For some reason we 've been holding off a trip to Costa Rica for a while, because we thought it lacked the historic and colonial monuments and stunning turquoise beaches that other Central-American countries boost and to me especially, that sounded less appealing. But this past winter, listening eventually to the recommendations of many friends that loved it, we decided to head there to celebrate New Year's Eve and my 50th birthday.
Our initial goal was to combine in just a week and in one country some gorgeous nature (which we much need since we moved to New York City) and great surfing, but this trip ended up being so much more than that, and we discovered a magical country, with an exceptional ecosystem, incredible wildlife and wonderful people, that we definitely only began to explore - we already want to see more of it!
Given it was our first time there, we decided to split the trip into two parts: three days and a half driving across some of the most popular natural reserves - the Arenal volcano and Monteverde - and three and a half days relaxing by the beach in Santa Teresa, a remote village (but a surf and yoga paradise) on the southeast coast of the Nicoya peninsula.
We flew to San José with JetBlue from JFK, and despite the night-flight both ways (on the way back it's practically a red-eye) I have to say this option has a pretty convenient schedule: you arrive late the first day but you depart very late (11:30 pm) on your last day. We only had 7 days in Costa Rica, so we tried to make the best out of it, alternating mainland and parks with the beach, but that meant sacrificing San José.
Even if the public transportation system covers quite extensively a big portion of the country and it's definitely cheap and affordable, the long hours of bus trips make the transfers between the popular places very difficult if you are on a tight-schedule -like we were. Moreover, if you want to stop along the way in the countryside, which is spectacular everywhere in Costa Rica, and you want to reach more isolated parks and reserves with some timing flexibility (for example visiting wildlife areas early in the morning or late at night), car rental is your only option, unless you want to pay for a private driver or a semi-private van.
But hiring a car is a hot topic in Costa Rica. The rental tends to be quite expensive whatever company you chose because of the mandatory Third Party Liability (TPL) and the very recommended Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) coverages that you have to add on top of the rental, given that the poor maintenance of the roads requires cars that are at least small SUV's or 4x4W (especially if you are visiting more remote areas). We were actually told that those cars were necessary only during the raining season (May-Nov ) but we were happy that we were upgraded to a small SUV even in January, as we had to cross several rivers on a ruta nacional that was almost all unpaved, with potholes and that we took thanks to Google (we found out that we could have taken a slightly longer route, but paved) to cross the Nicoya peninsula. We ended up booking our car rental with Enterprise through our Chase Sapphire credit card reward points, which included already CDW - you can check it here - and has a nice office at the car rental location where most companies are near SJO airport (in Alajuela) with regular shuttle vans to the main terminal. This blog explains very in detail all you need to know about car rental in Costa Rica.
Another factor to keep in mind when you drive in Costa Rica is that distances tend to be longer than you expect because most roads, except a few "highways", are minor, therefore narrow and very winding and often pass through villages where the speed limits are low. But in general we found driving in Costa Rica very easy and fun!
We only had two days and an half for the central part of Costa Rica before we headed to the coast, so we tried to grasp the essence of the country's two most beautiful parks. But we didn't have luck with the weather which was terrible (it rained almost the entire time) on the first two days so we didn't get to see the Arenal volcano - which was supposed to be the main attraction of the first part of our trip. A great reason to go back ;-)
We drove from the airport straight to La Fortuna (it takes approximately 3 hours, via San Ramón, and the road are just fine) where after a quick lunch we were able to hike a little bit in the Arenal 1968 Volcano trail, which is located in the area where the last, quite devastating big eruption of the volcano happened. We decided to do this trail instead of the ones in the bigger Arenal Volcano National Park because they say it has the best view of the peak, but unfortunately we didn't see anything, as we were surrounded by a big fog and it was pouting rain. The trail was nice though... and no surprise on a day like this, almost completely empty. We then went to a small wildlife reserve, Bogarin Trail, that we had booked the day before and that offered various small tours inside the forest, where we saw lots of birds (the garden at the entrance have already so many of them - see pictures below!) darted frogs and and several sloths perched high on the trees. Despite being very close to the road and the main village it was actually quite nice and the guide was very knowledgeable. There are many other options that I had researched where you can do the same kind of tours, another one I had picked was Sloth Territory which didn't work for the schedule, but I think they are all very similar in what the offer and a number of "guaranteed" sightings ;-)
The area of La Fortuna is very touristy and spas are often very crowded, so we were happy that our hotel had actually its only little natural hot springs, which is one of the activities you must have on your to-do list! We ate at the hotel so I can't recommend any of the restaurants in town.
