Costa Rica Day 2: Happy Birthday Kira!

7:15am

This morning we woke up to all kinds of birds and jungle noises. With the sun and noise, we couldn’t sleep past 6am. We packed pop tarts in our suitcase for breakfast this morning so the kids are gorging on pop tarts and Swedish fish. Probably time for a little trip to the market. It’s 7:15am and the kids have already swam for nearly an hour. We’ve explored the property and watched birds. I’m sitting under the covered patio while it just started pouring rain. This is awesome!

6:30pm

Long, good day. I’m ready for bed already and it’s only 6:30pm!

We started the morning at the Arenal hanging bridges, a nature preserve with a 2 mile trail through the jungle with suspension bridges that let you walk through different levels of the rainforest. Within the first 5 minutes we saw a coati in a tree from the first suspension bridge. To help keep the kids motivated and engaged on the hike, Jeff made up a game where whoever spotted something interesting or alive would get a swedish fish. The kids spotted leaf cutter ants, a strawberry poison dart frog,  a small poisonous snake (the guided tour ahead of us showed us where it was and told us it was very poisonous but I can’t remember the name. It was only about 8-10 inches long), a troop of howler monkeys, a large coati running across the lawn, and a toucan. Not bad for our first day in country!

Next we stopped off at Ecoglide Arenal Park to check out the zip lines. We were the only customers there so we decided to go ahead and do the canopy tour before lunch since they told us it would be a bad idea to do it on a full stomach. While Jeff and I filled out some paperwork and set up the tour, the kids played soccer on the small field in front of the office with a bamboo soccer goal. We brought a soccer ball and pump and bought another ball while we've been here and Calvin had Isaac have been juggling non-stop! The canopy tour had 13 zip lines and a tarzan swing. It was so much fun! Mikey was too small to go by himself. They said he didn't weigh enough and would get stuck in the middle of the ziplines so he clipped in with Ronald on each platform. Kate was so brave and after the first time wasn't scared at all! We all loved it! About half way through, we stopped off at the Tarzan swing. Mikey volunteered to go first. He was crazy brave! He didn't even flinch. It was crazy! While the rest of us were waiting at the bottom watching the next person swing, Mikey hiked back up to the top and asked to do it again. They said YES and Mikey got to twice!

The guys at Ecoglide (Ronald, Diego, William and Jairo) recommended Soda Visquez in downtown La Fortuna for an authentic Costa Rican lunch. The restaurant was small and clean and the watiress was super friendly. The kids split some nachos and tried the buffet. Jeff and I had the Casados, a typical Costa Rican "plate lunch" with grilled chicken (or other meat), rice and beans, beet salad, fresh salsa, etc. We had pina-coco and mango batidas (shakes made with water and fresh fruit). It's probably safe to say the kids like the ice cream variety better. :)

After lunch we stopped off at a supermercado across the street and got some groceries and helados for the kids. The kids sat on the curb and ate their ice cream as fast as they could before the sun melted it. We headed home to swim, had fruit loops and mac and cheese for dinner. (Jeff insisted that we pack boxes of macaroni and cheese. I thought it was ridiculous but it actually did come in pretty handy tonight). We played soccer in the yard and watched Frozen for Kira's birthday. Before bed we went night swimming while the fireflies flitted about in the trees surrounding the pool. Pretty amazing!