Living a Dream

I have pretty much spent the past few days living a dream. I have done things I never thought I would get to do!

Early Friday morning, we began our journey to San Lorenzo. I say "journey" because it really did feel like a journey, not just a trip. We were totally on our own! After several bus rides and a lot of waiting, we finally made it to Lands in Love, which is a hotel/resort owned and run by some Jewish people from Israel who LOVE animals and nature. Needless to say, there were some things that we thought were a little strange, but I loved it. The people there were so kind. All of our meals were vegetarian. Knowing this, I avoided the hamburgers and anything else that included the word "ham." What would it be if it wasn't real ham? I don't even wanna know. We spent Friday afternoon drinking coffee in the lobby while they got our rooms ready. Once we got in our rooms, we unpacked and started watching the dumbest movie ever because it was the only thing in English. We then watched Miss Congeniality in Spanish, which was a hoot! After dinner, we relaxed in the hot tub. :)


Here we are at Lands in Love! I would highly recommend this place if you ever come to Costa Rica!

Saturday morning was when we went canyoning! For those of you who don't know what canyoning is, that's okay because I didn't either. What I learned is that canyoning is basically repelling down waterfalls. It is one of the most fun things I have ever done, which means it is definitely on my "Top Ten Coolest Things I've Ever Done" list. We had four guides with us, and they made it so fun. Before the day was over, we were all calling each other by nicknames. They were constantly playing little jokes on us or splashing us with water, which was freezing cold by the way. Eventually though, I got used to it, and it felt so good. :)

After we got dried off and ate lunch, we headed back out to go zip-lining. We were so glad to have the same guides that we had been with earlier that day. We had to walk down a little trail to get to the first platform, but after that we were off the ground for the majority of the time! My favorite part was getting to a clearing and being able to look down and see the top of the canopy for miles. I kept thinking to myself, "I can't believe I'm actually doing this!" It was amazing. Part of our canopy tour included a tarzan swing, which was so much fun as well!

That night as I was sitting on the back porch, I heard the most incredible sounds. The rainforest is never silent, and it's kind of soothing in a way! I'll just say I was glad to hear something besides barking dogs for a change!


I loved sitting out here and looking at/listening to the rainforest :)


Rainforest view from the back porch.

This morning after breakfast we checked out and headed back to San Jose. We had lunch at the mall, (Pizza Hut again! They have a personal pan pizza for $2... and we are trying to conserve our money for a trip to the beach this weekend!) and then we went to church.

Let me give you a recap of this weekend's expenses:
-Hotel for 2 nights (Wi-Fi, pool, hot-tub)
-6 gourmet vegetarian meals
-Zip-lining (2 hours)
-Canyoning (2.5 hours)

All for a grand total of: $100 How awesome is that? One of the men at the church had recently taken a group there and they had gotten this really awesome deal, so he called and asked if we could get it too. Isn't it crazy how things work out? No, it's not. I consider it a blessing from God!

P.S. I don't have canyoning/zip-lining pictures yet, because we all took pictures of each other instead of trying to hand each other our cameras and all that. So hopefully soon I will be able to post some pictures of me being super adventurous! :)