A surprising last day

At first, we thought we had to return the car the day before our flight, so yesterday. But when I double-checked, we realized that we actually had to return it today. That resulted in us unexpectedly having a whole day to ourselves.

Spontaneously, I messaged an agency and asked if they had any tours available. That's how we ended up going on a cocoa and a horseback tour, each lasting 2 hours. At first, Noah didn't feel like it at all. Literally zero 0️⃣☹️👎🏼.

Fortunately, that changed quickly once we started. We had a really exciting two-hour cocoa lesson with lots of surprising information. We tried all the processing stages, from the slimy bean to the finished cocoa drink with sugar and chili (called the drink of the gods), and wondered what it was like 10,000 years ago when the first South Americans discovered this fruit.

During the lunch break, Marco was kind enough to drive back to the hotel and get my shoes. I had left them right next to the car in the parking lot 🙈😜.

After an hour, we started the horseback riding. I think everyone felt a mix of respect and fear. These were not ponies, but fully grown horses. But they were really great horses. Fortunately, it wasn't too hot and there was only a little rain. The real monsoon came later.

We are sitting at a waterfall in the middle of the rainforest. We went up and down hills and crossed various rivers. It was so much fun. Everyone really enjoyed it.

At the waterfall, we could swim. There was also a platform to jump into the water. Guess who was the first one to jump. Unfortunately, Marco only took videos, so I couldn't post a picture here. Elia dared to jump, and then I followed.

Somehow, we've been struggling the whole vacation to dry our shoes. We constantly find ourselves unexpectedly walking through rivers during tours where we can't do anything but walk through the water. You would think I learned my lesson after the second time, but no, it happened to us again yesterday. All shoes got wet. And today we're flying back... And with this humidity here, nothing is drying. So, during this time, there were maybe three days when all the shoes were dry.

Well, then we'll just fly in flip flops😂.

On the way back to San José last night, the real monsoon started. This meant that we couldn't take the actual highway because it was flooded. Well, a little bit of flooding doesn't bother anyone here, but this one was really flooded. So we had to turn around and drive back half of the distance and then take another highway to the city. It was really a long trip, and we couldn't drive fast because of the heavy rain. But we finally arrived safely at the hotel, and that's all that matters.

We stayed one more night at a hotel with a pool, which the kids really enjoyed today. The car has already been returned, everything went smoothly. Now we're waiting for the shuttle to the airport, hoping that everything goes well and we'll arrive in Germany on Sunday afternoon local time.

It's been great that you traveled with us a bit. I hope I was able to give you a little impression of what we experienced. It was a beautiful time that we will never forget.

The plants, the animals, and especially the people here are so different. Beautiful, super friendly, breathtaking.

In short:

Pura Vida

🦥🏝🦜🦎😎🌺🍉🥑🥥🌮🏄🏼

And now off to Germany 🇩🇪