TLDR: It was amazing, and the kids would love it. We spent 4 days in the jungle, then three days on the coast. These are a few fun stories from the first part of the trip.
Dinner Fail. Or success. Hard to say.
The place we were staying served a great dinner the first night we arrived. Taylor had something great (I forget what), and I had a steak, because we were on vacation.
But on the third night of our trip, we were curious about the “gastromic experience” that the staff kept recommending. The word gastromic makes me thing of something that belongs in an operating room, but I think it is a fairly common translation. It was also on their printed marketing for this meal.
There were two options:
- A Costa Rican experience. This option featured more local flavors, and came with an adult beverage for each course of the meal.
- The other experience. This option was more meat-heavy, and you cook the food yourself at the table.
Guess which option we picked? Thats right, the second. Is it because we are closed minded and didn’t like local flavors? Not at all. We had many, many costa-rican dishes up to that point, and they were all delicious. With something like a Hibachi-style experience on my mind, Taylor and I got excited for our Gastromic Experience.
What a “Gastromic Experience” really was.
Sometimes a picture explains it better, and this is one of those moments:
What are you looking at in the image above?
- A pound of sirloin
- A pound of chorizo
- A pound of ribeye
- A pound of an amazing piece of marinated chicken
- A pound of a great cut of ribeye.
- Zuchini
- Onions
- To save space: Peppers, Plantains, mushrooms, home made tortillas, rice, beans, and something made out of potatos.
Taylor and I, as long as we have ever been alive, have never, ever eaten that much food in one sitting.
What was that meal like?
They started by bringing in some hot coals, and putting them into the center of the table. Then, the veggies. And, most importantly, they had a special cocktail to go with each part of the meal. I saw that as a man-versus-food kind of challenge, and accepted their “matching cocktails” offer.
Long story short, the meal was amazing. I am starting to be wise in my older years, and stopped eating at a reasonable time, rather than continue and suffer from indigestion after eating a ridiculous amount of food.
We laughed. This might have been the most important part of the trip. We just had a blast, and laughed about how stupid we must have looked, for these locals, in a beautiful restaurant, and an even more beautiful resort, would pay such a ridiculous amount of money to cook their own food. It really took a great-deal of concentration and effort to cook that meal.
The cooking seemed a bit chaotic. The questions going through my head included:
- Can I tell if this poultry is cooked well enough in this dimly lit restaurant?
- What is e. coli really like, and how do I know if I got it?
- is this food making me gassy?
- how long does a plantain need to be grilled for?
- Can the waitress come and double-check my work to see if I passed?
The best part? About halfway through our meal, a younger, latino-looking couple sat two-tables away and ordered the same meal. I can say with full faith and confidence, the list of questions from above were not going through his head. He maintained his composure, and cooked that meal with ease.
The best ziplining in the in world.
It really was. About 20-30 minutes away from our hotel, right around on the other side of the volcano was “Sky Tours” (or something like that). It seemed like a great operation, and Tay was pumped. They get the harness on you, and then an open-aired gondola takes you to the top of the mountain. The view of the volcano and the lake below was amazing.
There are 9 ziplines, and I think they said they were the highest/longest/fastest in the country. If it wasn’t those exact words, it was something else similarly terrifying.
Here is the top of the mountain, and a weird hand statue with absolutely no significance. To me, it said “you are in God’s hand now, HAHAHAHA!”.
And here is a video of someone going down (not Taylor).
Taking the gondola down was not that bad. Taylor had a wonderful time. As that video shows, there was not even a small part of me that wanted to go down that zipline that day.
Hanging Bridges.
We used a travel agent, and she was amazing. More on that below. However, as part of our “adventures” for the trip, we went on a tour of the Mistico Hanging Bridges.
The whole trip Taylor and I only had a moderate understanding of what to expect. We could have done more research, sure, but this was part of the fun.
From the ininerary for the trip, it was described as:
Enjoy a journey into the rain forest in a perfect path of trails and hanging bridges, allowing you to see the jungle from different perspectives, through the forest while walking on the trails, and from the canopy of the trees while walking on the suspension bridges. This 3km path provides a nice journey with your guide pointing out the flora and fauna of the area.”
