Pura Vida in Costa Rica

This morning, we woke up, packed up, and headed over to Selena for breakfast.  After breakfast, we began driving toward our hotel in Alajuela.  The opposite side of the road (headed toward Manuel Antonio and Jaco) was packed with traffic likely due to Holy Week.  However, the city of Alajuela was very quiet, with most storefronts closed for business. We arrived at the hotel at around 2PM and decided to drive the 26KM road up to the 8,000 ft Poas Volcano.

Although the drive is only 30 minutes, our surroundings rapidly changed from an urban environment, to a rural/agricultural environment, and finally to a scenic landscape near the entrance of Poas Volcano Park.  There were many cars on the road and parked on the side of the road, likely due to Holy Week and so many people not having work.  It was interesting seeing families picnicking on the side of the road and enjoying the expansive views.  After about 30 minutes of driving, we reached a barricade in the road preventing people from continuing driving.  The sign near the barricade read “Closed due to volcanic activity.”  Hek and I parked on the side of the road and walked past the barrier until a ranger screamed after us to return to the other side of the barrier.

On the way down Poas, we stopped at the Starbucks Coffee farm and enjoyed a snack in the beautiful setting.  We then drove to San Jose, where all storefronts were closed and there was a traffic jam due to an Easter service at a large church in the city.  We decided to turn back toward Alajuela and stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe in Alajuela where I had a chicken fajita dinner.  After dinner, we stopped by Fiesta Casino for a few minutes and then headed back to the hotel to sleep before our early morning flight.

 

This morning, Hek and I had breakfast at Selena.  There was a buffet-style breakfast where guests pay based on the weight of the food they choose.  After breakfast, we walked to Manuel Antonio National Park and slowly made our way around the park.  We slowly made our way around the park, visiting all three beaches and hiking all the trails inside the park.  The park was beautiful, and the highlights were definitely the paradise-like, clean, warm-water, tropical beaches that are commonly associated with paradise.

After visiting the second beach, Hek and I split off from Lina and Cindy, and went hiking for a couple hours.  As we were finishing our hike, it was 4PM and the park was closing down for the day.   We then went to dinner at El Avion with Cindy and Lina, followed by some drinking and deep conversation at Selena.  Each of us were vulnerable, honest, and it was a great night in its own way.  Among things we discussed were:

• Constructive criticism for each other
• Favorite books
• Happiest moment in each of our lives
• Living outside the box

 

 

This morning, we woke up in Jaco, picked Cindy and Lina up from the Selena hostel, and continued driving an hour and a half south toward Manuel Antonio.  Upon arriving at Manuel Antonio, Hek and I had lunch at El Avion, a restaurant right across the street from Selena with a beautiful view looking down on the ocean.  I ordered a “Vegetable with Rice,” a rice dish stir fried with veggies.  The food was great, but the main selling point of the restaurant was the unique atmosphere.  The center of the restaurant is a full-sized airplane shell.  The interior of the airplane is El Avion Pub, a casual bar where guests can actually take steps up to the cockpit of the airplane.

After lunch, Hek and I walked to Manuel Antonio Beach.  The beach was crowded with tourists and local Costa Ricans alike.  We walked along the beach for about an hour, enjoying the atmosphere of people Jet Skiing, people parasailing right above our heads, and people just enjoying the beach.

After the beach, Hek, Cindy, Lina, and I went out for dinner at the Woodfire Pizza Restaurant.  I ordered a pineapple veggie pizza and we enjoyed a beautiful indoor/outdoor dinner in the restaurant.  Towards the end of dinner, Hek surprised me with a tres leches birthday hike and a birthday song.  It was a wonderful, fun birthday, one of many I’ve already celebrated within the last couple of days in one way or another.

After dinner, we all went to Selena, and started drinking by the pool with a fun crew including:

• Francis:  Montreal solo traveler (A bit quiet, introvert, really nice guy)
• Rachel:  25-year old Doctor from Scotland solo traveling through South America on an organized trip
• Efee:  25-year old solo traveler from Holland, who will be meeting her boyfriend in Canada and traveling through that country in 1-2 months from now
• Auburn Medical School students w/ Canadian solo traveler

We drank, went swimming in the pool, chicken-fought, and had an overall great time.

This morning, we woke up at about 7AM and had an early continental breakfast at the hotel.  The continental breakfast was similar to the one we were served at Lava Lounge, except it included one essential ingredient:  Customer Service.  The owner of the hostel served us fruits, toast, multiple types of jams, and delicious coffee (with a refill).  At about 7:30AM, the adventure company picked us up from the hostel and drove us to the outskirts of Monteverde for zip lining.  We soon made friends with a Alexa, a German who is spending a year working in San Jose.

