Thursday, March 3, 2011

tamarindo costa rica travel guide: part 3












in the last part of my costa rica travel guide series, i wanted to tell you what we did and what we saw. costa rica is so beautiful. part of it's mystery and the experience is just observing the wild life. i felt like my dear friend jodi, always on the look out. we saw some amazing birds and i was able to find a family of howler monkeys with the help of the hotel's gardener. i was waking up really early every morning, so i would just go sit by the pool and one morning i heard this crazy howling sound and was able to sign my way through getting him to take me to see the monkeys (rosetta stone anyone?). we also saw iguanas all over the place, which reminded me of our friends abbey and jamie who had one growing up. i was so jealous that they got to have one!

we only did one excursion because most of them required a min of 2.5 hour drive time each way. because we were only staying for five days, we didn't want to waste a large portion of it traveling. i really wanted to see the arenal volcano or the monteverde cloud forest. next time. we did however take an atv tour to a canopy tour, which was really awesome and way more fun than i thought it would be. anyone who knows me knows that my grandparents have four-wheelers (as we call them) and i am pretty afraid of them. i was riding one when i was little and pushed the gas instead of the break and it turned in to a two-wheeler with me on my back. sam drove and it was a dusty wild ride to an amazing zip-lining course. i was pretty deathly afraid at first but after a while soaring over the incredible forest felt kind of normal and great. ok maybe not normal, but i did it! yay.

my favorite thing we did was just discover the beaches and watch the surfers. i could sit on the sand with a cold drink and watch surfers all day long. sam and erik took a surf lesson from pedro who they met walking around the city. he was so amazing. both of the boys got up and tore up some waves. they were exhausted after. sam really cut up his foot too so i was glad we saved the surfing for the last day. i had my little blue crush moment with the board. that was enough for me!

i feel a longing in my heart to be in costa rica right now, only this time with matilda. i wanted to share everything i saw with her. there were dogs everywhere, so chill with no collars. there were playgrounds at every restaurant and big hammock swings and i could just see her loving every second as much as we did!

now, where to go next...

9 comments:

erin said...

so we all know how important the health part of eating clean and well is (and we like to think that's all we care about :) ) but i have to say- for vanity's sake- you are quite the motivation 'cause daaaaaaammmn. i mean- (and it's weird saying this since i don't actually know you but as a blog-follower...)you've always been absolutely gorgeous and i never noticed any extra weight really but now... holy moly, you can't not notice the hotness. way to go!

Lesley said...

dear erin,

you just made my month. wait year.

love,

lesley

blueeyedfreckle said...

amen to what erin said girl! you looks SO FREAKING SKINNY in that bathing suit! and its not even black!!! (That's what I always wear for slimness-sake).

and next time you go to costa rica you DEFINITELY need to go white water rafting on the paquare river!!! that was by far my absolute favorite thing in costa rica.

I am jealous of all the lazy beach time you had! ahhh I want to do that so bad!

BlueEyedYonder said...

Here's to you hot mamma! And I just had to say, I felt the same way about Costa Rica... I wanted my family to be able to visit there with me. It's an experience you're just dying to share with others.

On your next trip, you have to check out Arenal - Awesome. I liked Monteverde, but it was more on the cloudy, drizzly side - a bit gloomy. We did the zipline in Monteverde. It was pretty scary. On one of the lines we actually climbed up a cell tower looking thing on top of a mountain and zipped over the valley to another mountaintop - UGH! Insane. There were literally clouds beneath us!

Natalie said...

You look great! Loving the pink bathing suit!

I'm so glad you guys had a great trip. xo

carrie beth said...

i am absolutely loving this recap of your trip. just a couple of years ago i studied abroad in costa rica for 3 months to learn spanish. tamarindo was the first beach i went to while i was there, so the memories are all coming back :) you most definitely will want to see arenal and monteverde one day. it's magical! thanks for sharing your vacation with us!

Anonymous said...

ahhh...!
wonderful pictures. That's a shame for excursions but i do understand that you didn't to waist time by travelling so long...
Anyway, you make me fell "OOHH Gosh, I have to go there !"...wild life looks amazing.
love you,
isa
ps : As everybody, I love your pink bathing suit !

Anonymous said...

I agree, you look great! Wondering where you got that cute sun hat from though.

Lesley said...

re: anonymous
thank you! it's from jcrew.