Friday, December 20, 2013

Costa Rica Family Vacation - Part 1 Arenal Volcano


My goal originally was to finish all my 2013 posts before the end of 2013. That was clearly a stretch goal. So now, I want to get out my last Kucera family vacation before we leave for our next one. That may be a stretch also, but at least I will get out the first half!

We all headed down to Costa Rica and the first half was spent at Volcano Arenal. We were not sure what the big hoopla was all about the first 2 days because we saw this....
Hot springs, yes. Volcano, no.


Christian and Thomas playing a little table tennis.
Brothers! With Thomas stealing Christian's hat. And oh wait... The base of a volcano.
Thomas' little friend. He did actually catch this guy.
Did you know this butterfly is supposed to look like a snack? Look at the top right and you can see the face.
As we were walking back from dinner this guy decided to join us. Because of the flash from this picture he skidded out and freaked us all out!
Another beauty.
Oh wait! There it is! Thanks to a 6 am wake up call from Thomas' dad, we get these beauties. And if you look carefully, that white speck at the top of the mountain is steam not a cloud!
Those are clouds, not steam.
Love this little area.
And the hot springs as well.
Need I say more?



We now have a running joke... We cannot go on a vacation without at least 2 adventures requiring helmets. Helmeted activity #1. The ropes course.
On our way out to our second adventure, we were informed of these trees. These are zombie trees that are planted in the ground as posts for the fences. The ground is so fertile that they just grow back into trees!
This was our second adventure of water rafting. With our tour guide Fabio. No joke.
A beautiful day rafting down the Balsa River.

After our little adventures, we drove from La Fortuna to Quepos. Many, many hours in the car. Wow.
On one bathroom break, Thomas found a friend.
At our lunch break we saw our first iguana. He was only 6 feet away from our table!
Next to the restaurant, there was a bridge with these guys hanging out. Yikes.
If you look the other direction across the bridge, you saw this.
Thomas and I on the road.... with Keith in the back. Hehe.
   This was Part 1 of our trip. Maybe just maybe I can get Part 2 done. Maybe.