Costa Rica

If you follow us on Tofu and Manna, then you have probably heard us mention the name Dr. John McDougall before. He is a board-certified internist doctor who owns a clinic in California. But more to the point, he is a passionate and outspoken proponent of a whole foods, plant-based diet (a diet centered on starch like potatoes, whole grains, and legumes). There are several "plant-based" doctors and experts that we like to follow, but Dr. McDougall is our favorite. He is direct, uncompromising, and unashamed - qualities that we appreciate and relate to.

When we discovered on his website that his program organizes annual all-inclusive vacations, we were all too eager to start saving up for it. A vacation with all the plant-based food included so we don't have to hassle with it ourselves like previous vacations, plus a chance to MEET one of our personal role models? Yes please!

The choices were Hawaii this past January or Costa Rica last month. Since Hawaii was twice as expensive and coming up the soonest (less time to save up for it), we selected Costa Rica. It was a great choice because Costa Rica is one of the most bio-diverse locations in all the world. We saw a ton of natural wildlife and plants while there, and the weather was gorgeous! We were in Costa Rica from June 21-28, and I tried to organize the following sections by topic. If you are ever interested in learning about a plant-based diet and want to enjoy a relaxing and fun vacation in the process, we highly recommend booking a McDougall Adventure!

Why a McDougall Adventure?
We wanted to go on a vacation that would be fun, relaxing, and rewarding. This vacation accomplished all three - above and beyond our expectations. Not having to plan ahead or worry about what was in the food we would be served made it worth the premium paid. It was wonderful to feel "normal" again - to be able to just sit down, eat, and socialize with other like-minded people.

Our Schedule
These vacations are pretty popular - there were about 130 people that attended this adventure trip in Costa Rica. To encourage building friendships and to keep the excursions fun and at a reasonable number, all attendees were assigned to one of four groups. Each group had a set schedule of which excursion they would do on a given day of the week. We were placed in the purple group, the "monos" (monkeys in Spanish). Our schedule for the week was:

• Saturday - Arrival
• Sunday - Free Day/Orientation
• Monday - River Tour
• Tuesday - Free Day
• Wednesday - Horseback Riding/Hot Springs
• Thursday - Snorkeling
• Friday - Canopy Tour
• Saturday - Depart

Pre-vacation/Arrival



Because we had our home study office interview scheduled for June 20th in Fort Worth, we decided to just take the whole day off. It was a good thing too, because our caseworker told us that the interview would take approximately 4 hours to complete, but we are apparently very long-winded - we didn't even finish. (We'll finish the remaining questions by telephone.) It was still a great pre-vacation day of fun by eating lunch at The Spiral Diner, dinner at Whole Foods, and watching "The Holiday" at our friends' house who let us crash at their place while they were out of town (thank you Kevin and Amanda!!) Staying at their house was perfect because they live within 15 minutes of the airport...and our flight departed at 5:45AM on Saturday, June 21st. Yes, 5:45AM. We woke up at 3:00AM...

After a nap on the flight to Miami, while we waited for our final flight to Costa Rica, we met the first fellow "McDougaller" family in the airport and got to share our stories. It was fun to meet a family that was as excited to meet the McDougalls as we were. When we arrived in Liberia, Costa Rica and cleared customs, we found the tour guide hired by the McDougalls to transport all of us to the resort. That means we got to meet even more McDougallers on the bus ride! :)

Hilton Papagayo All-Inclusive Resort



The resort is located in Guanacaste, the northwest region in Costa Rica. It is a beautiful resort that is set in the hills and cliffs right off the Culebra Bay. You can see in the pictures how elevated different parts of the resort were. Because it wasn't directly the Pacific ocean, the water was really calm with very tiny waves, almost like a big lake (but still had a strong tide). The resort had several swimming pools, restaurants (but we never ate at any of them since our food was made special for our group), and hiking trails.

The Wildlife



Wildlife was everywhere. I'll share more soon about the wildlife we saw on the River Tour, but we saw a lot just at the resort. There are tons of birds that reside either permanently or seasonally in Costa Rica. The squirrels looked really different. They had a cat that lives at the resort, and one night we saw a dog that had coloring similar to Ginger (made us miss her real bad!) And there were iguanas everywhere. It became an inside joke that since Costa Rica natives have descendants from the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas, that the iguanas were like little stealth warriors. You'd know they were coming for you if you heard a quiet "Inca!" yell growing louder like, "Incaaaaaaaaaaa!" From that point on, every time we saw an iguana, we'd say, "Inca!" :)

Free Days



On our first full day at the resort, we relaxed by the pool and read by the beach. We both started reading The Maze Runner and are totally hooked. We also happened to meet another McDougaller couple who lives in Texas, and we went kayaking and snorkeling with them, which was so much fun. We kayaked to a private beach and walked around a little.

