Who knew?
Aidan and I chilled and drank our crappy instant coffee, that Janet ingeniously brought, along with big baggie full of white powder suspiciously labeled "COFFEE CREAMER", and sat out on the lawn chairs next to the pool. I could've sat and not done anything the entire day but Janet and Heather were wanting to go and check things out in the daytime.
We dragged our feet about it but eventually got our shit together and walked into town.
The rest of the day was a feast of mayonnaise covered tacos, fireball shots, giant fishbowl margaritas and oddly enough, a 2 hour long conversation about consensual sex. I know, we really know how to party.
I was scared that she would get snatched up in the riptide and sucked out to sea, with me standing helplessly on shore, then I watched her bounce up and yell, "I got sand in my hair!" and we both realized she had gracefully dived into 2 feet of water. My inept Baywatch skills could be saved for another day. Thank goodness.
We ate spaghetti and were all in bed by 9:30.
Again, party animals.
We walked in the strangling humidity for what felt like an hour, but was more like 10 minutes, to meet our driver at the good ole Hard Rock Cafe in town. We were early so we sat and waited for a bit and watched these super athletic, gorgeous Costa Rican women do cross fit in the blazing heat. Heather shouted casually, "Good job!" as each of the women ran past us. Janet and I shrank back and pretended we weren't with her.
Our driver was this super awesome guy, Byron, who told us all about living in Coco, his home life, how their health insurance works (its free for women, children, people over 50 and men who can explain why they need it) also how their education system works and government in general. I loved that he was willing to chat with us openly about his views on the policies and really just how things worked. It gives us, as Americans a different perspective on things, things we could do better with that could really benefit everyone.
As we were all having this really meaningful conversation and getting to know Byron, not just as our driver, but as a person we all shouted, "Holy shit! Whats that huge thing crossing the road!"
"Oh, thats a raccoon."
Oh.
Well, raccoons in the jungle in Costa Rica look way different than ours here in the PNW, I need everyone to know that.
Byron dropped us off at the shuttle entrance to Diamonte where we caught a bus and rode it up to the welcome center.
When were waiting for our bus take us to the center, we kept hearing jets taking off.
This was noted as odd because we werent near the airport.
We looked up and realized that was the sound of the damn zip line. It was a huge line across the sky, a million miles up with tiny little dot people literally flying across it.
Charlie looked and me and immediately stated, "Nope, not for me."
We all agreed, except for Aidan who was quivering with joy and adrenaline.
We paid $98 US per person for the all day which included 5 ziplines, a 30 foot free fall, suspension bridge walk over crocodiles and access to the beach (which included SUP boards and a hammock beach) the animal park and a buffet lunch.
It was a freaking screaming deal, I couldnt believe it.
Oh and the best part?
We were there with like, 3 other people!
This place was literally Jurassic Park with ziplines and no dinosaurs and we had it all to ourselves!
We were ushered over to the area where they have lockers, I had to put my phone in there as we weren't allowed to have anything in our pockets for reasons that I totally understood, but that means I didnt get any pictures. Bummer. We were all weighed, in kilos thank God, and marked with our weight on our wristbands. We then stood there while a band of workers suited us up into the most uncomfortable outfit I've ever worn.
It's like wearing weird super tight leiderhossen that really accentuates all your best physical attributes. We were given helmets and gloves and ushered over to the started zipline. The lead safety zipliner guy gave us a speech on proper technique and the few positions we needed to be in to either slow ourselves down or speed up. We didn't have to operate any breaks which was great because if that was part of it, I certainly wouldn't have done it. I need to not do anything or I woud've gotten way flustered and probably gotten stuck out in the middle.
No thanks.
I still wasn't super excited about ziplining, but I figured I had paid, so I could just try it.
We all lined up and Heather went before me.
I mentioned to the guy strapping us in that it was Heather's birthday excursion and this was what she had wanted to do from the get-go.
He pushed her off and yelled "Happy Birthday!"
