Adventures with Abigail

I went to northern Costa Rica in April 2022. This is my story

This was a fast paced trip with two distinct sections: the rainforest, and the beach. We flew into Liberia, Costa Rica on a Friday morning. This airport does not have AC outside of the terminal where the baggage is. We found our rental car location, but then we had to wait about 45 minutes for other travelers to arrive before the shuttle bus took us all over to the rental car pick up location. After signing the paper work, we were set free with the car. This was before I had figured out a good phone plan, and I thought I could go without data. It was difficult, but I at least had the google maps of the area downloaded. We did make it to our airBnb with only one back tracking when I missed the exit. There were basically no street signs, so it wasn’t necessarily my fault. lol That also meant I had to read the road itself for the speed limit.

The airBnb was called Casa Tortuga and it was located in the small town called Nuevo Arenal. Our hosts were two retired Expats who seemed to really enjoy hosting. It really was much more of a BnB experience. There was a couple renting another room for a few weeks, and a single man who had been living with them for two years. (He went to Costa Rica for a planned 2 weeks and got stuck there when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic! After the restrictions lifted, he decided to just stay.) One of our hosts gave us a tour of the house, and we realized there was no AC and it was very humid. At this point, you just accept the state of your hygiene.

After settling into the room we walked down a path from the backyard to the lake (Lake Arenal). It was the perfect temperature: Cool enough to soothe against the heat, but warm enough to provide protection from the breezy wind. We were told by some locals that the lake was low, and it’s not usually so muddy. We left when it started to shower, and it stopped exactly when we got back to the house. After cleaning up and changing, we walked up the street (literally up, it was a mildly steep hill) for dinner. I had Nachos De Carne and a glass of wine for less than $12! See below for the view from our table facing the road. You can see the lake in the background, but it was starting to get cloudy towards the evening.

Once the sun went down, the temperature dropped enough to not be unpleasant, and the house was set up with screen windows and doors so the breeze came through keeping us cool all night. The lack of doors caused an interesting problem in the morning when we were woken up at the crack of dawn by an orchestra of animal noises. It was mostly screaming birds and howling monkeys, but there was some dogs barking and a rooster crowing and bugs chirping sprinkled in there for good measure. This was at 5am, too. so fun. imagine a child with an animal noise button wheel having a blast. After a wonderful breakfast provided by our hosts, we headed out for a full day of adventure.

We started the day at the Mistico Hanging Gardens. All resources recommend getting there right at open to beat the crowds, so that’s what we did. As you can see in the video below, we had the pick of our photos free from other people. We explored the park for about an hour.

On our way out we finally got an up close look at these interesting flowering trees. Our BnB host later told us that people used to smoke them?? Anyway, they are very pretty and lots of places. After our somewhat tiring trek through the hanging gardens we planned to do a hike that was “easy, flat, and straight forward with a good view of the volcano the area is named for,” that was at Arenal Observatory. Our hosts told us this is their favorite place to go on nice strolls with nice views. This sounded great, so off we go (again, without a live map).

We turn off the main road (which is a small two lane road with the lake side lane being the only full lane) onto a small bridge that leads to hard packed dirt road (not uncommon in Costa Rica) that takes a hard right turn. At the turn area, the road opens up, and if you went straight you would enter a parking lot. After we cross this bridge, a woman with a red flag runs up and starts explaining the area with a map. She tells us the only thing up the road to the right is the Observation tower, but that’s a lot of stairs. I ask about food, and she tells us the lodge up the road to the right has food, “but [she] could not recommend the resort. we should go have Costa Rican food at the village.” I can’t fully explain how charismatic this woman was, but we realized some time later that she was just selling us her parking lot. We never did go up to the observatory. After eating at the nearby village restaurant, La Mesa De Madre (I had something that translated to pancakes but was not pancakes, and taco ticos with were larger in diameter, crunchier taquitos), we went back to the parking lot. It did cost money to park, but she gave us a map and a run down of the trail. She described the trail as moderate, but it was not moderate. It was a fun time, though. We lucked out at got to the view point after an hour of hiking just as the clouds completely cleared from the volcano for about a minute.

On the way back down the trail, we ran into a group of people stopped on the trail intently looking into the woods. Of course we stopped and started rolling the camera. Here’s the video below.

