My Costa Rican Experience
Check out my Instagram highlight “Costa Rica 2020” to see some of my adventures!
DAY ONE:
Dana and I arrived at the San Jose Airport around 2-3ish in the afternoon, grabbed some cervezas from a gas station, and found the bus station to take us to our first location…La Fortuna. We arrived in La Fortuna around 8:00 and walked to our first airb&b. We were pretty pooped so we showered up and hopped into bed. The next day we started our morning with a delicious typical Costa Rican meal. Rice, beans, plantanos, tortilla, cheese, and one egg….freaking amazing! We had plans for the next day to do a lot of hiking so we just wanted to take it easy today and wander. We started walking and found our way to a Sloth Park. We searched for sloths and then continued on wandering around La Fortuna to our next airb&b. I highly recommend bringing a poncho or rain jacket to La Fortuna because the rain was so random throughout the day. We went out in the evening to the most amazing food spot called Soda la Hormiga! IF YOU ARE IN LA FORTUNA AND ARE LOOKING FOR A GOOD MEAL, GO HERE!! It was literally my favorite meal this whole trip!
DAY TWO:
The next day we had plans to go on a group hike with Detours. This awesome dude named Jason was our tour guide and his positive energy was flowing through our whole group! We did two amazing hikes on the Arenal Volcano where we got to see some crazy frogs, birds, a sloth, and so many incredible plants! We also had the coolest group ever. Shoutout to Sami, Youssef, Amrutha, Miles, Lola, and Pablo! AND those two awesome girls from Israel who were also SO COOL but I cannot for the life of me remember their names! Much love to you all! We had some of the greatest and deepest conversations, I feel so blessed to have met all of them! The tour had also included lunch at this awesome organic farm and a soak in the natural hot springs. It was a perfect day. Dana, Sami, Miles, Amrutha, and I all went out for some dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and then checked out some nightlife. To be honest there isn’t a whole lot of nightlife in La Fortuna but if you wander around you might be able to find some live music or some dancing. We checked out Lava Lounge, Amsterdam, and then The Arenal Hostel Resort (the hostel we were staying at) had a little party going on as well. I also highly recommend that hostel it was a fun and cool environment for a very good price!
DAY THREE:
We chilled in the hammocks outside of our hostel in the morning and then Miles, Dana, Amrutha and I went out hiking on our own to see the La Fortuna Waterfall! It was definitely the biggest waterfall I had ever seen and we got to go swimming right by it! The water wasn’t exactly warm but whatEVER! It was an awesome experience! We never got to see a perfectly clear view of the Arenal Volcano but we came pretty darn close on this day! Afterwards, Dana and I began our way to Monte Verde! A fun little ride that went from bus, boat, bus and we were there before sunset! We stayed at the Monteverde Hostel Downtown for a very good price and Estabon was extremely helpful with setting up our next day. Monte Verde is an extremely windy place so keep that in mind if you go there!
DAY FOUR:
Dana and I started on a hike called Cerro Amigos that was supposed to have this incredible view at the top of the hike but what had happened was we hiked up this extremely steep hill for about 3 miles and then reached the top where there was a sign that said “Welcome to the Cerro Amigos hike”. SO we began hiking through some thick muddy rainforest. We were very anxious to get to the end of the hike to see this amazing view but realized that the whole hike was a loop with no view, just a simple rainforest hike. The view was at the top where the sign was. But you kinda had to climb on top of some things to see the view. SO if you go and decide to do this hike, unless you want to just get some extra cardio in don’t do the actual Cerro Amigos hike, just do the steep hill and then stop at the top and find a good look out point. Afterwards we rushed down back to our hostel to meet up with Amrutha and Miles to go zip lining at the Monteverde Extremo Park! IT WAS AWESOME!!!! That park has a ton to offer including an amazing Tarzan swing and superman zip lining! Check out my instagram @ohkatylady to see the video of me on the Tarzan swing! At the end of the night we went to Soda Bonanza for some grub and beer and then went dancing and played pool at Bar Amigos with our buddies! It was a BLAST! Such a great day!!
DAY FIVE:
We began our travels to our next stop, Santa Teresa! One of the coolest surf towns I’ve ever been too! On our way there I was lucky enough to stick my head out the window and see a shooting star.! Every night we were here we stayed at the El Bosque Hostel! They served breakfast every morning and the staff there are SO FRIENDLY! Definitely reccomend this place!
DAY SIX:
Our first full day exploring Santa Teresa and first thing we did was went and chilled at the beach! The weather and the water were absolutely perfect! Miles and Amrutha arrived later in the day to join us and stayed at the same hostel as us which was so great! We got to see these cool monkeys eating mangos around our hostel and met another friend named Dan! He hung with us the 3 days we were here. Dana got her drone stuck up in the tree and he was the hero who saved the drone. DAN 2020! We all grabbed some beers from the gas statin and went and chilled on the beach to watch the sunset. Afterwards, headed back to our hostel to teach our new friends how to play UNO. It was hilarious and awesome. Another perfect day.
