Costa Rica Travel Tips

1) If you`re comfortable driving, avoid the tours! 
Of all the things we did (your can read all my blog posts for the specifics) we only did 1 tour! If you are comfortable driving in a foreign country, rent a car and make your own adventures! My favourite adventure was when we found directions online to a secluded waterfall, where we paid a lady to park on her property and hiked to a waterfall. This place wasn`t overrun with tourists; heck there was only one other family there with us. It was a little slice of adventure we carved out for ourselves.

2) You don`t need a tour guide 
Off the back of my last point, a lot of places you go like the National Parks, you`ll be approached by tour guides to take you around the park. You really don`t need a tour guide for these parks. You may see a few more things with a guide, but it will often take you twice as long and cost you more money. We never hired a guide, but just use your discretion when approached.

3) Immerse yourself in the local culture 
What made my time in Costa Rica, was doing things like the locals. We shopped at the local grocery store and the roadside fruit markets. We learned a lot from these experiences, including when you can and cannot negotiate on the price!

Part of this also includes speaking to the locals. As much as there was a bit of a language barrier, there were a number of locals that we spoke with, who gave us some great insights into things we should do during our time.

4) Eat & Drink Local 
Immersing yourself in the culture also means eating & drinking local. The water in CR is extremely clean. All the restaurants we went to, people were ordering bottled water, yet we drank tap water 100% of the time and survived!

We also enjoyed trying the 'typical food' at all the restaurants we went to. Of course there are restaurants that serve your traditional burgers and fries but what fun would it be eating that in a new country?

5) Get out and stumble upon things
Some of our best memories were things that we just stumbled upon as we were exploring. For example, in La Fortuna we went into the town to go out for dinner and ended up at the local Christmas parade!

Don`t miss: 
1) Tres Piscinas waterfalls
2) Crocodiles in the Tarcoles River
3) Arenal Volcano (although I would recommend the 1968 trails vs. the National Park)... brace yourself for the drive
4) Surf Competition at Hermosa Beach
5) Watch the Scarlet Macaws at the lookout point between Jaco and Hermosa
6) Manuel Antonio National Park - beautiful beach & monkey spotting is nearly guaranteed
7) Walk Jaco Beach from the North to the South
8) Take a surf lesson!

A true family vacation

The idea of a family vacation for some may sound like a daunting unappealing week in the sun, but to me my family trip to Costa Rica was some of the best time together we have had in a number of years. It`s always hard to anticipate how spending 11 days together would be when we live separately and the most time we have spent all together in the last few years is a long weekend. Reflecting on our trip it allowed us to re-bond as a family and enjoy quality time together.

Some of my best memories are:
1) San Jose traffic jam and Dad getting creative in off roading
2) The four of us getting attacked by army ants in the Arenal National Park
3) The death grip drive to La Fortuna
4) Learning about Dad`s alter ego - Barry the Birdwatcher
5) Our day at the secluded Tres Piscinas waterfalls
6) Pineapple chunks during whitewater tubing
7) Eco-hotel ant infestation
8) Watching the Hermosa surf competition
9) Local christmas parade in La Fortuna
10) Monkey watching at Manuel Antonio National Park

Until next time Costa Rica!

Today I didn't make my bed

Today I didn't make my bed because it was our last day in Costa Rica. Our sheets will be washed, the bed will be remade and someone else sleeping in it as of tonight. 

Before it was our turn to say goodbye we started off the morning heading for a drive down to the north shore to see if we could spot any early morning wildlife in the forest. We had been told monkeys often come down to feed in the mornings. Unfortunately, no monkeys were spotted but we did see another flock of scarlet macaws. 

We had breakfast in town at The coffee shop, owned by a former Canadian before doing some last minute exploration of the souvenir shops. We enjoyed one last swim in the ocean and pool before packing up the last of our things. 

We then hopped in the car to make the final drive to San Jose; a lot easier in the light and not in rush hour! We took a quick stop at Walmart for some last minute souvenirs and plane snacks, along with a stop at a local bakery. 

