Zipline!

Thursday was another fun-filled day of adventure in Costa Rica! Our morning excursion was ziplining! 

Thursday's morning routine was the same - our tour guide picked us up bright and early from the hotel, and we were transported with our group in a small van (about a 45 minute drive) to the outpost in the jungle that served as "base camp". This was a relatively fancy place, as we were served breakfast (eggs, toast, and delicious watermelon and pineapple, plus coffee!), and after the ziplining we got to tour the butterfly garden that was onsite. Below is a photo of all of the gear packed up and ready for us.

Our crazy family - ready with gear for a fun morning of zipping through the jungle!

The first part of our excursion was a hike (more like a gradual climb along a marked path) through the jungle. This made sense because we needed to gain elevation so that we could zip our way back down towards the base camp. Our guides stopped along the way to explain various plants and trees that we saw while walking.

Pineapple!

Bananas!

Just before we were hooked to the first significant zipline, our guides used large knives to cut sugar cane from the brush and then they shared this treat with us. This was the first time we had all eaten fresh-cut sugar cane. By chewing on the stem, the cane releases a sugary liquid into your gums. The kids loved the fresh sugar cane. It was a little too grainy and sweet for the morning for my taste, though it was certainly fun to try it.

Once we got up to the ziplines it was non-stop action all the way down. We paused sometimes on platforms to regroup and get in line for the next one and we also crossed a few suspension bridges along the way. We also got to repel down vertically at two different points, the last of which was a free fall (I didn't know this beforehand) that left me screaming for mercy!

I'll let the photos speak for themselves, but needless to say we all had a great time with the ziplines!

In case you were wondering, many of the photos above were taken by the tour operators (and later sold to us). I used my camera some during the excursion, but it was really hard, and a little scary, to have it out at such heights over the treetops.

Once we were back to the outpost we had some free time to explore the screened in butterfly garden. The garden was beautiful - filled with hundreds of butterflies plus a dozen snakes and other animals located in cages. The flowers and plants inside were lovely too.

After such a fun morning and once the tour operators brought us back to town, it was almost 2:00 so we were very hungry for lunch. We walked along the main road about a half mile to a restaurant we had heard about before arriving in Costa Rica - El Avion! The word "avion" translates to plane in English, which is the structure that served as a base for the restaurant. This particular plane was the sister plane of the C-123 plane that was shot down over Nicaragua in 1986 during the Iran-Contra Affair. The plane was purchased by the CIA and later abandoned at the San Jose airport. The owners of the restaurant purchased the plane for $3,000 and had it disassembled (and later reassembled) to get it to its current location along the coast.

Not a bad view from our lunch table! I loved all the open-air dining we were able to enjoy while in Costa Rica! Honestly, we couldn't have asked for a better view.

John and I took a tour of the restaurant while we were waiting for our meal to arrive. I let John take most of these pictures. The restaurant was situated around the plane, but there was an extra bar area within the plane where you could climb up into the cockpit to see the old rusted pilot seats and control panels.

John inside the bar that is inside the body of the plane. I imagine this part of the restaurant was empty because it was early afternoon.

After our fun lunch inside the plane, we retreated back to our hotel and the rain set in. We all rested inside our room for about an hour, and once the rain let up we enjoyed some family time swimming in the smaller pool that was located near our room. After swimming, we regrouped and walked along the main road to a local restaurant for another delicious seafood meal.

All in all we enjoyed another glorious day in Costa Rica. So far all of our excursions had been easy and unique, enjoyed by the kids and also by Scott and me. By the end of Thursday we had only one more day left, so see the next post for the fun adventures we enjoyed on Friday!

Tour of Manuel Antonio Park

[Note: I know that the blogger program cuts off the edge of the photos on the right side, but I don't know how to fix this. If you want to view the photos in a better frame, you can click on any photo and the photo wheel will pop up, allowing for larger screen viewing. Two of the photos of the sunset below were taken with the panoramic setting, and the only way you can properly view the images is through the photo wheel.]