The zip line included about 18 separate segments, including a Tarzan Swing, superman zip line, rappelling, and more.  After the zip lining, we drove to Jaco, stopping by Crocodile bridge on the way.  After arriving at Jaco, we met Cindy and her new friend, Lina, for a pizza lunch at a restaurant in Jaco.  We then went for a swim in a beachfront pool and met Cindy and Lina at the Selena hostel to pregame.

After a couple hours, we went out for a few hours to a club and late-night fast food restaurant on the Main Street in town.  All in all, it was a great way to celebrate my birthday and enjoy a fun night of partying with some new friends.

Zip lining photos from the tour company:

This morning, we left the hotel at 9AM and stopped by for a quick breakfast at Soda Marcela seafood restaurant.  We then continued on the 3-hour drive to Monteverde.  The last half of the drive to Monteverde was only 40KM, but was extremely rugged and steep, on poorly-maintained dirt roads.  We arrived at our hotel early in the afternoon and drove to Monteverde Cloud Forest.

At Monteverde Cloud Forest, we walked a 5KM loop trail, offering a nice experience and taste of the Monteverde Cloud Forest.  The highlight of the visit was walking across the red suspension bridge spanning the cloud forest.  The experience was incredible as we were walking dozens of feet above the floor of the cloud forest and we had close-up views of the upper part of the trees.  As we approached our car following the hike, a nearby local pointed out a monkey in the trees above us scavenging for food.

After Monteverde, Cindy, Josh, and I parked at our hostel and walked over to Tree House Restaurant to enjoy a nice dinner.  I ordered a Vegetarian pizza which was delicious and heavy.  As we finished our meal, the live band began playing music.  We then walked home and got ready to sleep early.

This morning, we woke up early in order to join the 8:30AM ATV tour of Tamarindo. At 8:30AM, a taxi driver picked us up from the hotel and drove us about 45 minutes away to the office of Flamingo Adventures.  There was no one else signed up for the tour, so we had a private ATV tour with a private guide.  For the duration of the tour we rode along the coast/sand, passing through many local beaches and local towns. Many of the towns and beaches we passed through were very local and provided a stark contrast from what we’d seen in Tamarindo.

At each of the beaches, we had breaks ranging from 5 minutes long to 20 minutes long where we could just walk around or swim.  For example, one of the beaches had a “island rock” a couple hundred feet into the water. Hek and I swam to the haystack rock and explored a cave on the rock.  At another one of the beaches, Shell Beach, we walked along the rocks at the edge of the beach, which rewarded us with a wonderful view of the beach.

At the end of the tour, the taxi gave us a ride back to Tamarindo.  On the way, the taxi driver gave us a few minutes to break at a highly recommended seafood restaurant, Soda Marcela.  Hek and I each ordered a Mahi-Mahi typical plate which was beyond incredible.  We then got a ride back to the hostel.

For the next few hours, we napped and woke up at around 5PM.  After pregaming with a few shots of fireball, we had dinner at Green Papaya and met a group of friends:  Karen, Krystal, and Dalia.  Karen and Krystal are sisters, 28 years old and 30 years old, respectively.  We struck up a conversation with them and then walked over to Sharkey’s to hang out and have shots, before eventually proceeding to Pacifico where we spent the rest of the night. Pacifico was a fun atmosphere and at around 2AM we called it a night.

 

 

This morning, Hek and I woke up began driving from La Fortuna to Tamarindo.  The first half of the drive follows the shores of Lake Arenal, a man-made lake created by a dam.  The drive is very windy and it is often difficult to maintain a speed of over 40km on the windy roads.

About an hour and a half into our drive, we followed through on Peter’s (owner of Sleeping Indian) recommendation and visited Lake Arenal Brewery, a secluded remote brewery and hotel about 8 km about from the nearest town.   The brewery and hotel overlooks Lake Arenal from a hilltop, with dozens of hotel rooms.  The hotel was founded about 25 years ago, when a 24-year old visited Costa Rica and started building the hotel.  The hotel has so much potential, yet it will take a lot of work to realize the full potential because of the remote location and the fact that so many people that visit Costa Rica rely on public transportation.

We arrived in Tamarindo at around 2PM and checked into the Sirena Serena Boutique Hotel.  The hotel is on the outskirts of town, but still within walking distance of the beach and downtown Tamarindo.  A few years ago, two siblings from Canada acquired the hotel and started running it.  It’s been inspirational and interesting to see people courageous enough to leave their lives behind and start a new in a new country.

Josh and I walked around town and had a smoothie in Downtown Tamarindo.  For dinner, we walked over to Gallo Fino, a fancy restaurant on the main road in Tamarindo that was recommended to us by Eddie.  The atmosphere was beautiful and the chicken/beef fajitas were delicious.  After dinner, we walked to Crazy Monkey, danced for a few hours, and then went home to sleep around 2AM.

