Costa Ricaaaaa baby!

Beaches = 6

National Parks = 4

Getting told off for skinny dipping = x2

Sloths = 3

4-Wheeled Drive Dream Machine= 1

Episodes of sunburn = 40 (of which Sophie = 3 and Rob = 37)

The result of spending twelve glorious days with these two marvellous human beings is that I am now twelve days behind on writing my blog. So here goes summarising two weeks of awesomeness…I’ll try and let the photos do the talking for the bits I had my camera…

Monteverde, Volcan Arenal

And so began our adventure in Costa Rica. As our flight had been delayed by a day, Soph and Rob had already picked up the 4WD and had a full Costa Rican low down from a very helpful guy called Jose (of course he was) who’s impressively extensive advice served us swimmingly throughout our trip, in a kind of “What would Jose do?” way. Thanks Jose!

We first headed up into the mountains where we spent two nights in the very beautiful El Castillo, which we used as a base to visit the spectacular Volcan Arenal, a still active volcano surrounded by beautiful forest. We swam in the crater of an extinct volcano, we swam in hot springs (basically a boiling hot stream!), and we caught up on 8 months of gossip as we did it! Maravilloso!

From here we drove along the incredibly scenic and incredibly bumpy route to Santa Elena where we stayed in probably the best Air BnB I’ve ever come across (wooden cabin in the forest, with incredible breakfast and the world’s most friendly host, one of whom was an 18 year old Tico girl who we all fancied more than a little bit, and put us to shame with her outstanding English skills - https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/3237481?guests=4&s=ofGwvlza  ). We spent a few days here exploring the National Parks (which simply blow your mind with their beauty), eating delicious cakes and drinking velvety coffee in quaint little coffee shops and just exploring the area. You’d think we’d seen enough forests by now, but each one is unique, and I have to say that Monteverde was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen-trees dripping with epiphytes and moss, and wonderfully atmospheric clouds curling through the trees. Beautiful!

It was a looong way off but finally we saw one-a Resplendent Quetzel!

The Pacific Coast

Our first stop was Samara…think quaint little beach town, rolling waves, palm-fringed sand and chilled-out atmosphere! We spent a great couple of days here hopping between the sea, cafes and bars, and hiding from rain-showers. We even took to the waves and dusted off our (rather basic!) surfing skills…it’s funny how you get back into the swing of it quite quickly and we all spent many happy/salty/splashy hours clambering up on our boards and flopping off again in those feisty Pacific waves! Absolutely loved it!

 

From Samara, we tootled up the coast in our 4x4 to a little town called Santa Theresa. I say up the coast, but as its rainy season and it’s, well, been raining lots, large sections of the coastal road aren’t passable as they’re currently rivers, so we had to cut inland by about 5 hours. You can’t complain when you’re driving somewhere as beautiful as Costa Rica though!

Santa Theresa was a fab place to visit. By a stroke of luck (and the fact that the guys in charge of our hostel were useless stoners who could barely focus, let alone fix a broken AC machine) we inherited a giant apartment with its own balcony, right by the beach. We loved Santa Theresa-more incredible, palm-fringed beaches (I know I sound like a broken record!), more awesome surfing (and more scary waves), and this time no rain, great cocktails and incredible food thrown in to boot! We discovered not only a sweet little bar on the beach which made ludicrously strong cocktails, but a wicked little French creperie selling insanely good, well, crepes, we stumbled across an Italian bakery where we indulged in mouth-wateringly good feasts of Italian goodness, and we had some bloody good burritos from a little street soda bar.

From Santa Theresa, we scooched over the hill to the very lovely town of Montezuma. We’d only intended on staying one night here, but we made the quick decision to spend two nights as, well it was just bloody good! Montezuma is a cute little town with loads of little surf shacks, bars and cafes, and endless gorgeous little coves to explore. It also has a pretty awesome waterfall which you can walk (/scramble) to and we spent a bloody marvellous day taking a speed boat to Tortuga Island, snorkelling, drinking beer and soaking up the sunshine on a tropical beach. Lots of giggles, lots of fun and lots of toasting love, life and friendship!

White faced capuchin

White throated magpie jay

Turquoise-browed Motmot

A very shy hermit crab!

Last stop on the Tour de CR was Quepos, a rather non-descript town, but a cool little base for our final destination- Manuel Antonio National Park. This is the smallest and busiest of Costa Rica’s National Parks, and as a result, there are tonnes of people everywhere. Whereas this does not tick my boxes for a relaxing, back-to-nature experience, it does mean that wildlife is easier to spot as they’re so used to humans, and you can earwig onto other people’s guides without having to pay a penny, hurrah! It also has some marvellous little walks and some simply stunning beaches, so all-in-all a pretty cool day. And we saw THREE sloths!!

Finally-we found a cinema in Jaco showing Bond!...and had the whole cinema to ourselves!!

Birds eye view of a croc from a road bridge on our way to Quepos

Cheeky Racoon!

Three-toed sloth!

Iguana

So it was with heavy hearts that we made our final journey together in our trusty 4WD to San Isidro, (a slightly shifty town full of barbed-wire infringed buildings and locked gates) and said a sad goodbye to these crazy kids!

To the next adventure!