Day 2 in Costa Rica

Day 2 in Costa Rica started off about the same. We woke up at 6 a.m. and headed down to eat breakfast for the day. We had to leave pretty early because my husband had a whole day set out for us to enjoy. We had chosen to go to Mistico Park, which is a nature reserve on the west side of the volcano past Lake Arenal. On this side you had a more view of lava rocks because this the side where all the lava flow came down. On a side note we are so glad that we chose to rent a car. There is no way we would have been able to do all the things we did if we had to call for a taxi or take a bus everywhere we wanted to go. We chose a combo package to do the Nature History Walk and Spider Monkey Canyon. The total cost of the package was $240. We arrived at Mistico park at 8 a.m. and started our tour of 16 hanging bridges and nature walk tour at 8:30 a.m.

Our tour guides name was Marvin. He was super friendly and was very knowledgeable about all the nature we saw along the way. We learned so many different things while on the tour. We got to see many different flowers, ants, howler monkeys(which were extremely loud, and scary until we realized what it was), and some eyelash vipers, which were surprisingly very small to what I had pictured in my head. (If you look closely in the picture below you can see the green eyelash viper.)

I noticed about 20 minutes in that we were the youngest people there, and that all the other people that were attending the tour seemed to be really interested in every single flower or tree we saw. It was about an hour in when me and my husband decided to part ways with the group and continue on a faster pace. We continued on, and took a bunch of pictures over the hanging bridges which was both our favorite part of the tour.

It took us only about 30 minutes to get back after we left the group. We actually just started walking back really fast at that point so we could get back to the main area to eat and relax before our next event that day. As soon as we got back it was about 11 a.m. and we went straight to their cafeteria. Lunch was included in our package, so that helped. We sat down and ordered the typical, as usual. They also brought us a fruit smoothie that was amazing. You could tell the fruit was fresh. After we ate our lunch we were brought pineapple with some glaze over them, which tasted delicious. At this point during the day, I noticed the lack of caffeine in my body, because even with all this excitement, I almost nodded off a couple times. So I ordered a coke, to help perk me up. As soon as we got done eating which was about 45 minutes later, our group finally showed up. We had been watching out for them for a while.

We got a couple pics in front of the volcano before we returned to the car to change our shoes and recoup, while we were waiting to take a bus to Spider Monkey Canyon. It wasn't leaving till 12:30 so we still had a good 45 minutes. After a few minutes in the car, a employee informed us that our tire was flat. My husband got out and changed it, the employee insisted on helping and actually did most of the work, so my husband gave him a tip for helping. Not even 5 minutes later, the lady parked directly across from us noticed her tire was flat too. It concerned us a little, because it just seemed to be a weird coincidence they were both flat in the same area at the same time. At that point it was time to continue on to the bus to Spider Monkey Canyon, so there wasn't much time to worry.

It was just me, my husband, the driver, and 2 other staff members, on this bus ride. It was an open air bus, and about 3 miles from the main area.

We arrived at this little open building where we changed and were instructed to get all of our gear on, where we would be zip lining and rappelling. I wasn't too nervous about the zip lining but I secretly was nervous of rappelling. Beyond a small rock wall at home, I had never rappelled far down, let alone on the side of a waterfall. But, I listened to the instructions and we moved right along. There was 2 main instructors, and a helper there, to make sure we did everything right. There was a total of 3 other people joining us on this experience, and I'm pretty sure they all worked for Mistico Park in some way. Only the two main instructors spoke english, so there was a lot of giving directions in both english and spanish while we waited to start an activity.

We hiked down a little path and some stairs to our first rappelling site. The drop was a little scary and they had a black tarp where it just slid off the side of a cliff, and a bunch of ropes and lines. This first activity we had to zip line out about halfway until we reached the middle and then rappelled down. We would be hanging above a metal looking deck where one of the instructors were waiting to unhook us and then send the rope back up to the top. We were hooked to an additional safety rope, so that was reassuring. My husband went first, of course he made it look easy, so I didn't really take that into account at all. I was next. After the instructor reminded me one more time how to rappel, I became even more nervous. I remember saying to myself over and over again, keep your right hand by your hip, left hand on rope. Open and close right hand as you go down slowly. The thoughts kept going through my head, I have small hands, what if I can't grip it strong enough, and I just shoot all the way down to the bottom. But out I went. I zip lined straight to the middle like I was supposed to and slowly inched my way down to the platform. It was fun and it wasn't as scary as I thought. When everyone was done we continued our way through the trail to our next descent. This time, we were going to be rappelling down the waterfall, which meant we would get soaked. We did that one and it was so much fun.

We then continued on to a place where there was some sort of plank we had to stand on, and then jump off and out into the water. Its what they called a faith jump. I became pretty fearful, as I don't mind heights if I'm strapped in or moving slowly. But to jump off and land in the water, I was a little nervous. I let a couple people go in front of me, but I finally did, and it was super refreshing and exhilarating. We continued to do a few more activities. We had a couple more rappelling spots and did a short zip-line, which was honestly my favorite. We crossed another hanging bride, which I loved,

and we did one more faith jump. I wasn't as scared the second time.

After finishing all the activities and a long walk back, we were done, and I was exhausted. But it was all worth it. Once we got to our car, we drove back to our resort and hung out by the pool until dinner. This seemed to become a daily afternoon activity we enjoyed. We chose to eat at a Jamaican Restaurant called One Love Bar, and the food was delicious. The waitress there was also awesome and made us a special appetizer to try. Tomorrow was our last day, and we had something pretty cool planned. So after dinner we returned for the night and relaxed until we fell asleep.

Check out my next blog to find out how are 3rd and final day went!


Places we visited:
Mistico Park

Equipment we used:
Gopro hero 5

Restaurant we ate at night #2:
One Love Bar and Rest