Livin' the conglomerate family dream: Costa Rica

We took a trip to get out of the cold and decided on Costa Rica. It was one of the most beautiful places we have ever been and would go back in a second. We stayed at the Marriott in Gaunacasta, it was only a year and a half old and was amazing. We stayed on the "dry" part of the country which was about 95 degrees during the day and had a low of 70 at night, but was only a couple of hours from many rain forests and volcanoes. We rented a car and drove into the local surfing town every morning to walk around, get groceries and site see.

The beach was pretty, but reminded us of California...the sunsets were spectacular.

One of our daily drives was spent touring the volcano and rain forest. We woke up at 5:30 am to start our day of adventure. The big attraction was Arenal volcano...it is active, but hasn't erupted with lava for the past couple of months. The drive was 4 hours each way on mostly paved roads (the roads are not in the best condition and apparently they don't believe in shoulders on the road). The most interesting part of the drive was not the chickens, dogs, iguanas, cows or donkeys in the road...but the police pulling everyone over doing passport checks on the pan-american highway. Luckily for us we had a copy and didn't leave the trip with one of those "funny" stories on how you end up in jail for a night.

Our first stop at Arenal was a zip line tour. This was my first zip line tour and I was really excited...that was until I found that the zip lines don't take you in the jungle they take you over the jungle from canyon to canyon about 200-300 feet in the air. I sucked it up and went along for the fun. We ended up having a great time and I think it was the highlight of Wade's trip.

After our adventure with zip lines we had a very nice relaxing afternoon. Costa Rica has amazing hot springs that are naturally heated by the volcano. Our hotel suggested a hot spring location that was partly man made. This was the best suggestion ever, we avoided the crowds and mud of the other hot springs and spend our time enjoying the nice warm water on big rocks with a waiter bringing us food....the water came straight from the ground but was pumped into nice pools in lush beautiful grounds. This was my favorite part of the day.

After the hot springs we headed to a local restaurant to eat dinner before heading back on the long 4 hour drive.

This was the view from the restaurant...spectacular!

Sun set dinner in front of the volcano...can't get any better!

The rest of the time we spent touring the local towns and just relaxing at the hotel pool. We love the ocean, but Wade and I both agree that it is really nice to see the ocean and hear the ocean but we can both do without the sand and salt water. This hotel was the best of both worlds with the pool ending on the sandy beach of the ocean.