When snorkeling right off the beach, we saw tons of fish, sea urchins, a tiny jelly fish, and an octopus. When I felt tired, I started the long swim back to shore. Michael started heading back to shore not too long after me, so I was in the lead by about 50 feet. It was so funny because there was literally one small fishing boat that was anchored in the water, and PLENTY of space to swim around it, but I happened to turn around to see how far back Michael was...just in time to watch him swim head first into the boat and bump his head (not seriously injured). He popped up out of the water, rubbed his head, and swam to shore, where I teased him a little bit. :)

Around sunset, we decided to walk one of the hiking trails, and it had a beautiful scenic overlook of the bay. Later in the week we hiked the other trail at the resort that was much more difficult to traverse. It too had gorgeous scenic overlooks of the bay and the resort (almost like at the top of a small mountain). We also worked out at the resort's fitness center most days, which was a pretty nice facility.

Excursion #1: River Tour



Our first excursion was the river tour. The bus ride to the river was about 1 1/2 hours. Our tour guide, Jorge, was awesome - he was excellent at spotting wildlife and would row us backwards if we missed something or to let us get a better look at the wildlife. On the river tour we saw dozens of iguanas (Inca!), several birds, howler monkeys, baby crocodiles, and bats. The McDougalls arranged for us to eat lunch at a nearby restaurant, where I discovered how much I love eating cassava root.

Excursion #2: Horseback Riding, Mud Bath, and Hot Springs



The bus ride to the Buena Vista Lodge was also about 1 1/2 hours. We all got on horseback and followed a guide to where the mud bath/hot springs "spa" was located. Michael nicknamed his horse Snowball and I called mine Cookie Dough.

Once at the spa, we all changed into bathing suits and went into the sauna. After that, they had large bowls of warm mud from a nearby volcano that we smeared all over our bodies and hair. This is not something I ever thought I would do, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. After smearing mud all over, we waited for it to air dry, which takes a lot longer if you smear it on thickly (Michael, lol). Then came the worst part - washing off all the mud...in very cold water! The tour guide had a grand ol' time hosing all us tourists off. But relief came quickly, because the very last step was to relax in the hot springs pools. They had three pools with three different temperatures of water. We didn't realize each pool was a different temperature, so when we saw a ton of people in the first pool, we thought, "Why is everyone crowding in this one, we'll just go to the middle one!" But then we heard from other people that the first pool was like a hot tub, so we went back to that one and boy did it hit the spot. It was so very relaxing! Plus our skin felt refreshed, exfoliated, and smooth.

The McDougalls arranged for us to eat lunch at the local restaurant at Buena Vista. This lunch was filling, but was by far the blandest meal we ate on the whole trip. We think this was the first time the restaurant was asked to prepare plant-based food and so they assumed that meant no spices or seasoning could be used, not even salt. But it was nice of them to accommodate all of us leaf-eating hippies. :)

Excursion #3: Snorkeling



This excursion was just in the morning (meaning that we were back at the resort by lunchtime). We rode on a catamaran out a few miles to a private beach. On the ride out there, we saw some sea turtles...mating. It was really funny and awkward because the catamaran literally straddled them in their intimate moment. But that's wildlife for you, and it was neat to see sea turtles in the wild. We also enjoyed watching a very interesting seagull-type bird that would fly in zigzag patterns and then dive into the water to try to catch fish. There were small fishes that seemed to shoot up from the water, fly just above the surface and then dive back down, very fast. It was quite entertaining. Once snorkeling, the tour guides found two kinds of starfish that we got to hold in our hands. We also swam to the private beach shore and walked around.

Excursion #4: Canopy Tour (Zipline)



This was our favorite excursion of the week! We have ziplined twice before this trip to Costa Rica (once in Jamaica and last year in Alaska). For the Jamaica one, they had no braking system and tried to instruct me on how to use my hand to slow myself down at the end of each line. But for whatever reason, I just never got the hang of it and would always come flying into the end where the guide would have to catch and stop me. This wasn't an issue last year in Alaska because they had a braking system that would automatically slow you down, so we could ride the ziplines hands-free (this was still our most favorite zipline experience ever!)

So I was a little nervous this time in Costa Rica when they again instructed us on how to use your hand to slow yourself down. But I was determined to figure it out. I knew what to expect from the zipline itself, so it was just a matter of remembering what to do with each hand and your head. Left hand - hold your tether ropes in front of you. Head - lean to the left. The right hand was the tricky part. You always keep your hand hovered just above the lower cable line, ready to touch the cable when wanting to slow down. In the past, I would simply grab the cable and close my hand around it, which is a terrible idea, because you end up jerking your shoulder because it's way too much friction. The trick is to keep your fingers together and bent to 90 degrees (L shape), then simply lower your hand towards the cable to cause friction by using finger tips (wearing gloves of course). Imagine Ross when he lived with Chandler and Joey and kept asking them to keep the noise down:



Once I picked up this trick, I nailed it! Michael teased me because while he chose to spin around and flip upside down like Spiderman, I stayed in the picture perfect pose that the guides instructed us to do. I'm such a rule-follower! So that's why all the zipline pictures of me look exactly the same, and why all the pictures of Michael are mostly of his butt. :)

After enjoying 12 thrilling ziplines, we walked through the wildlife sanctuary on site. There we held hands with a couple monkeys, and got to HOLD a baby 5-month old monkey. Eeee!! So cute! They also had some snakes, birds, and iguanas.

