One more week of work before our vacation! Franzi stayed in New York to wrap up her project, Alex had to fly to South Carolina for one day. He was asked to join a workshop for an automotive Tier 1 supplier. Other than that, throughout the week, we prepared everything for our upcoming trip to Costa Rica: Writing packing lists, last-minute purchases of day packs and packing suitcases took up most of the time.
We had everything ready to catch our early morning flight on Saturday from Newark to San Jose. We took off on time at 7 AM. After 5.5 hours in the air, we landed safely and picked up our rental car.
Exploring San Jose
Unfortunately, this was a little less smooth than expected. Even though we already paid in advance online, we had to buy a local insurance, which was pretty pricey. It was described as a mandatory insurance – luckily every tourist had the same issue so we did not blame it on insufficient preparation on our end. After we accepted our faith and some more technical issues with the car, we were finally on our way to our hotel in San Jose – Balmoral. After we settled a bit, we went our for lunch at the beautiful Café Rojo. We soaked up sun, refreshing drinks and enjoyed Vietnamese fusion food to kick-off the vacation feeling. Alex enjoyed his ginger infused ice coffee.
Afterwards we explored the city, wandered around in the district Barrio Amon, hung out at a local food festival and explored historic buildings like the teatro nacional. Overall San Jose has an interesting flair. Obviously there is a colonial flair to the city but the Western influence is undeniable with big shopping streets and all the typical fast food restaurants. We finished the day with a beer and bar food at Stiefel.
The next day, we drove all the way to Puerto Viejo, which was a beautiful drive through the national park Braulio Carillo and along banana plantations.
Next stop: Puerto Viejo
Unfortunately, the bad luck with our rental car didn’t stop in San Jose, after driving through Puerto Limon we discovered a flat tire. Luckily, we had a spare tire. However, since we were in a bigger town we thought it might be better to get the original tire fixed to have a spare wheel in case we get another flat tire. Fortunately, we found some very friendly locals who guided us to a shop to fix our tire. Ten minutes and $5 later, we were on the road again.
Welcome to the Caribbean
After we settled in our AirBnb, we went to the beach Punta Uva, enjoyed the sun on our skin, a fresh coconut and the warm water of the Atlantic Ocean – bliss! We ended the day at the Puerto Viejo Bar de Vino.
The next day, we visited the Jaguar Rescue Center, where local animals are rehabilitated and released back into the wild if everything goes well. We participated in the public tour and squeaked at a bunch of baby sloths. Fun fact: a grown sloth is three times as strong as a grown man and you should never touch one as they will break your fingers with their strong claws.
Afterward, we realized that Alex lost his sunglasses at the beach the day before – we hurried back there but as expected they were gone. So far, we were not the luckiest fellas on this trip, but the good experiences made up for it. After a delicious local lunch by the beach, we took a walk in the Cahuita Nationalpark. You can easily wander around by yourself here and do not need a guide. After shopping for some snacks and hanging out in our whirlpool, we had a seafood dinner at Casa de Moni.
Day 4 didn’t start off too well for Franzi, who was battling a stomach flu. Luckily, she was feeling a bit better later in the morning, so we took on the drive to Arenal after having an awesome breakfast.
Next stop: Arenal volcano
Almost at our accommodation, we stopped at a small waterfall and at some hot springs. Thanks for the region’s geothermal activity, the water is heated up to bathtub temperature, which offers an ideal way to relax. Our streak of bad luck continued when Alex started feeling bad, the stomach flu hit him as well and a little stronger than Franzi. Therefore we spent the next day at our accommodation – luckily with a beautiful view of the volcano.
Exploring secondary rainforest
Towards the evening, Alex was feeling better, so we decided to do a night tour at the Ecocentro Danaus. We had a guide just for the two of us, who walked us through a secondary rainforest. We were super lucky (finally) and saw all animals possible – frogs, bats, a snake, butterflies, a caiman, birds, an agouti. The tour could not have been better, and it was a really memorable experience. Highly recommended!
Learning about cacao and coffee
The next day, we packed up our suitcases and headed off to Monteverde. On the way there, we did a 2.5 hour coffee and chocolate tour at Don Juan. It was really interesting to learn about the process from the bean to the final product. We even got to make our own chocolate bar! Note: The Arenal region is perfectly suited for making cacao, however, the climate is unfavorable for coffee. Coffee plants could grow in the region but the coffee would not taste good. Coffee instead is grown in the Monteverde region, where the climate is unfavorable for cacao.
Now coffee
Next stop: Monteverde
Afterwards we were back on the road on the way to Monteverde. The route was beautiful and went along the Lake Arenal. We stopped at Tinajas Arenal for lunch, which is a beautiful spot to enjoy the lake view and a breeze.
Ecotourism in Monteverde
Many kilometers on dirt roads later, we arrived at our destination – Finca la Querencia. We found this self-sustained farm through AirBnb and it was a real gem. The farm has its own sheep, cows and horses, a big vegetable garden and is far away from everything.
We started the next morning with some fresh yoghurt from the local cows and a tour of the farm. Then we headed to the Selvatura Adventure Park to do a cliché Canopy Tour. The 1.5 hours above the rainforest and in a tarzan swing were really cool and we even met some friendly fellow Germans.
After all the adrenaline we had lunch at a very local spot – La Cuchara de Abuela (Grandmothers spoon), after visiting some old Ficus trees. While having a cinnamon bun and coffee afterwards, we had the idea to buy a used coffee bag as a souvenir. We headed to a local coffee farm and after some explaining that we in fact did not want a new sack, but a used one we found a beautiful piece.
Back at the farm, we picked some fresh vegetables and herbs and ended a day with a fresh meal.
To be continued…
