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Bienvenidos my lovely blog readers! We’ve reached the end of my little blogging journey, and I have to say, I had the best time documenting and sharing my study abroad experiences. For my final blog, I’d like to revisit all my Costa Rica adventures and excursions. I am so grateful for the time I’ve spent here and so satisfied with the places I’ve visited and the people I’ve met. I hope this blog helps you with your Costa Rica itinerary and shows you places you might not have considered. So let’s dive right in!
Volcán Irazú & El Sanatorio Durán
This was our first trip with our program and my second day in Costa Rica! Volcán Irazú is Costa Rica’s tallest volcano and it’s still active as well! It’s much colder and windier at the top compared to other parts of Costa Rica, so I’d recommend bringing a jacket. The views from the volcano are absolutely stunning, especially because the clouds are below you. Next, we went to an abandoned tuberculosis hospital called El Sanatorio Durán. It is said to be haunted by the old patients and nuns who worked there and it definitely felt a little eery. However, the grounds are beautiful and full of lush flowers and rolling hills. It was a cool visit to learn more about this little Costa Rican hospital!
Playa Jacó
This beach is the closest to San Jose, about a two-hour drive. The day we went it was about 90 degrees out, which is crazy to experience in January! The water wasn’t much cooler which surprised me as well. This beach is a lot like the ones in New Jersey (take that as you will…) and is full of tourists. I’m glad we went to the beach, but I would not go to Jacó again knowing all the other beautiful beaches Costa Rica contains.
Hacienda La Chimba
This was a popular 9 km hike we did about 45 minutes from San Jose. I’ve never done such an arduous hike like this where we kept going up and down a mountain, and by the end, I was absolutely spent. It took around 3 hours mostly because of how much we had to go up and down the mountain, and I don’t think I’ve sweat so much in my life. There are little landmarks all over the hike, and at the end there’s a straw hand to stand on that juts off the mountain! The views were absolutely stunning, and this was my first taste of Costa Rica hiking. There’s also a shorter version of the hike, about 4 km. It’s much better to go very early in the day, as it can become much more difficult with the sun beating down. Remember to pack lots of water and good hiking shoes! I felt very accomplished by the end of this and would recommend it as a morning trip.
Playa Tamarindo & Playa Negra
This was our first weekend trip and my first hostel experience!! We stayed at Pura Vida Mini Hostel, which I highly recommend. Tamarindo, nicknamed Tamagringo, hosts tons of tourists, mostly from the USA. I had such a fun time here and we had our first real taste of vacationing outside San Jose. I love the hostel life and I feel like it made our experience here that much better. We met so many people from different places across the world and everyone was so welcoming and friendly! The beach itself was beautiful, a huge step up from Jacó, and the sky was full of so many stars at night. During the day, we went to an outdoor artisan market and sampled more kombucha than I’ve ever had in my life. Tamarindo is known as a huge party town, but I honestly think I like the nightlife in San Jose much more. We also went to Playa Negra, my first black sand beach! The sand was not black. It was a cool beach though, much different than Tamarindo and much less crowded as well. The waves were stronger here and the sand was extremely hot. It’s very hard to get an Uber back from there though, and we were stranded for a solid two hours. If you want to go to a black sand beach, I’d recommend the ones on the Caribbean side rather than this one, just because the sand was not really black. However, this was a great weekend trip!
Britt Coffee Tour
This was our second program trip and was such a fun experience! We started with picking coffee beans right off the trees which was so cool. I very much did not know coffee beans even grew in little cherry-like pods and this tour taught me so much about the production of coffee and how much work really goes into it. I drank more coffee than I have in my life and learned so much! There was also a gorgeous butterfly garden with so many different colored butterflies!
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Blue Falls
This day trip is a MUST DO!! I truly cannot say enough good things. For about $17, we got to do some crazy hikes up and down the terrain, cross rivers on rocks and see the most stunning waterfalls I’ve ever seen in my life. There were 7 waterfalls, but because we spent so long admiring each, we only went to about 3 or 4. The water is full of minerals, making it so blue it looks like photoshop. You can swim in them all too!! Not only did I love the waterfalls, but I loved the hiking aspect as well, although it was tenuous sometimes. Words can’t do justice to this place, so I’ll just show you all the pictures below now 🙂
La Fortuna
Another must-see location!! I’d recommend the 4-in-1 experience which includes rappelling, ziplining, pool jumping, and hiking. Our guides were so warm and friendly and this was the most fun experience ever. I also (kinda) faced my fears with the pool jumping and had an amazing time doing so. La Fortuna itself is gorgeous and has a stunning view of Volcan Arenal, a huge volcano with clouds swirling at its peak. It is also full of volcanic hot springs which are sooooo sick to bathe in. The hot spring we went to was chock full of people, but we found a secluded spot and lounged in the perfectly warm water for an hour or two. The next day, we went to a place in La Fortuna called El Salto. I recommend this spot as well, it was an amazing swimming spot filled with little waterfalls and a rope swing. Here, I definitely conquered my fears because I cliff-jumped and jumped off the rope swing into the water and had the best time ever! This spot is so lovely to lounge at and unwind or to wade in the water and cliff jump, and it’s a walk away from the center of La Fortuna. We also went to the La Fortuna waterfall, which was stunning! This was the biggest waterfall I’ve seen and was beautiful. You can swim in the water too, but be warned it’s very frigid!
