{"id":20739,"date":"2019-05-13T19:23:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T00:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=20739"},"modified":"2019-05-13T13:23:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T18:23:40","slug":"costa-rica-trip-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=20739","title":{"rendered":"Costa Rica Trip Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Woke up to this amazing view on our first morning in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

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Besides the view, I was also greeted by a giant dragonfly. This thing was as big as my foot. I was scared to go out on the balcony at first. This would be the first of many creatures we’d encounter during our vacation.<\/p>\n

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Speaking of creatures, the housekeeper also left us a few surprises in the form of adorable towel animals.<\/p>\n

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As far as surprises go, this was my favorite one.<\/p>\n

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It’s a delicious concoction consisting of ice cream, Kahlua, and coffee.<\/p>\n

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I looked for this lady and the special coffee treat every single morning of our stay. Alas, I guess it was just a Monday morning thing.<\/p>\n

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I had I think two or three glasses. They were yummy!<\/p>\n

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Here are a few pics of the resort property.<\/p>\n

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A few pics of our photogenic group.<\/p>\n

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Brian and me, at the pool.<\/p>\n

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This black and white one is one of our faves.<\/p>\n

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Here’s a selfie we took before dinner that night.<\/p>\n

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We took multiple dinner selfies. I liked that we got together for dinner every night.<\/p>\n

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Although, I think we forgot to take one at the Japanese restaurant on our first night. It was a favorite of several people in our group but Brian was not a fan. We actually hit the buffet on our way back to our room so Brian could eat something.<\/p>\n

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We liked the Italian restaurant much better.<\/p>\n

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The first table selfie we took was without Reniece and Marc (at the end of the table). This one has our entire group.<\/p>\n

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This is the first of many food pictures you’re about to see.<\/p>\n

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The next morning was the day of our Arenal boat tour, hanging bridges, and hot springs adventure. We woke up super early.<\/p>\n

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Here’s Brian getting his coffee fix. You know he can’t function without it.<\/p>\n

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The breakfast buffet opened a bit before seven so we were able to grab a quick breakfast before getting on our tour bus.<\/p>\n

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Brian packed some bread to go — because you never know. We didn’t expect to return to the resort until eight o’clock that evening and we wanted to be prepared. The tour included lunch and dinner but we wanted to be prepared for anything. We didn’t want to go hungry.<\/p>\n

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Here’s a selfie we took aboard the nice tour bus with a nice photo-bomb courtesy of Marc. A much better one follows.<\/p>\n

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This next one has Jay, Marc, and Reniece behind us, with Justin and Tina taking their own selfie in the back row.<\/p>\n

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Here’s one with Becca in it too, and with Justin and Tina looking at the camera this time. We are missing Kirk and Alicia because they wanted to sit up front instead of at the back of the bus with the cool kids.<\/p>\n

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This was a very nice tour bus. It was fully air-conditioned with big picture windows and its own bathroom.<\/p>\n

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Brian at the Swiss Travel office where we picked up two more couples who were staying at other resorts. It was also a bathroom break before we embarked on our long ride to Lake Arenal.<\/p>\n

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Quick selfie at the wind farm on the way to Lake Arenal.<\/p>\n

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We made another pit stop at this lakeside restaurant along the way because the bus ended up getting a flat tire.<\/p>\n

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We got to enjoy this beautiful view as we waited for them to replace the tire. I never would have guessed this was in store for us from looking at the restaurant’s facade.<\/p>\n

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Besides the fabulous view (see the two selfies above), I really liked how authentic this restaurant felt.<\/p>\n

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After the tire was replaced, it was time to go to the actual restaurant<\/a> where we were scheduled to have our lunch. The food was delicious but the atmosphere was not nearly as cool as the first restaurant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Pictures of our lunch follow.<\/p>\n

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I’m not sure what this dessert is called but it was amazing. It was, hands down, my favorite part of our meal.<\/p>\n

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Tina and I took some fun pics across the street after lunch.<\/p>\n

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Then it was time for our boat tour.<\/p>\n

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Here’s another creature we encountered. They called them caimans.<\/p>\n

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Here’s a picture of us trying to get a selfie with one of the caimans in the background. The next one is just a regular selfie.<\/p>\n

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We lucked out that it wasn’t too cloudy that day. Our tour guy told us that there are some days that it’s so cloudy you can’t see the volcano, which is sad because it’s kind of the whole point of the boat tour.<\/p>\n

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Here’s a pic of me and Brian with Arenal Volcano in the background.<\/p>\n

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Here’s a selfie of me with Jay in the background.<\/p>\n

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And a final one that we took after our boat tour.<\/p>\n

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Our next stop was Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges Park, which also offered great views of Arenal Volcano from high up in the jungle canopy.<\/p>\n

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We hiked about two miles and walked across 16 hanging bridges.<\/p>\n

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Taking a few selfies along the way.<\/p>\n

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Our final adventure of the day was Titoku hot springs.<\/p>\n

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It was a nice, relaxing finish to a full day.<\/p>\n

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After lounging at the hot springs, our tour guide took us to Heliconias Restaurant<\/a> at Kioro Suites and Spa for a buffet dinner. It was already dark by the time we got there. I wish we could have gotten there when it was still light out because the restaurant has great views of the volcano. The resort property looked nice also but we couldn’t fully appreciate it since it was dark out.<\/p>\n

After dinner we still had a 3 hour ride back to our hotel. It was past eleven o’clock at night when we got back. It was a 16-hour day altogether. At dinner we talked about having some drinks when we got back to the resort but we were all so beat when we got back we all just retired to our rooms. There was plenty more drinking and adventuring to be had the next day and the rest of the week.<\/p>\n

To be continued…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woke up to this amazing view on our first morning in Costa Rica. Besides the view, I was also greeted by a giant dragonfly. This thing was as big as my foot. I was scared to go out on the balcony at first. This would be the first of many creatures we’d encounter during our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[3151,191,2488,1440],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20739"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20779,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20739\/revisions\/20779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}