Hola Hola Coca-Cola

As we anticipated our trip to Costa Rica I thought about what would be the most stomach wrenching activity. Would it be the rappelling, the white water rafting, the zip lining? No, no, no. It was easily the bus rides that we had to take in between each destination. As we would careen around the mountains narrowly missing dogs, motorcycles, and pedestrians I was waiting for Keanu Reeves to come up through the floor of the bus and deactivate the bomb so that we could reach our next city safely. It never happened but we were able to make it to Arenal, Costa Rica.

My sister, Vanessa, did her due diligence before we left and read up on all of the reviews for our hotels. The review for Arenal de Paraisal informed us that the pool is great...

...except for when the frogs choose to invade at night.

The good thing is we didn't plan to stick around for too long. We took off in the Jungle Limo up the canyon to our rappelling spot.

Al handled the ropes with ease.

While I did my best to keep up.

My mom was able to overcome her vertigo and master the ropes as well. She had several questions prepared for the guides to make sure that they used safety lines, were properly insured, and hadn't had any fatalities. We probably wouldn't have lived with out her.

The locals thought Jack was loco for going down with no hands.

That was until they saw the wisdom of it when Brooke got her glove stuck in the rope about 30 ft in the air.

As fun as the rappelling was, the hiking through the slot canyon was just as fun. We had various pools we had to jump into and swim through, as is demonstrated by the Silver Fox.

The highlight may have been when our guides laid down in the stream to dam up the water and then they let it rip on us!

(click image to view video)

The reason we went to Arenal was to see the volcano.

Unfortunately the lava quit flowing about nine months ago. Good thing Sam and Frodo got there in time. We still had a great time hiking around the old lava trails. The guide taught us about the natural mosquito repellent in some of the plants. It was too little too late for Brooke.

The view of the lake and the volcano made for some great pictures.

After the volcano we soaked in the hot springs. A resort in the area took advantage of the naturally flowing hot water and set up a great climate for us to relax.

This woman was not happy about us sneaking a picture of she and her man, but how could we resist? The dude followed us all the way from shopping in town, to the volcano, to the hot springs, and to dinner.

Arenal was good to us.