosara for some yoga and shopping.
Why the sad face you might ask?
Well... the plan was that we would hide the key out on the property. That was a GREAT plan, except for the part where the boys left before us and hid the key outside. Our casa was like a little jail. Bars on the doors and windows. Maura and I had NO WAY OUT!
We screamed and screamed out the door until a neighbor heard us and let us out.
So we decided to lock them out in retaliation.
Here are some things we saw on our walk down to our yoga session.
Later on we went to the beach.
Every night we tried out a new place to dine. This night we got stuck for a few hours while we waited for it to stop raining. Here we met our new house mate, Yager.
Everyone in town told us to adopt a stray while we where there, and that as long as we fed it, it would protect our house. This was SOOO true! Yager was the best guard dog ever!
So tired!
This is the last day of our trip. We decided on a beach and surf day!
Jake jumped off this board and landed on something... OUCH!
He limped in and could barely talk to me. Whats wrong?? "I don't know" he cried.
Turns out Jake stepped on a STING RAY!!!
The only cure is to either pour gasoline on your foot, or soak your foot in piping hot water until the stinger comes out. Sting Rays leave a stinger much like a wasp or scorpion.
Poor Frankey!
That night we hiked back to the restaurant with a view and ate another amazing meal while the sun went down.
All in all it was an AMAZING trip with amazing friends.
How lucky are we to have lived a little Pura Vida!?!
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