After what seemed to be the bumpiest ride up and down and around a few Costa Rican mountains, we arrived at the Buena Vista Lodge for our thrill seeking day.
As soon as we got out of our van we were offered cold glasses of lemonade. A nice, refreshing start to the day long activities…which could not be more opposite from the actual activities….especially the zip line…
And first up was the zip line. So we got harnessed up and started another shlep to the top of the canopy. This hike seemed pretty intense, but was nothing compared to others we’d face later in the day. We went up stairs and across bridges until we were finally at the first platform.
After what seemed to be less than 5 minutes of instruction, the zip line instructor guy had us on our way. The first line was short, but none the less a screamer. Or it was for me anyway. Once on the 2nd platform, I noticed the way each platform was being help up in the trees by cables wrapped around branches. Now I’m sure they were sturdy, but for some reason my mind would not get past an image of me plummeting to my death in the jungle. Some where around the third or fourth zip line, McGruber asked to go upside down. The instructor said only if she waited to go last then went with him. She agreed and as we watched her approach from the next platform we saw this….
That was when we decided McGruber was definitely the newest member of the Mile High Club. We finally made it to the last cable and I could not be more relieved to not be hanging above a nice, fatal distance of jungle plant and bugs while speeding across a cable with only my gloves to stop me.
But that is when it got worse. See I’m a sucker for a good challenge, and apparently the Zip Line Instructors at Buena Vista Lodge are a sucker for McGruber. She asked to go upside down again, only this time SOLO. They haggled for a minute, but finally agreed that if none of us told on them, they would let us go upside down. It would be our “secreto.” I’m talking hanging from a tiny cable…upside down…hands flailing about while you zip across the tropical lands below. Oh and when you do it upside down, you zip into the next platform not just upside down, but also BACKWARDS. All it took for McGruber was to say that she couldn’t wait to go back and say she did it and I wussed out for me to accept the challenge. I’m such an idiot.
McGruber went first and you would have thought she won the lottery by the sounds she was making as she zipped to the finish. I on the other hand sounded something like a stuck pig. Especially when mid zip my body started to twist, and all I could think was that I was about to slam into some jungle tree and have my brains running down the side of it. When I finally did stop, flipped back right side up and had both feet on the ground, my entire body was shaking.
this pic wont flip, but I think you get the idea. freaking scary.
From there I had a nice 5 minute ride in the turismo bus back to the Lodge entrance where we would be getting our horses for our trail ride. And luckily we had thought ahead to bring snacks because although I did wake up and make everyone some eggs for breakfast, my adrenaline had definitely burned that up a while ago. So we all had some peanut butter sandwiches before we walked over to the corral of horses.
I got a beautiful horse. She was so sweet it seemed that I decided to name her Sweet Caroline. Once we were all saddled up, we started following Esteban on the lead horse. Yet again little to no instruction or even rules.
Doc grew up around horse though, and it is a damn good thing. See in the pack of us, I was next to Nina and her stubborn horse. My Sweet Caroline and Nina’s horse were NOT friends. If they came toward us, Caroline would dart me across the path to the other side. And both horses had a thing for Doc’s horse who they were both trying to stay close to. It was a disaster. Especially when we were riding up steep inclines and even steeper declines that were slick from the rain. At one point I thought Nina was going to either start crying or just get off the horse altogether. And that was before Sweet Ms. Caroline literally kicked Nina. Not Nina’s horse but Nina’s leg. See her horse started trotting and not knowing what to do Nina yells “Mama doesn’t know what to do!“ I started hysterically laughing and I guess Caroline was jealous. That’s when she threw her back leg in the air towards Nina and I almost went flying. I’m not sure if Nina was more hurt from the kick or more scared at seeing me almost get bucked off as it happened. Bottom line, when we approached the end of the trail riding path, Nina and I were the first to hop off our horses and be done with that part of the adventure.
ok seriously blogspot is screwing up my pics but again yall get the idea. sweet caroline is pretty but mean as hell...
From this area where we left the horses, we embarked on a hike to a giant waterfall that would give most in shape, athletic types a run for their money. I say that because I consider myself to be in fairly good shape and this hike knocked me down. It was crazy steep then slippery and long. We could hear the water as we got close but it still seemed like forever until we got there. But when we got there it was an amazing sight. The water was so incredibly high and falling so hard it was really spectacular. We stayed for a solid 10 minutes just taking all kinds of pictures and videos of the water.
