Hiking Alternatives in Arenal, Costa Rica

After our early morning ziplines, I started naming hikes between the zipline spot and our hotel.  Cas wasn't jumping at any of them, so we went back to our hotel and hiked on the property.

We started with a selfie -

Then tackled the maze -

Stopped to photograph the leaf cutter ants in action -

Ran into some dead ends -

And moved on to the hike through the rainforest by a little stream -

Across moss-covered bridges and by huge trees-

We saw these lizards throughout our hike and all over our hotel, but they weren't friendly and always tried to hide when people walked by, despite the fact that I knew my five-year-old would love a photo of their turquoise tail -

After our one mid-morning hike, Cas let me know he was done hiking this vacation.  Which was a problem since my entire plans for the afternoon and following day were choices of several different hikes in the region.  Instead, Cas convinced me to go on an ATV tour.  When I went to the tour company, I was expecting to ride on the back of Cas' ATV, but again I was talked into riding my own - my first time on anything but a go-cart at my family farm.  Here we are with our personal tour guide, Juan.

Our first part of the ATV tour was to La Fortuna waterfall.  We rode to the entrance, walked down the 471 steps, enjoyed the views and tried to ignore that we had to climb back up each step we bounded down.  

It was a beautiful, 200 foot waterfall where folks swam in the base pool and there was even a zipline company with a zipline across the ravine.

After we made it back up the steps, we took the ATV's to a "farm" - a big open area of land with cows, streams - and even monkeys and Larry the sloth!  I was shocked we saw any wildlife while on ATV's, and was delighted by our first sloth.

 We rode ATV's right by the cows who barely glanced in our direction.

Through muddy paths -

Cas told me later there were times my wheels came up, but I was blissfully unaware, thinking I was being quite a cautious driver.  

We stayed at a beautiful resort, far away from the city - which had its pros and cons.  But the view from our balcony was lovely!

This was my favorite bird - they'd zip around and you'd see the flash of orangey-red -

Our walk to breakfast -

This is the most clear view we got on our trip.  Within the last few years - based on online hotel reviews - the volcano was active, and our hotel was on the lava side of the volcano.  I was a little disappointed not to see lava flow at night from our room, but during the day there was plenty of beauty to enjoy!

While not as thrilling as flowing lava, we did catch the tree frogs in the lily pond outside our room in the evening -

 One jumped on our balcony but the camera flash annoyed scared him away -

Good night, Arenal Volcano!

Ziplining in Costa Rica

The next few posts will be highlights of Cas and my trip to Costa Rica - which according to my dad, will be pointless since they'll be blog posts without Collin and Maya.  We were so thankful to take our first kid-free trip since Maya was born - and not just an hour drive for a weekend get-away but a whole week out of the country!  We had a trip planned to Costa Rica for years, and finally all the stars aligned for us to spend an adventure-filled week in the rainforest and beach.

Our first full day in Costa Rica, after a windy road, car-sick-inducing trip to La Fortuna from the airport, was in the volcano/rainforest area.  Thanks to tripadvisor, I booked us on a 7:30am zipline tour, as I heard the 10am tour was always full.  And we were the only ones!  We had three tour guides - one just taking photos - and the two of us.  Of course we bought the personalized cd to document our adventure.

Before the adventure began -

On the drive to the first platform, the guys pointed out toucans in the trees.  

The ziplines started off short and not too fast, easing us into the adventure.  I'm not a huge fan of heights, but the only part that made me nervous about the ziplines was standing on the platforms.  

Posing before the next one - there were 13 ziplines from 25 - 430 meters long.  

It was overcast - typical of our stay in La Fortuna - but lush from all the rainfall!  When we were looking at the weather forecast before we left, it showed 80% chance of rain every day.  Instead, we had rain on our first driving day, and then a short shower once or twice in our time there.  

After cable 8, when you were feeling confident about the ziplining, there was an optional Tarzan swing.  I had read all sorts of reviews about it - and everyone said they were glad they did it.  It was also described as gentle bungee jumping and a huge adrenaline rush.  Not normally things I gravitate to.  When I would think about the Tarzan swing, I could feel my heart rate pick up - even before we had arrived in Costa Rica.

Of course I made Cas go first.  A forty foot drop, and his first yell had a tinge of fear in it that made me re-think the plunge.

My nervous face before I'm even at the edge!  

After the first swing down, then it was fun!

Pretty sure I'm still shaking here, but we were both glad we did the Tarzan Swing - and I have no need to do it again!

A few more ziplines and we were done for the morning - all before 9am!  

Friday afternoon park time

We're taking advantage of parks before it gets miserably hot in Texas, so after picking up Collin from school on Friday, we headed to a neighborhood park.  Maya thought it was a scream - 

Blurry photo but happy swinging -

This girl wanted to go as high as her big brother - bigger push, mama!

Sporting her brother's baseball cap -

Practicing the monkey bars -

Silly sliding head first.  Glad he's getting braver but now he's setting a less-than-ideal example for Maya!