Pura Vida
"Pura Vida", Costa Rican Spanish for pure life, life is good, all is well, your mother made your favourite dish, you look great, its a fabulous day... you get the idea. The Costa Ricans live this philosophy with their relaxed friendly disposition and willingness to help.
Arriving in drizzle after a long day of travel, the multiple natural hot spring pools of our hotel were the perfect balm for easing us into La Pura Vida.
It was a taster Costa Rican tour visiting the Arenal volcanic region's temperate Rainforest, the Monteverde mountains Cloudforest and Samara on the Pacific coast with sun intensity like the surface of the sun.
With almost 800 photos (yeah, nothing for Noel), creating this entry is a tough editing exercise! We jammed tons of activities into 10 days, learning about ecosystems, canyoneering, zip lining, surf lessons and of course eating our share of mangoes the size of your head!
Fauna
The dizzying walk atop the tree canopy on suspension bridges in the Arenal Volcano National Park demonstrated the enormity the trees and the vast diversity of wild life they support.
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Afraid of catching an STI, we declined.
We would have needed a herpetologist.
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Flora
The first destination was though the dry forest, with some beautiful more vistas and many windmill farms.
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| Arenal volcano |
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Our tropical cabin in
La Fortuna with natural hot spring pools |
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Dad, Mom is right here!
You don't need the binos |
Trekking through the jungle
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| A lotta green |
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| Is that tree upholstered in corduroy? |
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Related to black pepper
- and tasted like it too |
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| The world's smallest orchid!! |
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World's largest orchid
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| Mini mushrooms |
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| Ginger flower |
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| Land coral? |
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Under the canopy of the "broccoli" tree
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| Photobombing heliocornia. The bright red is actually a modified leaf. The flower is the tiny yellow thing that looks like a hummingbird beak. The hummingbird drinks the nectar, rubs pollen on its forehead and goes out and pollenates. |
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Gorgeous flower arrangement
at a church in La Fortuna
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Its not a family trip until
Adrian checks out church architecture
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Fun
Costa Rica is the capital of adventure vacations. Sure, learning about the ecosystems and seeing wild animals has huge cool factor (or is apparently dope now), but the thrill of zip lining at 50km/hr for 1km is adrenaline pumping.
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| Hot springs at the La Fortuna hotel |
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| I think she ate something bad |
Canyoneering
Canyoneering was a blast, unfortunately when you're being hurtled off of a 200 ft cliff into a gorge wearing a harness, you can't take pictures. Rappelling off of waterfalls pushed the envelope for sure!
Cocao, coffee and sugar cane plantation
Way less adrenaline but interesting learning how cocao, coffee and sugar cane is grown and processed. I do indeed get a thrill from eating good chocolate!
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Do not let your rude minds go there...
cocao nibs
inside the giant cocao pod |
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| Fermenting the nibs on banana leaf |
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| Peddling for cocoa paste! |
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| Sugar cane going into the rollers for juice |
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Boiling the sugar cane syrup to make sugar at a 10:1 ratio.
Maple sap is boiled to a 40:1 ratio and its still syrup! |
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| Making jaggery - brown sugar |
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| Coffee plantation |
Zip lining across the Cloud forest canopy!
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Looking into the valley of the cloud forest
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Taking a gondola up the mountainside,
without skis was just weird. |
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See where the cable ends?
Nope?
It just kept zipping! |
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| Whoo hoo! |
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| Be sure to bring my baby back! |
Surfing USA - uh Costa Rica!!
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| Our surf instructor |
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| Getting ready to hit the waves! |
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| I was made to surf! |
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| Adrian is sticking with kayaking |
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Crazy sun intensity.
The 30 SPF wasn't enough,
moved up to 50, 60,
then kids 100!!!
Finally, zinc on the face |
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If it is captured on camera,
then it happened |
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She's a natural
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| One |
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| Two |
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| Three! |
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| My new mid-life crisis sport! |
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No, she isn't wearing high-heeled flip flops
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My baby got big!
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| Daddy's girl |
Potty Humour
There are bad Dad jokes and then there is Mom's potty humour. Am I the only one that finds this funny? According to E, I'm like a 9 year old boy. I was amused with the creativity in getting the message across.
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Maybe consult
google translate? |
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| Read right to left? |
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| ... or roll dice |
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hanging OUTSIDE the toilet stalls
Plan ahead! |
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| The whole roll? |
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| In case you can't read small print |
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Making sure you wash those hands!
Great public health prompt |
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Feeding my OCD hand washing behaviour,
there was always soap and paper towels
in the clean bathrooms. |
Food
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| She really likes watermelon |
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| Adrian likes steak and shrimp |
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| Some of the most succulent shrimp ever |
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| What size was that chicken? |
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Wow, I could have had a V8...
after my 4th plate of food |
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| Mahi-mahi |
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Ceviche is done differently at each restaurant.
We used it to gauge the overall quality of the establishment. Kinda like in Italy where pistachio gelato is the standard for comparison |
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I can't believe I just ate
a vegetarian burger -
and it was delicious |
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| We ate a lot of juicy pineapple |
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| Getting some snack food! |
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Apparently you can't take
boiled eggs on the plane either |
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| Don't wake the giant |
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| In my happy place |
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Must be time to go home,
E fell asleep |
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| Hasta la vista Costa Rica! |
With almost 800 photos (yeah, nothing for Noel), creating this entry is a tough editing exercise! We jammed tons of activities into 10 days, learning about ecosystems, canyoneering, zip lining, surf lessons and of course eating our share of mangoes the size of your head!
Canyoneering was a blast, unfortunately when you're being hurtled off of a 200 ft cliff into a gorge wearing a harness, you can't take pictures. Rappelling off of waterfalls pushed the envelope for sure!
Looks like a great vacation with lots of fun. You all look fantastic!
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