Month: April 2018

Is there anything worse than knowing a vacation is coming to a close? Especially a lengthy vacation that has started to feel like normal life a little bit, but then you remember reality is slowly creeping its way back in? I absolutely HATE that feeling.

Like a Sunday evening when you can’t even fully relax because you know what lies around the corner. Sundays used to be the absolute worst for me; my anxiety was always peaked. After graduating college, and subsequently no longer equating Sundays to hungover days locked in the library, catching up on homework and hating myself for procrastinating, that anxious Sunday Feeling loosened its powerful grip. But I could still feel it–maybe not as potent as before, but nonetheless always there.

Since we moved down here, however, and the whole concept of a weekend and a vacation have become intermingled in my normal, everyday life (is my whole week like a weekend, or a vacation?) the ominous Sunday Feeling has become nearly extinct. Every once in a while, though, it rears its ugly head.

As we got in the car for the last part of our vacation, my mom still bawling in the driver’s seat, both her and Carly saying goodbye to our house and Rodeo, I got the damn Sunday Feeling. And I really ruminated on it there in the backseat.

I thought about how many perfectly lovely Sundays have been ruined by my anxiety about what’s to come. I thought about all of the millions of people in the world who absolutely love Sundays, how for many it’s their favorite day of the week. No more. No more Sunday Feeling, no more ruining the present by worrying about the future, not this time. Not on this trip. It’s my Jordan year–time to let the Sunday Feeling die.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I did kind of start this new mantra to stop my anxious thoughts right in their tracks: It’s 2018, let that shit go. It’s silly and stupid and simple, but it works. The situations I apply it to don’t always make the most sense, but who cares. ~not me~

So there in the backseat, I thought about the Sunday Feeling, I thought about the end of the vacation, I thought about the growing lump in my throat from just thinking about saying goodbye to my family again, and then I said my magic phrase: It’s 2018, let that shit go. Who cares that it was going to suck when it was over, we still had FOUR whole days together, and I was going to live it up and love it while it happened. So I swallowed that lump down, began my backseat navigation duties, and we headed out to the last staple-landform of Costa Rica: the beach.

Manuel Antonio

All of our friends that have gone to Manuel Antonio have gushed about how incredible and how beautiful it is. According to anyone who’s been there, it’s a must-do in Costa Rica.

The small town of Manuel Antonio sits between the edge of Manuel Antonio National Park and the nearby city of Quepos. The entire town is very hilly, coastal, and offers a great view from virtually anywhere. For a small place, there are a lot of hotels since it’s one of the biggest tourist spots in Costa Rica.

Checking into our hotel was a bit of a shitshow. The driveway was steep, gravel, bumpy, and terrifying. Then, the room they tried to put us in had water all over the floor (it looked like they were in the middle of fixing the air conditioner) so we had to wait to find another room. Turns out the hotel was totally booked, so we had to wait for them to put the A/C back together and mop the floor.

In the meantime, we walked back up to the car to get all of our luggage/move the car into an actual parking spot, since we sort of just stopped on the side of the driveway. As we started moving, a guy nearby started laughing and motioned for us to stop the car.

Well that’s weird.

So we re-park, get out, and as I looked at the car I realized why he was laughing. The back passenger-side tire was flat. Like, flat flat. I didn’t want to tell my mom. I couldn’t. She was so paranoid about something happening to the car on these roads, and we all told her it would be fine but now it wasn’t fine and I just knew she was gonna panic. But I had no choice, she had to know.

“Mom, don’t freak out, it’s fine, but we have a flat tire.”

*lots of cursing and inaudible sounds*

“Oh my god, we have to go home, what are we going to do, of course this would happen to us, why me whyyyyyyyy.”

“Mom relax, we’ll get it fixed, it’s just a flat tire.”

At this point, Carly and Landyn walked up to meet us in the parking lot and discovered our lil predicament.

Anita thought this would incapacitate us BUT MY BOYFRIEND IS THE GREATEST HUMAN EVER and was able to completely change the tire start to finish. A hotel staff member came to assist as well (for which we later bought him a 6-pack) and we were up and running in no time. The rental car company was actually very chill about it and simply requested that we drop off the destroyed tire in their nearby Quepos office the following morning where they would repair the hole for us (we found a huge shard of aluminum in it which must have happened in the ratchet hotel driveway).

Crisis averted.

After handling the catastrophe, we had twenty minutes to spare to make the sunset on the beach. It was a three-minute walk from the hotel, and once we got there I understood why tourists flock to it: it was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.

The sunset, the atmosphere, the greenery that surrounded us…it was truly breathtaking. We found a restaurant with tables right on the beach (literally in the sand) and it was without-a-doubt the coolest dinner-ambiance I have ever experienced.

Throughout the trip, I kept telling my family that I couldn’t wait for them to hear a Howler monkey because the first time I heard one I thought I was about to be attacked by something from the Underworld. I wanted them to have this strange, scary experience as well.

So it’s roughly 3am, I wasn’t having a very good night of sleep, I heard my mom get up to go to the bathroom, and I laid there half-awake when SUDDENLY I hear the sound of a Demogorgon (S/O to all my fellow Stranger Things fans). I sat straight up in bed and whispered over to Carly, “Carly wake up, that’s a Howler monkey!” It was so loud that Landyn woke up, too, and when my mom came out of the bathroom I explained what the petrifying noise was to her, as well. It was a strange, funny time: all four of us lying in bed, wide awake, listening to the incessant baying of the Howler monkeys. Talk about quality bonding time.

