Last month I turned 30. 30!? To celebrate, I wanted to go somewhere and do something awesome. So I chose Costa Rica, based on activities and ticket prices. I can’t believe 30 years of my life have passed already. It’s a good time to reflect on whether I am where I thought I would be at 30. The answer is a resounding no. In my childhood, teens and even into college, I never thought I would be as brave or adventurous or free as I am. I would have thought I’d have a boring engineering job and be wrangling a kid or two. Instead, I’m successful, highly independent, with a job I enjoy most days, a few great friends, and a partner who keeps me smiling and laughing. All told, I’m very satisfied with my first 30 years and I hope that the next 30 years bring as much adventure, variety and intrigue.
Because this trip was long and exciting, I thought I should break it up a bit. Part 1 is coastal Costa Rica. Part 2 is the mountains, cloud forest, and San Jose.
Places visited:
Playa Agujas
Dominical
Osa Peninsula
Manuel Antonio
Activities
The day we left, Mike and I woke up at 1:30 AM to catch a 5 AM flight to LAX. When we arrived at the gate in LA for the flight into San Jose, Costa Rica, the flight board read “Canceled”. The Turrialba volcano had minorly erupted, rocketing a plume of ash a kilometer into the air. As such, flights into its airport were being rerouted to Liberia, Costa Rica, about three hours Northwest. I called Budget and changed our rental car pickup to Liberia. Car insurance of $28 per day is mandatory. WTF. Below is a map of all of the places we visited and roads we drove in 12 days.
The roads in Costa Rica are two lane highways with speed limits that change constantly. No one really seems to care about them though. The drive from Liberia to Playa Agujas took about 3.5 hours in the dark. It was terrifying. Semi trucks with angry looking lights bore down on us. The road wasn’t recently paved and a little rough. Plus, passing on a two lane winding, jungle road is not ideal.
In Dominical, we found our resort after a whole bunch of U turns and backtracking. Turns out the road Google Maps (BTW, Google Maps Offline is the greatest!) wanted us to take was UNDER the highway. Villas Rio Mar is a great three-star resort at a really reasonable price ($69 including breakfast). The grounds are beautiful and immaculate with a variety of tropical plants and iguanas roaming free. We were upgraded to a suite in the back of the resort with two king sized beds and air conditioning. It was huge, much more than we needed. The resort has a nice pool, tennis court, concrete mini-golf course and an outdoor “gym”.
Checking out the town, we walked along the beach briefly and looked at some of the shops. A flash and a rumble later, rain poured from the skies. To escape we stopped at Tortilla Flats for ceviche, nachos and fried plantains. Afterward, we walked to Danyasa, a yoga studio in town to see about classes. There was a class in an hour. Yoga was a large class, candlelit, on a second story balcony with a tin roof and netting around the sides. The studio had mirrors on one side, fans, and cool overhead lighting. The class was excellent, taught by a student who was studying there for a month. Thunder continued to rumble through the class.
The following morning yoga class at Danyasa was taught by a girl named Serra who was everything an amazing yoga teacher should be: lithe, flexible, beautiful, with a septum ring and half her head shaved. The class was phenomenal, by far the best I’ve been to (and I have a few teachers I adore). She held poses long enough to make me work, emphasis on form was key, and she even sang a cappella for us in savasana.
On a recommendation, we found Nauyaca Waterfall. Since we had a 4x4, it was an 8 km round trip hike up a steep road to get to the falls. We saw the largest stream of leaf-cutter ants I’ve ever seen and a spotted paca, which is a weird little rodent similar to a capybara. The falls were incredible, double layered. Since we went so late in the day, we were the last people there. The upper falls are taller, stronger, impressive. They crash over large, faceted boulders, spraying mist everywhere. Mike had to climb all over the rocks, of course. The lower falls are beautiful, still powerful, but more demure with a big pond to swim in. Once we jumped in, the rain began to fall. It poured harder and harder until everything we brought was soaked. Climbing out, there were frogs and lizards all over the place. Once we were back on the trail, there was no more rain or even evidence that it had rained. Curious.
On my birthday, we caught a very early breakfast before jumping in the trusty Terios for a drive to the Osa Peninsula where there is a large, highly biodiverse national park called Corcovado. Once we finally arrived in Jimenez and found someone to talk to we learned that you need a permit to hike there and hikes start at 6 am. Luckily, we were given a map and found there are a couple of "community trails" to hike. Le Tigre was about 8 km down a dirt road into a town or village. There were cowboys on horses nodding to us as we passed. We passed a closed ranger station and ran out of road. At the ranger station there was an overgrown path leading up and around the back. A grizzled old man with a machete walked up to the car, told us “pura vida” and asked what we were doing. I told him we were going for a walk up the trail. He nodded and left. Strange.
Before I could overthink it, I grabbed my camera and headed up the trail. Within a short distance, I looked up from the trail to see a large black body hanging in a low palm. I followed it up to see the neck and head of what I believe was a rat snake. Eep! I kept a bit of distance and contiued walking slowly and quietly trying to see a sloth or band of monkeys. At the end of the trail is a lookout with nice views. We saw birds with red bodies and black heads and wings, little gold birds, lots of leaf-cutters, a few butterflies and some lizards, but no more snakes or mammals. The walk down was uneventful. Overall, it was a very sweaty, slow, quiet walk in the rain forest.
We booked a surf lesson in town for the last day in Dominical. It wasn’t until 1pm so we went back to the resort. Determined not to miss out on the amenities, we played tennis for an hour then swam in the pool. We chatted for a long time with a retired gentleman with a fascinating life story. He’d recently lost his wife to cancer and this was his first time back to Costa Rica without her. I may have spent too much time in the sun. All too soon, it was time for check out.
Costa Rica Surf School provided a fabulous surf lesson. Surfing was exhausting and fun. The sun was blazing over 3-4 foot waves. Our instructor was named Ezekiel. Mike was able to get up after a few tries and did his own thing for most of the lesson. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out when to paddle, when to stand, etc. I did ride several waves though. Yay me! The lesson was 2 hours with a 15 minute break for water, mangoes and bananas. We were exhausted afterward from fighting to get out past the break. Check out our sunburns!!
The next stop was Quepos, about an hour North up the coast home to Manuel Antonio national park. After Corcovado and reading reviews we decided a guide was worthwhile. Ours was not. His scope was handy, but he mumbled so softly Mike couldn’t hear him and I only caught about half of it. We saw bats, crabs, sloths, lizards, deer, white face monkeys, howler monkeys, and beautiful blue morphos butterflies with their drunken flight. We also saw a coati and a capybara. There were some adolescent white face monkeys wrestling on a lookout tower. The sloth picture was taken using the guide's scope. That cute little monkey in the picture below is pretty dangerous. They're mean little beasts. The one pictured was actually that close. The camera is not zoomed. Playa Manuel Antonio is gorgeous, crescent moon shaped with light lapping waves. There were tide pools on one side. Mike found a cool spotted eel swimming from an inlet to a pool and some sea slugs. My sunburn made being in the sun a little less than pleasant. We did a bit of hiking and headed for cooler climates.
On the road to Arenal, there was a sign with a crocodile on it before an overpass with a lot of tourists staring over the side. We decided to stop and I’m glad we did. The brown river below the overpass was full of huge prehistoric beasts! I counted 27. A group of college kids bought a bag of frozen meat and started throwing chunks into the water. The crocodiles churned over each other looking for a treat. The last bit of meat appeared to be a hip joint from a cow or other large mammal. It bounced off the head of one croc and another caught it. With a snap of it’s jaws, the joint shattered with a sickening crunch. They make dinosaur noises too. Scary!
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