What a weekend!

What an amazing weekend! As already mentioned the plan was waterfalls on Saturday and canopying on Sunday. I was not prepared for having SO much fun! We left on Saturday around 10 am. In the rented car were Nellie from Belize (thanks for driving, Nellie!), Aneta from Poland, Paulina from Ecuador, and yours truly.

Left to right: me, Aneta, Nellie, Paulina

Before I continue, I have to say that it pays to take a small backpack wherever you go with a rain poncho or something similar, a warm jacket, and sandals if you’re wearing sneakers and vice-versa. It was really warm when we left Alajuela, but the closer we came to the waterfalls, the colder it got. Once we were there, it started raining, so, some of us got long-sleeved t-shirts, rain ponchos, t-shirts, etc. We spent a really long time in the souvenir shop as they were having a sale and we wanted to take advantage of it.

Also, they were offering free samples of Britt coffee beans dipped in chocolate, some banana chips with salsa dip and delicious coffee. Yum!

Drenched between the leaves

(It took us approximately an hour to get to the La Paz Waterfall Park. The view was amazing the whole way. And when we got there…What a place! I’ve already said pictures don’t show just how gorgeous everything is. Still, I took hundreds of them.)

The La Paz waterfall park is divided into areas such as Butterfly area, Hummingbird area, Snake area, and so on…then you get to the waterfalls, and a shuttle brings you back up. Except my extremely fitness-oriented companions decided to disorient the rest of the guests by taking the down-way up again (instead of the shuttle). It was great exercise, but we got some puzzled (and some angry) looks. Since I had the brilliant idea to wear my new trekking shoes for this occasion, I got blisters about half way to the waterfalls. Really great!

This is an artistic picture Paulina took of me almost under the waterfall...it looks kinda surreal, this is why I included it.

After walking for hours in the rain, we went to eat at a churrasqueria on the way back to Alajuela. It seems they’re famous for their baked bananas with cheese. And I can see why! Double Yum!

Getting up at 6 am Sunday morning was not fun at all. Most people (there were 150 of us) had partied all night and had just showered and changed clothes before getting on the bus, so it was a quiet ride. We took the same direction as the day before, but we stopped sooner. The place we went to is Las Colinas del Poas. I can highly recommend it for its extremely professional canopy tour as well as for the delicious lunch (fresh trout!).

The canopy tour was something I had been looking forward to doing ever since I found out I got the visa for Costa Rica. It was even fun getting all the gear from the Colinas guys…even the little tutorial was fun. I felt like I could handle it. Then we got on the first platform. Out of 15 people in our group (the first batch) three decided to drop out (as soon as they got the harness on the cable).

Getting hooked up to the harness

I kept going to the back of the line, because I could hear my heart, I was so scared …I could remember being this scared last January in Austria when I was supposed to throw myself down an icy hillside in the middle of the night no light except the moon and stars, on a sled track …on a tiny sled by myself (I had never been on a sled before!)…I figured if I did that, I can do this! Seems a lot safer! Plus, I’ve always finished everything I started…even bad movies and bad books, so I decided to go for it. It was FUN!!!

The only problem was that it had been raining, so the brakes (a leather thing on one of my gloves) did not brake as well as on dry days…this just meant I went faster and had to start braking sooner…still a lot of fun! I even used the brakes so soon, that I had to pull myself by hand (backwards) to one of the platforms for the last couple of meters.

I look like such an expert, don't I?

After all this physical activity, we were driven to San Jose, to a Cabaret. It was a fun show, we laughed a lot …although I really wanted to lie down, like the rest of the group…We finally got home at around 8pm. Shower, dinner and bed!

Like I said, AMAZING weekend!