Costa Rica Vacation: Traveling Home

After the long, terrible trip to Costa Rica we were all dreading the bus ride home.  I'm sure everyone was silently praying that there would be no bus issues, and we could make it home in regular time.  Praise the Lord, for the most part we had an uneventful trip through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and most of Honduras.  But...

...Once we were two hours away from home we were supposed to switch buses.  The driver dropped us off at 6:30pm and said the other bus would arrive in 20 minutes to pick us up.  Once the bus left the maid who worked in the 'waiting room' said the bus would arrive at around 11pm!  WHAT?!?  So once again we were stranded in the middle of no where (at least it seemed that way).

We played games to pass the time, watched a movie on someone's computer, and finally curled up on the floor and fell asleep.  Eventually the bus arrived ahead of schedule...10:30.  We were just four hours behind the time we should have gotten home but that was much better than the trip out.

And boy was it GREAT TO BE HOME!!! :-)

Costa Rica Vacation: Playa Langosta

We made it to the beach after several hours squished in the van.  After living at the beach for a few years in Coastal Carolina, Tim and I love beach time.  This was a little different.  There were tons of rocks and more times than not a wave would come and cause injury.   Needless to say, Tim and I didn't spend much time at the beach.  We spent most of the time in our pool. :-)

Yep, this is our beach.  Some areas had more sand but you never knew what you would run into while swimming. 

This is the condo we stayed at with the pool.  That was wonderful!

The only problem is that the bathroom door led out to an 'outside' bathroom.  I couldn't believe it either.  Very strange!

We finally found a part of the beach that didn't have as many rocks but we had to cross this 'river' to get to it.  When the tide started to come up it became much deeper.  At this point it was knee deep. On our way home it was waist deep.

Beautiful sunset view from the roof.

Costa Rica Vacation: Leaving Arenal

As we were leaving Arenal to head to the beach, we decided to take a group photo with the beautiful lake behind us.  With all the fancy cameras we set one up with a timer to take three photos.  The group decided that the first one would be a good picture, then for the next two we could do what we wanted.  It doesn't always happen as you plan but these are the best photos we got the whole trip!! :-)

Christa (the one laying in the fountain) set the timer and ran to join us.  She decided to step into the 'empty' fountain to stand by me but slipped and grabbed the bottom layer so she wouldn't hit her head.  My favorite part is everyone but the two guys realize what's happening or felt strongly about having a good first picture. 

The words at this point from Joe (the one in the brown shirt)... "Hey, we got this on camera!"

Finally more help is arriving, we got the fountain put back in place. Christa and I changed our wet clothes, and everyone ran to the van to get away before anyone found out what happened.

We have laughed so much after looking at these pictures.  It truly would not have been as funny without seeing everyone's expressions.

Costa Rica Vacation: Arenal Hanging Bridges & Zip-lining

We were able to do a couple fun activities while visiting at the volcano.  The hanging bridges hike was beautiful.  There were about 12 bridges with gorgeous views as we went.   Afterward, we went straight to the zip-lining area.  There was a Tarzan swing in the middle of the zip-lines we got to try out.  We had a great time!

So after we had crossed a couple bridges as a group we found this sign. hahaha

View from one of the bridges. 

Picture taken as I'm Zip-Lining.

This is the Tarzan jump and when they wanted us to stop swinging they would grab our legs.  That was painful because we were flying!

Costa Rica Vacation: Arenal Volcano

As a group we rented a van so we could have easy transportation from one area to the other.  Our first stop was at the Arenal Volcano.  The electricity in the houses we were supposed to rent was being worked on so the realtor set us up at another location.  We were all shocked and amazed at our new spot!  Here are few pictures.

This is the community pool.  Under the roof is the large hot tub!

This is the view behind the hot tub and community pool.  :-)

There were so many beautiful plants.

Things just kept getting better.  This was the 'main' house we had with our own personal pool, kitchen, and living room.

Beautiful sunset from our personal pool area.

Tim and I got this large bedroom in the second house.

Everything was so beautiful...this is the sink area of the bathroom.

This is the front of the house Tim and I stayed.

Here is the community pool again with the lake view in the background.

Costa Rica Vacation: San Jose

We finally arrived in San Jose!  This was going to be our first stop so we could rest in a real bed over night.

We went out to dinner then did a little site seeing. 

Costa Rica Vacation - Boarders

March 12 - April 1, 2012
We were informed before the trip began that the stops at the boarders could take up to an hour and we would have to pay a boarder tax. 

First boarder leaving Honduras and heading into Nicaragua took about an hour and cost about $14 per person.  This met our expectations.

On the Nicaragua side we saw a few friends from school stuck there with a broken down bus.  Been there!

Second boarder leaving Nicaragua and heading into Costa Rica was a totally different story.  We arrived around midnight so most of us were drifting in and out of sleep.  The boarder tax was $4 so that was a good surprise.  BUT when we got through Nicaragua and had to go through the line on the Costa Rica side we found out the boarder closed at 12:00am.  We were just a few minutes too late.

So guess what that meant??  We had to spend the night on the bus until 5 AM so we could get back in line when the boarder opened at 6 AM. 

Here we are still smiling even after the first break down and the over night in the bus.

So we were very excited to have made it through the line and ready to head down the road by 7 AM. 

Problem number 2: The computer system broke down and we couldn't get the paper work for the bus to travel through Costa Rica.  It was estimated that it would take 4 to 6 hours to fix but Praise the Lord we got our paper around 9 AM and finally headed down the road.  We were hungry and tired by this point.

Our trip had a rough start.  We were all a little worried at this point if we would get to enjoy ourselves.

Update coming soon...

Costa Rica Vacation...This is just the beginning.

March 31, 2012
The beginning of our trip was exciting when we realized we were sitting on the top of the Double Decker bus. :-)

But an hour later things changed...

We were broken down on the side of the road for four hours! 

 

Then finally another bus came to pick us up. 

More to come...stay tuned! :-)