Dad & Caroline Visit! 3/22

Dad and Caroline were my first visitors, and so I was overly excited to see them!! After my first class on that Thursday, I went to go meet up with them, and we headed to our first destination: La Fortuna and Volcán Arenal. After a 4-5 hour windy drive through the mountains in our little, unbelievably weak Peugeot, we made it! There are a bunch of restaurants and hotels that line the base of the volcano, like ours, called Volcano Lodge and Gardens. Beautiful place! Everything was so green and lush. So when we arrived, we walked around the grounds, and then hung out in the pool and hot tub to relax a while. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, and I had a delicious steak...so nice to eat good food again!
Pool area:

Rooms:

The huge, beautiful volcano:

Volcano sunset:

Caroline! 

Us & the volcán

The next day we woke up early, had breakfast, and then went hiking up near the Volcano. Lots of black, volcanic rock, and you could really see the lava flows on the side of the volcano. Pretty neat. There was pretty much always clouds around the top of the volcano, so we never got a full view (apparently it's almost always like that). 


This was the weekend that my whole study abroad group was also going to Arenal, so luckily I didn't miss anything! When we were on our way to our second destination, La Fortuna Waterfall, I was gazing out the window and recognized the hotel where everyone else was staying...to see that everyone had just got off the bus! So we turn the car around, and we go up and briefly try to introduce Dad and Caroline to everyone... most importantly they both got to meet Alex! But they had their own itinerary, and we wanted to get to the falls, so there wasn't much time for interaction. So we continued on to the waterfall... which was beautiful. It was pretty overcast, raining a little, and chilly, so no one really wanted to swim. It was still beautiful!

Dad and I at an overlook of the falls:

That afternoon, we went to Ecotermales Hot Springs. They are one of the smaller hot springs in the area, but very relaxing, and there weren't a ton of people there. There were about five pools in total, of all different temperatures, so we went through a few cycles of the different temperatures. We had a delicious, home-cooked Costa Rican dinner after soaking for a few hours, which was very nice.

Path to the springs- notice the cute mushroom lights!

Beautiful setting, very green, peaceful.

Waterfall pools! (See Caroline and I in them below)

 Caroline being a goof in one of the waterfalls:

The next day, it was off to destination #2, Jacó Beach. Pacific side, definite surfer town. On our way there, we stopped at a bridge over the Tarcoles River, a spot well-known as a good place to see crocodiles, which was also the same river where I did the crocodile tour back in one of my first weekends here.


In Jacó, we stayed at Hotel Mango Mar, which was in a very central location, right on the beach. The people who worked here spoke barely any English, so I got to play translator the whole time. But the grounds were nice, and the location was absolutely perfect.

At the hotel, there was a cute calico cat who hung out around the grounds. I'd love to post a picture but the only one I have of her is a gruesome picture of her eating the dead rat that she so kindly placed on the doorstep of our hotel room. You know you're with cat lovers when the reactions to that scene are along the lines of "Ohhh good kitty! Great job! What a great hunter you are, thank you for the gift!!" I love my family.

Once we got there, we just did a lot of beach-going and hanging out, which was really nice and relaxing. Lots of surfers at Jacó, so they were fun to watch.

Caroline and I had a bit of an adventure our second night in the hotel. As I'm climbing into bed, I lift up my sheets and jokingly yell, "Scorpion check!!!" 
Except something scurries out of my covers, and Caroline shrieks a little- "oh my gosh something just ran out of your bed and under your mattress!"
So naturally, I jump out of bed, and start slowly ripping blankets and sheets off my bed, and looking in and under the pillows, and under the mattress. I'm terrified that it's going to actually be a scorpion, and that I'm only going to have my flip flop to defend me from said creature. Caroline and I are freaking out, half laughing half actually feeling really scared because there may be a scorpion running around our room, but we finally find the mysterious creature once we take the mattress off of the bed frame. This little crab was hiding under my mattress! At first glance though I did think my worst fears about the scorpion were confirmed, so we had to call Allen in to save us. He manages to trap the little guy, although he was very speedy, but luckily once he started to run around we realized that he was in fact just a decently-sized crab, probably about 3 inches wide. Thank goodness my father was there to save the day and allow us to sleep in peace!

The fam on the last day at breakfast, looking pretty darn burnt.

I had a blast with my first family visit! Although the visit was short, I'm so glad they made it down!!