Official Travel Itinierary description.
It sounds pretty vanilla, right?
What was it actually like? Amazing. By far, the highlight of the trip. My expectations of a nature hike were something like a long, cub-scout trek where we may have heard a few stories about how we “just missed” an exciting viewing of an animal.
But I loved hiking, so this would be fun, either way.
What did we actually see? See for yourself:
(Also, the images are in a circle because the pictures were taken through our guide’s scope)
Also, some monkeys were getting in a fight over our heads. The guide later told me, a 5″ log was thrown down and almost hit me.
Volcano Hike
After the nature hike, we did a shorter hike up the accessible side of the volcano (people arent allowed to hike up the volcano).
Sorry for how bumpy the road is. It is due to the impact craters from the volcano that have hit the road over the years”
-Our Driver, on the way to the Volcano
The nerdy side of me wants to tell all of the many facts about the volcano here, but I will withstain; if you are curious, we can chat more about volcanoes at the pool over the summer 🙂
Solo Hike
Our last day at the resort, we took advantage of the trails connected to the property. There was a “Level 2” hike of a little over a mile. Why was it a “level 2”? Beats me. And what is the scale? Is it a 2 of 5? or 2 of 10?
It was a beautiful hike.
We worked up a sweat, and before I sat down by the pool to be lazy for the rest of the day, I wanted to go check out the other trail connected to the property. Taylor was smarter than I am, and decided to stop at the room instead.
This other trail is supposed to cost $35, and the hotel asks that you book this hike with someone from their staff to guide you. I didn’t want to spend money for that, and I am fit enough to go on most any trail, for at least a little bit, right?
So I chose to try this trail, and here was the sign.
Out of sheer curiousity, would you continue?
Then, I got to the river at the bottom (maybe 1/2 mile?):
Then, about 20 yards past the river, saw a little tail that was orange and black and white, wiggling just a few inches from the trail.
Where we stayed
The resort was called “Amor Arenal”, where “Arenal” is the name of the volcano.
The place only had 31 rooms. It opened just a few months before covid, then closed down again, before re-opening. It still felt almost brand-new.
It felt like we were staying at Jurassic part. The service was amazing.
I saw some wild turkeys through the trees near the pool. There was a parrot in the tree right outside of the breakfast place on the first morning.
On the last day, Taylor mentioned how she wished she saw more toucans. And what happened? There were 4 toucans in the tree right over our room that last morning.
Our room was amazing, by far the coolest place I’ve ever stayed.
What part of Costa Rica was it?
This was in a place called La Fortuna. We flew into San Jose, and took a 3 hour shuttle (that ended up being about 4 hours after traffic) to our hotel.
The town, La Fortuna,is fairly small, but maybe the coolest little place I have ever been. Taylor and I caught a ride to town for dinner 2 of our 4 nights there, and the town was amazing.
It was safe. There was a church in the center of the town. It was saturday night, (maybe Sunday?), and the small town-square was bursting with people. There were families everywhere, teenagers, little kids, etc. The wild part? Almost no one was on a cell phone. And barely any alcohol, no homeless people, great lighting, no litter. Almost everyone was eating ice cream.
It was such a great little place.
Wait, why Costa Rica?
Originally we had plans to go to Mexico with two other couples that we know and love. However, one of the couples got pregnant, and the other couple bought into a business, so the timing wasn’t right for them to come.
However, Taylor and I were already excited about a trip, and had childcare arranged (thanks Zippy and Poppa and Cici!). So, we called our travel-agent friend that we have worked with in the past, told her what we wanted, told her our budget, and she put together the whole trip. This is great for me, because I tend to over-analyze things, which makes me great at my job as an engineer, but terrible at making decisions and creating a travel itinerary.
So she suggested we do 4 days in the jungle, and 3 days at the beach, because we wanted a few days of adventure, and a few days to relax. Mission accomplished. Thanks Julie!
