Costa Rica - The Natural Beauty

What We Did | Our Team | The Natural Beauty

Following our time in Jaco, Costa Rica, we rented a van (not easy to find a rental that fits 6 people + luggage, we learned) and spent 4 days in northern Costa Rica. Driving through Costa Rica was an adventure itself as the roads are narrow, windy, hilly, and sometimes cloud-covered (like fog). Additionally, almost every bridge is one-lane so you must be careful to yield to let others go first when you are on the designaed "cedo" side (we quickly learned what the signs meant that said "cedo el pase"!).

Our Stops

After our time in Jaco, we drove north on Route 1 to Rio Celeste and Volcan Tenorio. From there, we went on to La Fortuna/Arenal before heading back to the airport in San Jose.

We stayed one night around Volcan Tenorio which has a waterfall with turquoise color water and three nights in La Fortuna.

Rio Celeste at Volcan Tenorio

The turquoise allure of Rio Celeste... unfortunately this is a stock photo because a rainstorm the night before we hiked caused the water to be green! We did see hints of turquoise at the end of the hiking path in a different pool.

OK... I (Dale) admit, this isn't a picture from our trip. I wish it were, but when there is a lot of rain the day before, the water is not turquoise. We saw more of a gray/green waterfall, still beautiful, but not turquoise.

We were told we MAY see some blue water further upstream (or down the trail). The water turns colors where two streams meet. At that point, some richer blue hues became visible.

The mixing of 2 water sources produces a turquoise color.

La Fortuna

La Fortuna is one of the more prominent tourist towns in Costa Rica. We stayed there for 3 nights.

The beef cows of Costa Rica are bit more scraggly than the big ones in the US.

Driving down the road, a bunch of cars stopped to see a sloth in the trees – thus fulfilling Anna's dream!

A guide let us take a picture through his scope of the sloth.

All of us enjoying the chocolate tasting part of a coffee and chocolate farm tour.

At the Mistico Hanging Bridges, we saw monkeys, slots, frogs, and this small viper sunning on a leaf.

The Adventures

If you take a moment to look at any literature about Costa Rica, you discover God's natural beauty is the source for a lot of Adventure! We are so grateful that we were given the opportunity to enjoy adventure in the midst of serving!

Surfing
On our final day at Ocean's Edge, Aiden, Caleb, Elias, and Anna all got a surf lesson from Dan, Ocean's Edge Surf Club Leader. They loved it and were successful at getting up on the board and catching waves! Dan is a patient and kind teacher, a man completely on fire for the LORD. It was obvious his heart is for others to know Christ, and God is using him to reach the children in Jaco in great ways!

Rappelling Waterfalls
One of the Ocean's edge staff connected us with guides who led us on a 5 hour jungle journey and taught us to rappell waterfalls! We overcame fears, experienced God's beauty, learned new facts about His creation . . . and survived! What an adrenaline rush! We had great conversations with our guides, Christian and Harrol. We shared with them what we were doing with Ocean's Edge, including opening up the coffee shop that week. Christian promised to bring future tour groups to the coffee shop on their way to adventure. Pray Christian does this and that he experiences God's love over a cup o' joe!

The Van

The picture below isn't THE van, but it is the same make and model - the Hyundai H1. It has seating for 12, but not a lot for storage. Therefore, the whole back seat and more was taken up with luggage.

The acceleration wasn't great and the transmission needed to be downshifted frequently to get up the hills and to slow us down going downhill. I'm fairly sure our Honda Odyssey would have handled Costa Rica better, but there are few minivans like what we have in the US in Costa Rica.

Grateful

We are so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to go to Costa Rica as a family.

We are grateful for the support and prayers of our church, family, and friends.

We are grateful to God who is mindful of us, who accepts us in his kingdom through the finished work of Jesus, preserves us, and is creative beyond all imagination.