Costa Rica trip started in Mexico with a plane being late and, consequently, second leg flight was missed by hours. The mishap allowed a day trip in Mexico City historical part. Metrobus #4 is a convenient option. You have to buy tickets inside an airport terminal. A ticket machine only accepts smaller bills. I had to ask a money exchange office to break a large bill that ATM spat out.
I picked up a car at San Jose International airport soon after landing. Apartotel La Sabana in San Jose has a convenient location between a city center and close to a highway that leads out of the city toward Poas Volcano, which was our first stop.
One hour of driving and I run into a sign “road closure” and a policeman sitting next to the sign. The volcano was erupting; thus, it was closed. It was erupting for some time, however, I didn’t think of checking OPEN status of the volcano. All right, not a problem. Let’s continue. The next stop is La Fortuna waterfall.
One hour of driving and I run into a sign “road closure” and a policeman sitting next to the sign. The volcano was erupting; thus, it was closed. It was erupting for some time, however, I didn’t think of checking OPEN status of the volcano. All right, not a problem. Let’s continue. The next stop is La Fortuna waterfall.
On the way to La Fortuna, car brakes started to smell (burn). I had to make a brief stop. I guess if you are into waterfalls or saw very few of them in your life, then it can be impressive. Short and steep walk down, pictures+pictures+selfies, and back to the car. Although there were signs of swimming possibility, I didn’t find water so inviting for a dip. Skipped!
Tabacon Hot Springs. At 5 PM, the price drops down. Originally, I wanted to purchase a combo ticket that included dinner and a soak. However, that day the resort had a large group of Chinese tourists, so they couldn’t accommodate any other tourists.
Tabacon Hot Springs is one of the most unusual and beautiful places I’ve been at. The entire river that flows through the premises is nicely warm. Find a quiet place and just relax. In about 1.5 hours, the sun left us, and we left the hot springs.
At 7:30 PM we checked in at Arenal Lodge. On Google Maps I saw a Japanese café. Japanese food for dinner it is! Nice little place.
Today we are covering a northern part of the country.
2-hour drive and Tenorio National Park is in front of me (or we are in front of it). I saw people wearing rubber boots and a couple of services with rubber boots rental. Do I need them? Indeed, I wish I rented a pair. A trail to Celeste River waterfall was incredibly muddy. If I had another pair of shoes, I would continue on the trail, however, when we’ve reached the waterfall, we turned around. Probably the entire walk was about 2 hours.
2 PM – Adventure tour at Rio Perdido. The price is 85$ per person for a zip line, however, it includes dinner and hot springs (2 pools) and trail access. Zip lines were so much fun. I did zip lines only once before, and it was a very long time ago. The reason I picked Rio Perdido Adventure tour is that besides zip lines, it also includes canyoneering. Just fun, fun activity. The area where the hotel and zip lines are rather far from everything. While driving up to the place on a very bumpy, dirt road, I kept questioning if that’s the right direction.
The dinner was very nice! Drinks were not included. My mom and I both wished we stayed at the hotel for a couple of days. It’s in the middle of jungles, so far from everything. Sunset from a restaurant deck was amazing. The day was eventful and memorable.
Next day destination is Monteverde. The total driving time is 6 hours. I booked a hotel halfway: Hotel Hacienda La Pacifica. On Google Maps I saw a panther refuge behind the hotel, but it wasn’t part of the itinerary and I had to stick to timing, so we didn’t go there to check it out.
Today we are visiting the mountains of Monteverde cloud forest.
Breakfast at the hotel. The drive to Monteverde is nice, but the road is very windy and steep in places. I took it rather slow and enjoyed views. Around 11 AM we parked next to Selvatura Adventure Park. I actually didn’t like the walk so much on the hanging bridges. First, it was way too crowded. The bridges were blocked by groups/crowds of people. It was expensive. I didn’t see any birds or animals. La Selva reserve has fewer bridges, yet, there were no people at all. I will write about it later since it was at the end of the trip.
After a walk over the hanging bridges, we headed to Café de Monteverde, a coffee plantation. If you decide to pay a visit, go to their website and book a tour. https://cafedemonteverde.com/tour/ I would say the price was steep considering the tour has rather a marketing focus than educational. If it was an educational or I got really something out of it, then I could justify 25$ per person. Actually, the tour price went up to $32. The fun activity was picking coffee beans and experience life of coffee bean pickers. Plus, in the end, almost everyone in my group bought a few coffee bags. For one time, it’s OK though. I wouldn’t do another coffee tour in Costa Rica or at least that one.
