Family Time in Costa Rica

Last week was another wonderful one in Costa Rica. I spent it traveling around the country with my family on a little holiday vacation. The trip started at the beach, outside a town called Quepos. Our hotel was beautiful and conveniently had its own semi-private beach that allowed for easy access to the sand and the ocean. I arrived from San Jose just in time to grab lunch and head to our surfing lessons. My Dad, my brothers and I all took part and it was definitely a pretty entertaining sight to see. It was pretty entertaining to watch even before we hit the water because our guide made us jog up and down the beach to warm up and the rashguards he gave my dad and my brother Matt didn´t exactly fit, resulting in a pretty comical scene.

The next day we all got up early to head to the rio savegre for some whitewater rafting. Lucky for me, the rafting company had a kayak they let me borrow and I opted out of the rubber raft for some hard boating. The river was mostly class 3, but lots of fun and very beautiful. We stopped off at a waterfall part of the way down to cool off and take some pictures. The following day my Mom and I woke up early to go on a coastal sea kayaking trip. We basically followed the coastline outside of Quepos and were granted some great views of the beaches and rocky cliffs in the area.

My dad cooling off under the waterfall on the rio savegre

A beach we stopped at during our sea kayaking tour

While we were sea kayaking, the guide learned that I was a whitewater boater and invited him to join me to run an apparently really amazing section of river that afternoon. I of course agreed and after having lunch, I left with Felipe to get on the chorro section fo the rio naranjo, located 40 min. outside of town. The river turned out to be even more amazing than I expected. It was only 3 miles long, but it was 3 miles of beautiful gorges and great class 4 water. I would venture to say it was the most beautiful area that I saw in all of Costa Rica. The scenery on the entire river looked like the picture below. I was unfortunatley unable to get many good photos, so this one will have to do.

A view from inside the gorge of the chorro section of the rio naranjo

Christmas morning we woke up early to head to the Manuel Antonio National Park for a quick guided tour of the park before leaving town. The guide was able to show us lots of cool animals, including monkeys, sloths, bats and iguanas. After the tour we headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and proceded to head up to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. It took four hours, which included 35 kilometers of an especially bad road, before we finally arrived Christmas night.

A black iguana keeping warm in the Manuel Antonio National Park

A view from the hotel at the Monteverde

On the morning of the 26th we all headed out to do a canopy tour. The canopy tour involved seven different zip lines and two repells through the forest. It was a pretty cool perspective to see the jungle and lots of fun as well. That night we all went into the nearby biological reserve for a night hike. The hike last 2 hours, and while we did not see too much, we did hear lots of different creatures stirring around in the forest which made for a neat experience.

My mom repelling down a tree during our canopy tour

A tarrantula we spotted on our night hike in the Monteverde Bological Reserve

The last stop on our trip in Costa Rica was to the Arenal Volcano area. The fastest way to get there from Monteverde involved an hour and a half van ride, followed by a 30 minute boat ride across Arenal lake. When we first arrived at the location where we were to catch the boat, we were not sure if we´d ever get across. There were about 30 other tourists, also sitting at the end of this dirt road in the middle of no where with no boat in sight. My dad commented that it was as close to a refuge as he´d ever felt and I would have to agree, it did have that kind of feel to it. Eventually we all made it on the boat, across the lake and to our hotel. That afternoon we headed out for a hike around the volcano and learned all about the history of the many eruptions the Arenal Volcano has seen.

My family on the boat headed to Arenal

A view of the volcano from our hotel room balcony

A sunset view during our hike in the Arenal National Park

The last activity of our trip, and probably the most exciting one, was canyoning trip outside of Arenal. Canyoning basically involved working your way through a steep gorge by doing a series of repells through waterfalls as well as some hiking. We did five different repells, four through waterfalls and one down a canyon wall. It was a pretty cool experience and I must give my mom props for doing it, as she was very nervous about it for the entire week leading up to it. She did great in the end though. There were pictures taken but unfortunately they are not in my posession at the moment. On the 29th we all headed back to San Jose to get ready to fly out the following morning. My family and I all caught the same flight back to Miami, but when they left from there to head home, I caught an overnight flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I arrived in Buenos Aires this morning and am all checked into my hostel. So far all I know about this place is that its very hot. If I am going to learn more I´m going to have to get off this computer and go explore, so I´m out. Will post more in a few days.