Well… at least we thought it was inslothable. Luckily, that wasn’t true, because if we went to Costa Rica without seeing a sloth, that would have been a MAJOR fail! This time, in Costa Rica (part two, I guess?), we stayed in a luxury hotel that was 100% robber-free, so much so that they wouldn’t even let our Uber driver in!

Our story starts in a mysterious jungle. Even after three days, it was a challenge to navigate around the resort, mostly for two main reasons: one, that it was three resorts in one (!), and two, that it was entirely submerged in its own little jungle-ocean. We had lots of tours and adventures in Arenal, which was the area we were staying in, and also one of 5 active volcanoes in Costa Rica. Shall we begin?

Us dipping our feet in our personal hot tub!!!

We had a lot of tours crammed into our 4 days in Arenal, so even on the first day, we had one. Luckily, it was very chill. In the morning, we drove from Samara to Arenal. Our resort is called Nayara Tented Camp, and the other two are Nayara Springs (adults only) and Nayara Gardens. Fun fact: This is my second-favorite hotel we have ever been to!

So, when we got to our hotel, we basically just dropped our stuff off and went to start our river safari, where we saw a monkey, a toucan, and some other animals and birds! After, they took us to a cafe to get a little snack. We came back and went swimming in our own personal hot spring! In our villa, we literally had a mini hot spring to ourselves! After dinner, our golf cart driver also miraculously found us a really cool frog.

The next day, we woke up really early at 6:30 in the morning, and went down to the breakfast buffet by 7. We got picked up and got transported to… drum roll please… canyoning! Canyoning was really fun, and we did this crazy thing called a Monkey Drop, where you climb up a rope ladder, and then zipline down about a 100-foot drop before you land in a tiny pool! It was really fun, but I was super wet and cold for the rest of the time. Today, the reason we woke up so early was that we had two tours in one day! Our second tour was a white-water river rafting tour, and it was probably the most splashed I have ever gotten in my life. We basically rowed through a river in an inflatable raft, but some parts were really splashy, and one time, it was so rough that our guide told Mia and me to duck inside the boat. A highlight was that we saw two sloths, but unfortunately, I wasn’t wearing my glasses. 😞For dinner, we went to a sushi restaurant, and I got sushi rolls, but instead of having raw fish on top, it had fried plantains!

On day 3 of our Arenal adventure, we started our day by going on a chocolate tour. We learned about the process of chocolate, made some, and of course, tried samples! Fun fact: The word "chocolate" actually means "bitter water" in the Aztec language! Our next tour guide was a little late, so we hung around a place called Sloth Park for about 30-45 minutes while waiting for him. When our tour guide finally came around, we went to a place called Mistico Park, and something cool was that there were these hanging wobbly bridges every once in a while that you could walk across to get to the other side and to get a nice view. We had our third sloth spotting while we were there, and it happened to be awake! (!!!!!!!!) When we came back, we had some gelato and went swimming. Here is another fun fact: every single day in Costa Rica so far, we have gone swimming!

Mia in the palm of a hand at the ziplining place

On our last day, we went ziplining! We went to Sky Adventures Park, where there were really long ziplines and great views. Mia and I have actually been on two before, once in Laos and once in Romania, which you probably remember if you read my Romania post from the summer, This place doesn’t suck…. This one was way different, though, because in Laos it was a bunch of short ones, and in Romania it was one superlong one, but in Costa Rica, it was a bunch of long ones, which was super fun flying above the forest! After completing our ziplining mission, we Ubered to town to eat lunch and, in my dad’s case, to buy two more bags of coffee. 😮‍💨 While in Costa Rica, we couldn’t go with only seeing ONE sloth, so thankfully our resort held a sloth hunt on our final day that gave us our final 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th sloths, including a sleeping mom and baby, and a sloth that apparently had a dire need to scratch itself!

P.S. If you are wondering why this post is late, it is because I have SCHOOL!!!

Arenal staaaaaats!

Best food: our chocolate, which we created on our chocolate tour! Fave flavors of family members: Mia=peanut+sprinkles, Penny=Himalayan pink salt+tumeric, my dad=coconut+chili, my mom=sea salt+peanut

Best shopping: Sky Adventure gift shop: many t-shirts and miscellaneous souvenirs scouted out

Fun fact: the last time Arenal exploded was late 2010

Best things to see/do: ziplining and white-water rafting

Where we stayed: Nayara Tented Camp

How 2 pronounce: are-in—all

Mission: Inslothable

Arenal staaaaaats!

Pura Vida… maybe?