The next morning we were up early to head to the rental car office. For being such turds when we first picked up the car in San José, they were awesome in dealing with our tire situation. It only took ten minutes out of our morning.

Then, we were headed to Manuel Antonio National Park. It was exquisite. We saw almost every single animal I had hoped my family would get to see, with the exception of the scarlet macaw. But it’s okay because we saw a sloth, every type of monkey I know to exist in Costa Rica, huge, colorful butterflies, iguanas, coatis, lizards, and even some deer. And, of course, tons of beautiful, diverse tropical birds.

I had heard from a few people that the park is relatively small and you can hike the entire thing in just a couple of hours, but we hiked for about 5 without getting all the way around. We also did every possible off-shoot from the trail and stopped to enjoy the scenery/animals whenever present, so maybe that’s what tacked on all that extra time.

The park has a very interesting layout; the trail comes out to a point, forming a peninsula type thing, along the sides of which are two beaches.

Since the beaches are within the park’s boundaries, and therefore largely untouched, they’re indescribably gorgeous. Words, pictures, could never do them justice.

So after a couple off-shoots, we hiked entirely up one side of the peninsula, around the top, and a little ways back down, finishing at one of the beaches. At this point we were extremely hot and sweaty (it was SWELTERING and SO humid) and ready to get in the alluring water.

Our entire time inside the park felt like we were on a different planet. Despite my residency here, I am continually blown away that the places we visit get more and more incredible. More unbelievable. More and more like someone picked me up and transported me to Pandora and I’m looking at some CGI creation, not real life. Because how can places like these really exist? What the hell have I been doing in Wisconsin all this time?

On our way out of the park, the nightcap on our perfect day, we got some fresh, spiked coconuts. Pipas con ron. And with that, we began our drive to our very last stop: Uvita.

Uvita

Uvita is an hour south of Manuel Antonio, right on the edge of the Osa Peninsula, which, if you’ll remember, Landyn and I traveled to for a class field trip back in February. We, however, were in the very heart, and then the very bottom, of the Osa Peninsula. Uvita sits outside of it, and it was a place we had not been but we had read excellent things about it. Our friends took a trip down to Uvita and highly recommended it.

When Niters first started researching things to do in Costa Rica (after Landyn’s acceptance into the program last March) she came across a beach that’s in the shape of a whale tail. For whatever reason, she fell in love with the idea of this beach; she had a great feeling about it, and that beach was located guess where? Uvita. So we were all pretty excited about this last stop.

Now I’d like to back up for a second. Remember how I’d been killing it as a travel agent? Well, during that first night in Manuel Antonio, randomly, in the middle of our beachfront dinner, I got this overwhelmingly negative feeling about our Uvita hostel. My family thought I was crazy and just back to my usual worry-wart ways, but I just knew something was off. Something wasn’t right. They told me to let it go, so I said my mantra, “it’s 2018, let that shit go” (one of those, not-really-sure-the-2018-part-makes-sense-but-I’m-rollin-with-it times), and I let that shit go.

And I really didn’t worry about it again until we got back in the car, out of the Manuel Antonio/Quepos city limits, and headed south. Then the gloom and doom and dread rolled in. I didn’t say anything, I just let my anxiety quietly wash over me in the backseat.

When we got to the hostel, I immediately knew my gut was spot on. This was the place people stay in and then end up on an episode of Dateline or Criminal Minds.

It was called El Toboso Bed & Breakfast, and I had warned my family ahead of time that this was going to be a little more rustic than our other stays. But the pictures online did not prepare me for what we walked in to.

So aside from the eerie stillness in the air, the rabid dog in the driveway, and the facilities that looked like someone gave up on them halfway through the building process, our room was a complete disaster. Or rather, an incomplete disaster.

Our room only had three walls. One wall was just a giant, green screen with gaping holes. Our beds did not have mosquito netting around them, so not exactly sure what they expected?? They’re cool with their guests getting mauled by bugs in the middle of the night I guess?? Due to the lack of four walls and holes in the screen wall?? Oh, and our bathroom didn’t have a door. Not even a shower curtain. Just wiiiiiiide open. And our front door didn’t close properly. I cannot make this shit up, you guys.

Beyond all these glaring atrocities, I just had a staggeringly terrible feeling about the place. Throughout our time here Landyn and I have stayed in some pretty ratchet places. We are not used to a life of luxury down here, by any means, so the lack of walls wasn’t even necessarily the problem. The problem was that all of my instincts were telling me that something just wasn’t right, and every time someone ignores their gut instincts in a horror movie they end up dying first. So. There was no way we were going to stay there.

Landyn didn’t understand. He doesn’t have that strong intuition like I do, and since we’ve stayed in some questionable places, he could not fathom my trepidation. We argued about it for about twenty minutes before the support of my mom and Carly finally got him off my back. It was like the scene inside our apartment for the first time, our first night in Rodeo, all over again. Except this time I was right. We needed to get the hell out of there. The longer we lingered, the more imminent our death became. Or something real weird, at least.

Except my mom paid for it when we checked in, before we saw the room. I almost spoke up and said something, I almost told her to wait until we saw our room, but I didn’t. The online booking site has my card number on file, so we would’ve been charged either way, but still.