This morning, we woke up at around 7 and had a quick breakfast at Veggie Sub, before getting ready for the whitewater rafting trip.  At 8:30am, the whitewater rafting tour bus picked us up from in front of Sleeping Indian Hostel.  We then drove about 1 hour to a class 3-4 river and split up in groups of 6.  Our group consisted of:

• Mcguire (Solo-traveler from SoCal)
• Rose:  23 year old studying at SFSU (Italian sibling)
• Sabrina (21 year old studying at SDSU (Italian Sibling)
• Vino (27 year old working in finance (Italian sibling)
• Hek
• Me

Our tour guide was Michelle, a young lady from Brooklyn who visited Costa Rica a couple of years ago and decided to move to La Fortuna.  She is now dating one of the Costa Rican tour guides and literally building a house with him.  Highlights of the rafting trip include the fruit stop along the way, lunch and activity after the whitewater rafting, and each of us nearly falling into the river at some point or another.

After whitewater rafting, Hek and I drove to Tabacon Spa where we spent a few hours soaking in the hot springs, followed by a delicious dinner buffet at the restaurant there. The food was delicious and very good quality.  The resort did a wonderful job landscaping and designing the grounds to make it comfortable, luxurious, and resort-like without compromising too much of the river’s natural traits and flow.

We then returned to Sleeping Indian and met up with Ryan and the whole whitewater rafting crew at a local bar for a few hours.

 

This morning, we woke up and had breakfast at Lava Lounge in downtown La Fortuna.  We then drove to Arenal National Park, hiked the Peninsula Trail and hiked the Colada Trail.  Both of the trails were very touristy and were more like nature walks than hikes.  On the Colada trail, we met a solo-traveler named Ryan who planned a last-minute trip to Costa Rica while attending his friend’s wedding in Mexico.  We told him about our plans to visit La Fortuna Waterfall and we followed each other to the waterfall.

The waterfall was magnificent, and reminded me a lot of a combination of the waterfalls at Havasupai and the waterfalls along the Columbia Gorge in Oregon.  The amount of greenery in Costa Rica is incredible, but not surprising given the amount of rainfall.  After visiting the main waterfall, we spent about half an hour visiting the pools below the waterfall. We then had dinner at a nice restaurant in Downtown La Fortuna, where we shared a Sea Bass Seviche and I ordered a chicken w/ rice dish which were both delicious.  We then explored downtown La Fortuna, eventually booking a whitewater rafting trip which Ryan also ended up booking the next morning.

 

This morning, we landed in Costa Rica at 6:30 AM local time.  Neither Hek or I slept much last night on the 5-hour flight.  However, it was easy to stay awake once we had a view of the lush green landscape descending into San Jose and faced the excitement of exploring a new country.

Upon leaving the airport, we passed by the rental car kiosks and asked questions regarding the price of car rentals.  After 15 minutes of negotiating, we ended up renting a SUV with full-coverage insurance, for 10 days, with two drivers, for $470.  After picking up the rental car, we drove to McDonalds and picked up a quick breakfast including an “Egg Mcqueso.”  The highlight of this visit was Hek asking around for the “garbagio” when looking for somewhere to throw away his garbage.

At about 9AM, we began driving towards La Fortuna.  On the way, we noticed signs in Hebrew for a restaurant, hotel, hummus, shakes, and more.  A short while after, we stopped for a brief visit at “Lands of Love,” a hospitality business started by 15 Israeli friends who moved to Costa Rica 12 years ago.  The interiors of the hotel and restaurant were beautifully decorated and designed, with plenty of attention to detail.

At about 1PM, we arrived at La Fortuna, and left our stuff at the Sleeping Indian Hostel where we were staying.  We then drove to the La Fortuna Waterfall Parking lot, and asked the park ranger for the location of the Cerro Chato trailhead.  He directed us up a dirt road to the La Fortuna Observatory, where the trailhead starts.

At about 2PM, we started hiking the steep two mile trail to rim of the Cerro Chato Volcano.  The trail was not only steep, but also muddy, making it impossible at some points to hike up if it wasn’t for the roots and rocks in the ground which could be used as handholds.  At about 4PM, we reached the rim, but weren’t able to see the surface of the lagoon because of all of the fog.  After a few minutes, we descended in about an hour and then drove back to the hostel.

After showering, we walked to a Mediterranean Restaurant about a 1/2 mile away from the hostel and had a nice pizza/pasta dinner.  Overall, this was a great start to our trip.  The decision of renting a car provided us with a lot of flexibility, adventure, and options for spontaneity.  Very excited for what the rest of the trip has in store.