Today Don and I woke up at 4:45 am so we could catch the 5:30 shuttle back to the Houston Airport. We only got a few hours of sleep but it was way better than trying to sleep at the airport.

Kelsey’s flight got in a little bit before 6 am and we met her at our gate. We had breakfast at Ruby’s Diner in the Houston Airport.

We heard all about Kelsey’s flight. Kelsey gets really anxious while flying so she usually has a few drinks. Luckily she was able to get some sleep on her previous flight. To prepare for our flight to Costa Rica she had a beer after breakfast. I kept thinking to myself “I wonder how this is going to go…” haha. We boarded our flight a little bit before 9 am. The flight was good. Kelsey had more beer, Don ordered Buffalo Trace, and I had Coke.  I was planning on driving once we landed. The Buffalo Trace bottle was so cute and small! Don was happy to see it on the flight. United Airlines also provided these delicious cookies called Stroopwafel. I thought at some point we would fall asleep on the flight but we talked the whole way. It was good.

We landed in Liberia, Costa Rica around 11:30 am. It was Kelsey’s first time exiting the plane down the stairs so that was exciting.

We then found our shuttle to the Alamo Car Rental place. We were surprised to see that Alamo, Enterprise, and National all operated out of the same building. We rented a Toyota Corolla and we asked the guy who helped us where a good place for lunch is. He told us the place down the road was good so we went. The restaurant was called La Choza de Laurel. I ordered the Costa Rican Lunch which consisted of beef, rice, beans, salad, and a plantain. It was delicious; we all liked the food a lot. If you’re picking up a car from Alamo/Enterprise/National at the Liberia airport go to La Choza de Laurel!

After lunch we stared on our journey to the Arenal area of Costa Rica. This area is named after the Arenal Volcano. We were going to stay at the Volcano Lodge and Springs. The drive was interesting. This happened about 15 minutes into it.

The first part of the drive was pretty uneventful. It was just a typical 4 lane highway, but then it went down to 2 lanes so there was oncoming traffic. There wasn’t really much indication this was going to happen and every so often there would just be barricades in the highway that you would have to avoid. It was pretty crazy. At one point I had to swerve onto the shoulder to avoid an oncoming ambulance.

Once we got off the highway we were on a curvy, hilly, and crazy road all the way to the Volcano Lodge. Luckily, it was paved and it was a good road.

 

On the way to the hotel we caught our first glimpse of the volcano…later Don and Kelsey got some really awesome shots of the volcano. It was so cool because we could see the top and I read that it is often hard to see the top because of cloud coverage. It was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

We also saw some monkeys on the power lines, but we unfortunately did not get a picture of them.  Then we got stuck behind this truck for pretty much the majority of the drive.

We wanted to get to the Volcano Lodge before nightfall so we were hurrying. On the drive though we did get some awesome shots of Arenal.

We finally got to Volcano Lodge and Springs around 5 pm. The place was impressive! We were so happy to be done driving.  Our room was awesome. We had a little back patio with a view of the volcano.

Once we checked out the place we ate at the restaurant at the lodge. It was pretty good. We even were able to watch the Cubs game but they lost. We had our first of many Imperials here, Costa Rican Beer. After dinner we decided to check out the jacuzzi that I believe we read was provided by the natural hot springs from the volcano. The night was clear so we could see the outline of Arenal. It was a good first day!