It was just a really awful situation punctuating the end of a truly fabulous day. So, my mom and Landyn went to talk to the reception dude and Carly and I looked up nearby hotels.

Landyn and Niters came back with unreadable expressions. The front desk guy was pissed, naturally, and made an already awkward situation abundantly more uncomfortable by just sort of staring at them, blankly. Like y’all THIS IS WHY WE COULD NOT STAY. SOMETHING WAS JUST NOT RIGHT.

He told us he would call his boss and see what they could do for us.

Thankfully, by the grace of God and Allah and Buddha and Jesus, too, he came back with good news: the people who owned this hostel owned another place in the area, a hotel called Los Sueños Tranquilos. He said we were welcome to check it out as it was our only option aside from losing all the money we just spent on our room at El Toboso. Please, Lord Baby Jesus, don’t let it be like this place.

And it WAS NOT. I am very, very happy to report that this room had four walls, a bathroom door, and even some A/C. Oh. My. God. To say I felt like we dodged a bullet is a drastic, drastic understatement.

We had a (very very very very very) rough start in Uvita, but things were looking up. We got some fish tacos for dinner, had a couple cervezas, and I started to come down off the ceiling. Then it was time to laugh about how disastrous El Toboso was. For my first time as a full-service travel agent, I killed it with 2/3 of my hotel picks, and I’m proud of that. But, man, the one I fumbled I fumbled BAD. You can’t always trust the pictures online, friends.

The next day, we got up early and headed out to the National Park which housed the whale tail beach.

It was so, so cool. The beach felt extremely remote and tropical since it was inside of a protected area. The only thing you could see on the coastline was mountains upon mountains and tons of greenery. The sand felt soft to the touch but looked like glass. The water was so blue. It was amazing.

The whale tail itself appears during the low tide hours (around mid-morning) and as the tide comes back in throughout the second-half of the afternoon, the walkway out to the whale tail disappears again. It was so much more than I thought it was going to be; Manuel Antonio set the bar very high but the whale tail was just so, so cool. The vastness of the entire beach, and the size of the tail, completely blew my mind. It was the kind of thing that made you feel tiny and insignificant but in a good, comforting sort of way.

 

We played in the waves, walked out and explored the whale tail (which has some crazy rock formations on the end of it, including some old lava flows) and introduced my family to an activity Landyn and I have become obsessed with since moving down here: snorkeling. The tail is known to be an excellent place to snorkel since the rocks form dozens of clear tide pools. So we ventured out and got to exploring.

Seeing all of the brightly-colored, exotic fish of all varying sizes is just the coolest thing in the world. I was SO happy my mom and Carly were huge fans of it, as well.

We stayed on the beach the entire day, using chips and queso and several beers as our only sustenance. And despite our repeated sunscreen application, we got fried like a bunch of chicken tenders. It was all worth it, though, especially when we watched the sunset.

There truly is nothing like a sunset on the beach.

We headed back to the car, saw a crocodile five feet away from our car, and promptly headed out to find food. Except during the ten minute span from our parking spot to the hotel, there was a slight complication: the entire town went dark. It’s not uncommon to randomly lose power in Costa Rica, even entire towns at a time. Thankfully, there was one lone restaurant in town that had a generator, so the entire city flocked to the same place. Luckily, the food was excellent and rest of the town’s power was restored in the middle of our meal so we had functioning A/C for that night’s slumber (fun fact: I HATE being hot while I sleep).

And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it was my family’s last day in Costa Rica. None of us knew how 12 days flew by so fast. Since we were incinerated the day before on the whale tail, we decided to take our time heading out to the beach in the morning. It’s not like we needed the extra rays, so we slept in and took our time chatting and enjoying breakfast together.

In a last-ditch effort to see a scarlet macaw, Landyn found a beach 20 minutes south of us, inside the Osa Peninsula, that had excellent online reviews and boasted the opportunity to see the incredible birds we sought after.

We almost didn’t make it to the beach, though, since my mom tried to back out when we were two minutes from the finish line. There was a “river” that ran through the gravel road, and despite the car before us flying through it (not even an SUV, might I add) and the car behind us also impatiently zooming around us, my mom threw a hissy fit. She cited the rental car company’s policy on not taking the vehicle through any rivers, and all of us passengers were floored.

“Mom, I love you and I understand your paranoia about them charging you for ridiculous things, but this is not a river. This is a puddle. That is maybe three inches of water, max.”

“No, Cari, that is a river, they said not to take it through any rivers, I am not losing my deposit over this. What the hell is with all these gravel roads anyways, I’m done with this shit.”

After a couple rounds of this and ten minutes of staring at the glorified-puddle, Niters found her inner courage and we braved the “river.” And it was every bit as anti-climactic as the rest of us knew it would be. But, wow, was it hilarious to see her lose her mind over a puddle.

The beach was marvelous. Since Semana Santa was now in full-swing, (Semana Santa is a nationwide holiday week in Costa Rica, always the week before Easter, during which everyone not in the hospitality industry gets off of work and vacations for seven days), there were various vendors on the beach selling coconuts, ice cream, and souvenirs. We rented a table with a tent overhead (burnt chicken tenders, remember?) and planted ourselves for the afternoon.

We explored nearby caves and were awestruck by the thunderous wave sounds inside. It was like something you’d see artificially reconstructed in the Wisconsin Dells, except it was real life.

