R & J: Costa Frica~La Pura Vida

rich and i were the luckiest of the lucky because we got to go to costa rica with the bff of my life, sarah oesterle and her lover, jared. it was about an eight day trip, and it was unforgettably amazing. i cannot stop missing it.

the first day, we all met up at the fort lauderdale airport. sarah and jared had just moved to miami because he got a job with citibank (go jared), so they did not have to get up at 3:30am like us. lucky ducks. the flight to san juan was a little bumpy, but we got to the airport safely and rented a sweet car (after jared and rich did some wheelin' and dealin'). we drove through the jungle to la fortuna the first night, and stayed at the casa luna hotel and spa. it was an awesome resort with a cool view of the arenal volcano. (thanks jared for knowing about air bnb and finding sweet sleeping spots).

the next day, we did some more jungle cruising and got to puerto carillo and rented some surfboards. the waves were ginormous and the guy we rented the boards from was stoned, so i was nervous about taking his verbal instructions, so we did not really do much surfing, but we kinda tried lol! another man that made me nervous was the owner of our hotel, hector. the night we stayed at his hotel, hector drank a bottle of patron and played his guitar all night in the lobby. we all thought he was kinda loco but nice. after we checked out though, we realized he was just crazy. as were driving away on the highway, we saw hector on his motorcycle chasing after us like he was on the fast and the furious. for some random reason, he thought we had stolen his nasty pink towel. obviously we didn't, but he didn't believe us, so he pulled out in front of us and harassed us. sarah and jared, both spanish speakers, told him repeatedly we did not have his pink towel. he wanted to search through our luggage, but we refused and drove off. he didn't chase us again, so we think he may have finally believed us, or he just didn't have enough gas. everyone else was pretty calm about it. i, however, was genuinely concerned we were going to be killed or kidnapped by hector. after working on the west side of chicago, i have a bad habit of assuming people are mentally unstable. i was eventually able to laugh with everyone about it after we were miles away...but i still look behind me occasionally and fear seeing hector...

after puerto carillo, we made our way to manual antonio. we stayed at the jungle creek resort. the resort owners, thankfully, were not crazy like hector, and they actually told us about an awesome waterfall that was about a 3 mile hike. their dog, suzie, showed us the way there. it was an awesome waterfall with a rope swing. we joined in with some local boys who were playing tag. i got bruised and cut way bad trying to keep up with the little speedsters, but it was still fun! sad story: on our way back, a wild pitbull attacked suzie. she was bleeding a little bit, but she was ok after going to the vet and getting a few shots. she was an awesome dog, and we felt horrible about it. the owners said that that living in the jungle comes with risks... rich and i realized puma would never survive a day.

the next few days, we all tried boogie boarding, and rich and i tried surfing again. i got an instructor to take me out and i was able to stand up and ride a wave. :) lyn, my instructor, kept saying, "it is just like a bathtub. no worries!" ahah! i love surfing even though i suck. rich and i also loved watching the surfers. they were hardcore crazy good at flipping all around. i am envious.

after so many beach days, we decided to have a tree day and went ziplining on the longest zipline in costa rica. it was unbelievably magnificent. it felt like flying. definitely worth it. another adventure that was worth the money was going to the savagre river and doing some intense white water rafting. the devil's mouth was a cool rapid. the worst part of our trip was the last day. we all got super sick. i will spare the yucky details, but we blame el avion. we made our way back to san jose eating soda crackers, stayed at a hostel, and then flew home. i guess it was necessary to have some bad with the great. either way, costa rica was costa-freakin-awesome! la pura vida!