Costa Rica :: Pura Vida

In honor of our 10th anniversary, the hubs and I locked up the kids in the closet left the kids with my parents and took off for a weeklong vacation to Costa Rica.  We'd never been (and that's one of our deals...we don't go back to places we've been unless we're traveling on biz or its NOLA, until we've been everywhere we want to go) and everyone we know who has been, has only said fabulous things about it.
We chose to stay at the Marriott Los Suenos Ocean & Golf Resort, not because of reviews or location, but because my man travels a lot and had a ton of Marriott points and we could stay there for 5 nights, 6 days, all-inclusive, for freeeeeee! Ok, so we had to pay for the flight and whatnot, but yeah.
The resort was nestled between the towns of Jaco and Herradura on the pacific coast




While in Costa Rica, we did a lot of nothing but relaxing, which was absolutely fabulous.  We also did some Ziplining, which was exhilarating! I loved it. He was scared.


We also did some exploring at Manuel Antonio National Park, which involved a guided tour where we saw sloths, monkeys of many kinds, birds, frogs, and many other species. And a beautiful, beautiful beach that we spent some hours lounging on.
On the way back to the resort, we stopped for a drink and snack at a place called El Avion, which had a breathtaking view of some of the park and beach.



We checked out Jaco, where we got to see some prostitutes (boo) and get our kids some gifts (much better) and watch surfers (cool). We also got to see some monster crocs hanging out in a very dirty river.



Our last day was spent at La Paz Waterfall Park. Wow. Breathless. Totally worth the drive that we thought we were going to die on whilst getting there in our car that had tires the size of my head, driving on "roads" (using term loosely) that mad dirt moguls left over from the Jan '09 earthquake.


After La Paz, we checked in to another hotel so we were closer to the airport. Hotel Buena Vista. A whole different world than the Marriott, but quaint and clean and nice people. The photo of the city lights at night? That's Alajuela. We ate at some place and that was our view. Wonderful.

The trip was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Could not have been better. Oh wait. I guess it could have been if, 1) Hubs has not lost his wallet in the first 1/2 hour of us being in CR, and 2) Frontier had not "lost" our reservation on our return flight. Or they'd be willing to give me back my money. That's all I care about.

Whenever we're on one of these trips, its good. Its good for us to re-connect like that. No internet, no work, no house, no kids, no other people, no phone.  Just us. But we miss the kids and often talk about how much fun they'd have where ever we are.  So yeah, I can't wait to take them on vacation. But I am glad we had that together. Because it was important. And we'll do it again.

And I highly recommend Costa Rica! We'll go back... with the kids... to another region