Costa Rica: Part 7: Uvitas

For anyone that has actually been reading these posts, this will be the final chapter reminiscing about our trip. I'm sure I'm more sad about it than anyone else but here it goes. We arrived in Uvita just as the sun was setting. For one of our airbnbs, we decided to try out a "treehouse" experience. We slept on an upstairs open air yoga deck with a mosquito net around our bed. It was a shared house with the hosts, which was a new experience for me, definitely not my favorite, but the people were great. We dropped off our stuff then left to explore the city and get some dinner. We ended up eating nachos and a smoothie at a nearby restaurant, then wandering around some grocery stores. This was a much smaller city, it had a jungle and it was on the coast. We really liked it.

We ate on the patio and reminisced of the best parts of our trip, which was pretty much all of it, minus the purse thief! We laughed about getting to spend more time together than we will in the next couple of years, and planned to not wait too long before our next trip!

 Anyway, after exploring the little city a bit, we made our way back to our tree house! The bathroom sink was a shell, so that was exciting!

We woke  up to the sounds of the jungle. The weather was wonderful and it was pretty enjoyable being outside!

 

Most (all) days, I woke up before Max so I went around taking photos. 

Once Max was awake, we packed up everything back in our car then checked out the river that went along the property. 

When we walked back up to the house, Andre, one of the hosts, was still there and he gave us a tour of all the fruits growing on the property. We saw pineapple bushes, ate some starfruit, saw different varieties of coconuts, pomelos, and lots of other things we hadn't heard of. We then got in the car and left. 

The only things we had scheduled for the day was a horseback riding tour and driving back to the house where we started, near the airport. We had some time to do a couple other things. We had heard there was a cool waterfall near the airbnb, so that was an option then there was also a cool beach called the Whale Tail, where there are 2 converging currents that form a whale tail in the sand and when the tide is low, you can walk very far out into the ocean. I figured we would only have time for one of those things if we wanted to start our 4 hour drive back at a decent time. I figured we should skip the waterfall but max said we were so close, we should just check it out. And I am so glad we did. It wasn't very busy, the water was beautiful and its the kind of secret spot you hope to find when you go on vacations like this.  

When we parked, we were told they were building a butterfly sanctuary, so we checked that out first. 

 It was cute....and muggy. 

 

Then we started the little hike to the waterfall.

 Huge fronds

Someday I will have Rapunzel hair like this.

There ended up being multiple waterfalls and beautiful blue pools. It was gorgeous. I wasn't wearing my swim suit since I didn't plan on being there very long, and I instantly regretted it, then ended up swimming anyway. 

We were sitting watching this waterfall, then saw a man go to the top and slide down. It was terrifying because it looks like you will just run into the rocks. After some peer pressure from a couple people that already slid down, Max decided to try it. And even though I had seen a couple people do it, I was still scared for Max to do it and hit his head on a rock. 

Thankfully, he came out alive! I had no desire to try it. haha!

Then we played around some of the other pools for awhile. I was still a wimp about jumping in but at least I was there to take the photos. 

I could have stayed there longer, probably because I waited so long to get in the water then didn't really want to get out, but we decided to make our way to our horseback riding appointment.  I've only ridden a horse once in my life and it was bareback for just a couple minutes at a friend's farm. Max rode horses all the time at his uncles' property and at a summer camp he used to go to when he was a kid. So I've been wanting to try this out, especially on the beach. (and it was much cheaper to do it in Costa Rica as opposed to Oregon) Luckily we got to ride through the jungle a bit before getting to the beach so it was a perfect experience!

When the panorama doesn't work so well for the horse.

I was not prepared for how uncomfortable the trotting would be or how the stirrups would cut into my ankles (I completely understand why people wear cowboy boots now) But once we got the horse cantering, it was so exhilarating. We were free to run the horses up and down the beach as much as we wanted. So Max and I had fun riding together and racing a little bit. And Max was talented enough to get these videos to send to our boys!

