ITC Trip #2- Costa Rica

After a successful trip in 2014 to Barcelona and Madrid we decided to keep the trips coming. We chose to go to Costa Rica for two main reasons. The first being it was a cheaper trip and since we had less time to fund raise it seemed like the most logical choice. We also wanted to find a location that was in contrast to what we did in Spain. I would say that Costa Rica fit both of those needs real well.

If you did not already know, Costa Rica is mainly a rainforest and has some differing climates. We experienced rainy days to super hot days. It all depended on where we were in Costa Rica to what climate and the weather we encountered. The higher the elevation we were at the rainier and cooler it was. As we got closer to ground level and near the beach it was sunny, barely if ever rained and was quite warm.

The hotels were good as one of them had a rec room with a pool table. I would say that myself and Tavion held down the table most nights. This hotel also had a mini club with speakers and dance area. The rooms at this hotel though did not have TV's as we were high up in the rainforest. One of the best memories from this hotel was in town about a 5 minute bus ride was the BEST pastry shop we have been to.

Another highlight of the trip was when we went to the Manuel Antonio National Park. It took about 35 minutes of walking to get to the beach area. On our way we got to see 3 different sloths. One of them was "walking" on the ground right next to the walking path and another had a baby in a tree about 6 feet from our walking path. These are very odd looking and moving creatures but surely an awesome sight to see. The beach was AMAZING. It was a large space that even though there were a lot of people there we didn't feel cramped and had room to play and flip around. My fondest memory of the beach day was that as we went to each lunch one of the ladies in our group had taken her food out and was sorting it on the table by her. Our guide had told us about the monkeys that would be around. We didn't realize they liked nutter butter cookies but as the lady moved to the side just a bit a monkey came flying down from the tree, snatched up the cookies and went back up to the tree before any of us could say a thing. It was almost as though he was mocking us as he easily opened the bag of cookies up and begin eating away. It probably was my fondest memory as it was not my cookies that the monkey had stolen.

From the start I had always told the kids these trips would get them outside of their comfort zones and test their will and fortitude. So, despite my fear of heights I wouldn't let the zip lining opportunity pass me by. I was super nervous and when they had me climb up this rickety ladder to get started I was second guessing my decision. The only real issue with this experience was that it rained the whole time and the zip lining stations were not connected so we had to do a lot of walking in between as well. In the end I have no complaints about the experience. However, I am not sure I would do this again but we shall see.

The last experience we had