Costa Rica

I spent a week in Costa Rica during the colder winter months here in the mid-west. My goals for the trip were pretty simple. I wanted to get out in nature, practice my Spanish, see some animals and relax. I'm happy to say that I was able to achieve all of these goals!

I split up my time between Liberia and Tamarindo and filled most of my days with tours organized through Native Way. They made the whole process relatively hassle free and I'd definitely recommend them.

In Liberia, I stayed in a no-frills hostel close to the bus station. It wasn't glamourous, but it was private and clean. I felt safe there overall.

On my first day, I walked over to the bus station and took a local bus to Playa del coco. I mostly walked around and went swimming for a bit. There were lots of restaurants and bars to choose from. I had a piña colada from El Ancla. It was overpriced but good.

The sand on the beach was black which was cool.

The next day, I woke up early to catch my tour. We started our day at Llanos de Cortez and it was absolutely stunning. I love a waterfall that you can swim in.

Next, we drove over to Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio to Rio de Celeste. This was one of the big highlights of the trip for me. It was so blue and so beautiful. I could have stayed there and looked at it for hours and hours.

This one didn't let visitors swim in it, but we drove down a little bit further outside of the park to spot with the same blue water that let people swim in it.

For our third stop of the day, we visited a sloth sanctuary. Now, this was the stop that initially had me really worried because I've heard horror stories about tours visiting sloths and handling them. I'm definitely an animal lover so I don't want to support any kind of mistreatment of animals.

On this tour, we walked around and looked at sloths from a telescope. None of the sloths were handled at all and they were all very far away and living their happy sloth life.

Seeing the sloths was absolutely amazing.

On our hike, we also saw lots of other wildlife including some snakes and frogs.

Both the snakes and frogs scarred me a little.

This red and purple frog is very poisonous even though he looks harmless.

This snake is about as harmful as he looks.

Finally, we stopped and had lunch. On the suggestion of our tour guide, I had chifrijo which is supposed to be a typical Costa Rican dish. It was very tasty.

For dinner, I walked around the hostel where I was staying. Look at the size of this avocado. It's huge!

I ate at Restaurante Sr. Patacón and it was my favorite meal of the trip.

This passionfruit margarita was absolutely delicious.

My third day got off to a rough start. My tour group forgot to pick me up and left without me. They sent a taxi to come get me which was great, but then I ended up waiting in the parking lot for over an hour because I didn't want to wander around the national park (the first spot on the tour) on my own with no car.

Eventually I was reunited with the group, but it was an annoying experience. The tour agency did refund me half of my cost which I appreciated.

For the first stop of the tour, we started at Parque Nacional Rincón de la Vieja. We hiked around, saw some waterfalls and geysers. It reminded me a lot of Yellowstone. (A lot of the geysers also smelled like rotten eggs haha).

After we hiked around for a while, we walked down to Catarata Waterfalls Oropendola. This waterfall was a little scary to get to and the water was very cool, but it lets you swim in it!

I really want to go back just to see this waterfall again. It's so beautiful.

After drying off, we had a buffet lunch which was okay but not my favorite. In general, I found Costa Rican food to be a little on the bland side.

Our final stop was Rio Negro Hot Springs and this stop was also a lot of fun and made me wish that I wasn't solo travelling.

At the beginning, they have a spot to cover yourself in volcanic mud and then you go in the river to wash it off. I don't know if it did any good, but it was a fun experience.

The Hot Springs had lots of different pools with a variety of temperatures so it was easy to hop around to different pools and relax.

This one overlooking the river was one of my favorites.

The next day, I took the bus to Tamarindo to finish out my trip on the beach. If I had to do it over again, I would have stayed here the whole time. Tamarindo is much more beautiful than Liberia. The people there weren't the friendliest though.

I made friends with a girl from Canada who was staying in Costa Rica and working on her surfing. We met up for beers on the beach before having an early night.

The next day was my last full day and I decided to take a surf lesson! It was one of those things that I've always wanted to do, but always had some excuse for not doing.

I don't have any pictures of me surfing because they wanted $20 for the photos that they took of me and I didn't care enough to pay that price haha.

The beaches were lovely. Nice and warm and walking distance to my hotel room.

After surfing, I went back and took a nap and then went to Volcano Brewing Company. I had a beer flight and sat to listen to the music. I can really appreciate a brewery with a view!