Costa Rica in a Snapshot
Trip Start
Oct 02, 2011
1
14
Trip End
Jan 23, 2012
Heredia, Province of Heredia, Costa Rica
Monday, January 23, 2012
After a good 3 months in South America, we shifted gears towards Costa Rica in time for the New Year. So long, pasta, pizza, meat, and hello Casados (Costa Rican plate lunch). The shift in cuisine from South America to Costa Rica was like night and day. Here in Costa Rica, Ticos enjoy their breakfast and eat earlier dinners than their South American counterparts. We really felt at ease here as Costa Rica has a thriving economy and everyone seems to be doing well. We did not encounter many beggers or homeless people. Overall, the Ticos or Costa Ricans are very happy people. Although, the Chino and Chinita calls were much more common here than other places, we felt really comfortable here even though we stood out from the crowd. For those, of you that don't know Kristen, she studied here about 5 years ago and spent three months living with a host family "The Ramirez family" in Heredia, a province outside of San Jose. Needing a bit of an energy boost after a few months of travelling, Kristen felt this was a perfect place for a second wind. We ended up spending about 4 weeks in Costa Rica and went to a few major parts of it, which I will outline the highlights.
Tamarindo
This was our first major stop in Costa Rica. This small town is located in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica and is infamously known as "Tamagringo" due to its influence of western countries and influx of tourists. I was particularly surprised here because the first language appeared to be english and everyone approached us speaking english. I was really thrown off as it was the first spanish speaking country that I felt had an overdose of western culture. We would use of spanish here around town and people would respond in english. It was a little annoying because our spanish is not bad after 3 months of travelling. Anyways, its quite apparent why people love it here, the water is warmer than Hawaii and the surf is quite good. I was able to paddle out a few times here and caught some nice waves after being a dormant surfer for about 4 months. My arms ached after the two sessions of surf. We made sure we caught the sunset everyday here and also had some wonderful meals here and surprisingly the sushi was good. We ended up eating sushi twice here at Sushi Bistro Club. After a few days of enjoying our resort hotel and being beach bums we headed to our next destination, Arenal or La Fortuna.
Arenal
After about 6 hours due to a broken down truck in the middle of the road, we made it to La Fortuna, a town built around the National Park of Volcan Arenal. What we didn't know before coming here, was that the Volcano actually stopped erupting while we were travelling. The last eruption was in October of 2011. So the Volcano has been sleeping for a few months and we missed it. Trying to make up for it, we went on a few excursions of ATV riding and a trip to the Baldi hot springs. This was my first time riding an ATV and it was quite fun. It was especially dirty and muddy because it had rained the day before and everytime we went into a puddle, we would create a big splash. It was a blast and we relaxed at the end of the day at Baldi Hot Springs, a built up hot spring resort with a numerous pools of varying temperatures. We especially enjoyed the 116 degree pool, with some cooling pools inside of it. It was perfect as we could cool off and warm off without getting out of the pool. Our next few days were spent in bed, as I contracted a case of food poisoning. Luckily, I had some antiobiotics ready for a situation like this. I've gotten food poisoning in Mexico a few years ago and remember the symptoms, so I quickly got on the pill and luckily it only lasted a few days. We were tired anyways and seemed like a good time to take a rest anyway.
Monteverde
This has to be my favorite spot in Costa Rica. After a few days of inactivity in La Fortuna, we did a multitude of activities here including:
1. El Trapiche Tour - Local Coffee Tour of harvesting, drying, sorting, roasting, and preparing coffee in Costa Rica. We also had a chance to make and eat our own sugar cane candy!
2. Bat Jungle - For those of you that hate mosquitoes, you will love Bats. We learned a lot about bats here on an entertaining tour of a homemade bat cave. Bats are great for keeping insect populations under control as they need to eat their own body weight of insects everyday. They also because of their diet, keep the spreading of mosquito born illnesses to a minimum, i.e. Malaria and Dengue.
3. Horseback Riding at Sunset - This was totally worth it if you have the right weather. Luckily, we had a beautiful day and two nice horses, King and Raton to be our guides of the day. We went on a two hour ride through a few forest and saw a few owls. It was capped with a beautiful sunset!
4. Original Canopy Tour - It seems like every place in Costa Rica has a Zipline outfit. This was an awesome experience. I never did ziplining in my life and really enjoyed this exhilarating and adrenaline pumping lines through the forest. We even did a Tarzan Swing and climbed through this cool tree!
5. Santamaria Night Tour - This was our lucky day! Instead of going to the National Park, which I was originally bummed out about, we decided to go on a night tour to observe the nocturnal animals in the area. Here, with our amazing luck, we were able to observe a Sloth come down to the ground and take a dump. You might be wondering what is so special about that, well, a sloth only goes down to poop or pee once a week. Our tour is two hours at night. On this particular night, this guys happens to be in the same area as our group and descends during our tour. The guide says that for that to happen in our time slot may happen once a year. We were really lucky. On top of that we saw some night sticks (insects that look like twigs), Kikujus (racoon like animals), some sleeping tucans, and a tarantula!
Manuel Antonio
We spent about 4 days here, enjoying an atmosphere similar to Tamarindo. Everyday was spent at the beach and relaxing. The beach was smaller than Tamarindo, which made it easier to take in. There is a ton of wildlife here as we observe a monkey family jumping like Tarzan through the trees and crossing the street on electrical lines. This was like a zoo without cages. On our last full day we checked out the National Park of Manuel Antonio. Here we observed a few animals, sloths and monkeys and enjoyed a more intimate beach than the public one outside the park. Yes, there were a lot of people here, but it was nice to spend the day at the beach without being asked if we wanted a umbrella or happy hour drink.
Heredia
Our last 5 days were spent in the province of Heredia where Kristen studied 5 years ago. I was able to put a picture of where Kristen spent her days at the university and also got to meet her host family. This was really humbling to meet here host family and meet a normal family that has nothing to do with the tourism. Here in Heredia, I felt how it was like to be a part of the Costa Rican culture. Kristen was really happy to see her family and had a number of compliments from every member of the family that here Spanish is much better now than it was before. I guess our practice over the past 3 months did us well. On top of that, Costa Rican spanish is much easier to understand than Argentina and Chile. One thing that particularly got me thinking was a statement made from Kristen's host father, Hugo. Not being in the best of health at his age, he told us to not worry about our decision to quit our jobs to travel. He was supportive and said that it was part of life that you need to go and seek things that you want to do and see. This made both Kristen and myself, feel really proud of our decision to travel and experience this together.
Well, it's halftime now, and both Kristen and myself are back in the United States. We have gone to 4 different countries and seen many places that would have taken years of annual 2 week vacations. I am so proud of Kristen and how brave she was to take this opportunity with me. I would be lying if I told you that there weren't some tough situations during this trip because there were some. However, I believe that this experience will only make our relationship stronger and we can always look back at these wonderful memories without any regret. About reverse culture shock, we are taking full advantage of the luxuries we have here, including safe roads, clean water, fresh produce, sidewalks, communicating effectively and variety of food. We will also take this time to spend some time with our family and friends with trips to Hawaii to see my family and time in San Jose with Kristen's family. Our next half will be in Southeast Asia and Asia. We will be leaving on February 26, so stay tuned!
Aaron
Comments
Haven't done CR yet but am thrilling to do so, even more now that I read your report and saw how much fun you guys had :). Cheers from Ethiopia, Aaron!!