Pura Vida! Zip lining, Caving and Rappelling in Costa Rica

Sitting in our apartment last night with my Superbowl hangover (caused more by pizza and bloating than actual alcohol), I was incredibly jealous of this week’s trip to Costa Rica. For one, the resort that The Bachelor rented out for one week was absolutely stunning. It was located near the base of Arenal, the explosive volcano that I once hiked around with a couple of girlfriends of mine back in the day when I still wore bikinis. We did zip lining (amazing!), horseback riding and rainforest hikes – all incredible. Costa Rica’s motto, for lack of better words, is known as “Pura Vida,” or “Pure Life,” and nowhere else was this exhibited better than on this week’s episode of The Bachelor. I was fascinated while watching these ladies prance around in their little bikinis with Brad’s bulging, toned and tanned chest/abdomen popping out of lit up swirling hot springs (sorry to The Husband, but looking away would be the equivalent of turning off the TV during overtime of a hockey game). Does Brad have his therapist AND  personal trainer following him around?

I’m diving right into my top 10 highlights and some commentary from the Costa Rican dates:

1. The look on Brad’s face when Chantal came out of the bathroom wearing his shirt. I think Brad got “way too excited,” if you know what I mean. I think there was some serious editing here as he ran off somewhere (probably to take a cold shower) before finally calming down enough to hang out with her. If these two do end up together, that will be the moment when Brad realized he was in love with Chantal.   And by in love, I mean in lust. It will be the vision that he keeps repeating in his head when he thinks about every other girl. Which also means that while I generally like Chantal and find her down to earth (despite her horrific choices in leopard print rose ceremony dresses), I am not sure I see these two lasting long term. For one, I don’t exactly understand how she has fallen in love so quickly. I don’t really see them talking about anything other than their feelings for each other. For another, Chantal seems to have some real emotional highs and lows. She’s already put it all out there and we’re six episodes in. So basically, she’s already peaked. The only thing that can happen is that she’s going to get understandably paranoid that the man she’s in love with is making out with / having overnight dates with / falling in love with other women. And why shouldn’t she be paranoid? It’s actually happening. If there was a line graph of Chantal’s performance during this season, it would be at an all time high for Costa Rica, but will come crashing down in the weeks ahead unless she pulls it together (not likely).  I'm also somewhat alarmed by her decision to tell Brad about her rush of love because she had nothing to gain by it.  Um, unless you're the last woman standing and Brad is proposing, you ALWAYS have something to gain on this show by revealing your feelings. She'd be better off giving him an actual photo of herself in his white button down in case the mental picture was not strong enough.

2. Brad not giving out a rose on the group date. Good for Brad! I especially liked that he didn’t give the rose to Jackie just because she seemed to be the most scared on the repelling date. In Bachelor terms, this is called “maturity” on Brad’s part. His joint rappelling with Michelle really pissed off the other girls but truthfully, I was confused as to why they’d find it so meaningful to be accompanied by Brad, while suspended by a rope for all of a minute while the other girls were fully present. Who cares? Michelle's "I'm mad at you," to Brad was so insane, I was waiting for him to be like, "Let's break up" and give her the news while she was supsended by the rope.  I wonder whether Brad knew at that point that Jackie wasn’t going to get a rose. Ultimately it seems he just saw her as a friend, but it’s confusing because they had such an incredibly romantic date and he picked her early on to have a one on one. It’s not clear what went down between them to make him uninterested. Unless she told him that he’d have to remove his tattooed cross before bringing him home for Shabbat dinner (I can say this, because I’m Jewish). Clearly this particular conversation was edited out.