Then we headed back. We walked a bit ahead of Esteban and stopped at a bridge where we thought we must turn to get over the next part of the day, but when he caught up he told us nope, it was all the way back to where we left the horses and then even a little further beyond that to the spa area. We got there as all of our legs began to burn and shake. Not from sheer terror like on the zip line or horses, but just fatigue from our journey through the jungle.
But man was it worth it. We arrived at the spa area and changed into our bathing suits in little stone buildings. We then sat in a stone steam room for five minutes or so. I think I lost about 5 pounds too with all the toxins just flowing out of my body. (and by toxins, I obviously mean tequilla and caprinias) Anyway, after that it was time for a mud bath. We went around the building to two large stone bowls with boiling hot mud that we dipped our hands into and rubbed all over our bodies. There was a big mirror that we used to do warrior paint and leaf warrior princess headdresses to wear too! We had a blast playing with the mud, and then spent 10 minutes baking it into our bodies in the sun.
After our playtime and photo shoot it was time to rinse off and head for the hot springs. And I guess because I was so focused on that goal in my head of hot springs, it never occurred to me that the shower water to rinse with would be ICE COLD. But it was. And I screamed. We all did. It took us way longer than it should have to get all that mud off because we danced around under the water like it was acid or something when it touched our bodies. When we finally got the mud off we headed over to the different pools.
Now each hot spring pool was a different temperature. We got in one that was luke warm-ish and weren’t that impressed. Then we saw the signs indicating the heat of each. We got out and headed back over to the extra hot pool and sat there in 106 degree water for as long as we could stand it. Finally our bodies were liking us again as our sore muscles got some heat treatment they rightfully deserved. After going back and forth a few times to the extra hot and sort of warm pools a few of us even got in a ten minute power nap on the loungers next to the pool before Esteban came to get us to take up to the final activity.
But as we were drying off one of the Buena Vista workers started telling McGruber and I about our next scheduled thrill ride. It was a Mountain Water Slide down a tube shoot. It sounds fun I know, but the shoot is made of concrete and the speed gets so fast that all girls are required to wear a rubber diaper to protect their sensitive area. Yah, and when the hot springs worker was careful to urge us not to “no move on our way down so your elbows are not broken on the concrete sides,” we decided to skip that activity and go straight to lunch.
Lunch and the trip home were fairly uneventful. McGruber did have a headache (probably from hanging upside down a million feet in the air traveling at stupid speeds) and Nina, a chiropractor decided to do a quick neck adjustment at the table. Luckily I was already standing when the retched sound of her neck cracking in about a million places at the same time rang through the lunch building. I gagged and ran outside when my lunch started to make another appearance. It Didn’t, but man was it close. McGruber felt great and the headache was gone instantly. And other than that and a pretty major thunder and lightning storm on the way back to Casa Maya, the rest of the afternoon was a nice wind down from the day’s exhilarations.
And guess what we found when we got home…TAMMY! Tam Tam the Tico Costa Rican stray dog that Doc had officially grown to love was back! And this time she wasn’t going anywhere. We set up shop for her in the atrium between the downstairs bedroom and kitchen and that would be her new home until Doc could convince her hubby to skip the divorce and learn to love the dog when she smuggled it to America!
Doc was so adamant about keeping Tammy that she didn’t even want to leave her for dinner. So while were not positive where we were going to dinner when we left the house, we did know they had to allow perros. And The Coconut did! So we got a big table and all enjoyed a birthday dinner for one of the gals. And when birthday girl got up to go to the restroom we made sure the Bum Bum grabbing mariachis were ready for the birthday song upon her return. She was so excited she got a little teary eyed!
After dinner we decided one more drink in celebration of the birthday was in order. We stopped at Nibbana and sat under the patio by the bar. It was late so we were one of maybe two groups be attended to. Thus we had several different waiters to choose from. When we struck up a convo with one about taking Tammy to America his shocking replay was, “What?!?!?! You cannot take Reyna from us!” We all thought he was joking but apparently, according to the particular waiter, Tammy was in fact Reyna and she strolled the beaches daily. When she stopped in Nibbana they fed her tuna steaks. She was happy and healthy and it would be horrible to take her from her homeland. We were a little bummed but when Doc countered with the threat of heartworms and getting slammed by a speeding truck in the road, we were happy again that we would be smuggling her to America.
We returned home and Doc got busy figuring out logistics. She called the airlines and googled Vet offices in Tamarindo. Thursday was shaping up to be a very insightful day on exporting dogs….
Here are the words for that day:
Rain
Egg Sammies
Beach Club 5 hours
Legit Dog
Drunky Pants
La Esquina
xoxo Sara Marie
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