Did you miss any of the earlier Costa Rica posts?
Click here to read about CostaRicaFitnessVacations Day 1 – Flying
As I started waking up in the hotel I began to come to and realize that there’s a two hour time difference here which meant that there was a strong possibility that I just slept through the free breakfast at the hotel! I hopped out of bed to see 10:15am on the clock, and quickly grabbed the hotel handbook. I couldn’t believe it… breakfast ended at 10am! I threw on some clothes and ran to the lobby hoping for something, anything to be left, but all I found was fruit and coffee. The hotplates where still out, but the food had been removed. Damn! Option #2 was to grab some fruit and mix up a protein shake that I brought along. Feeling a little unsure if I should drink the water I did some googling and everything that I found said I was a-OK to drink that water in Costa Rica at major establishments. So I mixed up the protein shake and gulped it down. Knowing that I was going to need a ton more water for the day, and still feeling a little uneasy about drinking the water, I went to the front desk and asked about the water. The lady said, and I quote “oh yeah we’re fixing that”. I was like… “wait. You’re fixing what? The water? What’s wrong with the water???” And she said “there’s been a dysentery problem, but we’re getting it fixed”. I said “thanks” and walked away…
Dysentery or not (hopefully not…) I knew that I was going to need water, and not more water from the hotel, so I found a Wally World (Walmart) only a 20 minute walk from the hotel. Being unsure of the area I decided to take a cab to the Walmart and if it looked OK I would walk back. The ride to Walmart looked semi-walkable, and the 3 minute cab ride was $6, so after grabbing some water and sunscreen at Walmart, I went for the walk. Other than being hilly, and potentially through a not so good part of town (bars completely covering the houses and people smoking weed on the side of the road), the walk was great! It was only about 20 minutes and I got to work on my base layer tan (which was very needed).
The rest of the day went super smooth, Autumn (my co-coach) made it safely to the hotel, and we did our first Costa Rica workout in the lawn behind the hotel. It was the main site CrossFit WOD from Feb. 15th – burpees, jumping lunges, double unders, and sprints. Afterward we planned for the arrival of the rest of the crew and had some delicious Costa Rican chicken and avocado at a nearby restaurant before calling it a day.
The next morning I made sure to get up early enough for the free breakfast, and it wasn’t bad! Scrambled eggs, sausage, pineapple, and watermelon.
After breakfast I went for a run along one of the local roads that lead away from the San Jose airport. There was an interesting combination of houses and small convenient stores along the way, and the road was very busy for a Saturday morning. After about 30 minutes of one-way running I turned around and headed back to the hotel to get showered up. Once I was ready to go I met up with Autumn and we headed out to pick up the other five people that were traveling into Costa Rica for our fitness vacation. The airport was packed with people pouring out of the exit doors and almost the same number of people were waiting outside to pick people up. We battled the chaos until everyone was accounted for and we all hoped onto the bus that we chartered to take us to Manuel Antonio.
The drive was about 3.5 hours and included a stop at this random bridge… When you look over the bridge there’s about a 60 foot drop into a river that’s full of crocodiles! The crocs were HUGE, and there were tons of them just chilling in the river. It felt like something straight out of Indiana Jones.
As the sun went completely down and darkness prevailed we rolled into Manuel Antonio and found the house that we rented for the week. Being dark, and having only seen the house in pictures it was interesting to see what we rented. The house turned out to be amazing with tons of rooms, a larger pool than expected, and our private chef was great!
After settling in and having dinner we hopped into the pool to cool off from the warm night. Finally getting to our destination felt great, and we were all tired and ready to hit the sack. Especially since there was a 7am workout planned for the morning!
Click here to jump to CostaRicaFitnessVacations Days 4 & 5 – Monkey Drop
To find out more about the trip and how you can join us next year go to www.CostaRicaFitnessVacation.com.
Now get outside and have fun by working hard! 🙂