We did, however, have one major tragedy ensue: my mom lost her hat. She bought a super cute hat (pictured above) from a shop in Arenal and wore it nearly every day for the remainder of the trip. Now I had warned her and Carly not to wear hats in the ocean, especially on this beach because the waves were particularly big and strong, but they ignored my advice since their faces were so sunburnt.

Lo and behold, a big wave came along and I jumped, Landyn jumped, Carly jumped, but mom did not jump. Mom got mowed over by this wave. Just totally taken out. TKO. Down for the count. When she popped up above water, her hat was no longer on her head, but in the water behind her. As she struggled to get recombobulated, Carly and I tried to run towards her while yelling, “Mom, you’re fine, grab your hat!” This was to no avail. Running through the ocean is hard, and we didn’t make it in time. The four of us searched and searched, but the beloved hat was gone. *RIP*

It was a very somber vibe under our tent for the next thirty minutes.

We didn’t totally give up hope, though, because we planned to make a pit stop back in Manuel Antonio for some souvenirs before forging on to San José. Maybe, just maybe, they would have her hat.

AND SURE ENOUGH, THEY DID! When we found that damn hat in a store, all four of us felt true joy. I laugh very hard when I think about the whole situation, but it was honestly heartbreaking when she lost the hat she loved so dearly, so we were all very happy to see her find another one just like it.

After our short pit stop, we were on the road again to San José where we would leave my family to catch their 1am flight back to the Midwest.

San José

Our road trip back to San José was really, really fun. All of us were refusing to let the Sunday Feeling get us down. We had some beers in the car (open intoxicants are not a thing here!), formed a little acapella quartet, and reminisced on one hell of a vacation.

Upon our arrival back into San José, we were starved. It was around 8:30pm at this point and all we had eaten was chips and queso on the beach (again). The rental car company shared a lot with a Denny’s, and ya girl had been craving pancakes for weeks, so for our last meal of the trip, after eating authentic Costa Rican food for 12 days, we closed it out with some Denny’s. #noregrets

And it was weird. Good, but weird. I could tell that my mom and Carly were getting antsy about their impending travel day, and the Sunday Feeling finally settled in amongst the group.

After finishing my sticky-bun pancakes, we took the rental car back and shuttled off to the airport.

When we got out of the van, standing in front of the “Departures” doors, I finally allowed the tears to roll in. I was so overwhelmed with love and immense, immense gratitude for all that they had done for us down here. It was the most awesome, epic family vacay we had ever taken, and it was depressing to see it come to a close. I forgot how much I love having those two crazies around, and I knew it would be hard to readjust again.

I hugged them each for a couple hundred years and waved goodbye as they went through the glass doors. Landyn and I caught an Uber home, and Rihanna’s “Stay” came on the radio while I gloomily looked out the window. The whole thing was astonishingly cinematic.

Here’s the thing:

Planes take-off and they land. People come and they go. Vacations begin and they end.

But in-between is filled with some truly extraordinary moments that words, even my own words, and pictures could never fully capture.

To my mom and Carly: thank you for the most fabulous 12 days–for being such troopers and pushing yourselves outside of your comfort zone, for going above and beyond to take care of Landyn and me, and for taking the time to come down here to see us in the first place.

To my other friends: appreciate the in-between, and never let the Sunday Feeling ruin a perfectly wonderful day.

This concludes the Family Vacay Trilogy.

Until next time, friends.

 

 

 

If you haven’t already read the first installment in Family Vacay: A Trilogy, then stop, drop, and roll back to the homepage to read that before proceeding to read the below post. Or you can find it here: Family Vacay: A Trilogy (Vol. 1)

So where were we? Oh yeah, we had just left Río Celeste and were en route to our next stop: Arenal.

Unfortunately, we had to lose a beloved member of the crew once we arrived in La Fortuna; Landyn still had one more week of class, so that Sunday afternoon he hopped on a bus and ventured back to Rodeo alone in order to be there for class Monday morning.

While we were sad and definitely missed Landyn’s presence, it wasn’t entirely the end of the world since this was the one place him and I had already been to. For that reason, I was super stoked to do Arenal activities because I knew just how awesome our days there were about to be.

We stayed in a bungalow RIGHT by the bottom of the volcano, and it was a spectacular location and view.

Once we got all checked in and settled, we hit the town for some food, drinks, and shopping. La Fortuna is very touristy, but in a way that still makes you love it, ya know? So I knew this was a great place for Carly and Niters to start collecting trinkets.

p.s. it took my family coming for me to realize that I have not a single souvenir-type item from Costa Rica…all these trips and not a single. one. #touristfail #amiatouristthough? #ilivehere #stillonatravelersvisathough #idigress

We came to Arenal because once my family read my blog post/heard me talk about/saw my pics from Landyn and I’s weekend there, they wanted to essentially replicate our trip. Also because it’s a volcano, it’s cool as hell, and an awesome area with lots of activity options. 10/10 would recommend.

But since we didn’t want to have the exact same trip, we switched up the location of our morning hike: we decided to go inside the National Park as it seemed like an easier, less time-consuming hike than Landyn and I did our first go-around.

What started out as a semi-cloudy morning eventually cleared into a beautiful, sunny day. And although the hike was not as strenuous, it still gave us the perfect balance of workout and leisure feels. We also still got to climb over old lava flows, see a wonderful view of the volcano and Lake Arenal, and see a lot of cool foliage. We saw tons of animals along the way, too, some of which Landyn and I had never even seen!

