ok so here is how this is going to work... in order to incorporate pictures and explanations of the words I scribble along the way, I'm going to post pictures with the explanations. Some pictures will explain several words, and some words may have several pictures.... fabulous. ready, set, go.....
3am text is when my sister texted me at 3am the morning we were leaving to tell me about the Exit Fee. I had asked her if she was required to pay a fee when leaving the country when she traveled to Costa Rica recently. I asked her this around 3pm on Friday. She couldn't really remember...until 3AM. She texted me then, and I politely told her to go back to sleep, but thanks. HAHA. Then less than an hour later, at 4am my alarm went off, and I jumped out of bed ready to start my vacation!
I drove over to my friend... uh... we will call her McGruber.... I drove over to McGruber's house to meet up with the rest of the group, and head to the airport. We parked in parking lot B 13, and I wrote that down so that in 8 days, after lots of R&R and a few drinks, we would not forget.
Our checked luggage was required to be within the 50lb weight parameters, and mine, I'm happy to announce, was
49.2lbs. no one is getting souvenirs, sorry.
The
squeaky shoes were adorning the feet of a very rambunctious 2 year old at our gate. Picture this: squeaky shoes running around at 530AM, just after the airport bar told us that it is
state law to not sell alcohol before
7am. If for some reason, you can't picture it, then try this: Sara Marie, very unhappy.
What made it better was a quick trip to Dallas and
McDonalds breakfast. What made it
EPIC was combining an Egg McMuffin with no egg and the Southern Chicken biscuit. Yep. A Southern Chicken Biscuit with ham and cheese is the result. And it was glorious.
From there we met up with the final two members of our vacay group and stopped by
TINGIN in the DFW airport for a Vacay Kickoff beverage since we were beyond the 7am selling point.
On the next flight things got really fun. We had a flight attendant who, to say it mildly, was not impressed with our demands for 3 mini bottles of wine (which explains the
VINO), 6 Amstel Lights, and a Bacardi and Coke. Come on though Franny, it was a 4 hour flight to a tropical paradise. What did she expect? Oh and by the way, her name was not in fact
Franchesca, but rather we decided to call her that. Which I now realize is obviously the root of her annoyance with row 25, seats A, B, and C.
Arriving in Liberia, Costa Rica is probably the closest to being bombarded by the
paparazzi as I will ever get. Seriously, when exiting the aeropuerto about a million little Costa Rican men, mostly taxi drivers, shout and wave signs, and follow you out of the walkway. It's crazy. We finally got our luggage and through the customs lines and met up with our rental car shuttle driver.
And speaking of the
car rental... Ernesto, the man who admitted to being paid to be nice and helpful, was just that. HOWEVER, the insurance company in Costa Rica is a monopoly run by the government. He wrote down our three options for buying and during the conversation basically eliminated two, thus leaving us with one choice. We kept asking about the "other options." Well, they were not really options at all Ernesto explained. Then he leveled with us and outlined how the government runs the industry. BOGUS.
Now that we were on the road from Liberia down to Tamarindo, we were enjoying the scenery and slight culture shock. AND SERIOUS HUNGER PAINS. On the flight we were served an alright turkey sandwich, that was at approximately 1130 Texas time. By the time we dealt with Ernesto and navigated to our house (after dealing with another real gem of a business man getting the keys to our rental house) it was almost 4pm Texas time, 3pm Costa Rica time. Thus we were
starving. Luckily we found a radio station with songs like
Dancing Queen in Spanish!
Before succumbing to our hunger we did manage to run around our
Al Fresco style villa. McGruber and I would be sharing one downstairs bedroom with an attached bathroom. One couple was staying in another room next to the pool and across the open air walkway from the kitchen living room. The other three folks were upstairs in bedrooms. The pool is right smack in the middle of all the walkways directly across from the front door and open air atrium. GORGEOUS.
When we were finally at our breaking points we loaded back into the cars and headed to town for a much needed dinner. The first place we saw was
Copacabana. Located right on the beach with open air seating was a prefect set up. We munched on nachos before all being served meals with spectacular presentations.
We even had a dinner table visitor,
Tammy. She was one of the tons and tons of stray dogs roaming this coastal nation. She camped out at our feet and we named her Tammy, for Tamarindo!
That ended night one. Well after a dip in the pool and some reflection on our day one journey.
First thing, literally, when the sun was rising...
530AM, three of us girls were awake and ready for the day. So we went for a run.
We ran down a small path to the beach and got stuck when the high tide was too far up the beach to allow us to run further down the sandy coast. We found a bed and breakfast we cut through to get back to the street and ran the rest of the way to town along that route. Then we did a stint on the beach and headed back to the house for some
cross fit lower body work and an open
egg sandwich that I cooked up for everyone. (Freaking amazing, I know... I'll answer to "
Top Chef" from now on).
That ends the first 24 or so hours of our adventure. Day Two will be remembered by these words....
Victoria
Raid Spray Bath
Watermelon Brazilian Margaritas
Harry Buffalo
Dead Guy
Drug Deal Boat
Rain
Pizza and Banana Cake
Epic Nap
AC Fail
Ice Ice Baby
xoxo Sara Marie
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