The next day we drove around Lake Arenal and then south of it to get to Santa Elena (2:45 h), and the road was just beautiful, with some wildlife encounters literally on the road and amazing views on the beautiful Monteverde hills. Santa Elena is a cute little village on the mountains that despite being quite popular (there are many eco-resorts in the area) has maintained some "rustic" charm. But the reason why we came here was the fabulous Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde Monteverde Cloud Forest), which is the oldest and biggest park in the area and that offers all kinds of trails and tours, some of them very deep into the forest. We had booked one three-hour long with a fantastic guide and we weren't' disappointed: you can see they know what they are doing as they do a lot of research inside the reserve. Monteverde is a really vast area so it's tricky to decide where to go and what to do (another popular park in the area is the Reserva Bosque Nuboso Santa Elena, but we had time to do just one of them), but I am glad we decided to go for this tour because it gave us an idea of what the ecosystem of the primary cloud forest is, and it's much more interesting and beautiful than you think! We saw howling monkeys, sloths, the mysterious and colorful quetzal... and learned about all the lushes plants and trees that you cannot see anywhere else in the world. Simply wonderful. Before entering the park (they make you leave the car a little lower on the hill, and there is a shuttle van that take you to the entrance) also make sure you get a coffee at the Colibrì Cafe!
The same day we also decided to do a night tour in another private reserve, Refugio Monteverde, which was also incredible and filled with night wildlife encounters: tapir, snakes, tarantulas, sloths, and lots on really cool insects. Highly recommended but only if you are not afraid of spiders and snakes.
The village of Santa Elena is very touristy therefore there aren't many options for a real comida local (there were some nice small restaurants near the soccer field, one local recommended Sabor Tico, but they were all closed probably still for New Year's) so we ended up paying our dinner at the tacky Tree House restaurant almost the same we would pay it in NYC!
The route from Monteverde to Santa Tersa goes from the cloud forest hills to the jungle coast, taking you through so many different landscapes and terrains, mountains and valleys, that it is worthy alone a trip to Costa Rica! The drive was supposed to take a little less than 5 hours (we decided to skip the ferry from Puntarenas to Paquera, which makes it faster, because the schedule didn't work for us) but it took more than 6 because the last two hours were completely into the remote countryside of the peninsula (we found out in the end that there was another route, slightly more "civilized"), mostly on unpaved roads and crossing many rivers... it was adventurous and fun but also a challenging drive (even with a small SUV), that was possible only because we were there in the dry season - I cannot imagine how it would be in the rainy season!
In any case, we got to the fabulous forest-flanked coastal village of Santa Teresa thinking that it would be as wild as the rural zones that occupy the entire peninsula, and instead we found a very busy traveller hub, but still in a "rough" way: there is only one paved road, stretching a couple of miles along the coast, and everything really only develops between the sand and the jungle, with no other major roads. It has become immensely trendy because of the honestly gorgeous beach and the perfect waves that makes it a legendary surf hang-out and yoga retreat - and that's exactly why we went there for! What used to be a small remote village in the far end of the peninsula, where apparently until 30 years ago there was not even electricity, has had a huge boom in the last decade, and despite the infrastructures are still very limited, you can tell they're building eco-resorts and boutique hotels everywhere... so go now before it's too spoiled.
Santa Teresa is actually less than a village than the neighboring (they are basically the same thing when you head southeast) Carmen and Malpaís, where you will find the most supermarkets, banks and local places, while if you keep driving northwest on the unpaved road you will pass first Hermosa beach and then Manzanillo beach, that are both much less frequented (the sand is a little darker here, and the beach is flatter) but surrounded by palm trees and virgin beauty: this is where we started an incredible horse back riding tour with the amazing Michelle and Carole of Horizonte Horse Experience that took us into the jungles and then back galloping on the beach and it was definitely my highlight of the trip!!
As for the surfing Luigi rented his board in one of the many surf shacks between the main road and the Santa Teresa beach and we stayed mostly in the central part of the long beach, where the sunset is amazing every night and despite being very popular the people tend to scatter everywhere so it's never too crowded. We walked on the beach south towards the Ranchos Itauna Hotel and restaurant and we found some very nice water where we could swim because actually one of the few downsides of this places is that it's fantastic for surfing but much less for swimming and snorkeling, because of the rip currents and the rocky areas that make it pretty dangerous.
I went to two very restoring yoga classes here and here (this one has an amazing terrace overlooking the ocean, but it's a bit far up on the hill) and there are so many places which you can choose from: basically every hotel or little posada has a little studio and you would only need to plan a day in advance and book it because they tend to be very popular, especially during high season.
The restaurants we tried were a cheap tacos place for the first lunch, a really good Cevicheria and Las Piedras Parilla (Argentinian) for dinner: none of them excelled for something in particular and they're very expensive compared to the rest of the country but all the places here have pleasant outside seating and the atmosphere is everywhere you go very chilled. There is an area a little more developed than others with some very trendy clothings store before Carmen beach but I found it a but too "Floridian".
On our very long way back to San José we decided to make a two-hour stop at the beautiful Curú Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre, in the northeastern part of the Nicoya Peninsula - this is the route you could take to get on the ferry to Puntarenas, and given that the road is so much nicer than the one we took on the way there, we decided also to pass by here and do the big detour around the peninsula and back to the mainland. The reserve is absolutely stunning with lots of wildlife (we even saw crocodiles!) and plenty of trails that you can take by yourself. The beach is also very nice and it happens to be the starting point to some great snorkeling tours to Isla Tortuga, which is supposed to be the best place for marine life (where you can actually swim in it) of Nicoya.