Our final stop before the airport was to turn in our beaut Sally. There were several points where we were a little leery as to whether she was going to keep up with us, but she made it for the long haul and without any scratches. 

At the airport we were greeted with a $29 per person airport departure tax, just to cap off all the fun before we returned to Canada. CR gave us one final beauty sunset out of the plane window as we were leaving.

We are now landing in Canada to some -7 degree weather, which we are sorry to say we have not missed during our time away! See you on the flip side. 

Winding Down

The last few days of vacation always fly by! Sunday we spent lounging by the pool and walking around town shopping for some souvenirs. 

In the afternoon we had a visit from my friends nick and carleigh who have just started their honeymoon in Costa Rica. We went out for dinner at Los Amigos that evening. 

Monday we did some pool and ocean swimming. Both of the waters here are extremely warm, which means mom even came in for a swim! 

We went for another walk down to the north end of the beach when the tide was low. The large lava rocks took on a new life, as you could see the marine life living on them like barnicles, muscles, coral etc. 

Dad and I went to a lookout point for bird watching where we were able to see some scarlet macaws and turkey vultures. This point also offered a brilliant lookout point of the ocean. 

After our last sunset, we finished off our last evening with dinner in town.

You cannot leave Costa Rica without seeing monkeys

Since we arrived I have said I wanted to see a monkey. We saw some spider monkeys while zip lining in Arenal, but I had seen people's experiences of getting to see them up close. Everywhere you ask the place they say to go to is Manuel Antonio if you want to see monkeys. Today we took the hour long drive to the city of Manuel Antonio where the national park is located. 

When we reached Manuel Antonio there was another farmers market happening with some of the same vendors from yesterday and some different. We stopped to have a look and buy some souvenirs. 

Manuel Antonio (the city) is situated along a mountain, so the roads are windy and steep. At the bottom of the mountain is where the national park lies. When we reached the spot of the park mid-morning it was absolute chaos. The street at the bottom of the mountain is narrow, with cars attempting to pass as a two way street with people walking all over the road as well. Once we parked it was three lines (all in the beating down midday sun) to get tickets, to get into the park and to get through security (yes security)! The whole process took a little over an hour! 

Once we got into the park we explored a trail, with no wildlife spottings. We continued along the main path, only stopping when we saw a bunch of tourists with a guide looking up at a tree. Apparently we saw howler monkeys, but to me they were just black blobs in the sky because they were so far away. I thought my hopes of seeing a monkey were just about dashed until we reached the beach at the end of the park. 

We had heard of this 'monkey beach' but with our lack of sightings so far I wasn't very confident. I was struck with amazement when we reached the beach and saw monkeys everywhere in the forest that lined the beach. They were the smaller monkeys, called the white faced capuchin monkey. There were at least twenty, which included some babies. 

They allowed you to get super close to take pictures, so my camera was only a few inches from their face. You are not supposed to feed the monkeys, however one man offered a banana peel which they took right out of his hand. 

We enjoyed lunch and some swimming on the amazing beach with the monkeys in the background. We ended up with two iguanas being our towel mates at our spot on the beach. I left out a piece of bread (hoping that the monkeys would venture our way), but instead found the iguana come snatch it up and he wouldn't leave us alone after that. It made for some great photo opportunities though.

After we had our fill of monkeys and swimming we hit the road back our way. We had seen signs posted earlier in the week for a local surf competition that happens every Saturday, one beach over from where we are at Hermosa. It was a great atmosphere with people spilling out of the beach bar, drinks in hand, to line the beach to watch the surfers. There was an announcer commentating on the action and encouraging audience participation in cheering the surfers on.  The competition lasted about an hour as the sun dipped into the ocean in the background. After trying surfing for the first time a few days earlier, the moves these guys and girls have amaze me! 

We capped off the evening with dinner and gelato along the Jaco strip. The weekends bring more people to the beach and into the town which makes for a more lively walk around. We always seem to find something new to look at and explore while in town, like these surfer statues we came across tonight. 

