Rafting is still good fun, the zip line, however, leaves something to be desired.

I spent the first 10 days of my latin american trip with my parents. While planning the trip my mom surprised me with a request to go white water rafting - and so I set it up!

We arrived in Costa Rica on Thursday and had a rather long and bumpy ride to Arenal, where we started our trip. The next day we had a relaxing morning by the pool and an excellent guided tour through the rainforest, concluded with an evening dip in the hot springs. The flora and fauna of Costa Rica in Arenal is amazing rich, there were birds and monkeys galore on our tour (and Jay was wise enough to get us into the forest early so we were before all the other tour groups!)

Day 3 we were up and off to white water rafting. Gerald was an excellent guide, he did a great job of keeping my mom safe (although I did take an unexpected dip outside the raft) and he kept us laughing all day with his jokes. Luckily the rapids were not too vigourous, yet still we were all tired at the end of the day. We had one final woot and high five with our paddles before it was time for lunch. That evening I got the local tour as Gerald and his roommate took me out to the drag racing.

We were sad to say good bye to Arenal the next day, but Monteverde did not disapoint. We took an amazing boat cruise arosse Lake Arenal to head to Moteverde,which my mom did not want to end. The view of the volcano was stunning and with hardly anyone else out on the lake, it was incredibly peaceful.

Ever day so far had been amazing and my mom was overwhelmened with the beauty and hospitality of Costa Rica. I kept reminding her to remember how happy and fun each day was, because we were destined at some point to have one bad day, so it was good to remember each of the fun days.

And boy did that bad day come. We were signed up to do zip lining, with an option to the canopy tour after lunch. At lunch I asked my mom if she was going to sit out zip lining, but she was adament that she was going to do it. I was shocked. My mom is very much afraid of heights, so I couldn´t believe she was so intent on doing it. I thought the costa rican spirit must have gotten her!

We arrived at zip linning and my mom and I were both quite nervous. We insisted on watching everyone else go before doing the zip lining ourselves. We did the test one and we both made it - so we decided to continue on. I will not give you the intimate account, but I will merely say my dad loved it. That made one of us. By the end of the 10, I´m not sure that I would say that I was having ¨fun¨ but I was also no longer petrified. I can confidently report that by the end of the 5th one all my mom wanted to do was be done and drinking a glass of wine. It was an intense day for all, and we spent the evening reflecting on how much fun white water rafting is. I took away from this that I find my fun more in depths rather than heights.

The next day we were happy to have an afternoon tour of the cloud forest with Maria. She showed us a wide range of birds, a tarantula, many nests, and some adorable racoon related animals. We also got to spend 20 minutes by the humming bird feeders watching all of the different humming birds come in for a nosh. One feeder often had several birds at once - conference call!

From the cloud forest it was on to Flamingo Beach and some fun in the sun. My dad took the resort course where they teach you some basic scuba skills and then him and I went diving in the afternoon. We saw jellyfish, a lobster, angel fish, damsel fish, snapper, and many others. The visibility was only about 15 feet, but it was still fun being under water.

After four days at the beach (our condo had the most amazing view of the sunset over the water), it was time for my parents to head back to reality. Not so for me - as they headed to the airport I headed to Playa del Coco for 7 more days of beach, including a few days of diving.