Kids Saving the Rainforest + Villa Vanilla

Weekends are for adventures, but we decided to spend Saturday relaxing instead. On Sunday, we headed over to Kids Saving the Rainforest near Quepos/Manuel Antonio. KSTR is a super cool organization that was originally started by two 9-year old girls and has since grown significantly. They take in hurt or abused animals and try to rehabilitate them to release them back into the wild. We toured their facilities in the morning and learned all about their monkeys, sloths, birds, and numerous other super cool animals.

Then Owen and Sara were able to have the unique experience to spend the rest of the day volunteering at KSTR. As our time here in Costa Rica winds down, this felt like the perfect way to give back to this beautiful country. They spent most of the time prepping and feeding the animals. Owen was quite taken by the experience, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up back here on his own when he’s older. 

On Monday, we journeyed back to the same area to do a tour of a beautiful spice farm called Villa Vanilla. Mom and Dad Spitters came with, and we were all thoroughly impressed with the experience. One of the reasons pure vanilla is so expensive is that all of the vanilla flowers (that eventually turn into vanilla beans) have to be HAND POLLINATED. I guess the only bee that can pollinate these flowers is virtually extinct. Also, fun fact, imitation vanilla comes from BEAVER pheromones. Ew.

We ended up on one of the best overlooks. It was this beautiful hut overlooking the mountains where they served us delicious treats and drinks made from the farm. Pura vida indeed!

Owen and Grammy spent the afternoon zip lining, while the rest of us hung out in Jaco one last time. I got my first tattoo too! (More on that later!)

Owen LOVES sushi, so we ended up at Tsunami Sushi in Jaco Walk. Ok, we’ve had a fair amount of sushi, but these rolls were out of this world! Owen and I both said it was probably the best sushi we had ever eaten! So good!!

Packing day Tuesday! :(:(:(:(:(

Rainmaker Hanging Bridges

After a morning of working/schooling, we headed out to Rainmaker. Rainmaker is another trail with hanging bridges close to Quepos/Manuel Antonio. We almost skipped it, because we had already done Mistico. I’m so glad we didn’t!

We got there midafternoon and had the trails virtually to ourselves. It was quite the uphill hike at first, and then we got to a series of sweet hanging bridges. They were considerably more…um…rustic ;) than Mistico’s. We quickly realized that these bridges were literally hanging and weren’t attached on each side to the platforms. It added to the experience, though, for sure. 

No people. Just my fam in middle of the rainforest, walking from platform to platform across multiple hanging bridges. So amazing!

After the bridges, we hiked alongside a river with five or six waterfalls along the way. Each waterfall had the most perfect little swimming hole beneath it. My sister-in-law Jessie found a rope on the first one and quickly scaled it up! The next waterfall pool had a perfect sitting spot for all of us beneath the waterfall. Lainey kept wanting to touch the waterfall and giggled each time.

It was quite a hike, but Rainmaker was definitely a highlight for our whole group!

Rainmaker is definitely not accessible for strollers/wheelchairs. Lainey and I almost hung back because of that, but then we maneuvered my nephew’s child-carrier to make a piggyback work for Lainey and me. It worked awesome, and I’m so glad we were able to partake in the experience with everybody. We’ll be researching some more carrier options in the future for trails like this that aren’t quite stroller accessible.

We headed to Jaco the next afternoon to do an aerial tram through some more rainforest. 

The day after was the last day for Scotty/Jessie/Lincoln, so we spent the day relaxing by the pool in the morning and our perfect Bejuco Beach. It’s been so great to share this experience with so many!

Nauyaca Waterfalls & Dominical

We got more visitors a few days ago! Our siblings Scotty and Jessie (and our nephew Lincoln) arrived on Saturday, and then my in-laws Chris and Candi joined the fun on Sunday!

Weekends are for adventures, so we headed out to Manuel Antonio National Park again. The beach there remains my favorite. It just reeks of paradise. We didn't see as much wildlife this time, but the monkeys were out in full force. We also earned our first matching family sunburns (womp womp).

Sara lost her Apple Watch here on the beach. We searched everywhere for it, and she was super bummed about losing it. But then, when we were at lunch, Sara got an email that somebody had found it! They used her emergency contact info on the watch to send us a message. Frequent theft is one of the few negatives of Costa Rica. That's what they say, anyways. We haven't experienced that at all thankfully, and even experienced the opposite here with Sara's watch. Super thankful for the helpfulness of a stranger!

The hike is just long enough, and the heat is just hot enough, that by the time we were ready for the hike back from the beach, we had some tired kiddos. If you visit Manuel Antonio, go as early as possible to avoid the heat.  

We started the next morning with a trek to Nauyaca Waterfalls. We drove as far as we could in our trusty van (Senor Coco), and then hopped in the back of a 4x4 truck to drive the rest of the way. Oh man, another CRAZY road! Straight up alongside the twisty dirt road of the mountain. 

When we arrived to the falls, it was breathtaking! Easily a highlight of our whole trip here! We explored the upper falls and then headed down to the lower falls that had the most refreshing swimming spot beneath it. IT. WAS. AWESOME.

After about an hour of hanging out, we noticed a Tico scaling up the falls. We noticed he had a rope with him and was attaching it to a few spots. Another Tico then joined him, and they both started scrubbing a few spots on the falls. We realized that they were prepping spots for people to climb UP the falls, so they could dive off the top. After scrubbing for a while, they both looked out to all of us and beckoned to us all to come climb and jump! Chris and I took off for the rock platform at the bottom of the falls. They then instructed us where to place our feet (where they had just spent time scrubbing), and we hoisted ourselves up the waterfall, with water gushing in our face! We reached the jumping spot halfway up the falls (about 35-40 feet) and launched ourselves into the pool below. KILLER.

There are two entrances to Nauyaca. Make sure to do the one labeled "Nauyaca Waterfalls/Cataratas Nauyaca" and not "Nauyaca Waterfall Nature Park", unless of course you want the more challenging hike at the Nature Park. The hike in is hard, and if you hike, by the time you get there, it will be crowded. Take the truck ride instead. It was half the fun for our group! It takes you right to a walkway and then a set of steps down to the falls. Lainey has been having new aversions to steps and different walkways, so she ended up riding piggyback most of the way. She also totally hates colder water too, so she had no interest of getting in the water.

If you're already in the Nauyaca area, do yourself a favor and head down to Dominical. It's an earthy beach town that has some great beach and eating spots. It's worth a morning or an afternoon for sure. We stumbled on Fuego Brewery and all just absolutely loved our meals (along with the killer views).