The Kinczel's Costa Rican Adventure: The Jones Visit!

Melissa, Ethan and Adam Jones joined us for a too short visit in April. On their list of things to do were beach, rainforest, monkeys, ziplining, and hotsprings. In 6 fast days, we did it all. Natasha decided to skip school for two days, so the five of us headed off to Esterillos, our favorite beach.
Julie, of course, told Melissa that they needed to try pipa fria, which is cold coconut juice. It is Julie's favorite drink. We all love it too.

We stopped here at this fruit stand, and this woman gave us the coconuts, which she opened with a machete. Just so much fun to watch and to drink.

Then Ethan brought them over to another guy, who cut the inside out and we ate fresh coconut all the way to the beach.

On the way, we stopped to peer, carefully over this bridge. Carefully, because below it, live a lot of very large cocodriles, crocodiles , see below! Huge.

We arrived at the beach in time for sunset. The first time for any of the Jones at the Pacific Ocean, and sand dollars all around. Melissa has loved them for so long and found her first one here! Awesome.

Unfortunately for us, it was mating season for the manta rays and it wasn't recommended at all for us to go in the water in Esterillos Este. Fortunately this gave us the opportunity to go to a couple of spots that we hadn't been to before. Below is a pic of a statue of a mermaid out in this rocky area in Esterillos Oeste that we had heard about. We swam around and Ethan and Adam swam out to the statue. It was super hot there, like 97 % humidity, and 100 degrees or something. Anyway, it felt great to be in the water.

Then we decided to see if we could see monkeys, and headed to Manuel Antonio Nat'l Park, where Julie and I had had some luck with monkeys, and none of the others had been there. We stopped at this yummy typical restaurant. Ethan and Natasha are standing behind a photo op of traditional Costa Rican clothing.

As you know, coffee is a huge part of life here in Costa Rica. The waiter at this restaurant was pouring it the traditional way, at our table, through this hanging filter. They say that it maintains its flavor when you do it this way. Adam was our coffee drinker, and he loved it.

We got to Manuel Antonio at 4, and the park closed at 4, so we couldn't go in, but we did get to swim in some amazing waves. I wish I had a movie of the Jones guys in them. They were huge. We all had a blast swimming in them!

I love this apre wave shot, even Adam is smiling!!!!

Melissa and Adam looking for and finding more sand dollars.

There are a lot of different kinds of these guys who live in Esterillos. I think the people from there see them as we see squirrels, but for us, they are always cool.

Leaving Esterillos. I love this place. I love the colors. We had a very long drive that day, so we headed off. We drove to La Fortuna, where the Arenal Volcano are, and Tabacon Hot Springs, which we never tire of!

We ate lunch on the way, and the restaurant had an old coffee cart that Natash was posing with. They used to load these carts up with coffee and bring them into town, usually drawn by oxen or cows. You can still see them sometimes, but not very often.

Every town in Costa Rica has a central square, with a church, a park and a school. We drove through this town on the way to La Fortuna. I can't remember the name, but someone had decided to take over the pruning of these trees and it was incredible. We stopped to take some photos and chat with the people in the park.

A sweet shot of Arenal. We were lucky enough to see it. You can definitely be in La Fortuna and not see it.

We met Joe and Alexander at the hotel, soaked in the springs for a bit and then went to dinner.It was really nice to have everyone together. Here, Natash had 4 people trying to help her with her math homework. ( I really wasn't helping.)

Saturday was a blast. We soaked in the am, and then we split up. Melissa went on a very cool hanging bridges tour and really saw the rain forest. Natash and Joe soaked, and Ethan, Adam, Alexander and I went to the crazy zipline that we love there. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, I am not yet brave enough to bring my camera on the zipline, so no photos. It was a blast.