I just got back from my trip to Costa Rica and I am still recovering. My connection got screwed up coming home due to maintenance on the plane and I ended up in the wrong city. The trip was fantastic and I really feel I was able to see a lot more of the country since I had a rental car. The driving was really not as bad as I had heard it would be. The roads out there are not nearly as good as in the states but at no time did I get stuck or genuinely feel like I was not safe. I traveled with my lovely girlfriend who made the trip far better.
Over the 9 days we spent in Costa we stuck mostly to the coast on the Pacific side. I visited 8 different beaches and one rainforest with a cyan river called Rio Celeste. we stayed at an AirBnB that was also a rescue shelter / organic farm, a resort, a hotel in the clouds, and then a Hilton by the airport.
Starting at the AirBnB, we met the host and got settled in. She told us about a restaurant in a cave that you had to take a boat to and that had entertainment on Fridays. This was just the kind of thing we were looking for so we made plans to hit a local grocery store, unload, then off to the cave! We, of course, had no energy after the store to go out and ended up going to bed early. Then, after being dead asleep for about 2.5 hours, we woke to pounding on our door. It was the long term guest in the place next to ours. She said only, “You’re dome light’s on!” Katie instantly feared that this is how we would die. This was their plan to separate us, then murder us. She decided to send me out with an under-powered LED flashlight to take care of the light. I sighed, put on my pants and set out to my inevitable death. There were chickens, dogs, and lizards all over the place and high winds that were causing all sorts of noises I found indistinguishable from that of a serial killer stalking my every step. I can be said that my journey was as brief as possible. I returned to find my partner on this adventure completely fallen asleep and no credit for my heroics were to be had that dark night.
Before we knew it, our 2 nights were spent and we got in the car and moved on to our resort. We booked a place that we didn’t know where we would be staying until a couple days before we arrived. As luck would have it, we were placed at a large resort called Dreams. The place sits on the beach damn close to Nicaragua. If we rented a kayak we were told we could accidentally float there is we were not careful. Dreams is like any other all inclusive resort. The food and liquor are included and you don’t have to worry about anything. It is basically day care for adults. You don’t have any responsibility to do anything at all. That is really nice for a couple days but then the boredom sets in. Having all of your needs met so easily can surprisingly unsettling. I guess the best way I can describe it is a loss of overall purpose. You have explored everything you can at the resort, tried all the food, drank all of the drinks and you just coast from there. There is no exhilaration of finding something new. I am not saying I had a bad time there but it does get old rather quickly. This was the second resort like that I had stayed at and I think I need a break for a while to have more time to explore and get into trouble.
After the resort, we were off to drive up a mountain on the worst road I had ever driven on. It was fantastic! We were in a little 4×4 and driving up to our hotel nestled in the rainforest was a really cool thing to do. We were lost and took the long way around and just before we arrived I was having serious doubts but we made it nonetheless. We ended up at the Tenorio Volcano National Park and the scenery there was nothing short of amazing! On the west coast, there was a lot of green but this place was an honest to god rainforest with better views, greener greens, and more rain and growth everywhere.
I enjoyed my time in Costa Rica very much and I can’t wait to do some more international traveling. I don’t know where I will end up but I am thinking it will be somewhere in Asia. We shall see!