Once we got back to the car, we headed over to La Fortuna. We didn’t have any plans for this part of the day, so we found a parking spot at a restaurant. It should be noted that La Fortuna is a very touristy town. I do not recommend eating here if you are more of a local food type person. We did get a coffee, coconut flan, and a virgin pina colada while we figured out our next steps. We found a coffee and chocolate tour not far out of La Fortuna, and we were able to snag spots on the next tour at 3pm. (side note: check out those Costa Rican Cows!) It was a good time. We got to make our own chocolate from the cocoa bean paste and some other ingredients. The tour guide made us some hot coco.

After making our way back to Nuevo Arenal, we parked the car at the BnB and headed up the road to a little Italian restaurant. The food was really good and the owner came out and explained everything on the menu for us. I was very ready for bed by the time we finished dinner.

For day 3, we planned to go to Tenorio Volcano park, and our BnB host warned us that the road there was bad. He was not wrong. The destination was not far from Nuevo Arenal, but the road was so bad that it took us 3x as long as you might expect. The road was littered with pot holes, and most of it was crushed rock. Sometimes those crushed rocks were not crushed, though. We eventually made it, but just like the day before we got close and then had a person flag us down and direct us into a parking lot. Our planned parking lot was right across the street and the same price, so we just let it happen. We got there about 30 minutes before the park opened so we could get in line. The main attraction of Tenorio Volcano park is the Rio Celest, a waterfall and river that are very very blue. It’s about a mile and a half of a nicely paved trail that’s at a slight incline, and then 150 step down the side of the ravine to get to the waterfall. It is very picturesque, and we saw a proposal while we were there. After making it back up all those stairs and taking a break, we continued on the path to the bridge everyone takes pictures at. It was still early, so we didn’t have any competition.

It was a tiring hike, though, so after we made it back out of the park we went to a restaurant that’s right by the entrance (Soda Del Pilon) to have lunch. A friend had previously explained what “salsa” really means in Spanish (basically just “sauce”, so BBQ sauce would be referred to as salsa in Spanish), but I still made the silly mistake of thinking “Carne en Salsa” would be like chips and salsa with some beef and tortillas. It was actually really good roast beef stew.

After the fun, and exhausting, adventuring in the rainforest, we headed back across the country just past Liberia to Playas Del Coco (Coco Beach) on the pacific coast of Costa Rica. Where the rainforest had been hot and humid with frequent breeze, the beach was hot and dry and still. Our “hotel” did not have AC. It was two stories (we were on the 2nd story) in a square shape with the inside open to the environment. After checking in, we went to cool off in the ocean and then find dinner. Dinner was at a white table cloth Italian restaurant. The waiter seemed a little judgy of our attire, but it was still early before their dinner rush so it didn’t matter. I took a shower after returning from dinner and found out that the hotel didn’t have hot water. It didn’t matter at all. That cold water felt so good because the temperature didn’t drop much at all after the sun went down. Sleeping was difficult, but without the animal orchestra I was able to sleep in a little.

The next morning we had free hotel breakfast. I think I was near heat exhaustion at this point because I felt terrible until I got into the ocean. The ocean was very nice and cool. Playas Del Coco is actually a little bay, so the water was very smooth with only the smallest waves. After cooling off in the ocean, we took a stroll down the beach looking for coffee. We got close to a few and were again ushered into a little cafe. This cafe was so lovely with great views (see photo) that we stayed long enough to order lunch. Next to this cafe, there was a fish spa. For 20 minutes the fish ate the top layer of my skin off. I really felt like I had brand new feet afterwards!

After lunch we had to drive over to the airport to get tested for Covid-19 24 hours before our flight back to the US, but thankfully we were negative. When we got back we had another dip in the ocean to cool off, and set up the Go Pro for a cute little timelapse.

Afterwards we had some dinner at a local Peruvian place. Big regrets on this. I had octopus that was neither fried not hot in temperature, and the next day my stomach did not feel great. We also found a cute little dessert place and I had some nutella and strawberries crepes.

The next morning we headed back to the car rental place. The drop off went smoothly and we made great time getting to our gate. We even had time to kill and had lunch at an American themed dinner. And that pretty much concludes the trip to Costa Rica. I would go back, but I would not go to the beach. Or I’d pay the extra money to stay at a hotel with AC. Overall, great trip, great country, wonderful people.