After about two and a half hours, the trail dumped us back out at the start. When we first began the hike, we could only see the bottom third of the volcano. When we finished, we could almost see the top:

Super duper cool stuff.

Then, it was time for the activity all three of us were most excited about: Baldi Springs.

Allow me to remind you of the magic of Baldi: Baldi Hot Springs is a resort which sits on top of several hot springs, stemming from their location at the very bottom of a volcano, I’m sure. So, they built these gorgeous pools and pump them full of the spring water, creating 20 different pools with varying temperatures from about 68 degrees to 116 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s amazing, it’s luxurious, and since the water is all natural it doesn’t leave your skin with that tight, burning feeling that you get from over-chlorinated waterparks. You just feel soft and rejuvenated.

And so we went. And, for me, it was equally as incredible as the first time.

Voted the best drink from the swim-up bar: Blue Margarita. We did have some close runner-ups, though.

My mom and Carly just kept saying “I can’t believe a place like this exists,” and that’s honestly how I feel about Baldi, too. It’s so gorgeous and relaxing and fun in a mellowed-out kind of way. It’s truly one of a kind.

We stayed at Baldi for the rest of the night, leaving around 9pm or so, and hunkered down in our bungalow for the night. This is also the night we figured out that all three of our March Madness brackets were completely and utterly busted with no hope for revival. With that, we turned in.

But that night we had something really strange happen: it rained. Like, downpoured. It was a monsoon so loud that it woke me from a dead slumber, and I am not a light sleeper. It was so weird because it hardly ever rained here at that point (although now we are currently encroaching on the wet season), and even if it did it never rained that hard. But of course, when we have fun activities planned, the sky has other ideas.

Thankfully the rain stopped around 7am, but things were still wet, damp, and the tiniest bit chilly. Shit. This was the part where we were getting in a river. The travel agent in me wondered if I should amend our plans, but the sky looked like it was clearing and the La Fortuna waterfall was too cool not to see, so we forged onward.

I think there was a part of my mom that was secretly hoping we would have to cancel our trip to the waterfall because, right after the drive to Monteverde, this was the part of the trip causing her a lot of anxiety. Simply because of the stairs. During our trip-planning conference calls, I tried to foreshadow things as blatantly and as honestly as I could. So when I told her that there were 500 stairs, each way, to get down/up the Cataraca La Fortuna, she basically freaked out.

Remember in the first part of the Trilogy when I referenced how my mom thinks she’s dying when her heart rate got above 110? Well, this is that story. My mom works out consistently, eats pretty healthily, and overall is in good shape. She’s killing it. But for whatever reason, I don’t think she realizes how in shape she is–how capable she is of handling these physical challenges. Honestly, I blame this on Carly because she gave my mom her old Apple Watch a week before the trip, so my mom could easily track her heart rate and therefore feed her shortness-of-breath anxiety.

I actually get it, I really do. The feeling of not being able to catch your breath is unpleasant and terrifying at times. My mother is just a tad dramatic about it.

So here we are, top of the stairs, and we begin our descent towards the waterfall and when I’m looking at the people heading up the stairs, I notice something: they’re all old. Like some are using canes. There was a geriatric tour group doing these same stairs.

I turned around and stared at my mom, hoping she had already noticed the median age of our stairway companions.

“Mom, these people are literally 80 years old climbing these stairs, can we be done being so paranoid now?”

She laughed and nodded.

When we got to the bottom, Niters and Carly were impressed and awestruck by the waterfall, just as Landyn and I had been. Prior to our descent, I was worried that seeing the pristine, turquoise beauty of Río Celeste may have ruined the beauty of this waterfall–I didn’t want the extreme, unique beauty of that water to set the bar too high for the rest of our explorations. Thankfully, they were still enamored and humbled by the natural phenomenon. The flora and fauna, the wildlife, the natural wonders, they never get old no matter how many times we see them. I never feel “used to” the beauty, and I don’t think I’ll ever be over it.

When it came time to jump in the river, we hit some unexpected snags. The tiny little fishes I had seen in January had grown into large scaly swimmers that were not afraid to get up-close and personal with us humans. These unforeseen friends combined with the frigid water temperature left Carly and Niters less than thrilled.

There were a few situations during this family vacation that showed me how significantly more low-maintenance and carefree I’ve become since moving down here. More than that, it’s the ability to be flexible and spontaneous and roll with the punches.

This swim was one of those instances. My mom and sister were really freaked out by the fish and the cold, and I think if I hadn’t gone in the water they wouldn’t have. I started swimming into the current and climbing all over the rocks, and they were apprehensive about that at first, too. It was incredibly strange to see that I was the brave one because, historically, I have always been the worry-wart of the group. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes I still am. But overall, there’s been a shift in me and that has been exciting and fun and weird. It’s an odd feeling to be cognizant of the process of becoming your truest self.

As Carly and Niters warmed up, so did the weather, and we wound up having quite an enjoyable time. On our way back up the stairs, I had to frequently remind my mom (who was adamant we take a break every 44 steps because that’s how many she does at work every day) that there was a, legit, GERIATRIC tour group that did these same steps with no ambulance called. This convinced my mom to push her range to 50 steps between breaks. *eye roll*

Pick your battles, friends.

