Costa Rica Part 1

Powell and I wanted to go somewhere cool for our 15th anniversary. I had been researching for a while and honestly there are so many places I want to go it was difficult to decide! Costa Rica seemed relatively easy to fly to and there was tons to do there. I read that it was safe and most people spoke English. Perfect! Let's do it!

We spent the first night in Houston so we could catch the first flight out to San Jose, Costa Rica the next morning.

Traveling makes us tired. As soon as we got to the hotel we ordered diet cokes and some delicious Costa Rican food.

Not quite the same. It's called Coca-Cola light and it's really not as good.

We stayed in a Costa Rican hotel that our friend, Kyle Hooker, told us about. It was called the Adventure Inn. It was different than the regular hotel chains we usually stay in but it was clean and priced right.  

Some of the best food we ate on our whole trip was in the hotel restaurant. I ordered Arroz con Pollo (chicken with rice). It came with black refried beans and a salad. It was super good!

Powell ordered a casado (a mixed plate of meat, rice, beans and salad)

We walked to a mall and got a kick out of this sign on the way. Taco Bell (and all fast food restaurants) do things a little differently in foreign countries. The exchange rate was 550 colones for 1 dollar in case you were worried that the fiesta fries were 1,000 dolloars! They were more like $2.

The next morning we boarded the bus really early to go on our trip to the Pacuare River. This is one of the top river rafting areas in the world. Because we went at the end of the dry season the river was lower. I was happy about this because I was really nervous about the rapids. The highest time to go on the river is September and October. Sometimes they have to cancel because the rapids are dangerous. They told us it would be more work to get around all the rocks during the time we were there. I thought it was perfect. We were on the river for 5 hours. We drove for a few hours to get there and it was fun to see the central and eastern side of Costa Rica. 

Minerals running down through the water in a river we saw on our way there. 

Stopped for a potty break and to buy a treat. Look at all the fresh fruit. I never see such beautiful pineapples here! 

Costa Rican breakfast they served us before going on the river. This is fresh pineapple, omelet, beans and rice, and yucca (like potato) served in a gravy.

We used the company Rio Tropicales. It was $99 per person for the day and it was well worth the money. It included transportation from our hotel, gear, a river guide, breakfast, lunch on the river, and transportation back. 

Get ready for some BEAUTIFUL scenery. 

They had a man in a kayak that stayed with our group of three or four boats. See him hanging out by that rock? They also took pictures which was nice.

We had a family from New Hampshire in our boat with us. They were both doctors and they had one of their kids with them for spring break. They were cool. 

It was intense from time to time.

Stopped about 2/3 of the way down the river for a break and lunch. 

The river guides prepared a fabulous lunch. We had sandwiches, awesome fruit, chips and guacamole (the best avocados), beans and cookies.

Cooling off

Our river guide was Ray. He was intense! He taught us how to run the river with proper technique. He chewed our butts if we didn't do it right. 

After a crazy and long bus ride home we came back to our room at the adventure inn. Man those people drive like maniacs. The traffic was so bad it took us 3 hours to make it back to San Jose. We ordered room service and we both got the Arroz con Pollo......yum! Am I cross eyed in this picture? Maybe eyes just too close together? Something not right.....