Done with the tour. Sunset met us while we drove on the top on a mountain, driving down to a hotel. I picked a hotel close to crocodile river tours: Cerro Lodge. The hotel was simple. Google reviews are not so high, however, I didn’t see anything bad about the place. Breakfast was good and the premises had lots of greenery. They also have bird feeders. When we had breakfast, there were none though. I also read in reviews that during sunrise and sunset macaws fly to and from a coast. I guess we arrived too late and woke up too late to see any birds.
Today we are driving along Pacific Ocean coastline.
Breakfast – check mark. Next stop is Carara National Park. I was the second person who arrived early. It was a good decision because day heat was on its way, but the morning walk was almost cool and peaceful. I start seeing tourists when I was already walking back. In the park, I saw rodents, many birds, lizards, and a colorful black and green frog. I also heard and saw macaws far, on top of trees. No pictures though of the macaws. Sorry. All right. Done with walking at the park.
I’ve booked a crocodile tour for 10 AM with Jose’s Crocodile Tour. A tour guide was amazing! He had a very healthy sense of humor. He was incredibly entertaining. It is definitely the tour I would recommend to anyone. There were many crocodiles, lots of birds, flying lizards, and cows….
Next stop is Manuel Antonio National Park. The drive was about 3 hours. On the way to a sleeping place (aka a hotel), we stopped for a lunch. A restaurant was right on a beach. Food was decent. While returning to the car after eating, I heard macaws. I looked up and saw a group of 3 circling above us. Hah, we went to Carara National Park to see them (and we didn’t really)… and here they are! I was so happy and excited to finally see the birds.
Jungle Beach Hotel Manuel Antonio was a pre-booked place to sleep. A room was simple. We saw monkeys on trees around the hotel. We didn’t go to dinner that evening. I got a couple of beers at a grocery store and chips. Then we just relaxed on a nearby beach.
Today we are driving over the mountains to the other side of the country: west to east.
We were the first at a hotel’s restaurant for breakfast. We actually had to wait 30 minutes for breakfast to finally start. The hotel was only 15 minutes away from Manuel Antonio Park. The morning was already hot, sticky, and humid. After making a small loop (it was too hot to walk further), we swam in the park. 11 AM, that’s it…. Time to check out from the hotel. We walked back, checked out, and head out. The plan was to stop at Nauyaka waterfall. However, I’ve read that you either have to hike (for a few hours!) or take a local taxi truck that can take you there. I thought I’ve seen enough waterfalls in my life. Skip this one. A mountain road to Turrialba was very windy and covered in fog. A couple of times I had a close encounter with large delivery trucks that were on my side of the road making steep turns… and in heavy fog, it was not easy to see until you are right in front of another vehicle.
The ride to Turrialba was very slow. I didn’t want to take a chance. Instead of planned 4 hours of driving, it took me 6 or more hours to reach Turrialba. The sun was already down when we’ve reached a hotel: Turrialba Bed&Breakfast. The hotel was almost downtown, maybe 15 minutes away by walking from a rafting tour company. Next day we were supposed to meet at the office of the tour agency and then drive to a rafting spot, which was about 30-40 minutes away. I paid 20$ to a driver who took our car to the drop off place because our next stop was in that direction and it made sense to go from there instead of returning back to Turrialba.
The rafting day!!! It was the first time for both my mother and me to do whitewater rafting. It rated III-IV level. And yes, few passages were soooo scary.
Rafting day! I booked a trip on Viator. It was a one-day rafting trip on the Pacuare river from Turrialba. I simply loved it. We had 6 people in a boat. 4 tourists and 2 guides. Plus, there were 2 guides following us in single kayaks. It looked to me those guys had the most fun. What a nice job! The guides were super professional and experienced. They told us what to do, how, and when. We learned code words. The rafting trip was super exciting. I wish I had a GoPro on my head to record waves we went through. Although the water was overly rough, I wasn’t scared, but rather excited. If I go back to Costa Rica, the tour is going to be on my list again, but I would do 2 or 3-day rafting tour. We had a great time.
After we arrived at the meeting point, a guy from the boat and I bought beers for our guides (few bottles each in total). We were chatting and relaxing. The crew was awesome.
Jumped into the car and head to the Caribbean coast. 3 hours of driving. December 8, which is the next day is my birthday. I booked a nice hotel (well, based on the price I expected it to be nice). Pictures were amazing… in reality, the hotel was kind of run down with heavy cleaning chemical smell in a room. I went to a receptionist to complain about the smell and asked to have another room, but she said there were no other rooms.
