Adventures in Costa Rica
By Brooke
Over Christmas and New Years my family and I went to Costa Rica. It has to of been my favourite place we’ve traveled to. When we went there, we spent a week doing touristy, stuff then another week and a little bit at resorts.
Our flight to get there was a complete mess. We had already driven to Winnipeg the night before so we could get some sleep instead of pulling an all-nighter. We had to wake up at three in the morning to go to the airport. We got on our first flight at 5 am, which was our connecting flight to Toronto. We would then stay there for a-hour-and-a-half layover.then from there down to Libera. Except that’s not what happened.
When we got onto the plane, we had an hour delay of us just sitting there on the tarmac because they loaded our bags onto the wrong plane. When I tell you we ran off our plane when it landed, we ran! By the time we got to our gate in the Toronto Airport, the doors were still open, but everyone was already boarded. We showed the lady at the desk our tickets to get on, but she said they had already sold off our tickets because there was no way they could get our bags onto the plane intime for take off. They told us that the next flight to Libera was for tomorrow afternoon. That would mean we would of lost two days off of our trip.
So, we went over to West Jets guest help area for my parents to ask about flights. I’m not too sure what happened because I took a nap on a couch there. I was then awoken to my parents saying we have to go wait for our flight elsewhere. Turns out there was a flight to San Jose at 4:30 that afternoon. There was room for us on this flight, so even though it was to the wrong side of the country that we were planning on starting at, we still went anyways.
We sat in the airport from 9am to 4:30pm; it was extremely boring. I couldn’t even take a nap because there was so much noise and yelling due to the world cup being on every single tv.
We landed in San Jose at 10pm. From the airport we took a shuttle to Aquigle. This is where we spent our first night. We were all tired and hungry, so we ordered food even though we had little to no idea what we were ordering, besides from what we could make out from the pictures. Turns out they deliver food on bikes there, so all our drinks spilled in the bag causing the bag to rip in the middle of the lobby. Lucky for us the guy at the check in was really nice and helped us. Overall we had a really rough time getting down there but we were, and we were beyond happy.
Our first day there we had to take a shuttle back to the airport to get a rental car. We went to Walmart, which was very conveniently right beside our hotel to get food, drinks and other necessities that we didn’t pack with us. Once our shopping was done we went on a hour drive to Jaco. Jaco is where we generally stayed for our week wondering around. For the first day we just kind of walked around and got the lay of the town down. My dad and brother did think it was too hot and ended up going for a swim in the water.
On the main street area there were many resturants along the road which I thought was pretty cool because they were only three walls and at the most five tables. It’s not something you really see here everyday. We did end up eating at one of these restaurants but we weren’t feeling very adventurous, and by “we” I mean my brother. So, we just ended up eating at some famous burger place that had some pretty crazy items on the menu.
During our stay in Jaco we did a lot of cools things, we also traveled a few hours from there to go to Manieul Antonio. On the way there we stopped at a market where you could get about 10 bananas for a Canadian dollar. We ended up loading my backpack with bananas to feed the monkeys in the park. Turns out your not supposed to do that.
When we walked up to the park entrance there were signs saying no food and people checking your bags. The one guy waved me over to check my bag and I must of looked like I saw a ghost. I was panicking my little bum off not wanting to go to Costa Rican jail. I said to my mom “ We got to go” and boogied my way back down the descending road. After we got back and put our stuff back in the car. We went back into the park and went on the long walk to the beach. We stayed there and swam for a few hours, these hours were painful. I love the ocean, especially the waves, but man do they hurt. I came out there with so many bruises and sand everywhere. The current was sp strong that if it got you good you would be pushed 20 feet up the shore. I’m pretty sure my dad fed the fish twice and my brother once.
We did a few tours while we were there. My favourite one has to be the ATV tour and sports fishing. On the ATV tour, our guide went on a little four wheeler then we followed him on a ranger. We went up a mountain on the quads and it was absolutely beautiful. It was an extremely different sight compared to mud, bush, and dust. Our guide Pablo took us through little villages on the mountain and down trails with waterfalls.
When we went deep sea fishing, or sports fishing, we had a really good day with eight fish in the boat. The only fish that were caught was Mahi Mahi. We’ve never been deep sea fishing before so when the first fish got brought into the boat and the guide pulled out a spear to quickly stab him, we were all a little more than surprised. Blood splattered everywhere, and I mean everywhere.
During our 12 hours on the ocean we saw a lot of wildlife. There were millions of sea turtles floating on the tops of the water because it was mating season. We also saw two pods of dolphins. That was probably my favourite because they were jumping out of the water all around the boat. My brother ended up getting sea sick twice, which was pretty funny to me. My laughing was cut short from a slap on the back of the head though.
One of my favourite things we did while we were there was when we drove a little over two hours north into the jungle. We went to this resort by Playa Biesanz because my dad found out monkeys would come out from the jungle in the morning and raid the hotel. They were not wrong. 5 am in the morning I was up and so were the monkeys. They were banging on windows, doors, throwing tables that were on balconies, stealing food, and screaming their little hearts out. I loved it. My dad did get chased by monkeys in the stairwell though. That’s pretty funny.
Overall, I had an amazing time, and I loved the experience I go to have there. When I’m older Costa Rica is definitely a place I’m going to want to travel too again.