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Many of you may know, I LOVE Costa Rica. In fact, the last time we went to Costa Rica in 2018, I came home and told Matt that I was going to learn Spanish so that we could move there. This time, the entire time that I was there, I couldn’t help thinking, “why am I not living here right now?” I love it so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if we ever when we move to Costa Rica.
We planned this trip to celebrate my younger brother, Jacob, coming home from his church mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was gone for two years, serving as an elder for the church. So when he came home, we decided to go on an awesome vacation to celebrate. And what better place than Costa Rica?
Day One
On our first day, we arrived to San Jose after a red-eye flight. Around 6am we departed the plane and picked up our rental car from Vamos. After getting settled into our car, we started the 3 hour drive north to the quaint little town of La Fortuna.
On our way, we decided to find somewhere to eat for breakfast. We tried about three small sodas (a soda is a roadside cafe that locals eat at) that were all closed due to Covid until we finally found a place that was open.
The restaurant we stopped at is located at a resort called Lands in Love. It is a really cool place tucked back about 10 minutes from the main highway in the heart of the jungle. Lands in Love is also an animal sanctuary and a hotel.
Throughout the dining room and the main room of the hotel, we spotted some kitties lying around on random couches. It’s fun to see animals like dogs and cats living freely and coming up to you in restaurants in Costa Rica.
The breakfast was delicious and a perfect meal to start our trip in Costa Rica. They serve really yummy pulpas – a type of juice drink. The guanabana flavor here was the best guanabana we tried the entire trip! Guanabana, what we call soursop here in the U.S., is a fruit that we have very limited access to here in the states that some say tastes similar to apple, pineapple, and banana mixed. It is very delicious!
After breakfast, we finished our drive to La Fortuna and checked into our Airbnb.
After unloading everything, it was time to head off to our first excursion in Costa Rica. We booked a horseback riding tour through the jungle with Go Adventures. This tour was so much fun and everyone in our group enjoyed it. We appreciated that the horses here appeared very well taken care of and healthy.
At one point, our guide said, “Okay are you ready to gallop?” Other than my mom, none of us had ever galloped on a horse before. It was a scary thought, but we were on an adventure, so we went for it! Side note: if you have never galloped on a horse before, I definitely recommend you try it. It kind of feels like flying, but on a horse…
By the time the tour was over, we were ready for dinner. We drove around town and found a pizza place with a great atmosphere called La Cava (Pizza a la leña). Matt and I ordered a margherita pizza, spaghetti carbonara, and a mango drink, and we took home leftovers. *This was my favorite place for pasta on the entire trip.
That night when we got back to our Airbnb there was a tiny lizard in mom and dad’s bathroom. We called on Matt to come retrieve him.
Day Two:
For breakfast the next morning, we stopped by a local soda called Soda La Hormiga. This soda had great prices and a wide variety of choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We ordered “local soda food” which basically means beans, rice, chicken, and plantain, and it is delicious. *The best thing about Costa Rica is their food. It always tastes AMAZING.
After breakfast, we did a sloth tour on the Bogarin Trail in town. We even had Giovanni Bogarin himself as our guide! A little backstory about this place. Before 2000, this land was all farmland and cattle fields. Giovanni had a vision of sorts. He wanted to build a sanctuary for animals where they could come and live and people could come see them undisturbed in their natural habitat. For the last 26 years he has built an incredible sanctuary for the animals of Costa Rica, and he is always still working to improve it. It’s crazy to see how much jungle growth can happen in a short time, and how quickly animals will move in to stake their claim to it.
On the trail we saw poison dart frogs, red eyed tree frogs, multiple sloths, jacamars, toucans and more. Giovanni knew so much about each of the animals and the plants that were surrounding us. Because he loves animals so much, over the years he has developed an amazing talent to mimic animal calls. He had a different type of whistle or sound for each animal, and it proved very useful in finding them.
It is possible to just pay for access to the nature park without a tour, but the tour is 100% worth it. We would not have seen 1/10th of the wildlife that we did without Giovanni leading us and “speaking” to the animals.
After the tour, Giovanni recommended a local soda to eat lunch at called Soda Mima. It is tucked away in a corner down a small alley road. The food was very good and very authentic.
After lunch we drove about 45 minutes to Mistico Hanging Bridges Park for our hanging bridge tour. This was a beautiful walk through the jungle across multiple hanging bridges. We saw some monkeys and other wildlife and the weather was beautiful this day, we absolutely loved being outside enjoying the natural surroundings of the Costa Rican jungle.
