Volcano overload and zipline adventures!!

Sunday, March 12

Sunday morning I woke up around 7 a.m. and felt like it seemed like a lot of light was coming in around the curtains… so I jumped out of bed to see if it was CLEAR at the volcano!! And it was!!! I stepped out on our patio to this view:

I proceeded to take 4,276 pictures of the volcano, because I was so excited.

I called for the boys to come look:

I am so thrilled with our hotel and our room. When I booked this (last.. May, I think?), I decided to “upgrade” to the premium rooms that all have volcano views and are super close to both the breakfast restaurant and the pools. The resort is pretty spread out, so many of the “standard” rooms are really really far away. They actually have a shuttle to get people around, but we can literally walk both to breakfast and the pools in about 30 seconds.

Boys were “starving”, so we headed right to breakfast.

View out the other side of our room (opposite the volcano), from the door entrance side:

The breakfast is amazing too!! A huge buffet with so many options. Also, the restaurant is surrounded by the same beautiful foliage. Felt like we ate breakfast in the middle of the rainforest.

After breakfast and lots of fresh fruit, we went to explore the property again now that it was a clear morning. The hotel also has some trails/ a turtle pond, butterfly garden, etc that we hadn’t walked through.

Another gorgeous volcano view:

First we walked through the pools area again.

We walked all over!! We all love this place.

The boys were wishing they could jump in the pools or spas, but we had zip line reservations at 10:30. So, they had to wait a while.

In love with the huge palm trees and flowers everywhere.

Trails:

After the pool and hot springs, we walked all through the trails around the property.

MORE volcano views… I warned you volcano overload….

Saw a ton of cute turtles!!

We needed to leave by 9:45 for ziplining, so around 9 am we went back to the room to get ready. While I showered, the boys played more chess.

Next up… ZIPLINING!!

My original plan hadn’t included this for our very first morning in Costa Rica, but a couple days before the trip I decided to book it. The time slots in general for this week were already filling up, especially the morning times (which is when it seems there is higher likelihood of dry/clear weather). Of the limited morning options left, Sunday worked out best. (I really didn’t want to book a lot in advance, so I could wait and see how things worked out, weather, what we were in the mood for each day, etc, but being high season, I also was mindful of the fact that things could and probably would book up a bit. Meaning, some advance reservations were necessary.

The kids were excited to kick off the week with a bang, anyway. 🙂 It was about a 20 minute drive away.

We checked in and got suited up! It was the four of us- PLUS my 72 year old bad-ass dad who was willing to give it a try. How amazing is he?! I think he was the oldest guy I saw up there. SO proud of him!

Family pic:

Me and my dad:

Me and Ivan ready to go:

After the safety briefing, we rode the tram up! The views were incredible of Lake Arenal below.

Near the first platform, more crazy good views:

First run was a super short “practice” run to learn how to brake, and then a huge one right away for the first real run.

Here is Ivan heading off on the first big one:

There goes my dad!!!

It was SUPER high and you go up to 50 mph. Soooo fun! It wasn’t scary at all.

No pics of me, because I was last! It was exhilarating and a “pinch me” moment, because the views were just breathtaking from up there. I was like, Am I really zooming above the canopy in Costa Rica looking at an active volcano right now?!!

I got a couple closer shots from a good angle of everyone on the longest, fastest run.

Boys getting pushed out onto the line:

None of us had ever ziplined before! The boys LOVED it. So, so cool. It’s kind of a must do in Costa Rica, though of course you can do it other places as well. But this was a pretty awesome set up here. Highly recommend Sky Trek and I think it’s worth the money!

After ziplining we went back to the hotel to swim a bit and have lunch. We had a guided rainforest tour reserved for 3 p.m- spoiler, we saw SLOTHS. Eek!! So amazing. More on that later. Time for bed here. Mornings start early in Costa Rica… the rainforest never seems to sleep. It’s noisy! 🙂