DAY SEVEN:
The group of us all got together on the beach again today! Played some baseball and football with items we found on the beach. This was Amrutha’s last night in Costa Rica so we had to make it count! We went and watched the sunset again and grabbed some tequila to share. We ran on the beach, created our own drum circle, and then grabbed some pizza at Pizza Tomate which as delicious! They had some live music playing which was UH-MAZING and fun! We met this fun lady named Eli and her son Aiden who chilled with all of us for a while. She invited us back to her house to play some music and conveniently it was right next to our hostel. We all got to place some fun music and laugh and I got to play the piano which was so nice!
DAY EIGHT:
Our last day in Santa Teresa we had some breakfast, showered up, and made our travel plans to get to Manuel Antonio. Another long day of travel but part of it was on a boat so that’s always fun! We briefly got to see Montezuma which looked like a really fun place! Kinda reminded me of Santa Teresa mixed with Monteverde! When I go back to Costa Rica I will definitely be visiting that spot! We made it to Manuel Antonio around 7:30 pm and went to find our hostel. We stayed in Manuel Antonio for 2 nights and both those nights we were at the Teva Jungle Hotel and Hostel. The hostel was super nice and I do recommend it! I think it was 23 dollars a night per person.
DAY NINE:
We made our way to Manuel Antonio National Park to see some monkeys!! It was AWWWESOME! That was my first time seeing monkeys in there natural habitat! They were so funny! The one was trying to steal something out of a ladies bag so be careful they are sneaky little guys! The National Park was awesome I definitely recommend checking it out if you are in that area cause it was absolutely gorgeous! There is a lovely beach in the park as well so if you go make sure to bring your bathing suit! Afterwards, we went to the downtown park of the town and were preparing to watch the sunset, but INSTEAD we parasailed during the sunset and got the best view ever!!!! It was so spontaneous I am so glad we did it! Later we started heading back to the hostel where we met these 3 nice local guys that we ended up talking with for while and then ended up chilling with them! They recommended a nice and decently priced soda and got to chat with them about their lives in Costa Rica! Late that night we met up with Miles who was also staying at our hostel and did a nice night hike with him around the hostel. We saw this insanely large spider and heard some crazy sounds in the dark. It was wild.
DAY TEN:
We say goodbye to Manuel Antonio and begin the long day of bus rides to get to the Caribbean side Puerto Viejo! We were on buses literally this entire day so we packed a couple of beers and snacks and headed on our way! My brother and his wife and kids were coincidentally staying in Puerto Viejo for a week so we had plans to stay with them at their beach house that they rented! Hadn’t heard from them all day but to our surprise my brother Phil picked us up from the bus station! We grabbed some pizza and headed back to his place for some rest.
DAY ELEVEN:
Phil and Sarah hadn’t told the kids I was going to also be in Costa Rica so they were very surprised. Aida’s reaction was hilarious! She was in pure shock hahaha! It was awesome! We hung out with them by the ocean for a while and then Dana and I headed into town to check out downtown Puerto Viejo! We searched for a soda, checked out some local shops, and then Dana showed me an awesome hostel that she had stayed at years ago when she had visited the first time. The hostel was called Rocking J’s and it was pretty freaking awesome! If your in that area I highly recommend checking that place out for a stay! We watched the sunset of Playa Negra and headed back to the beach house. We chatted with Sarah and Phil for a while and then headed to bed.
DAY TWELVE:
Dana, Phil, Sarah, the kids, and I all went to check out the Jaguar Rescue Center where we got to see sloths, monkeys, snakes, birds, his amazingly dangerous cat that I cannot remember the name of, and so much more! Check it out if you are in the area! We hung out with them and the kids for a little while and then had to start heading to San Jose to take off tomorrow. We said our goodbyes and began the bus ride back to San Jose. We arrived around 8:00 and headed to our hotel. San Jose isn’t the safest place so we wanted to make sure we had a hotel booked already before we got there.
DAY THIRTEEN:
The day had finally come. Our Costa Rica adventure was ending! We got up had a nice breakfast that was included with our hotel and made our way to the airport. We had a 5 hour layover in Miami Florida so we got to see our buddy Angela for a few hours! It was so happy!! She showed us some of her new skate moves and we went to this awesome restaurant where I had an amazing black bean burger. It was great! I was so happy to see Angela! Then we headed back to the Miami airport and headed back to Colorado!
This trip was absolutely amazing! If you ever get the opportunity to go and check out Costa Rica…do it because it is a beautiful country filled with beautiful people. I am so blessed. PURA VIDA!