That night we had dinner at Pollo Fortuneño. The rotisserie chicken here was probably the very best we had the entire trip, and possibly ever in our lives. They roast it right in the corner of the restaurant and it was so flavorful and moist. The ribs were very tender, but also very fatty. We definitely recommend trying out the chicken when you’re in town.
To finish off the night we went to one of our favorite hot springs from Matt’s and my first trip to Costa Rica. Termales Los Laureles. We love this hot spring because it has large and small pools, all of varying temperatures, plus a couple of larger pools with super fun waterslides. We noticed that out of the four times we have been, there has never been more than one other couple or group there with us. This hot spring is one that the locals like to come and hang out at, so it’s never really busy, especially at night. It’s also not part of a resort which makes it less crowded as well.
Day Three:
On the morning of our third day we had to have an earlier breakfast so we went to the Red Frog since it opens earlier than most restaurants in town. We each ordered a plate of the traditional Costa Rican breakfast and of course we had to order a drink. The fruit drinks here are fancy and made of fresh fruit juices. And the jam here was to die for.
Once we were full it was time to go white water rafting. Our tour was with Wave Rafting and we rafted the class 3 and 4 rapids on the Sarapiqui River. Our guide, Pablo, is a pro at rafting and he was awesome, despite “it being his first day” 😂. (This was a joke we heard from every guide on the trip at least once…) We were on the river for about 2 hours before we took a break and had a snack of freshly cut pineapple and watermelon. We took a moment to jump off some rocks into the river for a bit and the water was cool and refreshing. After our snack we hopped back in the raft and finished out the rest of the tour. Surprisingly, none of us fell out of the raft!
After rafting, we joined the guides for lunch which was included with the tour. The ate at Restaurant El Ceibo. We loved the grounds surrounding the restaurant as it is on a biological reserve. We took a walk through the grounds and walked across the Tirimbina Suspension Bridge – the longest suspension bridge in the country spanning 262 meters (859 feet) long and 22 meters (72 feet) tall. This bridge was not as stable as the hanging bridges at Mistico and it is also suspended over the rushing rapids of the Sarapiqui River, so it is not for the faint of heart, but we loved it!
In the evening, Matt, Hannah and I decided we wanted to go back to Termales Los Laurales and ride the waterslides again before dinner. We had so much fun and love that it felt like we had the place to ourselves.
After the hot springs, we went back to La Cava for dinner and had pizza and carbonara again. We love the smoothie drinks here.
Day Four:
It is ziplining day! We booked our tour with Arenal Mundo Adventura (AMA) and did the Big 12. This is the same ziplining tour Matt and I did last time we came to Arenal, and it was so good we had to do it again! I always tell people I’ve done a good amount of ziplining in my life, but none of those experiences even compare to the ziplining in Costa Rica. If you can only do one tour while you are here – this is the one to do!
We start with a 20 minute tractor ride to get deep into the mountains and jungle.
You are suspended so high in the air and have a wonderful 360 view of the jungle. You’ll even fly over two amazing waterfalls.
Our guides were Alonzo (Paz), who Matt and I had last time and loved, and Marcus. We got very very greasy/dirty, so make sure to wear clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty and possibly stained.
After our thrilling adventure soaring through the jungle, we went to SpecTACOlar Cantina for lunch and had the most amazing tacos. The Al Pastor was my favorite! So so good. Matt loved the shrimp. I also got the watermelon smoothie and it was so so refreshing!
After lunch we got massages and facials at Spa Kinereth which was AMAZING. It was so nice to relax. Matt said it was probably the best massage he’s ever had, and it’s only $38 for the massage and $45 for the facial. Such a good way to relax while on such an adventurous vacation.
We walked around town and through the the cute town center park for a while and enjoyed the relaxed Pura Vida lifestyle that Costa Ricans live. We stopped at Chocolatefusion (Chocolatería) and picked out some chocolate truffles. Costa Rica is known for it’s coffee and it’s chocolate – and it is so yummy!
For dinner we ate at Cafe Mediterreano. We ordered the strawberry and the guanabana milkshakes. The strawberry milkshake is the best milkshake that we have both ever tasted, we wished we had ordered two! For our entrees we got the calzone (ham and mushroom), the margherita pizza and the penne al vodka. They were all amazing and fresh, and perfectly satisfying. The food was better than La Cava, but more pricey, and the atmosphere was much nicer.