Next it was my turn, I looked over and Charlie was being strapped in next to me.
He yelled, "You ready babe!" with an excited grin on his face.
The guy strapping me in asked me the same thing.
"Meh." Was my response
He pushed me off and as I was flying over the treetops, I thought to myself, "I guess this is ok."
Then I came in way too hot and really got my adrenaline going.
I was unstrapped and as I was walking off and Janet was sailing in behind me, I looked over the side of the platform and Aidan was rubbing Heather's back as she was bent over, possibly dry heaving.
What the hell is happening? That was just the baby one!
We all piled into the glorified golf cart with 3 other couples and they let us know we were on our way up to Super Man, the longest zipline in Costa Rica with 1 minute and 30 seconds of zipping at speeds of up to 60 MPH and the only zipline with a view of the jungle canopy and the ocean.
Woah.
Heather stated she knew her limits and was off to pump and relax on the balcony at the Welcome Center.
I thought to myself Super Man was probably not that big of a deal and I paid for it and I could always have them take me back down, it wasn't that big of a deal.
We climbed at super slow speeds for about 15 minutes up a literal 90 degree hill. How this open air mini bus didnt just fall backwards I have no idea, but we somehow managed to cling onto the side of this giant cliff face and eventually rounded the corner to the platform that the longest zipline was proudly on top of.
Hmmm.
We're pretty far up here.
I'm not afraid of heights necessarily, but lets just say when I see pictures of people doing yoga poses on the side of a cliff I want to shout at them to get down because your instagram likes arent worth the horrific death via falling.
Also, may I reiterate that this was Heathers glorious wish and the reason we were at the park in the first place. She was all about the ziplining but somehow I'm up here, sweating through my entire outfit, on the verge of a panic attack trying to practice my ujjayi breathing with 3 grinning losers Janet, Charlie and Aidan but no fucking Heather.
No.
She's down there open air manually breast pumping chatting up the owner of the park in the shade, drinking as much icy cold guava juice as she can handle.
What the hell??
There are a few couples ahead of us and they're all giggling and having a great time, pretending to be nervous and its really cute and whatever and then they give us these roll up stiff thick yoga mat things.
We're going to be strapped to these on our bellies with our hands grasped behind our backs?
What in the name of God am I doing?
I'm really trying to keep it together at this point.
I watch the first couple get strapped in and shoved off, then the next one.
Janet decides to give me a little encouragement. I think she could sense by my abnormal quietness that I was about to lose my shit.
"Hey Sara I'm really proud of you." She gives me a genuine encouraging smile.
"Yeah, me too babe. I cant wait to go on this with you." Charlie also gives me a genuine encouraging smile.
I fire back with, "Why!? You know Im just not that into this. I really didnt even want to. Im not scared of falling off or anything. These guys are super safe and know what theyre doing. This is just not even in my wheelhouse of want. I could really take or leave this."
Janet and Charlie both look at eachother.
"Woah. You're being super transparent right."
"We can see right through this whole scenario you're putting up."
"Reading you like a book."
I then proceeded to watch Janet and Aidan walk up and get strapped in. He pushed Aidan off to his impending death and I finally piped up.
"You're going to have to send a truck up to get me because I'm not doing this."
He casaully looked at me and then sent Janet on her way to certain doom.
Charlie was now getting strapped in and he glanced back my way and shouted more encouraging words.
Not one of the 6 guys that worked there even acknlowdged that I had said anything.
As I watched Charlie get into position on his belly, a thought that I learned in Yoga Teacher Training came to me: all suffering is temporary. If you can hold this pose for another 10 seconds, you can do anything. Everything is temporary.
This was only a minute and thirty seconds out of my entire life.
Why wouldnt I do this?
I walked up and the 2 guys up on the platform and Charlie all let out a collective "Yeah!"
I mumbled something less than pleasant and super gracefully flopped onto my belly.
