Arrival in Costa Rica & Travel to Arenal

Our family recently returned from a fabulous one week vacation to Costa Rica. Each summer Scott and I plan several vacations for our family. Often these trips include visits to extended family or vacations with grandparents, but the trip to Costa Rica was one for just the four of us. Given that we have little quality family time on a day-to-day basis in Dallas because of Scott's work schedule, the fact that we had a whole week together (in a place with more limited communication for Scott) was a huge treat. Now that Amelia and John are getting older, we wanted to experience traveling with them to a place that was a little more exotic than a domestic destination, but without the expense or time expenditure to a place that was very far away. The combination of the climate, relatively close location, and variety of activities available for our family made Costa Rica an easy choice.

We left Dallas on Saturday morning and arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica early in the afternoon. We opted to take a connecting flight through Miami (rather than the direct flight from Dallas) in order to arrive relatively early in the day because we knew we had a three hour drive from San Jose to our final destination. The flight travel and connections were smooth, and before we knew it we were meeting our driver around 2:00 p.m. local time for the journey from the airport to the Arenal region of Costa Rica. You can see San Jose near the middle of the map below, with Arenal to the northwest (about 10:00 if the area around San Jose is situated like a clock).

We opted to hire private transportation for our trips from one place to another within the country based on the advice I received from the travel company I used to arrange our trip. While Scott and I are relatively adventurous travelers, we had heard the road conditions in Costa Rica are worse than what we are typically accustomed to and that signage on most of the roadways is nearly non-existent. We decided that since we were traveling with the kids, hiring drivers seemed to be much easier, especially since we were not planning to move much around the country. I don't know about the price difference between renting a car and hiring transportation, but hiring drivers definitely seemed to be common from what we saw when arriving/leaving our different destinations. All of our drivers were personable and friendly, and Scott and I used the travel time to chat (mostly in Spanish) about Costa Rica as much as possible.

I did not take many photos on the drive to Arenal so this don't do justice to the landscape. As is common in the area during this time of year, there was a slight drizzle with much cloud cover obscuring the mountains.

After an hour of John's begging, I relented and let him play electronic games. As much as I wanted the kids to scream with excitement, "Wow, this is amazing! We are traveling through a foreign country for the first time and it's so fun to experience the view!", that just didn't happen during the longer car rides.

Despite the research I had done before our trip, I was not expecting the extent of elevation in the mountains and hills of the country during our drive to Arenal. Parts of the ride from San Jose to Arenal were very twisting and turning, along narrow two-lane roads that left me feeling a little sick. The terrain outside was beautiful, but I was glad to arrive in Arenal by the end of the afternoon. 

Quick stop at a convenience store with clean bathrooms half way through the journey. The shirts hanging from the roof on the left are all soccer jerseys. We quickly learned that the World Cup was VERY important when we were in Costa Rica (more on that later).

A rest stop at a non-designated area. Haha, boys!

Our driver stopped along the side of the road to give us our first glimpse of wildlife up close in Costa Rica. This is a two-toed sloth hanging upside down in a tree just alongside of the road.

From the road, you never would have known that the sloth was in the tree. So I asked our driver, Alejandro, how he found him. He said that this sloth lives in this area, and we later learned that sloths spend a week in a tree before moving down to land to go to a different tree. So I imagine that the sloth was here on multiple occasions that our driver passed by earlier in the week, so it was easy to predict he would be here when we passed by on our journey.

Finally, our arrival at Arenal Springs, our home for the next two nights!

The Arenal region is home to the country's famous (active) volcano and luscious hot springs. It is an area known for providing visitors with many opportunities to enjoy Costa Rica's natural beauty. While we never got to see a view of the top of the volcano due to cloud cover (it was the rainy season in Costa Rica when we visited), we could see enough of it to know it was there. The photo below shows the main restaurant on the grounds of the property overlooking the pools. I loved how all of the main buildings were open-aired on one or more sides to let in the natural air. This reminded me of the way main buildings are constructed in Hawaii and allowed us to have a more natural experience in the restaurant and hotel lobby.

After unpacking that afternoon, we headed to the pool for some relaxation. Our resort featured a cool pool, a warmer pool, and also two small hot springs pools (they felt like hot tubs but were naturally hot springs). I didn't take any pictures there, but here is a shot of John and Scott walking back towards our room on the grounds of the property.

I loved how the grounds were so beautifully landscaped with tropical plants. All of the rooms were like little casitas, with two rooms per structure. Our room featured two queen beds with an adjoining bathroom. We also had a patio with two chairs and a view of the volcano (supposedly, as we never saw much above what I would guess is the half way point).

Much more to come from our family's adventures in Costa Rica!