After our aquatic adventure, we hit the road to come home. Just as we were about to leave the city, we hit the most gorgeous view of the volcano. Typically the clouds never clear all the way off of the top, so it’s rare to see the entire volcano. But we were the lucky ones, and it was the perfect send-off scene.

Rodeo

After leaving Arenal, we had a bit of a stressful drive home. The roads are narrow and windy with very tight curves which were stress-inducing for all passengers. By the time we reached Ciudad Colón, where we were meeting up with Landyn, our nerves and our patience were shot.

We wandered around the organic market Landyn and I frequent every Tuesday, we went to our favorite grocery store to pick up some essentials, which at this point translated into booze, and we headed home. The tension was real the entire time. We were all tired, cranky pandas, ready to plop ourselves in Rodeo with nowhere else to go for a few days.

Sure enough, Rodeo revived us.

We had ample pool time and puppy time, as well as touring them around Rodeo (which does not take very long) and showing them the UPeace campus and adjacent park. My mom and Carly were able to experience our day-to-day lives, including our vegetarian diet. I never thought I’d see the day, considering I am an avid chicken nugget lover, but meat is not only expensive down here but it’s also much different than in the States. It doesn’t come as the best cuts in nice, neat packages. They just cleave off a section from an entire leg and send you on your way. No thank you. 

Thus, Carly and Niters ate our way, drank the delicious Costa Rican coffee, and sipped rum cocktails by the pool for three days. Not too shabby.

We went back to Colón Thursday night to watch Landyn play soccer at a field in town, a weekly ritual for him and I. The small things like watching Landyn play soccer while talking with our friends and getting to know them better, then getting drinks and hitting up our favorite ice cream place afterward were the among the greatest things about them being here. Our life here is just so so different from anywhere else they have seen us, and we LOVE it, so it was very important and special to me that we were able to give them an authentic view of our new normal. It poked my heart, as the three of us would say.

In my experience as an amateur travel agent, I’ve learned that you can plan all of the crazy, action-packed, breathtaking activities in the world, but sometimes there’s nothing better than just being with the people you love in a place you love.

Friday morning snuck up on us so fast. After Landyn was done with class at 11:45 we were going to hop right in the car for our last leg of the trip: the beach. Their flight back to the U.S. left at 1:15am Tuesday morning, so we planned to spend all of Monday as a beach day, drive back to San José in the evening hours, take back the rental car and drop them at the airport, from which Landyn and I would Uber home.

So the moral of the story is, Friday morning was their goodbye to Rodeo. Goodbye to our bright little apartment that already felt like their home, too. Goodbye to our precious pups. Goodbye to our little sanctuary. More than anything, it was a reality check for all of us that somehow this “long,” 12-day vacation was flying by at the speed of light, and sooner rather than later we would be saying goodbye to each other again.

Naturally, my mom was bawling. She’s an emotional sap and we love her so much for it because she always breaks the sadness ice. You know, like in a sad situation when you don’t want to be the first to crack and show emotion? Mom always handles that because she’s always the first to shed a tear. I guess that’s how you know you’ve had an amazing trip, though–when you’re super sad to leave.

After mom dried her eyes and Landyn got home, we hopped in the car and headed off to, I think, my favorite part of the trip.

Writing this all down and reflecting back on how much fun we had and how much my mom and Carly did for Landyn and I humbles me even more than when I lived it the first time. I am truly blessed with the most entertaining, wild, and generous family. I wouldn’t trade a single moment of this vacation for the world.

Stay tuned for the final installment of Family Vacay: A Trilogy.

Until next time, friends.

 

 

From the moment Landyn was accepted into this graduate program, my mom, Anita (Niters), has been talking about visiting us. She honestly may have been more excited about and ready for our move than we were. Niters and my sister, Carly, had their visit tickets booked before we left the United States in January, and I think it helped make the airport goodbye slightly less tragic for all three of us.

Well, hold onto your hats, folks, because on March 15th, the day had finally arrived: The Tribe (as we call ourselves) was reunited in Costa Rica.

The Airport

The night before their arrival I was straddling the line between healthy excitement and mania. I kinda felt like I was gonna vomit. Kinda felt pumped. Kinda felt nothing at all because I couldn’t fathom seeing two of my favorite humans in my new normal down here.

The morning of their arrival was even worse. I woke up before the sun, rolled around a bit, and, of course, pestered Landyn with my anxious energy. I got to the airport over an hour early, found a bar to plant myself in front of, and sat. Then I got up to order a drink. Then I thought better not, sat back down. But I was kinda hungry. Walked up to order a snack, changed my mind again. Up, down, up, down, until after about four rounds of this the employees behind the counter stopped trying to hide their stares.

“Cari you’ve been acting erratic in an airport, these people are gonna call security if you don’t buy a fricken bag of chips and settle down,” said me to me. So I munched my Nacho Cheese Doritos and compulsively refreshed the Spirit Airlines webpage showing me the flight status. 18 minutes. 11 minutes. 4 minutes. Text from Carly flashes across the top of my phone and the status changes to “arrived.” I almost peed my chair.

Quick background: the San Jose airport has a fairly strange layout, and for peeps that are arriving it eventually just dumps you out into this waiting area where a bunch of taxi drivers and tour companies hold up signs, and call out for customers if they aren’t already booked. It’s complete pandemonium. So there I stood, waiting with the sign I made for them (because I secretly love that all that corny shit) when I was suddenly blind sighted by a massive lump in my throat.

