Costa Rica 2023: Tarzan for a Day

Ziplining day was by far my favorite of the trip.  This experience was amazing!  Our morning started out bright and early with a 7:30 pick up.  We drove into the Palm plantation again and right in the middle of nowhere palm street made a vehicle change to an open air safari truck.  Okay!  Sure!

After another 30 minute drive through a remote Costa Rican Mountain town, we arrived at our ziplining home base!

Our group was our families plus 2 more people and the host of incredible guides that were humorous, efficient, and who made our whole experience amazing!

The entire experience consisted of about 10 long zip lines, a rappel section, and a waterfall enterance to finish the trip.  With each zip line we all got more and more confident and by the end of the trip we were all doing the upside down thing!

It was such a fun finish to be lowered right into the water for a refreshing dunk.

Plus we entered right at the bottom of this beautiful lovely waterfall.

Such a great trip and the experience was magical!

The 4 of us adults decided to go out once again into town for a lovely dinner with a spectacular view.   

 It did not disappoint and everything from the food, to the drinks, to the company, and the view was spectacular!

Costa Rica 2023: 1438/2

This day was one of the most memorable on our trip.  Primarily because we all had a close and frightening call with a Rip Current.

We drove about an hour to a little hidden beach called Playita Linda.  It was a beautiful beach and we pulled our van literally right onto the beach.

This beach was spectacular.  Not only because of the pristine nature of the beach, but because it was so untouched and natural.  There is just something you cannot quantify about being on a beach with only a few people in sight.  What a place.

The Moms settled in to read and the kids and Dads headed out in to the waves.  We had a very clear discussion about Rip currents after seeing the posted signs all along the beach, but being in the water gave us all a very big taste of it.

The waves here were quite strong and Evie and Erienne decided quickly that the beach and sand playing was a much better option.

Bob, Lily, Jeff, and Nathan inched themselves further and further out into the surf, navigating the waves and body surfing one wave after the next.

In a very quick moment we saw Lily anxiously swim out of the waves yelling at her sister to get out!  It took us about 30 seconds to realize that something was wrong.  All 4 of them had found themselves swept up in a rip current.  Lily managed to swim herself out of it, but the 3 guys found themselves in it.  Melissa and I rushed to the ocean knowing if they were struggling there was literally nothing we could do.  I was able to sight all 3 heads and within 2 minutes all 3 of them made it out.  For us on the beach in was momentarily terrifying, but for the swimmers, it was awful.

The emotions, anger, fear, frustration, were mixed in with immense relief that the day did not end differently.  We all made a promise that out of the 1440 minutes we had in the day we were not going to let 2 awful minutes ruin it.  Life is too short and too long. Lessons learned, emotions felt, and experiences had.

We  took these family photos after the incident and honestly they are the favorites from our time together.  Love the ones in your life hard y'all.

 We stopped for lunch at this awesome little restaurant right off the road and found this tiny boutique shop run by this spectacular lady.  She makes custom clothing and is a phenomenal artist.  We each bought one of her pieces and enjoyed bridging the language barrier as she told us what she does.  

Although the beach had a scary moment, our day was wonderful filled with beautiful memories.