I was looking through the blog and realized we never blogged about our trip to Costa Rica back in 2013... so, here it goes.
Well the Wyson's had a crazy idea to go to Costa Rica with ALL (well almost all) of the Wyson kids and their families. It is not an easy feat to try to organize and coordinate travel plans for that many people. Somehow we all arrived at Costa Rica at relatively the same time and were able to drive the hour and a half to Manuel Antonio together without many problems at all. Pretty amazing when you consider we had 15 people coming from different parts of the country.
We rented a large van that took us all from the airport down the windy road in the rain all the way to the vacation rental that we had all to ourselves. It was rainy and there were times we thought we were going to die, but we made it.
We stayed in a place called Casa Tolteca. It was situated right in the rain forest, had lots of rooms to stay in, great views, a private pool, and monkeys! Every morning a big pack would come out and get right up on the balconies looking for food (or whatever else they could grab!). It was a great place we could all hang out and relax. Every afternoon around the same time, the clouds would gather and it would start raining. Every single day like clockwork. One of the best things about staying in the house were the nights that a family would come and cook meals for everyone. The food was amazing.
Costa Rica is a great place to visit with a LOT of activities. We were there for almost a week so we got to do a lot of different things. We were able to go ride on the Zip-Lines, white water rafting, horseback riding, and hiking through the Manuel Antonio National Park
The Zip-Lines
The other more adventurous group went on a more extreme zip-line run that included repelling down a waterfall, a free-fall drop, and other zip-lines. Us chickens did a different zip-line run that was not quite as adventurous, but still awesome. There were about 12 zip-line runs, ranging from a few hundred feet to the longest of over 1000 feet long.
These two were a little scared at first, but they got over it.
This was my favorite way to ride, so free, hanging 100+ feet up in the air upside down!
We got the whole group to go and do some white water rafting. It was awesome. We all went through the "training" of what to do, put on our safety gear, divided up into rafts, and were soon drifting down the river at 100 MPH (OK, not quite that fast, but some of those rapids sneak up on you).
Natali was pretty proud of herself if you can't tell ;).
We floated down to this waterfall where we were able to stop and do some swimming and relax for a little bit.
Horseback Riding
This was on Natali's must-do list: horseback riding through the rainforest. The day started out beautiful. Blue skies, coconut trees all around, and just perfect for riding horses. We were paired up with our horse for the day and were lead down the trail into the rainforest. At the end of the trail there was a waterfall with a little pool where we were able to relax and swim.
And then the afternoon cam, and of course the rains. It was pretty relaxing, riding through the rain and just enjoying all of the pretty scenery.
Manuel Antonio National Park
There isn't much to describe here so I will let the pictures do most of the talking. We walked along the trail with great views and scenery, Jaimee got to feed some more monkeys, and we even stopped a the beach for a little bit for some fun in the sun (well before the rains came back anyways).
A group of us decided to go try a local restaurant. So we walked until we found this place with an airplane sticking out of the front. You know the place has to be good if it includes parts of a real airplane. It was a fun little night out.
So, one last quick story of how Sam almost died. First of all, we had bought these awesome matching shirts so we had to get a picture of us wearing them because we are awesome. Well what wasn't so awesome was Sam and I decided to go and find some gelato. Well we take off walking down the street and pass a couple places but we want to keep looking so we keep walking. After a while we decided to head back and just try one of the places we had passed. Well I guess we had walked further than we thought. By the time we got to the gelato place, it was pouring. Of course we still had to get the gelato, so we buy it, eat some, and then decide to RUN back to the house. Again, it was further than we thought. So we are eating gelato while running in the tropical rainstorm in sandals and shorts. We got back and within a couple hours Sam was lying in bed with chills and a fever. Luckily he didn't die. I felt fine so apparently I am way tougher than Sam ;).
It was a great time with lots of adventures and memories. Thanks Dan and Launa for the fun vacation!
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