Costa Rica Trip 2019
This summer my family and I spent 6 weeks in Costa Rica. My mom was born in Costa Rica because her father is Costa Rican, so all of us have subsequently gained dual citizenship between Costa Rica and the US. We went a bit more often when I was younger, and the last time I was in the country was February 2015, but the last time we all went as a family was during the summer of 2009. As my brother was graduating from high school and I was graduating with my bachelor's, we decided that our big graduation family trip would be to Costa Rica for 6 weeks. We're created a tradition of having a big family trip when each kid graduates from high school, and we had gone to Europe when I graduated in 2014.
If you want a full daily rundown of everything we did in Costa Rica this summer, you can check out my dad's blog! For now, I'm just going to give my highlights of the things we did. In no particular order:
A little further down (in which the path includes a rope to hold onto- super helpful when you're used to taking various hikes without any sort of protection!) there was another set of waterfalls then went into a canyon. There was a gate at this area, and if you so chose to jump into the canyon, you could only do so while a guide was at the bottom with a rope to help you back to the ladder, or to swim after you if the current was taking you away. There was also an area where we could go out into the area of the fall (with another rope to help us get out there) and get some pictures, which was great, because who doesn't want to have at least one picture with these incredible falls.
It's maybe a 10 minute walk to get down to the springs and spa area (NOT easily accessible if you need a wheelchair/have difficulties with accessibility because of stairs and uneven walkways) but it's an easy path to follow and you're basically in the rainforest throughout both the walk and when you're down at the springs. There's a number of pools at different temperatures, a sauna, and a cold river flowing right next to the pools. I love to jump into the river and get chilled and then go into the hot springs and then switch back and forth between the different temperatures. There's also a bar and a couple food options, so it's not hard to happily spend the whole day there.
Now that doesn't mean I can't appreciate an "imperfect" beach, because natural is beautiful in its imperfection, but I do have a couple of favorite beaches. We stayed in Uvita for about a week, and we visited 6 or so different beaches, but we spent the most time at my two favorites. The first would be my all-time favorite beach, Playa Ventanas ("windows beach") because it's in a cove area with two "windows" on the right side of the beach where the arm of the cove is connected to a large hill with two caves that connect out to the water. You can't walk all the way from one end to the other because the tide reaches quite far and the water inside the windows crashes quite strongly. When the tide isn't high, you can walk along quite a ways to the left of the main beach area, and you have a variety of both sandy and rocky areas. The tree cover is also quite close to the water, so we like to set up in the shaded area.
The other beach we were going to was Playa Bellena. This one tends to be fairly touristy, but the best time to go to this beach is actually once the ranger and lifeguards have gone. Many people may go to the because for its ideal waves or the whale's tail, but the best part is the sunsets. It's a really long and wide beach and it slopes very gradually into the ocean, so there's a lot of sand with a sheen of water on it that looks magnificent at sunsets.
We visited Irazú and Arenal this summer. Arenal tends to have a lot of tourists because it has a perfect conical volcano shape and the town next to it, Fortuna, is a major hotspot for the volcano/hot springs/general touristy things. In fact, in the shops they usually give the price in American dollars rather than Costa Rican colones, which is dumb, because what if you're a tourist from outside of the US? Plus, I feel like learning about and interacting with different currencies is an important aspect of international travel, because it can help you better understand global economics just by spending the extra five minutes to figure out exchange rates.
Anyways, the Arenal Volcano National Park has a nice hike, but you can't get particularly close to the volcano itself. To get to Irazú however, you gradually drive up in altitude, and if you haven't done any driving around mountainous areas, it's really cool to be able to see the changing view. Once you get to the top, there's a flat area that has a drop down into the crater, and then an upper part where you can theoretically see both oceans at the same time (if it's a clear day). It was a little cloudy, so we couldn't see both oceans, but all around, it was some pretty cool views. The best part though was the crater. Inside the crater there's some gorgeously blue water that was sparkling in the sun. It was so so so pretty.
For a coffee tour, we visited Aquiares, which is not only a coffee farm (the largest in the country according to their website), but also living community for all of the workers and families. They're really community focused and sustainability is a big priority for them as well, so I really liked the overall ethics of the place. We did their Horseback Our Hacienda tour, which was cool, because we got to spend time at a waterfall, ride horses, and see the farm along with a tour of the entire coffee process. We all really enjoyed the tour, and I appreciated being able to hide horses combined with the tour, because I felt like like we were really making the most out of the time we had, but nothing was being rushed.
For our chocolate tour, we went to the Rainforest Chocolate Tour in Fortuna. We also went to the Chocomuseo, which was nice if you want a a short (but free tour). The benefit to the Rainforest Chocolate Tour was not only that it was longer, but that you got to walk around a grove of chocolate trees, learning about the whole ecosystem, and then they show you the entire process from tree to chocolate, involving you in with the process with all your senses. They provide you will a lot of samples, and the tour guide was fantastic, it very much felt worth it, and I didn't eat nearly the amount of chocolate that my mom and aunt did.