He instructed me to grasp my hands behind my back and tied my feet into place. I was strapped in so tight, I certainly wasn't wriggling my way out.
"Ok, when you see that orange roof on the welcome center, you put your arms out to slow yourself down or else you will come in too fast. Ok? Do you see the welcome center? As soon as you hit that, arms out. Ok? Do you understand?"
"Yeah, yeah."
I had really zoned out, in all my terror, I think I was on the verge of passing out, when I get too scared my body just shuts down as a way of self-preservation.
"Mhhmm, yeah welcome center."
Wait, did he say I was going to come in going too fast? What happens then? Do I slam into the other platform and die? Snap out of it!
"OK 1,2-"
"Wait! Where's the welcome center? Here?"
"Oh no! Right here, much closer. Hands out ok or too fast."
Ok, Buddy, I'm ready to meet my maker.
Hopefully he can excuse all these F bombs and the child I had out of wedlock.
He pushed me off and I immediately felt my stomach drop out from underneath me.
I looked over and saw Charlie sailing next to me with a look of pure joy on his face.
Oh, this isn't bad.
Wheres the welcome center?
Where are you orange roof?
I wish I could say that it was the best minute and a half of my life but I was so focused on finding the damn welcome center so that I didnt smack into the next platform and die, that I just took in the sights of all the orange roofs they had there on the property.
The roofer did a great job.
By the time I did hit that center, I stuck my arms out and focused on the guy on the other platform and how quickly he was coming into focus.
I squeezed my eyes shut and slammed into the receiving hands of one of the zipline guys.
"How was it!?"
"What?"
I stood up as directed and looked around.
Where am I? What just happened? Whats my name?
I was so dazed by the ferocity and quickness that my brain basically just logged out for a bit.
She needed a little quiet time to process what just happened.
One of the guys took off my belly mat thing and rolled it up and said something and looked at me with an expectant look on his face.
"Sorry?'"Its your own little burrito, look."
"What?"
"Look, its a burrito. You take."
"What?"
At this point he probably was thinking stupid American tourist.
He had rolled up my mat thing and was giving it to me to take to the area where you drop them off at the next platform for line number 3.
He shoved it into my arms and gave me a soft little push in the direction of where I was supposed to go next.
I dazedly stumbled over the dirt and rocks with my folded up burrito and slowly came back to reality.
They had water stations and I guzzled at least 15 little paper triangles of water.
I talked to Janet while the boys sat underneath the platform because we were all in direct sunlight and quite obviously burning. We ziplined back to the welcome center where Heather greeted us, freshly pumped and ready for fun, and ziplined all the way down to the animal park.
We did the 30 ft free fall, at that point I was pretty much like, ok whatever, I'm not going to die, right?
And we walked over the suspension bridge, strapped onto a rope over giant crocodiles and that was the end of our adrenaline filled morning.
We walked into a little tent where a gentleman unstrapped us all and revelealed that we were all soaked through with sweat. That poor guy may have the worst job ever.
We jumped on an air conditioned bus and all breathed a huge sigh of relief with the cool air.
Back at home base we dove into the best damn buffet of my life.
How nice.
After we gorged ourselves we went down to the animal park.
They had a ton of animals, of which all are rescues and we eventually split up. Charlie and I were totally obsessed with the butterfly house and sat and hung out in there for a long time.
It was the perfect place to be after the insanity of the morning.
We went inside to a wonderfully air conditioned room where they had more bugs, all native to Costa Rica, some stuffed, some live.
They had a moth as big as my weiner dog.
No thanks, Costa.
We walked around to every single little glass case they had and the lady that was in there knew every single detail about every single one of the bugs in there.
It was shocking how much she knew and how clearly passionate she was about her job.
She pulled out a live Hercules Beetle and let us touch him, which we thought was just the best.
We then went over to the bigger bird area and were greeted with a curious little toucan behind wire fencing.
Charlie and I both totally melted.