The Lectures



Every evening at 5:00PM we attended the McDougall lecture. It was even more exciting to hear him speak in person than we had hoped! He has a passion for helping people improve their health through diet ("It's the food!" is his company's slogan). But he gets very upset (rightfully so) when the media or others attempt to spread lies that directly harm people or lead them astray. Most recent example of this was the June 23, 2014 Time magazine article that says "Eat Butter" and "Ending the War on Fat". This article claims that saturated fats are healthy for people. Terrible advice that will surely lead people to think, "Oh good, that means I get to eat my bacon and eggs every morning and it's heart healthy." As McDougall loves to say, people love to hear good news about their bad habits.

He also gave his popular lectures on the dangers of dairy, heart disease, and how to improve digestive health. (He has a ton of free content on his website under "Education"). Not everyone there was 100% on board with this diet, and I just cannot fathom how anyone could hear his lectures and not be convinced to at least change something in their diet. But, I know change can be hard for some people, and there are many people who would rather take pills, have surgeries, and get things amputated than to do something so "extreme" like give up certain foods. For us, we'd rather eat cardboard if it meant living a healthier, longer, and more active life. Thankfully, the food we get to eat tastes nothing like cardboard. :)

We enjoyed taking some photos with Dr. McDougall and his wife, Mary, and they were kind enough to sign our copy of The Starch Solution (by far our #1 recommended book - perfect blend of science and prose that's easy to read). We also came away with a renewed passion to keep fighting the good fight. To continue what we're doing because we know it's right and honoring the temples God gave us, irregardless of how strangely others look at us. We're happy to continue calling ourselves the crazy leaf-eating hippies. :)

The Food



I'm ashamed to admit that I think I only took one picture of the food...Blame the McDougalls and the chefs at the resort - they prepared way too delicious and numerous foods! The food was absolutely wonderful! And it was a wonderful treat to not have to even worry or think about the food - just serve and eat! We were never hungry and if anything, were in danger of over-eating every meal because we just wanted to try everything. Even though it's all healthy, stuffing your stomach three times a day can still make you feel uncomfortable, lol.

For breakfast, they offered oatmeal, cereal, waffles, pancakes, beans and rice, potatoes, muffins, fruit, and bread. For lunch and dinner, there was usually at least one kind of soup, several salad options, and a large variety of hot dishes. I don't think there was a single repeat, so it's hard to list them all, but they usually had some sort of potato, pasta, rice, vegetable, and corn dish at each meal. For lunch and dinner, they offered a variety of desserts as well: rice pudding (so tasty!), cakes, cookies, fudge, chocolate pudding, fruit, and cobblers.

The People


Dean, April, Becky, and Dan


Trevor and Jessica

Our favorite part of the whole vacation was meeting such wonderful and inspirational people. Fellow McDougallers. I don't know why we didn't think of this ahead of time, but we just did not expect friendships and socializing to be a big focus of this vacation. But every meal afforded the opportunity to sit with several other families and share stories. We intentionally tried to meet new people every time, and were so encouraged by this. It was wonderful to meet so many other people who "got it" about health and diet. We were also encouraged because several older couples, including the McDougalls, told us when they met us how wonderful it is to see such young people making an important change like this that will likely prevent us from experiencing the diseases that motivated many others to change their diet. They explained that it's especially hard to convince young people to eat a healthier diet because they aren't yet facing the life-threatening effects of their eating - it can sometimes take decades to catch up to you.

We loved meeting like-minded people and are so excited at the thought of getting to visit some of them if/when we're ever in their part of the country.

Departing/Coming Home



We certainly were not ready to say goodbye to our new friends and paradise, but we were excited to return to our pet children. We were in the last group to leave for the airport, so in the morning, we just enjoyed reading by the beach. Our flight left Costa Rica at 2:15PM and arrived in D/FW at 7:20PM. We were very impressed with the automatic kiosks at customs - in and out in 10 minutes. We eventually got to our car and stopped for dinner at The Spiral Diner before heading back home. All four pets were very upset with us for having left and Ginger and Abby especially seemed afraid we would leave them again. It was a joy to see their cute faces again! We also came home to a ton of ripened squash and cucumbers. It was crazy what one week away and a little rain did!