I have no idea what came over me, but as I waited for them to get through the fanfare that is customs and luggage retrieval, all of my I-miss-my-family emotions bubbled right up to the surface. First I can’t sit down, then I’m bawling next to the cab drivers. All aboard the hot mess express.

In the midst of my teary pacing, I saw a head of hair I recognized.

“Mom!”

*her head turns right around to find me while I struggle to unfold my sign*

When I hugged her and my sister, I realized just how much I had missed them. I think I was really compartmentalizing my life here and my life back home; FaceTime phone calls felt like enough for me until I saw Niter’s lob and Carly’s platinum pony and then the need to embrace them was suddenly, overwhelmingly potent. There’s nothing like a hug that’s been a long time coming.

El Rodeo

After waiting over two hours to get our rental car (renting a car in Costa Rica is a whole different beast than renting in the States), we were on the road to Rodeo. It was incredibly fun for me to watch their faces and hear their reactions to the surroundings.

It was also extremely trippy for me–I continued to find that I had compartmentalized more significantly than I thought. My life here, in many ways, feels entirely separate from my life back home, so to have my two distinct worlds collide was disorienting, albeit exciting and entertaining.

You could argue that my sister was more excited to see our dogs (see last post if you haven’t yet) than she was to see Landyn and I. So I think her vacation was already made when our two little cinnabons came bounding over to her as soon as she opened the car door.

Monteverde

Good news: if the freelance writing and blogging spheres don’t work out, I have immense potential as a travel agent. Prior to the family’s arrival, I took care of hotel bookings and organizing general activity timelines for their stay. Lots and lots of three-way conference calls.

The first trip of the trip: Monteverde. Monteverde is in the northwest corner of Costa Rica and has two cloud forest reserves which boast incredibly unique, biologically diverse ecosystems. Monteverde’s extremely high altitude should prohibit many tropical plants and animals indigenous to Costa Rica from growing there, but nevertheless they persist.

Aside from being known for these super cool reasons, Monteverde is also famous for being accessible only by very precarious, sketchy means. The road climbs at serious incline grades, has no barriers between the road and cliff edge, and is gravel. And it’s really windy. And the dust sometimes inhibits your ability to see the road. And there’s not always enough room for two cars, so…yeah.

My mom was rather freaked out about the drive, so we made it a group activity and figured out a system for identifying major potholes so that she could focus on all the other potentially life-threatening factors. “Gully” meant “hey there’s a pothole you should probably slow down for, but also if this car was your Jeep and not a rental then it would be pretty chill.” If we yelled “trench” that translated into “holy shit you better not let this valley topple us right off this mountain, BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE.”

Niters also really likes to verbally panic while she drives, even when the situation isn’t exactly dire, which, of course, panicked the hell out of the rest of us. So then it was decided that no one could raise their voice five octaves and yell “oh my god” anymore, but rather when someone felt a tad petrified, driving or passengering, they had to say “har har, har har,” emulating a nervous laugh. This was hysterical and surprisingly effective in relaxing everyone in the most tense moments of the drive.

At long last, after an hour and fifteen minutes of the harrowing dirt road trek, we hit pavement and all of us rejoiced that we safely arrived in the town of Monteverde. See that’s the thing about living in Costa Rica, sometimes it makes you grateful for things we regularly take for granted in the States, like paved roads.

Our B&B, Nina’s Place, was absolutely fantastic; it gave us all the positive hippie vibes of a hostel, but our private room was spacious, clean, and boasted a beautiful valley view.

 

That first night we explored the local town, ate some insanely good tacos, and checked out a couple tourist shops. For being a known tourist attraction, the town didn’t feel too developed or crowded at all. We loved it!

 

The next morning, after nearly scaring Carly to death, we made friends with a wild Coati–an animal equivalent to a raccoon here, although parts of Costa Rica do have actual raccoons, as well. He actually tried to eat off our plates, and while it was slightly concerning because this animal is the size of a medium-sized dog breed, it was also ridiculously adorable.

Prior to their arrival, I had warned my family that I was going to push them out of their comfort zones during this trip, particularly my mom. She tends to doubt herself and think she can’t do something when she’s actually totally capable. I was determined to help her see that.

Thus, we hit both of Monteverde’s cloud forest reserves–we did a hanging bridges tour through one and zip lined through the other. Both my mom and Carly are afraid of heights/being suspended solely by cables, so I knew I was asking a lot from them. But it turned out to be one of the most spectacular days of the whole trip. While on the hanging bridges, we saw tons of new plant species (super unique ecosystem, remember) and birds for my birding-obsessed beau. This included the rare Quetzal which we were able to see clear as day!!! (We admired it with our eyeballs instead of our cameras, sorry to disappoint any bird fanatics reading this)

 

There’s nothing quite like conquering a fear—that feeling of standing on a precipice (typically figurative but in this case literal) and making a conscious decision to ignore your shaking hands, quaking voice, riotous stomach and do the damn thing anyways. It makes you feel bold, empowered, liberated. Not to mention the intense adrenaline rush that comes from these adventurous activities whether they had you terrified or not. It was amazing to see my family unfold and unwind and, at times, come unglued a little bit.

