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! |
