Now that we were back, some of the items we packed turned out to be super handy! I figured I'd post in case anyone is planning a similar trip.
There were 4 things we purchased for the trip that were very, very helpful and we definitely got our money's worth!
1. Waterproof Phone Case
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0BXWDS53C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=
We had to check out of our AirBNB in La Fortuna on Sunday morning, but we had booked a river rafting tour and it didn’t start until 11am so we had a leisurely breakfast instead of eating groceries at our AirBNB like we usually do.
Well our last night in Monteverde I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well. I went and got some water, hoping that would help but soon I was throwing up. This turned into the sickest I’ve been in a really long time. We were meant to be out of our AirBNB by 8am to head to La Fortuna but there was just no way I could manage that. I resigned myself that we were just going to have to miss a couple of things and I stayed in bed while Trev took the kids to a cafe for breakfast. Trev packed everything up and loaded it in the car
We had to be checked out by 11am and I literally didn’t know how I was even going to walk down to the car let alone make it through the 3.5hour drive. Remember that this is the windey drive down a mountain. It was awful. 😢 I just had to tell myself there was nothing we could do and we just did it. I had a barf bucket up front and we just started the drive. Near the bottom of the mountain Anna barfed. And then she threw up again before we made it to La Fortuna I somehow made it to the Airbnb without needing to stop and when we pulled in I literally could not have made it one more minute. I didn’t even look around the Airbnb, just ran straight for the bathroom and then got straight into the bed and stayed there for the rest of the evening/night.
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| The worst drive. I was so sick 😔 |
I thought I finally figured out how to get the pictures in the right order, selected them one at a time carefully and they all came in backwards! 😠So this is our day backwards!
At the very end of the day after w really busy and exhausting day it started training. So we called it a day around 4:30pm and headed back to our AirBNB for the evening. We got some groceries and cooked hotdogs with cucumbers and pineapple on the side and amazing Costa Rican ice cream sandwiches for dessert!
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Today we were up bright and early to meet our fishing charter at 7am. We wanted to get out before the heat of the day hit. It was 27C at 7am! 😮 The pictures came in backwards again 😡 so you get to see the result if the day, me carrying a bag of fish! 😂 That’s our boat, The Salty Mermaid, behind me.
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| Hike started with whoever wanted to to jump off a small cliff into the water |
It was an interesting night! This is a rural area so there were a lot of sounds during the night. Dogs, roosters, birds, and sounds I have never heard before! I am never a great sleeper. It wasn’t the best sleep ever, but despite the noise, I slept ok. I will wear earplugs tonight! Both Anna and I were up at 5:30 so we decided to go for a little walk around the property.
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| Anna took this picture of a cute bird! |
Don’t mind the typos. It’s hard to write this from my phone and I’m not bothering to go back and correct it all! We got out of the house smoothly yesterday and got to our hotel around 8pm. We had a great room and it was free with points! Yay!
We left the hotel at 6:30am, dropped the van at Park N Ride and had a smooth experience at the airport! We were at a funny gate which we’ve never been to before. We walked for like 20 minutes to get there. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Very weird!
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| Leaving the hotel |
Well we are all packed and ready to go. We head to Toronto tomorrow afternoon when the kids are done with school. We decided to do a carry on each, a small backpack each (as our personal item), plus one small checked bag with all the stuff that’s annoying to carry on. We have a vehicle, so while I still prefer to not pack too much, travelling light isn’t as important as if we were taking public transit. We will have no issues fitting this stuff in our vehicle.
The one bag we will check is basically filled with liquids. 😆 It’s got our sunscreen (35C weather forecasts x 5 people x 11 days = a lot of sunscreen). We also have bug spray (there is a malaria and dengue fever risk so while we don't usually use bugspray, we will be for this trip). I didn’t bother trying to put our toiletries in the strict carry on sizes since we were checking a bag. And then it just has stuff that if we lost it we’d be ok. A cooler bag backpack, ice packs, ice cube trays, our little telescope/binocular things, a laundry bag, a collapsible bin that we can use for groceries, etc
We also have a separate bag for our overnight in Toronto so we don’t have to go rooting through our luggage and have to repackage before our flight.
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| Our luggage for 5 of us for 11 nights in Costa Rica! |
Countdown is on! We always have a ring counter and we remove a ring every day. Anna made the one for this trip. This pic is from a few days ago but we have 11 days to go (before we leave for Toronto)
Since we are travelling with kids 13 and under, Air Transat assigns seats together automatically 2 weeks before our trip so I was anxiously waiting for the 14 day mark in Thursday to check out our seat assignments! We have great seats on the way back. On the way there we are at the back of the plane but I’ll check in the moment checkin opens to see what I can do to switch them to closer to the front and to be honest if that’s where we stay it’s totally fine. Not worth $135 to pay for better seats!
We are pretty excited!
So one day Trevor was talking to his friend Aaron, and he mentioned that they were planning a trip to Costa Rica for March break. Cool! Aaron and his wife Allison invited Trevor and I for dinner and we had fun comparing notes and itineraries. They are travelling with their child, Rowan, who is in Grade 9. Coincidentally, they are flying to Costa Rica the same day as us and flying home the same day as us (different flights though). We are doing several different cities in our itineraries but are in the same place for our first destination as well as two thirds of the way through, we overlap for one evening in Monteverde. So we've booked a waterfall hike together in Curubande, and we've made a reservation to meet up for dinner in Monteverde. Can't wait to hear all about our different adventures! Allison and I have also been texting back and forth with planning advice and comparing notes. So fun!
So we've decided on Costa Rica. But where are we going to travel? We knew we were going to go for about 8-12 days. I got a couple of Costa Rica guide books and looked at their recommendations for itineraries. I also searched for "10 day Costa Rica Itinerary," "Family Trip to Costa Rica Itinerary," etc. I started to collect the recommended places and piece something together.
Before we locked too much in, however, I needed to figure out flights. Flying at March break isn't cheap! So I needed to look for a deal. Which airport had the cheapest flights might help to set the itinerary.
One of the most fun things about planning a trip is picking a destination. This time we picked Costa Rica! As we were travelling with the kids, and Joel is in high school, the 'when' we could travel was a big factor in 'where' we would travel. We didn't want to pull the kids out of school for too long as it's not as easy to catch up in high school. So we needed to travel mostly during a school holiday. I wasn't interested in travelling at Christmas time because I like to be home at that time. Summer is short and we like to spend it at our camp! Summer is also also really hot for travelling in a lot of places. So we figured March Break would be the best choice! Now with that that was settled, where should we travel?
We had to cancel our trip to London and Paris in 2020 due to Covid. We'd still like to do that trip again. But March isn't super ideal for London and Paris. Highs are around 12C and lows are around 6C. Doable but maybe not the perfect time to go. We also didn't really have the luxury of 2 weeks this time because we were trying to avoid missing too much school.
I spent some time rebranding the old 'Mommy Blog' into a travel blog! Next trip...Costa Rica in March! I'll be posting a bit before we leave about the planning and packing process and then posting from the trip!
