Visiting Costa Rica an unforgettable experience

Claudia Pope, Gazebo Staff Writer|May 2, 2018

Claudia Pope

For spring break, my family took a trip to Los Suenos, Costa Rica, I experienced many things for the first time.

We flew into San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica. It is a busy city, surrounded by mountains. We drove to Los Suenos but made a couple of stops on the way, including a fruit market on the side of the road with different kinds of exotic fruits. I got to try a rambutan, a red spiky circular foreign fruit. I also got to try a fresh mango and drink coconut water straight from a fresh coconut.

We bought a watermelon and a pineapple to take with us. The Costa Ricans told us after you have fruit in Costa Rica it ruins the fruit in the U.S. for you because it is so delicious. They were correct!

Costa Rica isn’t known for the white sand and clear water but for its rocky and dark beach, surrounded by mountains and jungles. To experience the clear waters and white sand, we took a boat to an island in the Pacific, Tortuga Island.

When we arrived at the island, they were already prepared to start the snorkeling near a large rock far out in the ocean. We got our life jackets and snorkels and hopped into the ocean. I could see hundreds of fish. The fish didn’t even seemed fazed  by the people swimming around them. Schools of fish were swimming around me left and right. We swam around the rock, in awe of all the different kinds of fish, and we were trying to fight the life jacket’s power to go deeper down to get even closer. This was such an amazing experience.

We also signed up for a zip lining adventure. We were equipped with the harnesses and hooks used to assure a secure trip down the mountain. We rushed through the instruction course and rode a large tractor to haul us up  the mountain. We hopped off at the top, eager to get started. We anxiously scooted into line where the short intro zip-line was waiting.

I blew through the first zip line with no worries. This was just a small peek of what I was about to see in the Costa Rican jungle. We began the larger zip lines, and I was ready. I began flying through the jungles, hundreds of feet off the ground. I would be flying through the trees and past an opening in the trees with a view of the tall mountains.

Halfway through the zip lining, we got to hang upside down on the zip line while an instructor took pictures of us flying down the mountain. We reached the final connection and this was the biggest one yet. I’m pretty sure I was flying down at 60 miles per hour.

We reached the bottom, sweaty and tired, and were greeted with a plastic bowl of cold, fresh fruit. This zip lining experience was like no other. I cannot explain how amazing it was to be up close and personal with the jungles on the Costa Rican mountains. The plants and mountains were beautiful. This will be a memory I will never forget.