la paz nature reserve//costa rica

Sorry in advance for the photo overload. This is the last of my Costa Rica posts. 

This was our last day in the country and by far my favorite day of the trip--additionally one of my favorite days in life. 

We woke up to monkeys on our porch and ended the day feeding toucans, hummingbirds, and holding butterflies...dreams do come true my friend. They come true in Costa Rica!

La Paz nature preserve was absolutely the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my entire life, and I've been to some pretty magnificent places, but up in those misty mountains, with pastures, and cows, and your head literally in the clouds, surrounded by jungle and some of God's most beautiful creatures. That's where you can feel His love with your eyes. 

It was a perfect day. 

The best day. 

state forty eight shirt c.o. state forty eight 

La Futuna Waterfall//Arenal Manoa

Our first few days in Costa Rica were spent in Arenal at the base of a beautiful volcano at this resort. The rooms were fine pretty plain, but the grounds were amazing--we spent much of our time in the hot springs enjoying the volcano view, but we pulled ourselves away long enough to go on a hiked down to La Futuna waterfall as well as went river rafting and ate lunch on an organic farm. It ended up being our favorite meal of the trip. It was so good.

jungle beach//day two aka best day of my life

This day was insane.

Since we had a very limited amount of time to spend in Manuel Antonio before we needed to jump back in the car for another several hours drive, we vowed to wake up with the sun. I was inside gathering my last bits together when marcus saw something move and at the same time i heard my brother yelling in the room above us, "WHERE'S ASHLEY?!"

We both ran outside and were greeted with little white-faced capuchin monkeys all over our balcony and in the trees outside our room! I thought I was going to die! I had heard that this area had tons of monkeys but we hadn't seen any, and even if we were going to, I figured they would be high in the trees. Instead I was looking one right in the face! Sometimes less than two feet away from me!

It was amazing to see them use the palm leaves like little ladders and how they could fly from tree to tree using their long tails as an extra arm. My favorite were the mamas with little babies clinging onto their backs.

We spent about a half hour watching the little guys play around the trees, eating, grooming, and checking out marcus' go-pro cam before they moved on, and so did we.

When I have these experiences, face-to-face with animals, I feel like I'm high on drugs (or I assume that's what it must feel like) only way better, because it's natural and I can fully remember it all. It's an experience I will truly never forget. 

We then headed out to the National Forest, which was much less exciting than our balcony encounter--all the animals were way high up and could really only be seen with binoculars, although we did come across a raccoon and a tiny jungle deer that reminded me of my poppy and I loved that, but at the end of the trail we ended up on a beautiful beach and saw lots of iguanas and other lizards. 

As we were checking out of our room, we ran into another troop of monkeys--this time red squirrel monkeys, they were smaller and so dang cute! They also had babies on their back and were extremely close--didn't have my camera, but it was so exciting to just stand there and make eye contact with them. They were so playful and amazing at jumping. 

It was such a great day!

manuel antonio jungle beach//day one

After the long journey to Manuel Antonio, we were greeted with the most magical room, jetting out into the jungle and overlooking the beach. The awesome vintage bohemian decor didn't hurt either--it was everything within me to not stuff that awesome red blanket in my bag when we checked out. It was heavenly.

We grabbed some dinner and frozen drinks at a pretty cool restaurant up the road and then ran down to the beach to catch the sunset. Now, if you follow me on instagram, you know that I'm very proud of our Arizona sunsets--they're famously some of the best in the world, but you guys, the sunset we witnessed on the beach that night--i will NEVER be able to forget it. It was so so so good and then it doubled because it was reflecting on in the water, and then, then it tripled because it was reflecting on the wet sand! And then the FULL moon came out over the palms, and I thought my heart and my eyes would explode. EXPLODE!!!

Manuel Antonio held some of my favorite memories, I hope you each get to go someday!

yoga with Reachel

the beach was covered in hermit crabs and marcus was obsessed--HA!