All in all, we got to do a lot of exciting things this summer- these were just some of the highlights! If you're heading to Costa Rica and looking for recommendations, these are so pretty good ones. I always enjoy Costa Rica, but I think this might have been our most exciting trip. Until next time- Pura Vida!
If you want a full daily rundown of everything we did in Costa Rica this summer, you can check out my dad's blog! For now, I'm just going to give my highlights of the things we did. In no particular order:
Waterfalls
There's so many waterfalls in Costa Rica! It's great, you can go to a waterfall nearly anywhere in the country you are. From a cursory look back, we had at least 8 days where we went to different waterfalls, and sometimes that would include a couple waterfalls. If I could pick only one however, I would choose undoubtably hands-down no contest, the Eco Chontales Waterfall in the San Isidro area. Check out their facebook page here. We showed up pretty late in the day, so we were able to do their horseback riding or eat at their restaurant, but holy moly, was that waterfall beautiful. You don't see it from the parking area, but it's only about a 15 walk down there, and when you get close, you feel the spray of the giant waterfall from the walkway. Would recommend walking down there in your swimsuit and having your stuff in a wet bag if possible. Once you get down the path past the initial waterfall, you reach a pool of water which you can get into and even follow down on a natural "slip-and-slide" type of area. The place is a family-run business, and the guides are incredible. They're mission if definitely to help you have the most fun but in the safest way. The guide showed us what way to orient yourself on the "slip-and-slide" and stood at the bottom, where you would completely go under the water in a tiny drop, and make sure that nobody was taking a dangerous path or being swept away.
A little further down (in which the path includes a rope to hold onto- super helpful when you're used to taking various hikes without any sort of protection!) there was another set of waterfalls then went into a canyon. There was a gate at this area, and if you so chose to jump into the canyon, you could only do so while a guide was at the bottom with a rope to help you back to the ladder, or to swim after you if the current was taking you away. There was also an area where we could go out into the area of the fall (with another rope to help us get out there) and get some pictures, which was great, because who doesn't want to have at least one picture with these incredible falls.
Hot Springs
I would happily do a hot springs tour of the world because hot springs are my #1 favorite thing to do in Costa Rica. And we had 5 different hot springs days because my family is just as obsessed with hot springs as I am. And one of those days was spent at our absolute favorite hot springs, the one I had been waiting to return to since we first discovered it 10 years ago, and the one day I was most looking forward to ever since we decided we'd be going to Costa Rica ~3 years ago. Termales del Bosque!!! Check their website here. We didn't say at the hotel this trip, but we spent most of the day at the springs. I even got one of their spa packages "Sueños Naturales" (Natural Dreams) which included a massage, reflexology, and a mud mask (90 minutes).
It's maybe a 10 minute walk to get down to the springs and spa area (NOT easily accessible if you need a wheelchair/have difficulties with accessibility because of stairs and uneven walkways) but it's an easy path to follow and you're basically in the rainforest throughout both the walk and when you're down at the springs. There's a number of pools at different temperatures, a sauna, and a cold river flowing right next to the pools. I love to jump into the river and get chilled and then go into the hot springs and then switch back and forth between the different temperatures. There's also a bar and a couple food options, so it's not hard to happily spend the whole day there.
Beaches
Most people do tend to go to Costa Rica for the beaches, and while it's not our #1 thing to do there, I definitely do enjoy them. As somehow who grew up in Florida, I can be a bit snobbish about what I determine as better than an average beach, and I tend to judge a beach on:- how touristy a beach is (less people is always better, but if there's gotta be people around, you wanna be surrounded by locals)
- what the ground cover is (sand is better than rock because you gotta be able to go barefoot, and in Costa Rica, the carribbean side tends to have more rocky beaches)
- what the shade potential is (is it dunes until you reach civilization like most Florida beaches or can you set up all your stuff under tree cover not extremely far from the water)
- what the water's like (waves, because smooth is boring- looking at you, Sarasota beaches!- but you don't want it to be too wavy too close to shore that it would be dangerous to get out to chest-deep water)
Now that doesn't mean I can't appreciate an "imperfect" beach, because natural is beautiful in its imperfection, but I do have a couple of favorite beaches. We stayed in Uvita for about a week, and we visited 6 or so different beaches, but we spent the most time at my two favorites. The first would be my all-time favorite beach, Playa Ventanas ("windows beach") because it's in a cove area with two "windows" on the right side of the beach where the arm of the cove is connected to a large hill with two caves that connect out to the water. You can't walk all the way from one end to the other because the tide reaches quite far and the water inside the windows crashes quite strongly. When the tide isn't high, you can walk along quite a ways to the left of the main beach area, and you have a variety of both sandy and rocky areas. The tree cover is also quite close to the water, so we like to set up in the shaded area.