He was so cute with his awkwardly giant beak! We cooed at him and asked him why he was behind bars and as he held open his beak, we tried to explain we didn't have any food for the poor little guy.
A few minutes into us googling over this one toucan, a lady park worker came in behind us.
"Want to go in?"
"Wait? This isnt in?"
I dont know how we missed it, but there was very obviously another door into a giant open air atrium filled with toucans and other tropical birds.
We giggled to eachother and asked the lady why our little toucan buddy wasnt out with the gen pop.
"Oh, he is mean and fights the other birds."
Oh! Its hard to be a bleeding heart sometimes, you always assume the animals are innocent.
We each held a toucan after much gently cajoling by the park employee and up to that point were the only ones in the atrium.
We turned around and there was an older couple standing behind us eagerly waiting to hold the toucan complete with Ipad for the photo op.
Charlie and I stood back and watched as the toucan readily jumped onto the ladies arm.
It was very apparent why the bird wanted to hang out with this lady so badly. She was wearing a brightly colored striped shirt and thought it was food.
Just as her husband was taking the picture, the toucan took his huge beak and gripped onto the ladies nipple.
And just stayed there.
The employee was totally mortified and the lady laughed and uncomfortably tried to wiggle him off and the employee ran over and gently grabbed him.
The lady was super good natured about it and even insisted we look at the picture to get an extra laugh.
Thats a quality profile pic for sure.
We toured the amphibian area with an adorable freckly faced teen who was so excited about her job she kept forgetting her english.
I wanted to take her home and bake her cookies, she was so cute.
We came back up and snacked for a bit and finally hitched a ride over to where Byron, our trusty driver would pick us up.
We sat and waited and waited in the scorching heat.
There was a guy who was a bus driver for the park that kept trying to figure out what we were doing, just standing around.
Unfortunately our spanish was spotty, at best, and his english was exactly the same.We went round and round and he even got out his phone and did Google translate.
All to no avail.
The poor guy had no idea what we were saying and we had no idea what he was saying.
My last words to him were a very sincere, "Lo siento senor, mi espanol es muy muy mal."
Byron eventually showed up and whisked us away from that death trap in his air conditioned chariot.
We went back to the condo and leapt into the pool, not even bothering to change into swim suites or shower or disgusting sweaty bodies off.
We all napped and Charlie, Aidan, Heather and I went out to grab something to eat, real quick from the little store.
We then stumbled upon a cute little creperie'. Crepes are my favorite thing ever, there was no way I was passing up the opportunity to eat crepes on my vacay.
We had Aidan run and go get Janet who was a big crankpot because this was not a planned outing, we were supposed to be napping. We got a beer in her and she calmed down.
I drank 4 beers and ordered 2 giant crepes and have never been happier.
It started to thunder and lightning and the owner of the restaurant strictly warned us not to talk on our phones and not to drag our feet.
We did exactly that on the way home.
The storm continued to build and at around 8 pm was in full swing.
Heather, Janet and I were laying in the big bed talking and listening to the rain, which sounded a waterfall dumping onto the roof when I heard a huge boom and then felt hands on me.
The whole house shook as Heather, Janet and I grabbed eachother and screamed. We were plunged into total darkness and freaking out.
The boys came running up the stairs and one of us was smart enough to turn on our cell phone flash light.
A transformer had exploded outside our condo and our power was out for presumably the night. Heather yelled out, "Who do we call!" to which I replied, "Were in a foreign country. We wait."
Heather left the room and called her Mom. We were all super excited, we were getting front row seat to one of Mother Natures most amazing storms and Heather was calling her Mom to have her tell the girls she loved them.
I would like to point out that there was no wind at all.
This was not a hurricane or tropical storm, just an average thunder and lightning storm.
Heather was in the corner thinking we were going to die while we all stood outside and watched the vivid lightning strikes light up the sky.
It was amazing and one of my favorite memories ever.
We all eventually fell asleep and when the a/c kicked on a few hours later all sighed with relief.
Cheers.
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