Sunday
While Lucas was at church, Bethany and I took the morning to pack our bags for the next few days of travel. He drove us to the border around 2 p.m. and we opted not to have a cart carry our stuff since they only promised to take us as far as the Nicaraguan bored (around 100 m away). We strapped our giant duffle bags to our backs, car seats to the bags, and Bo to Bethany’s chest and made our way across.
Despite some shoulder bruising from the heavy bags, we managed to make it across the Nicaraguan border, over no man’s land, and across the Costa Rican border only to reach the parking lot at the other side with no private car in sight.
We waited for an hour until finally turning on Bethany’s phone plan, only to find out the driver had arrived two hours earlier and was parked in no man’s land to pick us up. We were not pleased.
That said, we got into the car and drove to our hotel: Hotel Cabañas La Teca. Getting there took us off the highway and down a series of dirt roads. The signs for the hotel were damaged and tattered and I started to question this booking.com decision. However, once we arrived, we were super impressed.
Picture a well manicured lawn with a few trees and three cabins on either side. The cabins were clean, roomy, and air conditioned (plus Adelaide again got a top bunk – when asked her favorite part of the trip, she said “the bunkbeds.”) Next to this space was a large pool with a fake stone cave you could jump into the pool from, a smaller pool that Ada could stand in, a play house, and a restaurant. The tables at the restaurant each had a stone umbrella covered in cool designs.
We ordered food and waited by the pools, while Bo and Ada played in the playhouse. I eventually climbed in to turn on some Christmas lights strung inside and outside of the home. It was surprisingly roomy on the inside, though the door was a tight squeeze.
After dinner, an older couple from Canada came over and chatted with us. They had enjoyed watching the kids play and were impressed with my ability to squeeze through such small spaces.
Once the kids were in bed, Bethany and I had one final drink outside in the heat before turning in for the night!
Monday
Breakfast was included at this hotel, so I walked over to order and waited, while Bethany and the kids enjoyed the AC in our room. When the food came, I gathered the family and we ate the pancakes and local combo (rice, beans, eggs, etc.) together under the cement umbrellas.
As we finished eating, the older couple came by again. They wanted to know more about Nicaragua since they would consider checking it out on future trips. We learned she was from NB and they were farmers in Alberta. He was retired now and as a project learned to fly planes, which he now did for the non-profit Hope Air. He even offered to drive us to the airport and we accepted (with only slight hesitation).
The rest of the morning was spent swimming in the two pools. Adelaide (and even Bo) thoroughly enjoyed jumping in the water out of the little cave. Eventually it was time to go and the retired farmer-turned pilot drove us the 20 minutes to the airport. He was perfectly nice and even walked us to the check-in desk.
On arriving to the airport on our way to Central America, we had noted that it seemed quite warehouse-like (very sparse) and expected the departure area to be similar. We were very, very wrong! It had restaurant options and a bunch of stores. We enjoyed a sit-down lunch and shopped around to kill time. We even got ice cream!
We left Costa Rica around 2:45 p.m. and landed in Toronto around 9 p.m. The five hour flight was fine. Ada watched TV (we both have really been enjoying the Tangled TV Series, which frankly is far better than you’d expect) and Bo slept at least part of the way. Snacks, balls, walking around the plane, and other activities kept him mostly occupied!
We got our luggage and made it through customs without any issues and then called a hotel shuttle, which arrived in 20 minutes. We were crashing in our hotel room by 10:30 p.m.
Tuesday
My grandparents live in Kitchener, ON and we’d asked if they’d be interested in coming out to Toronto to see us during our layover. We were very happy they did! There were too many of us for one vehicle, so we all hung around the airport lobby for a few hours and caught up. It had been around seven months since they’d seen Bo and Ada!
We took the 1 p.m. hotel shuttle back to the airport and flew home without any issues or stories to share. Jessica picked us up and we crammed our giant duffle bags into her tiny trunk.
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