The other beach we were going to was Playa Bellena. This one tends to be fairly touristy, but the best time to go to this beach is actually once the ranger and lifeguards have gone. Many people may go to the because for its ideal waves or the whale's tail, but the best part is the sunsets. It's a really long and wide beach and it slopes very gradually into the ocean, so there's a lot of sand with a sheen of water on it that looks magnificent at sunsets.
White Water Rafting
I had never been white water rafting before, so while we were in the Turrialba area, we decided to all go, and it was a ton of fun! We researched whether it would be better to do it in Turrialba or Fortuna, and not only was it cheaper in Turrialba, but we found out that the Pacuare River (where we went) is #5 best white water rafting place in the world according to National Geographic! There was a mix of different level rapids, up to level IV, but we went with the company Explornatura (find their website here) and they had great guides who were friendly and fun and thorough about keeping everyone safe. They also provided lunch which they prepared at the halfway point on the river. We just did a 1-day rafting trip, but they also have multi-day trips, lodges, zipling... we were duly impressed.Zipling
For the first time in my life, I was finally able to to go zipling in Costa Rica! You can find the tour we did here. It was a lot of fun, so I definitely want to do it again in the future. There was also a surprise rappelling situation that happened at the end of the ziplines (not mandatory of course) and I'm the kind of person who hates Splash Mountain because of the drop, so I was very insistent that they let me down the rappel slowly. However, my brother convinced them to drop me quickly without me knowing, so that was definitely a rush, and I was totally shaking afterward, but hey, I'll get him back someday.
Volcanoes
Costa Rica tends to be known for their volcanoes, and if you've never been to a volcano before, you should try to see one at least once in your life. To be honest though, most volcanoes aren't necessarily super interesting because if they're not active, they're kinda just mountains, and sometimes even if a volcano is active, it may not be active all the time. I have memories visiting Poas volcano and it being super foggy and cloudy, and so the crater was mostly covered.We visited Irazú and Arenal this summer. Arenal tends to have a lot of tourists because it has a perfect conical volcano shape and the town next to it, Fortuna, is a major hotspot for the volcano/hot springs/general touristy things. In fact, in the shops they usually give the price in American dollars rather than Costa Rican colones, which is dumb, because what if you're a tourist from outside of the US? Plus, I feel like learning about and interacting with different currencies is an important aspect of international travel, because it can help you better understand global economics just by spending the extra five minutes to figure out exchange rates.
Anyways, the Arenal Volcano National Park has a nice hike, but you can't get particularly close to the volcano itself. To get to Irazú however, you gradually drive up in altitude, and if you haven't done any driving around mountainous areas, it's really cool to be able to see the changing view. Once you get to the top, there's a flat area that has a drop down into the crater, and then an upper part where you can theoretically see both oceans at the same time (if it's a clear day). It was a little cloudy, so we couldn't see both oceans, but all around, it was some pretty cool views. The best part though was the crater. Inside the crater there's some gorgeously blue water that was sparkling in the sun. It was so so so pretty.
Coffee/Chocolate Tours
If you like coffee or chocolate or just like learning about the things we consume, I definitely do recommend going on these kinds of tours- just be wary that sometimes places will charge waaaay more than you should have to pay because sometimes tourists don't always compare prices and will just pay whatever they're told.For a coffee tour, we visited Aquiares, which is not only a coffee farm (the largest in the country according to their website), but also living community for all of the workers and families. They're really community focused and sustainability is a big priority for them as well, so I really liked the overall ethics of the place. We did their Horseback Our Hacienda tour, which was cool, because we got to spend time at a waterfall, ride horses, and see the farm along with a tour of the entire coffee process. We all really enjoyed the tour, and I appreciated being able to hide horses combined with the tour, because I felt like like we were really making the most out of the time we had, but nothing was being rushed.
For our chocolate tour, we went to the Rainforest Chocolate Tour in Fortuna. We also went to the Chocomuseo, which was nice if you want a a short (but free tour). The benefit to the Rainforest Chocolate Tour was not only that it was longer, but that you got to walk around a grove of chocolate trees, learning about the whole ecosystem, and then they show you the entire process from tree to chocolate, involving you in with the process with all your senses. They provide you will a lot of samples, and the tour guide was fantastic, it very much felt worth it, and I didn't eat nearly the amount of chocolate that my mom and aunt did.
All in all, we got to do a lot of exciting things this summer- these were just some of the highlights! If you're heading to Costa Rica and looking for recommendations, these are so pretty good ones. I always enjoy Costa Rica, but I think this might have been our most exciting trip. Until next time- Pura Vida!
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