Wednesday morning started out bright and early with a guided tour of Manuel Antonio National Park. Our tour guides picked us up from the hotel and we drove about 20 minutes south to the park entrance. For our excursion, our family was paired with two young women on vacation from Canada and was led by our guide, Brian.

Manuel Antonio is Costa Rica's smallest national park, but one of the country's most popular. The park is known for its geographic diversity (jungle and beaches) as well as the wide range of animals that live within its boundaries. The sign below shows the three different types of monkeys that live within the park - Squirrel, Howler, and Capuchin. We were lucky enough during our tour to see all three types of monkeys!

Along with hundreds of other tourists, we walked along the dirt and gravel tray through the jungle, stopping along the way to view plants and animals. We could see many of the plants and animals with the naked eye, though Brian definitely pointed out lots of things that he could see or hear, but that we would have missed due to our inexperience. I thought the plant below had amazing shapes and colors.

When Brian wanted to show us an close-up view, he would set up his tripod and telescope and let us all look through the lens. I was especially impressed that he was able to take photos with all of our cameras through the lens so that we would have detailed photos as souvenirs from the tour. Most of the photos were taken with either Scott's iPhone or the point and shoot camera, as my camera was temporarily broken due to issues from the rain the day before. I think the quality is amazing.

Look at the detail of these spiders on the web! Notice the huge spider in the center, and the smaller spider adjacent and on top of the larger one. Do you know which is the male and which is the female?

The female spider is the larger of the two! Below is a photo of a squirrel monkey. This was the first, and only, time we saw squirrel monkeys during our trip to Costa Rica. We also saw howler and capuchin monkeys later during our walk.

There is a beautiful multi-colored grasshopper below. Brian called this one a Murano glass grasshopper, so named because the different colors look similar to the colorful Murano glass that is made in Italy.

Green lizard.

The turn-around point of the tour was this gorgeous beach! We only spent 15 minutes here, but it was fun to watch local families and tourists mixing together on the beach.

Brian found several sloths hanging out on the trees that bordered the sand and jungle areas.

We saw more animals than depicted here, but this gives a good overview. Our tour of the park was completely fascinating! It was amazing to have the opportunity to view so many different animals, and to enjoy learning from Brian's biological and historical descriptions as we viewed them. Brian was very knowledgable and well-traveled, probably the best tour guide we had during our trip.

After the tour company dropped us off at our hotel, we were treated to this lovely creature just outside of our room door. I know the large iguanas were probably some of the more harmless animals we encountered on this trip, but for some reason they freaked me out. The kids couldn't stop laughing at me every time we encountered one of these guys and I squealed with disgust.

We decided to have lunch at the pool-side restaurant on the hotel grounds. Not too bad of a lunchtime view!

After a delicious lunch, we spent the rest of the day enjoying the glorious sunshine. Our first stop was the infiniti pool next to the restaurant where we ate lunch. Scott and Amelia are enjoying the view from the ledge of the pool, looking out towards the ocean.

Later we ventured down to the private beach that was located onsite. There were complimentary chairs, towels, and beach toys for guests to use down on the beach. This turned out to the best day for wave-riding (later in the week it got too rough), and Amelia, Scott, and Amelia all took turns riding the waves in.

Amelia and Scott are in the photo below.

To wrap up what had been a near-perfect and exhilarating day, we ventured offsite to enjoy dinner at Ronny's Place. Ronny's Place is apparently known for good food, but perhaps more so for its fabulous location for viewing the sunset. We enjoyed a drink first at the picnic tables overlooking the water, and then later we moved indoors (well, relatively indoors anyway, since none of the restaurant buildings in Costa Rica had enclosed walls and windows all the way around).

The sunset was stunning, and was the perfect way to end a glorious day spent almost entirely outside enjoying the natural beauty around us.