3. Michelle’s after hours visit. So I’ve come to appreciate Michelle for what she is: pure entertainment. Whenever she is alone with Brad, they should automatically cue in some cheesy soap opera music. The way she stares him down and then goes in for a kiss is 100% drama. I still do not believe for a second that she is remotely interested in Brad. If she wasn't a supermodel, she'd be gone by week 2. I was amused by how she told Brad which girls he would send home. She was pretty much on point with what I was thinking, except for the part where she ends up with him in the end. Brad is definitely starting to see through her on some level, but obviously not enough to send her home. If he realized that Michelle is the one that’s inhibiting his ability to make all of the other girls feel special, he would have sent her packing weeks ago. I was impressed, as sneaky as she was, how she finally fessed up to having a late night rendezvous with Brad but mostly because she didn’t apologize for it. She simply noted that all of the girls could have done the same thing. Very true. Very Michelle. Of course this isn’t going to make her many friends. I also learned from Chris Harrison’s blog that Michelle’s hairstyling profession came in very handy – with all of the humidity, some serious skill was needed to tame the wild hair and Michelle went to work on each of the girls, braiding, straightening and using her profession. Interesting. I’m sure she didn’t work on Chantal’s hair considering she was hoping the rain storms ruined Chantal’s one on one date. Many of you will notice this, but was pretty awesome that Michelle was calling the other girls aggressive when nobody could have been more aggressive than Michelle. I don’t give her much longer with Brad.

4. Alli’s extremely awkward dinner date. Despite the horseback riding beginning to this date, which I personally would have loved, the little ponies were probably the highlight of Alli’s date (at least for me). The Husband kept referring to them as “horse children.” The caving part looked pretty neat, but given her reaction to the crunchy bug Chantal teased her with, I thought there'd be more freakout on this date.  From horseback to caving and then to a little romantic dinner on a sinking island, It was almost a relief to me to finally see a date where Brad was not into the girl. I was starting to think he could fall in love with a goat. These two didn’t seem to have much of a connection to begin with besides Alli’s confession to Brad about her family drama. But when you wait this late to have the first one on one, chances are it’s not going to happen. The real question is – does Britt have any sort of chance next week? It was interesting that Brad picked her over Jackie, but her days must be numbered.

5. The ages of the girls are back. Chris Harrison gave some excuse about the new graphics on the show being too big to put the women’s ages, but really it was to avoid highlighting the very large age gap between Brad and the ladies. But I guess they got some heat about this (it’s pretty funny what the audience gets upset about) and now the ages are being listed.  Mind you, Chantal is 28, with most of the other girls being younger. Except for Michelle, we know she's 30.

6. Alli’s reaction to Chantal teasing her with a bug. That was awesome, particularly where Alli threw a glass at Chantal and screamed bloody murder. Equally awesome was watching Alli freak out in the cave where bats were everywhere. It probably took every ounce of self control to hold it together.

7. Emily’s recovery. When Emily started indicating that she sabotages her relationships, I cringed. Brad certainly doesn’t want to hear that. Emily seemed like an ideal candidate for Brad – but with that sort of negative talk about herself, Brad had a reason to be concerned. Emily seemed to be the calm one up until then. She really held it together nicely and doesn’t seem to get caught up in the drama of what’s going on with the other girls. I was happy to see that she called herself out to Brad during the rose ceremony party. Phew. Although I’m worried because it looks like next week things aren’t looking so good for her (based on the previews).

8. Shawntel’s silence game. This was so clearly going to end in some kissing, but after the week Brad had, he needed some quiet time and Shawntel was only too happy to give it to him. She comes off as a little young compared with Emily or Ashley H, but I still really like her.

9. The disappearance of Brad’s shrink. Where did he go? Was he not up for a trip to Costa Rica? I think Brad’s starting to realize things on his own, and his talks with the shrink are kind of ridiculous to begin with. I wonder if he made an emergency call to his therapist during the group date and went through the pros and cons of not giving a rose to a girl. I’m not sure Brad could make that decision independently.


10. Costa Rica. How beautiful was the resort they stayed at? The hot springs alone are worth the journey.

So we’re off to Anguilla next week. Not so surprising, the majority of the women did not know where Costa Rica was (according to Chris Harrison's blog) nor do they know where Anguilla is. It looks like a steamy photo shoot on the beach is in the works and more Chantal crying is on the way. I can hardly contain myself!

My SWF (Scottish Work Friend) and I both agreed that the last two episodes have been more about the locations and date activities (Vegas and Costa Rica) than any real crazy drama. I think these girls get along a little too well, despite Michelle's ridiculous solo opinions to the camera.  What did you think of this week’s episode? Are you as into Chantal as Brad is? Do you find Michelle Money entertaining or evil?