After finding one line extremely traumatizing, Carly was ready to walk back to the entrance of the park. She was like a zombie during the buggy ride we took up to the next two Superman-style lines. She kept telling me she couldn’t do it, she was gonna pee, she thought she was gonna die, the whole gamit.

Mom went. Landyn went. The guy tried to hook me up next but when I took one last look back at my sis, I knew if I left her there she wouldn’t do it. So I demanded the guy stop and have her go next. I nearly had to push her off the platform myself, but she did it. And I know she’s glad she did. And you want to know what magical words of wisdom I said to her on that platform? YOLO.

That’s right. A quick throwback to the hottest phrase of 2009, “yolo.” It’s cliché, corny, overdone, ridiculous, and some people take it a little too far, but can we just talk about the sentiment behind the phrase for a second? It is so so so freakin’ true. You only live once. So do the thing that scares the shit out of you. Go zip lining. Walk on a shaky suspended bridge. Pack your life into two suitcases and move to a country you’ve never been to, a part of the world you’ve never seen. Because you only get to do this life once. And it’s so much better to have done the thing, to have pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone, than spend even a single second wondering what experiences you could have had if only you’d been a little more brave. So I guess my biggest takeaway from Monteverde is this: fear will consume you, it will ruin you, if you let it. So don’t. Because yolo.

Río Celeste

So the original plan was that after we were done in Monteverde we would go directly to Arenal. But a week before my family came, Landyn and I found out about a beautiful river/waterfall, Río Celeste, that doesn’t see nearly as much tourist action as some of our other trip destinations because it’s tucked away in a remote national park.

However, if you know it’s there, and you’re already driving from Monteverde to Arenal, it only adds another hour onto your drive time (one route takes you around one side of Arenal National Park, the other route the other). So we threw it in as a last-minute must-see.

Good thing, too, because it was on that route that a Toucan flew across the road right in front of our car and perched on a tree for us to pull over and admire him. These creatures are majestic and beautiful and I was so SO happy Carly and Anita got to see one.

Trekking out to Tenorio National Park isn’t for the faint of heart, though. You get out to the middle of nowhere, there’s one tiny sign for your turn-off to the park, and the last 30 minutes are on gravel (Niters was beyond over the gravel roads about 30 seconds into her first encounter with one in Costa Rica, and she was very vocal about this fact).

Eventually, we made it to our destination. This was also a brand new national park for Landyn and I, so all of us were excited to be experiencing another new place together.

 

We began our hike to Cataraca Río Celeste. Only ten minutes in, we were finally able to show the fam some wild monkeys. A family of Capuchins meandered about in the trees surrounding the trail, even crossing branches right above our heads.

The hike itself was relatively easy. However, this was our first hike with the fam that didn’t involve paved paths the entire time, like the hanging bridges did. It was entertaining, to say the least, to see how my mom and Carly handled the slippery, muddy sections of the trail, how they felt about crossing mossy rocks through a mini river, and overall how they gelled with one of Landyn and I’s favorite pastimes.  They’re both active, adventurous individuals, but hiking is just a whole different ball game. Aside from my mom insisting she was having a heart attack every time her heart rate got above 110 (more to come on that, later), they totally embraced it. Before this trip I had never gone on a true hike with my family and now they’ve caught the bug. Mission complete.

 

Once you reach the waterfall, there are about 250 steep stairs that take you down to the water level. While these were a pain in the ass to climb back up, the waterfall was completely, entirely worth it.

 

The impeccably clear, turquoise waters get their color from various volcanic minerals found in the two separate rivers that eventually join to form Río Celeste. Swimming is actually prohibited since the concentrated levels can make people sick. Otherwise you best believe I would’ve been soaking up those gemstone-colored waves.

After voyaging back to the start of the trail we saw the single greatest thing you can see after a hike in this tropical climate: coconuts. Coconut stands are extremely common here, and they’re so much better than the bottled coconut water b.s. you can buy in stores (which I can’t stand, in case I was too subtle there). Fresh pipas were calling our names and it was such a delight to see my mom and (especially) Carly fall in love with a good ole fresh coconut, picked nearby and sliced open with a machete.

Once we were revived, we headed back out on the open road to our next destination: Arenal. Now I know doing our trip this way, venturing off to several different locations, added up to quite a bit of time in the car…it was essentially a three hour trip everywhere we went. Do you take vacations to sit in the car? No.

But the thing about our road trips is that was where some of our best moments happened–the funniest airhead moments, the strangest comments that had everyone laughing at one person’s expense, the bonding time when I got to just be with my family. Just exist alongside them and relish our adventures together. Also the time where Landyn sat on a piece of chocolate and simultaneously destroyed the backseat and his pants.

And for my mom and Carly, they got to see a true, authentic representation of Costa Rica. Our route wasn’t all freeways and express lanes, but rather the majority was on small, windy roads through tiny towns and residential areas. They got to experience the people, the culture, the landscapes that you miss when you take puddle jumper planes around the country. They got the rare opportunity, much like Landyn and I, to straddle that line between a typical tourist and a temporary resident.

So yeah, we did exciting, unbelievable, adrenaline-junkie activities during this first leg of the trip. But a large chunk of the heart and soul of this entire vacation lies between the pictures, between the landmarks, between the action. I hate to agree with another tired cliché, but it really is true: sometimes the journey is even better than the destination.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the Family Vacay Trilogy.

Until next time, friends.