COSTA RICA

This year my family decided to go to Costa Rica for our family trip.
I wish I could say that I wanted to go to Costa Rica,
because I read a great book about it,
but the real reason I wanted to go to Costa Rica
is because the Bachelor did a segment there.
I thought it looked amazing and could not wait to go.
So I called my mom and suggested we hit up the rain forrest.
Low and behold 8 months later we were on our way to this
absolutely beautiful country.


This is one of the funnest trips I have ever been on.
My family has not gone to Latin America a lot
but I think after this trip that will change.
The country was breathtaking.
The rain forrest, jungle, and coast lines were unbelievable.
It was so green and was a nice change from Las Vegas ha ha.

We decided to make this trip a mix of relaxing and laying out,
and a little bit of sight seeing.


I think that is the best way to vacations.
So for four of the days, we enjoyed the beautiful resort we were staying at.
It was extremely secluded and it took half an hour to get to the nearest city.
Which meant that we had the entire beach to ourselves.
I have never been in ocean water that was this warm.
It was seriously 88 degrees.
I am such a wimp when it comes to cold water so this was the first time
I could play in water for hours and not be miserable.
We had so much fun body surfing and enjoying the sun.


During these days we laid out, played in the waves, swam in the
pool, got messages on the beach, drank endless amounts of Pina Colada,
played water volleyball, read our books, and ATE all the time.




Their fruit was the best fruit I have ever had in my entire life.
It was perfectly ripe, juicy, and flavorful.
The pineapples and mangoes were out of this world.
I had fruit for every meal. I could not get enough of this stuff.
The funnest thing about our Resort was the Alcohol was free.
So people seriously drank from sun up to sun down.
Everyone always had a glass in their hands.
This made for great entertainment.
There is nothing funnier than watching a bunch of drunk people.

One night we went for a little stroll along the beach.
We found crabs everywhere.
We had so much fun chasing them around.
We also found a couple of fish that had come up on shore.
The best part though was the drunk guy kept following us.
He thought it was so cool that we brought a flash light.
So he would be the one to touch the crabs and fishes first.


The other three days were spent sight seeing.
Our first day out of the Resort was a long one.
A whooping 15 hour day.
It was SO long but so great.
We started out eating breakfast at the yummiest restaurant.

We had a traditional Costa Rican breakfast which consisted of rice and beans.
After that it was off to the Nicaraguan border.
Going through the border was in experience in itself.
You have to get out and have your passports
checked multiple times,
the car has to be checked,
the driver has to have multiple papers signed,
and then you have to bribe the police with food
and drinks to get through the whole process faster.
Luckily we were in a really nice and air conditioned van.
Because it is SO humid there.
I am not a big fan of the humidity,
and I am especially not found of all of the bugs.

After that we spent the rest of the day in Nicaragua.
This country is also beautiful .
First we went to the cute little market to of course do some shopping.
I got a shoulder bad, my mom of course got a Nativity, and my brothers got a cheese set.


After that we headed off to an active volcano.
I have never seen anything like this before.


The crater was Huge and went on forever.
There was gaseous still coming out of it that reeked.
This was one of the moments when you feel
so small compared to the earths beautiful creations.

Then we were off to lunch in the beautiful city of Granada.
This meal was one of the best meals I have ever had.
The salad was so fresh and the chicken was so flavorful.
It would have been the perfect meal if it was not
for the fact that the waiter dropped a salad down my back.


I was covered in salad dressing for the rest of the day.
I know right. It was hot.
After lunch we got to see the city in horse carriage.


This city had been taken over by the Spanish, Pirates, and William Waker.


So there was quite an array of buildings and influence there.
This was such a fun city.



Our second day out was spent on a real life Disney jungle cruise.

There is so much wild life and this was such a fun way to see it.
My favorite part was when crocodile came out of the water and caught a fish.
We also got to see monkeys, iguanas, Tucan birds, lizards, and more.
It was just so much fun being on the water and getting in touch with nature.



Our last day out was arguable my favorite day.
It was our high adventure day.
I have been looking forward to this for months.
We started off going on water slide through
the jungle that was a quarter mile long.
I thought, how bad can a water slide be.
Okay I was totally wrong.
This was the most intense water slide I have ever been on.
It was so dang fast and whipped you around like no other.
It was so intense that if you didn't have
shorts on they made you wear a diaper.
You heard me right...a diaper.
It was this big piece of leather that you had to tie around you.
Kaitlin was not happy camper when she had to put this on.
The funnest part was my mom though.
She was not quite so sure if she wanted to go
on the slide but we convinced her to.
I will never forget her face as she was taking off.
It was of pure horror.


The next part of our adventure was zip lining.
This was probably my favorite part.
Zip lining is always fun but to do it over
the rain forest was a complete blast.
The views were amazing and you felt like
George of the Jungle jumping free tree to tree.


People weren't lying when they told us this was a rain forest.
It seriously poured all day.
We were soaked all the way through.
It was a good thing we were doing such fun things
or we would have been miserable.
I just couldn't believe how wet everything got.
I guess that's why everything is so green here lol.

After changing our clothes from zip lining cuz they were wet,
we tried to warm up a little bit with some hot soup that tasted amazing.
I haven't been this cold in a long long time.
After lunch we took a tractor up to a hot springs.
All though the springs were heated by the earth,
they made man made pools around them to keep them nice.
You had to start out in the sauna room to
get all of the toxins out of your body.
Then after fifteen minutes in there we
were off to put on hot mud to cleanse the skin.


Then we hit the pools.

There were five pools that all went up by 10 degrees.
We of course stayed in the hottest pool
because we were so cold from all of the rain.
It was just so fun to be up in the mountains i
n the middle of no where lying in hot tube.


This was such a fun trip.
Although Costa Rica was amazing it wouldn't matter
where we went as long as we were together.
I had so much fun hanging out with my family and they
truly mean the world to me.
I love them so much and I am grateful
for every moment that we all have together.
Thanks Mom and Dad for taking us on this amazing trip.
It's one that we will never ever forget.