|
 |
|
Pure Adrenaline
- Monday, April 28, 2003 |
|
|
 |
It was nice getting back to our life of travel after lounging in Dallas for a week eating fast food. The flight to Costa Rica was pretty uneventful except for the enormous man sitting next to me on the plane which made my flight VERY uncomfortable!!! They really should make the seats bigger....but then they would have to charge more, right?
After a quick overnight in a small town near the airport (Alajuela), we hopped a 4 hour bus to the popular coastal beach/surf town called Jaco (pronounced HACO). After 24 hours of rain, a last minute gorgeous/cheap hotel find, some great food, we decided to head down to Manuel Antonio National Park for four days of hiking, beach time and fun with our friend Lisa from Austin.
We arrived to our comfy hotel in time for the late afternoon rains (seems to happen every day) and relaxed on the veranda in our hammocks with some cerveza listening to the very loud forest noises, mainly frogs. The next two days were filled with hiking and beach time. AMAZING!! We saw sloths, monkeys, thousands of crabs, some rabbit/anteater looking creature, and lots of beautiful vistas. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Upon recommendation from the hotel, we decided to spend Sunday on an adventure tour of the jungle about an hour away. After a crazy drive in an open-topped, rickety, well-abused Humvee through a teak forest and palm oil plantation, we arrived at the river an hour later.
The Class III River water was crystal clear and cool---perfect for this humid climate. We paddled for an hour or so and banked for big lunch. After a short hike, we found ourselves playing in the spray of a huge waterfall, jumping off another waterfall (15 ft.) into a pond below for a quick swim. (Don't worry, we were well outfitted with mucho safety equipment!)
We then proceeded to hike about 20 minutes into a valley above the waterfalls, where we got our 1st real scare of the day. We geared up and started zip lining from one side of the valley across to a platform suspended in a tree about 125ft. in the air. HELLO!!!! The anticipation the 1st time was scarier than the actual zip lining. SO MUCH FUN! After criss-crossing from tree to tree through the valley several times and rapelling 100ft. to the valley floor, we hiked over to a tight rope suspended over a river and proceeded to cross it. EEK...that was hard!
Our adventure concluded with a challenging rapel down the face of a raging 40ft waterfall.. WOW! Did I mention that it started POURING rain while we were up in the trees zipping back and forth?? This made it all the more fun... we were already wet! After paddling another 1/2 hour, we got back in the humvee and drove through the pouring rain,. grabbed a cold beer, and went home for a nap... GREAT DAY!!!!
Our friends Will & Arabella who we met in Guatemala joined up with us for dinner, as they happen to be in Costa Rica at the same time. It was nice to hear about their continued adventures through Nicaragua and Honduras since we saw them in Guatemala.
We took a 6 hour shuttle north to Santa Elena today and look forward to spending the rest of the week hiking!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
