Now I'm sad to say, I'm on my way. I won't be back for many a day- Jamaica Farewell

Today Kayla and I woke up early  so we could hike to the La Fortuna waterfall. When we got to the park, we were the first ones to enter for the day.  We made it down the countless stairs in record time and only stopped to take in the surrounding beauty. We spent a little time at the bottom looking at the falls and bird watching from the basin. After about 15 minutes we got the courage to take on the stairs again. Seriously, there were so many!

Just a small portion of the stairs.

Kayla and I then grabbed a quick cup of iced coffee and breakfast before heading back to the Tabacon Resort. We quickly packed up the room and headed to the hot springs for one last time before our long trip to San Jose.

After 2 hours of lounging around, we decided to take the scenic route around Lake Arenal towards San Jose. Our only flaw was not realizing that this route added about 2.5 hours onto our trip… We actually were only 1 hour away from Costa de Oro. This unfortunately made us arrive to San Jose well past dark . Anyone who has been to Costa Rica knows maneuvering through the capitol during the day is incredibly hard, but at night it is so much worse. Luckily, my parents were able to book us a hotel just outside the city and very close to the airport. When we arrived, I discovered it was the first hotel I had stayed at in Costa Rica 15 years earlier. It was fun to see how much it had changed.

Coati

A group of coatis we found on the drive home.

Congo monkey also know as a howler monkey

Howler monkey 

Well off to bed, I have a long day of flying tomorrow, but I can't wait to be back in the USA!!

Christmas tree at the hotel.

Tree Top Flyer

Once again Kayla and I were on shuttle by 8AM and we made it back to Arenal by noon. However, while on our journey we made friends with a great couple from Ohio and we showed them around La Fortuna. After we were kindly treated to lunch, we brought them up to Tabacon Resort and we headed down to find a more reasonable priced location to see the hot springs.

Kayla and I checked out 3 different resorts before deciding to return once again to Tabacon and see what kind of price we could get. We ended up securing a room for another fabulous price and headed out to Ecoglide to do some ziplining. I had a blast seeing the volcano, while flying through the canopy and it was a blast talking with the same group of guides that had taken my family out just 2 months earlier.

Kayla enjoying the zipline

Me, getting ready to jump/ fall on the Tarzan swing.

Once we had finished our treetop flying, we headed to a great steak place and grabbed some food to go and headed back to our luxury hotel. We ate our meal ever so romantically since we were wearing the" His and Hers "matching bathrobes and slippers provided by the hotel. Then finally we made it to the hot springs.

We enjoyed the hot water from many different pools and only called it quits when our feet became too prune-y to walk. We returned to the hotel to get some beauty sleep before our long day of waterfall hiking, hot spring enjoying before  driving back to San Jose.

Gypsies in the Palace

Park entrance.

First glimpse of the Blue River

This morning we started our morning early with an American breakfast of coffee, eggs, bacon and toast before we headed out on our hike. Joe began our tour at the Blue River Estates' lots. We walked around a little getting our baring of the beautiful scenery, before heading down to the Blue River National Park.

The waterfall.

 Upon entering the park, we were met with the sounds of the jungle and a few critters. It was beautiful! We continued our tour towards the sound of the river. The river was an amazing blue color. The most incredible part of the river was where two waterfalls from either side of the river joined the main river at the exact same spot.

After we finished the tour, we did one more walk though the butterfly and hummingbird gardens. By noon, we were on the road towards a friends farm. We decided to save some time by taking the back road. Once again we only had one mishap, the original hotel we planed on using didn't receive our reservation. So we headed towards Rio Celeste.

It only took another 2 hours, but it was an adventure, like most things in Costa Rica, because we had no idea where we were going. We ended up finding a sign for the Rio Celeste Hideaway Hotel, which we navigated towards for over 40km.

Bridge with just 2 sturdy pieces of wood.
Lining tires up is a must!

Look its the female version of Ready,
but Ready was cuter!

We crossed so many rivers, including one without a bridge.
I held my breath in fear that I might be the 2nd person in my family to sink a  Costa Rican rental car.

We could see Nicaragua for most of our drive.