Arca Verde
Our next program trip! This was an ethnobotanical garden and was such a cool little trip. The gardens were sprawling and full of every plant you could ever imagine. I learned about the medicinal and practical benefits of so many cool plants, and afterward, we went into the town got ice cream, and saw a little show going on!
Santa Teresa
This beach is absolutely GORGEOUS, it was for sure a top 3 Costa Rica beach for me. To get to Santa Teresa, we had to take a bus, a ferry, and another local bus, but it was well worth it. Santa Teresa is a huge surfing town, that’s pretty much all people come for and I can see why with the strong waves. The sunsets are stunning, the beach is tranquil, and the town has some delicious food, including the best pizza and ravioli I’ve ever had from a place called Muzza.
Montezuma & Paquera
We went here while we stayed in Santa Teresa because it’s only an hour away, and I’m so glad we did! The public buses are a little difficult to figure out, but it’s so worth it. Montezuma Falls are some beautiful waterfalls that also have spots to cliff jump. I also did one of our most testing hikes yet, within areas so steep I was fully just rock climbing at some points. When we got to the top, it was so worth it though as there were two more waterfalls and the area was much more secluded and peaceful. Later in the day, we took a bus to Paquera where we went out into the water and saw its bioluminescence!!! This was so sick and amazing, especially because I’ve learned about bioluminescence through my Biology lab at Drexel. Basically, the water we touched would glow!! I recommend doing this when there’s no moon so you can see the most glow.
Puerto Viejo & Cahuita
Alas, Costa Rica’s Caribbean side!!!!! You HAVE to come here, the vibe is so different from the Pacific side in an amazing way. The water was clear which was so surreal. Every other beach had beautiful blue water, but seeing clear water was something else entirely. The Caribbean food is so delicious and the atmosphere and culture are amazing as well. We went to Cahuita National Park and saw monkeys, sloths, butterflies, anteaters, and more! Unfortunately, because of flooding most of the trail was closed, but it was still a lovely experience. I also rode in a Tuk Tuk which kinda made me think of a rickshaw a little bit and was so fun.
Finca La Lucha
Our first program overnight trip! We went to a president-house-turned-museum, slept in a cabin, and did a little hike with a waterfall at the end, which was all so fun! I’ve never been to summer camp but this is what I imagine summer camp to be like as there was a campfire and we all had the chance to bond and sleep in a cabin together. I also got to kayak and at night I saw more stars in the sky than I’ve ever seen in my life, and it was so beautiful.
Isla Tortuga
This was such a cool day trip where we went to Puntarenas and then took a ferry far out into the ocean and were dropped off at a turtle-shaped island! The water was beautiful and this was the first beach with a ton of rocks and shells, I collected so many!! I felt like I was literally on my own private island here. We also got to snorkel and it was my first time doing so and it was such a sick experience. I saw all the different types of fish and we got to see monkeys and dolphins as well!!
Tortuguero & Cariari
My final trip was with my host mom to Tortuguero. We took a boat out here and I saw the most stunning trees and plants on the way. Tortuguero itself is pretty touristy, but it was very pretty! On one side was the canals which we took a boat down, and just a few yards away on the other side was the beach! My host mom’s mother and sister live in Cariari on fincas, which are like farms. It was so sick to see their fincas, which were GINORMOUS. My host grandma’s place looked like what I imagine heaven to look like because of all the plants everywhere. My host aunt showed me around her huge finca where she grows tons and tons of food, including ginger, taro, yuca, guayabana, mangos, papayas, beans, limes, sweet apples, curcumin, coconuts, and more. It was insane. We drove over a river and the farm just kept continuing. Also, this region of the country is known for its crops because of how often it rains (nearly every day), and I passed SO MANY banana trees and yuca crops, including banana trees grown by the company Dole! My host aunt also has animals on her farm with cows and horses and sheep and goats, and I got to feed the goat some type of milk, which was sick. On our way home, we stopped at a restaurant. Since I was fasting for Ramadan and couldn’t eat, the waiter took me to a super cool river at the bottom of the cliff the restaurant was on, and I got to read in the most Twilight-esque setting. It was gorgeous!
All in all, I am so satisfied with all the places I went to in Costa Rica. It can seem very daunting, but if you plan weekend trips one or two weekends in advance, they’re super easy to manage and coordinate! I recommend sitting down with your friends one of the first few weekends and making a list of all the places to go to and planning out each weekend. In my last blog, I talked about how you should talk to all the locals and everyone you meet, and I can’t stress this enough. Not only do you learn from their experiences and hear their tips and recommendations, but you can also get huge discounts at places! For example, we befriended and got the numbers of the people who took us on the bioluminescence tour at Paquera, and were then able to get Isla Tortuga tickets for $50 when they usually cost around $120!! It’s well worth it to at least ask for discounts or cheaper prices, it’s worked out for us more times than it hasn’t. All the parts of Costa Rica we went to were so wonderful and all so different. I met so many people, had so many new experiences, and tried so many foods. We did as many things as we possibly could, repeating the mantra “YOU’RE ONLY HERE DOING THIS EXPERIENCE ONCE!! RALLY!!!!” which pushed us out of our comfort zone to do so many new things even when we felt lazy or tired, and I don’t regret it one bit. This is truly an experience I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Thank you guys for following along, I hope I’ve been able to help you! If you ever have any questions or want advice or anything else, don’t be shy to DM me on Instagram @_laibakhann 🙂 ¡Pura vida!
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