Last Stop: Costa Rica

It was finally time for us to leave Argentina. We had booked all of our flights as a package before we left Korea. This had been working out well for us until it was time to head to Costa Rica. We had originally planned on traveling in Brazil but decided against it due to the headache of obtaining a visa. To get a Brazil visa you need your tickets in and out booked, lots of paperwork and a hotel booked for your entire stay. As you can imagine this is very hard for backpackers. As we were on a tight budget we didn't want to spend money on tickets if we were not guaranteed a visa. We decided to spend our last weeks in Argentina instead of dealing with the visa. The problem was that we had already bought our ticket to Costa Rica: leaving from Rio de Janiero, Brazil! To avoid the visa we bought a ticket into Rio the same day as our flight out. Problem solved we thought! We were wrong. In order to change airlines in the airport you still need a visa! We hurried to the embassy to sort out our problem. There were no appointments open for over three weeks! We were suppose to leave in a week! We scrambled around emailing everyone at the embassy and were finally granted an emergency appointment. We ended up getting the visa in 24 hours and had no trouble. We though that by skipping Brazil we would be saving a lot of money, instead we spent the money and experienced a major panic attack for free!

We left Buenos Aires and took a 7pm flight to Rio de Janiero. Our flight was of course delayed so we arrived in Rio around midnight. We were both stopped at immigration as we only had ten day visas which are very rare so red flags were raised. After getting through immigration we had 4 hours to wait until we could check in for our next flights. Finally we could check in. We thought we were in the clear until we were informed that our flight to Costa Rica may be delayed due to weather. This was a huge problem for us as we had flights from Rio to Lima, Peru and from Lima to San Jose, Costa Rica. Because our visa was already used, and we didn't need one for Peru, we decided to test our luck and take our flight to Lima. This flight was of course delayed. We arrived in Lima over an hour later but luckily our Lima to San Jose flight was also delayed! After a few unexpected hours in Lima we finally set off for Costa Rica. We were suppose to arrive at 2:00pm but arrived around 6:00pm. Our poor driver had waited for us the entire time! After meeting up with Mario we headed off of the three hour journey to Manuel Antonio. Because we had arrived so late we were unable to see much of the landscape. Looking back this worked out well as we were exhausted for our 30+ hours of travel and our night in the airport. We arrived at our hotel, checked in and went straight for dinner. We found this open air bar/restaurant right on the beach. After a much needed margarita and dinner we headed off to bed. We spent Friday relaxing on the beach and exploring the town. The water was so warm, clear and inviting! We spent the night at dinner and enjoying our surroundings.

On Saturday we spent the morning on the beach. We read books, walked in the sand and waited for my dad, Robin and my brother to arrive! They finally arrived around 6:00pm and we all headed off for dinner. It was so exciting to see them. I couldn't contain my excitement all day. I was literally shaking waiting for them to arrive. I hadn't seen my dad and Jordan since May of 2011 and Robin since August of 2010. It was surreal to have them in Costa Rica!

We all spent the next four days enjoying the beautiful weather. It did rain one evening but we were lucky and had great days. One day we went on a zip line tour. We climbed up this mountain and began the journey. It consisted of 10 different zip lines, 2 repels and a Tarzan swing. The entire course was in the tree tops and we didn't touch solid ground for over an hour! It was thrilling, terrifying and fantastic! We spent another day exploring Manuel Antonio National Park. It is the most visited park in Costa Rica. We saw dozens of wild monkeys, which I am not a fan of: thank you Malaysia, sloths, iguanas and other animals. However, most of our time was spent on the white sand with beers or books in hand. We spent our nights in open air restaurants enjoying fresh seafood and drinks. Thursday came all too quickly and Fred and I had to leave Costa Rica. We left our hotel at 2:00am for the three hour van ride back to San Jose. Our first flight was at 6:00am to El Salvador. From there we flew to Los Angeles, Phoenix and finally Minneapolis. We arrived around midnight and were greeted by friends and family. It was so exciting and surprising to see so many people that we had missed over our travels and years in Korea. We were truly overwhelmed with emotions and excitement for being home!

We loved our travels over the past 5+ months. As we were planning everything it seemed so surreal. We were unsure if we had made the right decision in traveling for so long after being gone for almost two and a half years. As we traveled we learned that we made the right choice. We met amazing people, saw breathtaking scenes and experienced so many cities. We would not trade this experience for anything!