The birthday day!!!! My birthday day 🙂
Birthday day! My plan was to go to Gandoca-Manzanillo Refuge in the morning. But a hotel worker suggested taking a tour to Cahuita National Park. He pushed for a tour because according to him only a tour guide can point to all the animals hidden in the park. Well…. Maybe…. I was pretty upset after the tour. First, the tour guide hardly spoke (not English, but talk in general, sound production). Few times he stopped and pointed to few snakes, 2 sloth (far and hardly visible from the ground), lizards. The park is free. You can easily walk yourself. You see people stopped and look somewhere – stop too and ask what they are looking at. There was really no need to book the tour. Perhaps booking with another agency is better.
When I came back to the hotel, I shared with a manager my experience (he asked). Seems like he was kind of upset that I didn’t like the tour or maybe he was afraid of bad comments I could potentially leave for the hotel. Anyway, we went to a town to have coffee, lunch, and swim at a local beach. Upon our return, I found a bottle of champagne in my room. The manager also knew it was my birthday, I wasn’t hiding such fact :)). That was a definitely appreciated gesture.
Caribbeans Chocolate and Coffee was great. They have a great selection of chocolate bars with tasting as well as good coffee.
In the evening we went to a hotel’s restaurant and had an amazing lobster dinner. I was hesitant on what to pick, a chef came out and told me what is fresh and what he recommends. Wow! I loved the attention! Yeap, I’ve picked a lobster dish. A glass of chilled crisp white wine was a perfect addition. Great times! Then we returned to the room and had champagne on a balcony. Our room was facing jungles. I believe it was a great birthday day!
Caribbean coast. More places to discover.
Good breakfast in a beautiful open-air breakfast restaurant. After check out, we headed to a sloth sanctuary. I didn’t have a booked tour. At first, a lady who sold tickets, kind of complained that I had to pre-book. There were no other visitors though. The tour was very interesting, very informative, and moving. I learned so much about sloths and wished I could volunteer to help the animals. They are such delicate and unusual creatures. After the tour, we had a riverboat ride, which was very peaceful and beautiful.
Next destination is Limon, a coffee and snack stop. Limon is kind of a dirty port city. Downtown wasn’t nice either. But we didn’t stay there long. In 30 minutes we were already on the road going to a small river port, La Pavona, to take a boat to Tortuego.
Although a hotel employee (that I’ve booked at Tortuguero) said that google maps don’t always show accurate directions, I didn’t have any problems navigating there. It was convenient and the parking cost wasn’t much. I’ve been told about boat schedule, however, there were few and they were departing upon filling each capacity.
I found a hotel in Tortuguero by googling: Casa Marbella Tortuguero Bed and Breakfast.
The only way to book it was through a direct email. I emailed, got confirmation. A hotel owner was very responsive and provided the details on how to reach them. Although he gave me a boat schedule, I found there is no schedule. Boats leave upon filling all the seats. We only waited 10 minutes before the departure. One hour boat ride and here is Tortuguero. I liked it: small, quiet, water everywhere. Restaurants were not bad and enough to choose from.
The full day at Tortuguero
The day started with a sunrise tour. A boat arrived and a guide spoke good English. He took us around. We saw crocodiles and many birds. The tour was nice and joyful. The hotel owner provided a late breakfast after we returned from the tour. The afternoon we spent walking on a beach. There were no turtles at the time. That night a storm came. The rain was hard, the wind was strong. Next morning I’ve read in the news that in Cahuita a tourist couple was killed by a fallen tree from the winds.
Another driving day. It was time to say farewell to lovely Tortuguero
Another boat ride back to the car. The next stop is Heliconia Island hotel, which is almost inside La Selva Reserve. I absolutely loved the hotel. First, it’s by a river. Rooms are well designed with large windows overlooking jungles and a manicured garden.
I checked in, then we drove to Reserva Biologica Tirimbina. I sincerely enjoyed a peaceful walk over hanging bridges and a crowdless park. We didn’t run into a single person and saw many colorful birds. I’ve pre-ordered dinner at the hotel. We liked it!
Today is the last day to enjoy lush Costa Rica. Driving back to San Jose.
The breakfast was simple, but the morning highlight was bird feeders in front of the restaurant. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many colorful birds at once in my life. One was prettier than another one. That’s another place where I would definitely stay again on my next trip to Costa Rica. I planned to go to La Selva Reserve in the morning, but a hotel employee told me I had to have a reservation. There is no entrance without a reservation. That means we left for San Jose earlier than planned. There was enough time to go to the city center and walk around. I thought it was good since I didn’t see San Jose when landed.
What can I say about San Jose? I didn’t like it so much. Regardless of Costa Rica having beautiful nature, that beauty wasn’t transferred into its cities. Museums were expensive. The architecture was not outstanding. It was kind of disappointing.
The departure day. I’ve booked a hotel 10 minutes away from the airport for an easy drive into and car rental return.