When we arrived to the town of Rio Celeste, we checked out two hotels before arriving at the Hideaway.  We pulled into a gated hotel and Kayla and I looked at each other with wide eyes, knowing we were way out of our price range. We had no intention of staying in fancy 4 star hotels for the whole trip, but luckily and against better judgment, we decided to check the price. We ended up hitting it off with the staff and they gave us an astounding deal that we couldn't pass up.

We were lead to our stunning room and right then we told the staff we would be staying a second night. Our room was equipped with 2 large beds, a balcony looking out into the jungle, a jacuzzi tub and an outdoor shower with HOT WATER!!!

Our fancy room

Our outdoor shower.

During dinner we went with the When in Rome philosophy  and decided to go big and eat in the hotel which ended up being a great decision. Our waiter has the day off tomorrow and offered to take us to see snapping turtles. We finished out luxury night with a trip to the hot tub and borrowed the movie Midnight in Paris from the front desk.

Hot Water

Today we had to say goodbye to Costa de Oro and begin our adventure. At 5:15 AM Alvaro came and picked up Kayla and took her to Hotel Laguna Mar. I was still trying to put the last things in order when Alvaro returned to get me.  When we arrived to the hotel,  Drew was waiting for us with some much needed coffee.

Bill and Audrey, pulled up to the hotel fifteen past six and we loaded the car up. We went for a quick drive to Liberia, with just one stop at the Do-It Center. After Bill and Audrey got all sorts of things for the house, we were dropped off at the car rental place. We thanked Bill and Audrey  for the ride and went to get our car.

As in everything in Costa Rica, the car rental took a little longer than expected and we even had to switch car companies because the first tried to rent us a Sedan by saying "there are no bad roads in Costa Rica." We finally ended up in a mini SUV which we know will better fit our needs.

One of our beautiful views along the drive.

Our first glimpse at the Blue River.

Thanks to Drew, we had our first hotel planned in Blue River, which was a place I had never seen. So after only one wrong turn and an hour and a half later of beautiful driving we crossed the Blue River. Of course, we stopped at it to take some photos. While taking the pictures, I stepped back into river and was surprised to find it was hot! We admired the beauty of the river and its unique color then once again, we climbed into the car. 

Only 100 meters past the river, we found the turn in for the resort. When we got there they gave us a map of the place which included a butterfly farm, hummingbird garden, sauna, hot springs, and a mud bath. Kayla and I decided there was no time to waste because we had so much to do, but first we needed to unpack the car.

Our room's private porch.

Huge bathroom!

And our really comfy beds...

When we arrived in the room, we couldn't believe how big it was. There was a great hammock on the front porch and two queen beds. When we turned the corner for the bathroom, the shower was almost the same size of my room I had been living in in Costa de Oro. Once we had thoroughly investigated our room, we quickly changed into our suits in search of the mud bath.

Our search begin at the spa, where we saw the special $1/ minute for massage. With this we were torn… Massage or mud bath first. We went with the mud bath since it was so warm outside, we felt the mud would feel best. The way one takes a mud bath is to first soak in the sauna for 20 minutes and then lather up in mud. Once the mud is dry then rinse in cold water. Only Kayla and I learned we are far too impatient for the full treatment and after only 5 minutes we were over the sauna and moved on to putting mud on. The mud was cool, but we quickly covered ourselves with the volcanic mud. We rinsed just as quickly, finding the water not to be cold, but the same temperature that we had grown accustomed to in Costa de Oro.

We made a run for the hot tub only to find we took a wrong turn in the garden and ended up in the butterfly enclosure. As we entered the tent we were memorized by the number of blue morpho butterflies. Forgetting how cold, we wandered the gardens watching the butterflies. After we couldn't stand the cold any longer, we made our way to the hotsprings. While sitting there, Kayla and I decided we needed at least a ten minute massage since our life on the beach for the last 5 months was so stressful.

Hotel Restaurant.

After a nice massage, hot shower and quick nap, we made our way to restaurant for a quick dinner before calling it an early night. Tomorrow we have an early day a head of us because we are going on a tour of Blue River, Blue River Estates and the waterfall.