We rode around for a couple hours. And man were we sore in the end. But it was so much fun. We parked our horses and were given muffins and lemonade back at the ranch. We chatted with the girl and her grandma who were on the tour with us for awhile. The girl just graduated high school and her grandma has lived in Costa Rica for the last couple years so coming to visit her was a graduation present. Anyway, when we parted ways we debated about just starting our long drive back or going to check out the whale tail. I knew we wanted to see a beach one more time before going home so we decided to do it even though the tide would be coming in. 

It started out as a lovely walk on the beach. Collecting shells for our boys, and once again, being startled by the warmth of the ocean!

 Then the storm clouds started coming in!

We still wanted to go see as much of the whale tail as we could so we kept walking along the beach, and even though we couldn't go out all the way, we could still go out pretty far in to the ocean and still be on land so that was pretty exciting. The rain had us soaked by the time we got to the whale tail our eye brows were dripping into our eyes and there wasn't a dry piece of clothes on us. So the rest of the photos were taken with a soaking wet phone. 

 

Over and over we just kept saying "I love this" It was just such a perfect experience! Who needs hot sun and a cool breeze? We're all about enjoying the storms, as long as they are warm, haha! Anyway, there was the water bottle whale as we were leaving the beach.

And then it was early evening and we knew we had to start our long drive back to the house. So that is what we did. After about 1.5 hours of driving, we stopped for dinner and to put on dry clothes. And slowly but surely we made our way all the way back to our friend Lori's house. We wanted to go night swimming one more time but decided we were way too tired so instead we got our luggage all organized and went to bed so we could get up early in the morning to go to the airport. We woke up and left on time! We stopped at the bakery to get breakfast then returned our rental car with ease ( we were expecting this to take longer) so we made it to the airport on time. We even had time to check the shops and finally found the right kind of drinking glass we were looking for! It has little lizards on it and it's perfect! Someday I may do a blog post on our glasses from our travels! Anyway, once again we were flying standby and weren't sure if we were going to get on the flight, especially with it being memorial weekend. 

We made it on to both flights and got home a little bit early. And during our travels that day (in LA and Costa Rica) , it turned out that Oregon had the best weather and the most spectacular sunset when we got home. My dad drove us home from the airport and my boys were going to stay up at my moms house for another night so Max and I had some time to unpack and tidy up and get a good night sleep. 

My mom brought my boys to us the next day. They were actually really excited to see us. They had so much fun with their cousins and grandparents but they gave us huge hugs when they came in. Edwin had been a bit sick so he was more cuddly than usual, I didn't mind! We gave them their souvenirs which included sloth t-shirts, wooden puzzle boxes, a sloth stuffed animal, pandito gummy bears, some costa rican candy and some shells and rocks. So, we made sure they were happy to see us. ha!

Then my sleepy sick baby fell asleep in my arms and all was perfect in the world

After seven blog posts, I still don't feel like I can explain how perfect this trip was. Or how eternally grateful I am for Elizabeth, James, Grandma Sharolee and Grandpa Don. The number one hesitation for why I didn't think I could do a trip like this was childcare. I didn't think it was fair for someone to watch my kids while I was prancing around a foreign country having the time of my life. I do love my children and the purpose of this vacation was not to get away from them. But thanks to those that took care of my children I was able to reconnect with my husband (of 10 years) and best friend (of many more than 10 years) in a way we haven't been able to do since having children. I was surprised by how much fun we had together. I was almost expecting us to annoy each other since we aren't used to spending that much time together but we didn't. It was like a honeymoon, only better because we knew how valuable that time together is! I loved when Elizabeth would send me polos of my kids and I could tell that she loved them by simple gestures like caressing Miles hair or telling me something they did that made her laugh. 

And a huge thanks to Max, I was so skeptical that we could do a trip like this so he took matters into his own hands and made it into a perfect trip and amazing surprise! I sure love that man and all that he does for me and our family!