I went to Costa Rica for spring break (March 28, 2016). When the plane landed, we landed at this shabby looking airport in Liberia. The town looked like a grassland with some houses, and large parts of that grassland were burnt down. After we had spent a night at a cheap motel called the Rincon, we visited Tamarindo, a pristine beach town. Tamarindo was apparently a very wealthy town, because the town had beautiful houses, no trash in sight, a shell- covered beach, and supreme restaurants. After a very long car ride, we arrived at a jungle/ cloud forest called Monteverde. The citizens of Monteverde must have actually cared about their town, because the whole town looked pretty good for Costa Rica standards. The town was also full of fun activities, like ziplining and horseback riding.

Then we ventured on to volcano Arenal. After two hours of being tortured by the wait of riding in a 4×4 Toyota sedan on a very bumpy road, we arrived at a good-looking hotel called Brisas Arenal. The rooms smelled like ginger, there was a small pool you could swim in, and a rainforest bordered the whole hotel. (And yes, the featured image is what our hotel looked like.) We swam near a 210 foot tall waterfall, and that was fun, but the most notable thing that we did was to climb to the top of a five-mile-high inactive volcano called Cerro Chato. Cerro Chato was basically a pile of mud, mud, and more mud, tropical mountain plants… and then some rocks. Oh, and did I mention that some of the many slopes were 45-degree angles? As soon as we started the climb, I was thinking something along the lines of “Let’s do this!”, but about a couple miles into the climb, I was thinking,”Holy #@@$, I’m going to die of hunger/ thirst, HELP!” After a lot of cursing, screaming and crying, I climbed to the top and gazed down at the pristine crater lake. You can be sure that I slept like a log that night. But my troubles with Costa Rica weren’t over yet.

The morning we ventured on towards Liberia, my stomach started to feel a bit weird. So we pulled over to the only facility with public restrooms… a German bakery. As soon as we did that, a tour bus pulled over and my dad and grandpa were thinking, ” Oh my God, no!” The lines to the outhouses with flush toilets were easily fifteen people deep, but I was quickly given access to a vacant outhouse because I was in a hurry to get rid of my current stomach troubles. The plane ride home was okay. Even though I had a great time overall, I was very happy to be home. As soon as I got home, I hugged my mom.