Day Five:
It rained all. night. long. I mean, it poured! It rained so much that the rain woke us up multiple times in the middle of the night and the morning. Good thing we needed to get up early anyways, because it was time to leave the cute town of La Fortuna and drive to the pacific coast.
On our way to the coast, we stopped at the small town of Curubanda. Near this town is an incredible hike that ends at the fantastic La Leona Waterfall. In order to do this hike, you’ll need to hire a guide. We found ours on a Costa Rica Facebook group. His name was Ignacio and he’s a local from the town.
The trail was super adventurous and fun. It included climbing up ladders, cliff jumping, wading through rivers, climbing through bat caves and of course swimming at multiple amazing waterfalls. Matt says it’s his all-time favorite hike now, and I’d say it moved up to my second favorite hike ever. It was probably the most adventurous trail we’ve ever done, and definitely one of the prettiest.
After hiking a couple miles, we were hungry. We ate lunch at the local soda in town called Soda Curubanda. It was really good and had your typical Costa Rican food. The town was tiny, and as far as we could tell, this is the only restaurant there.
After lunch we drove the rest of the way to our Airbnb which was at the verrrry end of a super sketchy road completely uphill at the top of a mountain. The Airbnb was super nice though and we had incredible views!
For dinner we went to Father Rooster down the road and the food was DELICIOUS! Matt got the fish tacos and I had the quesadillas with homemade guac and salsa. I had a strawberry smoothie and Matt had mango. They had the best vibe in all of Costa Rica so far. We ate right on the beach and the grounds had cool signs, cute swings, colorful lights, direct access to the beach, great service and friendly waiters, and live music on Wednesdays and Fridays. It was the most expensive place we went to though, but definitely worth it! I 100% recommend going on a night with the live music because it made the experience so different than anywhere else we had been!
Day Six:
It is scuba diving morning! Matt and I dove with Rich Coast Diving and did a two tank dive. Our dive sites were called Argentina and Tortuga and were near a couple of really cool rocky islands out in the ocean. Diving Tortuga was cool because it was our first dive with sharks! We saw around 8 white tip reef sharks, moray eels, octopuses, and lots of cool, colorful fish. The dives were pretty fun and the visibility was good. We enjoyed the warmer waters too. Other than one other customer, the rest of the 8 divers were all young adults, mostly from Europe, living in Costa Rica working on their divemaster. It was a unique experience, and didn’t feel as tourist-y as other things we did, but was so fun.
After diving, we met back up with the fam and ate lunch at Soda Terasita. They had good sandwiches and super large smoothie drinks. The burger, however, wasn’t Jacob’s favorite.
After lunch we walked across the street to the beach and swam and played in the ocean for a bit. The water was warm and the beach was nice and sandy. We didn’t see any seaweed or large rocks which makes for the perfect beach in my opinion.
However, Jacob stepped on something he described as “slimy” (but don’t all things feel slimy in the ocean?) and got cut, so after that incident we all wore our sandals in the water to be safe.
For dinner we went to La Dolce Vida, an Italian restaurant. We each shared a meal and some Foccacia bread. It turned out to be the perfect amount for all of us and we didn’t have any leftovers. And it was delicious.
Day Seven:
This morning we went on an ATV ride. We rode for almost 4 hours and then stopped for lunch at The Monkey Bar, near a beach. The ride was super fun and was through towns, back-roads through the jungle, and some giant puddles. We got super super dirty though! All in all, it was a 6 hour tour, which we could’ve done with probably a 4 hour tour. We did it through Wet & Wild and our guide was Michael.
Before dinner we went to Octocol beach and took some pictures of the beautiful sunset.
Then we headed to Zi Lounge for dinner. This place has a great atmosphere but is slightly noisy as it’s right next to the main road. We ordered pizza and sandwiches. Their menu is huge, and as such, all the food is good, but nothing seemed to be a specialty.
Day Eight:
Our last day here! We went to Java Coffee for breakfast and ordered Waffles and the smoothie of the day, pineapple orange. The waffles here are so good, you won’t want to share! It was the perfect end to our time in Costa Rica.
After breakfast we headed to the airport and then it was time to go home.
Thanks for a wonderful time Costa Rica! Until next time, pura vida!
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