Costa Rica Day 1

The time had finally come for our long-awaited spring break trip to
COSTA RRRRRRRRRRICA!!

Me, Becca Wilson, and Burke Hatch left Phoenix together on a flight to LAX where we met up with Becca's man, Caleb Clarkson (he came from Utah). Together, we boarded an overnight flight to Liberia, Costa Rica.

The flight was about 5 1/2 hours and full!

Burke's attempt at sleeping on the plane...

...cocoon style!

Liberia is a tiny little airport that probably services 2 or 3 flights a day.

Like our flight from Delta.

Note: If you want to play in the northern part of the country (the beaches and Arenal), this is the airport to fly into, rather than the city. It's much closer to all of that stuff.

We got our bags and waited for the car rental shuttle guy to take us to get our car. That's when I snapped some of these beauties... bound and determined to document EVERY aspect of our trip!

Me and Burke

Becca and Caleb

(Becca's looking how the rest of us felt. Tired & annoyed.)

Well, we got our rental car (... a Hyundai Tuscon 4x4. Yet another necessary part of a successful Costa Rica trip. The roads aren't great and it's takes forever to get somewhere. I can only imagine how much longer things would have taken us if we had to rely on public transportation.) and drove out to our resort in Playa Flamingo:

(Do you like my map? I figured it would help to give a frame of reference...)

We stayed at the Playa Flamingo Resort. Our resort was one of those all inclusive places, although we chose not to have a meal plan.

The pool area

The beach access from the pool

As nice as our hotel was, if I did this again, I wouldn't strap myself to one place. I think the resorts are perfect for people who aren't looking to explore the country on their own... or if they do want to explore, it's in the form of paid tours. Plus they make you wear a wrist band to identify you as a guest and which meal plan you were on... which made it very difficult for Becca & me to sneak Burke & Caleb into our room as unpaid guests. So, the boys had to pay a little extra for their spots. Beware: places like this take statements like "room for two" very seriously.

Remember Becca's face when we first landed? Yep, this one:

Well, we all were feeling this way by the time we got to the resort. So we crashed and rested up for a week full of fun! Once we slowly got up from our naps, we headed out to explore the beach at the resort. The boys found the first of many playgrounds in Costa Rica. I'm not sure if you all know this, but the difference between 10 year old boys and men in their 30s is... well, pretty much nothing. Boys will be boys! And that was evident on this trip!

Exhibit A: a big rock/boulder thingy in the water.

Unfortunately, I missed the photo op when Caleb got
absolutely toppled over by the boulder and a wave.

And, of course, Burke monkeying around.

Literally.

Watching Burke play in the water, especially at sunset, became a daily routine.


Here is our first of seven sunsets:

After sunset, we all got cleaned up and ventured out to find some food. We didn't know the area well at all, so we pretty much stopped at the first place we found open. For those of you who have travelled in Central America, you're probably like me expecting to have huge meals for a couple of dollars. Well, not in Costa Rica. Everything is so Americanized and touristy that we pretty much paid American prices for all of our meals. (Don't worry, we learned quick how to cut our costs by buying food from grocery stores and only eating at real restaurants for dinner.)

Here's our first Costa Rican meal (at $15+ a plate...)

I had the Salmon Fetticini. Yum!

And everyone else had some Sea Bass wrapped around other yummy seafood.

The group shot at dinner:

I'd just like to point out the TV in the background.
And I'd like to point out direction the boys chairs are facing.
And I'd like to point out the happy, niave smiles on mine and Becca's faces.

That was the first at least seven meals that Becca and I spent without any interaction from the boys... TV hounds!

And that, my friends, is Day 1 of our Costa Rican adventure... and I haven't even scratched the surface! I can't wait to share more and more with you!