Pura Vida

I have always loved the Amazing Race, I've applied five times, but alas they won't have me. So I've had to seek my own adventure. Trav and I just celebrated 15 years last month and decided to visit Costa Rica which boasts adventure travel in a paradise setting, pretty much perfect.

We just had our backpacks and decided to take public transportation around instead of renting a car. I think we spent $76 on bus/taxi rides for the whole week. A rental car would've been $35/day. We decided to split our time between Cahuita, a coastal town on the Caribbean and La Fortuna by the Arenal Volcano in the North.

We arrived in after a red eye flight, super tired, and a little disoriented. We hopped on the public bus for a $1 each for the ride into San Jose instead of a $25 taxi ride. We needed to find the Caribe terminal to catch our bus to Cahuita. This very lovely couple from Portugal overheard us trying to figure out where to go and kindly offered to show us the way. They were going on the exact same bus we were trying to catch and spoke the language fluently. Sergio and Susana were a gift:) Everybody should meet people like them when they first arrive in a foreign country.
We easily chatted over the next couple hours, and we're hoping our travel paths would cross later throughout the week so we could hang together more. We didn't get to meet up again, but we have a place to stay now if we ever visit Lisbon!
We quickly learned that when you arrive in town looking like this the locals come out of the woodwork to "help" you find a place to stay. Crazy George found us and yelled at every hotel owner to come out and show us their place as we passed them. It was embarrassing and stressful b/c we had to keep telling everyone thanks anyway... We saw George several times throughout the week, and he was faithful to offer us marijuana every time. We passed on grass.
After looking at several "mid-range" recommendations in our Lonely Planet and not feeling like we wanted to shower in them, we started looking at the "top end" places. That is when we happily stumbled upon Alby Lodge. We were home.
We had this little bungalow to ourselves for $50/night, wood floors, mosquito net over the bed, hammock on the porch, just gorgeous.
After 28 hours of travel, we were very happy to put our feet up here.
This friendly sand crab was in our front yard. As you walk down the path they all scatter underground. Their eyes are so crazy!
Ahhh, the jugos. I'm telling you, this was my absolute favorite thing about our trip, the fresh fruit juices. I had papaya, mango, soursop, pineapple, coconut, watermelon, I tried a new one every visit. SO good! I almost made us miss our bus back to the airport over trying to get one last jugos. I got the jugos, but we had to stand for the first hour of the bus ride b/c we missed getting seats... Sorry Trav
Lonely Planet never let us down with recommended places to eat. I had fresh fruit crepes that were amazing.
We went on a snorkel tour and saw lots of pretty, colorful fish. Of course I wore my sun protective swim shirt. I gained no color whatsoever from our tropical vacation. The water was so warm. Trav and I had face masks full of snot when we were done. Yummy.
We took a lovely walk through the national park in town and saw sloths and lots of monkeys.
They were all over the place, these howler monkeys. We woke up to them howling like apes every morning. You had to watch where you walked b/c they'd toss their banana peels and fruit pits down at you as they were eating. Very entertaining, the kids would've loved seeing them.
We moved on to La Fortuna by the volcano Arenal. Here is Lake Arenal. I was ready to dip my toes in it after our five mile hike when we noticed a crocodile warning sign. Yikes.
We ventured to the Hanging Bridges of Arenal to walk among the tree tops.

Everything is lush, so green, it's overwhelming.

Our big splurge for the week was to go canyoning where you rappel down waterfalls. I thought you'd rappel beside them, but no, we were IN them. It was incredibly fun.
I was a bit nervous looking over the edge of this first waterfall, my legs wouldn't stop shaking for several minutes after I got down. Of course, I was a pro by the end of it:)
We love to rest, read, and really do nothing on vacation. This path led us down to Eco-Termales hot springs, and it was a secluded paradise all to ourselves.
We easily passed four hours here and could've stayed longer if the public bus taking us back to town ran later. We soaked and read, soaked and read. We had the best night of sleep that night.


Arenal was always hidden in the clouds. She'd peek out every once in awhile. It's one of the top ten most active volcanoes in the world. No action when we were there unfortunately.
More reading... Our balcony looked out on Arenal.
Our last day we hiked out of town to this hidden swimming hole. It didn't rain the whole time we were there, but did this day, so we had the place to ourselves.
It was the only day we wore a jacket, the weather was so amazing the whole time we were there.
We took the bus back to Alajuela for our last night which was five minutes from the airport. This hotel looked like a closed warehouse from the outside, but it was stunning inside.
I loved our week together. We met the most amazing people through taking the bus around. Sergio and Susana, a family from Denmark, Suzanne from Switzerland, a ton of people all over the US, a retired couple traveling for seven weeks throughout Central America using the buses, a retired woman traveling alone to visit her son and daughter-in-law, another woman who started crying when she tried to tell us about her favorite bird she saw nesting in the rain forest:) And then of course, sweet George in Cahuita. It was a colorful week to be sure.

So good to have this time with my husband, to play and laugh, and not have any responsibilities for a short week. Of course, it just makes me hungry for more adventures... who knows where the next one will be.