Christmas Adventures

A little catch up from Christmas Day, before getting into Boxing Day.

We arose early on Christmas to surprisingly find that Santa had visited us. We opened presents and exchanged our secret Santa gifts. I got a new Starbucks cup and a portable charger I had been hoping for. Presents were followed by breakfast by the beachside, enjoying fresh baked scones, fruit, eggs and mimosas!

We then packed up and headed to Carrara National Park for a hike through the forest. It is supposed to be inhabited with lots of birds and animals, but they must have all been enjoying Christmas morning because we didn't see to many. What we did see were... 

We cooled off from the hike in the pool and watched the surfers roll in on the big waves. We lazed around until it was time to start making dinner. As per my previous post, our new friend Manuel joined us for dinner. We enjoyed green beans, carrots, peppers, potatoes, squash, stuffing, ham and chicken! 

Dinner was followed by dessert from the local bakery and a game of Yahtzee to end off our Christmas day in paradise. 

On Friday's in Jaco they have a farmers market, which happens to be just around the corner from where we are staying. We walked to the farmers market bright and early to buy fresh fruit, vegetables and homemade bread and granola from the Mennonites. We had eaten the granola by the time we got home and had to go back to get more! 

One thing on the list of things to see in CR is waterfalls. There are tour signs everywhere to go see the waterfalls. We were a bit skeptical to go on one of the tours, so with a little internet research we found a waterfall that we could get to on our own. 

With hand written directions in hand we set off on a bit of an unknown journey. Half an hour along the main highway we pulled off onto a bumpy dirt road. Both sides were surrounded by plantations of all sorts of tropical fruit. 9km down the road we took another turn up a hill where we continued to climb up and up and up with no sign of the parking our directions had indicated. We stopped to ask for directions, only to realize we had taken the wrong hill... Back down and up again we reached this house way off the track with a sign out front that said "waterfall parking here". You pay a little old lady to park at her house and hike through her farm into the forest to get to the waterfall. Just to give you some context this is no paved trail, it's literally walking through pasture fields with horse manure, trudging through streams and trekking through the jungle. Out of no where appears the waterfall..  A waterfall which cascades into a pool which continues three times over. When we got to our destination, there was only one other family there. We took turns jumping into the pools, sliding down the rock slide and hiking along the river bed. Throughout our 3 hours, only four other people came and went. 

Watch our fun at: 

http://youtu.be/LDxRwhQC_NQ

http://youtu.be/vEHkA-J7hD0 

This was one of my favourite activities of our time so far, as this wasn't an activity set up for a bus full of tourists to come and explore, it was a little piece of Costa Rica that is still kept a secret off the beaten path. We could have paid $60 to go jump off some other waterfalls with the bus load of tourists, but what experience would that be... 

This evening we took another page from the local book and set up a camp fire on the beach. During the day I went out along the beach collecting sticks and coconut husks to start the fire. We included our own tradition of roasting marshmallows, although the usual stick was substituted with a pair of tongs from the kitchen. 

A Lesson from Manuel

Often trips are more about the people you meet then the places you go.

On our second day in Costa Rica, we were wandering around the condo wondering where dad was. When we looked across the street we saw him sitting on a log talking to the guy on beach who rents surf boards. We went across the street to join in the conversation and talk to the man about surf lessons. He introduced himself as Manuel. He wasn't pushy or forceful with trying to sell us stuff, just simply offering up the information we had asked for. I've been intrigued watching Manuel daily as he goes about his work. Like clockwork he rolls in with his push cart of surfboards and lawn chairs, sets up, takes down and repeats. 

Over our time here we have learned a lot about Manuel and he has become more than the guy just renting surfboards and more of a friend. He is originally from Nicaragua, but has lived in Costa Rica for the last four years. All his family (including mom, two sisters, niece and nephew) still live in Nicaragua. Despite Nicaragua not being more than a couple hours drive away he doesn't get home to see his family much because of work. Upon hearing this, mom invited him for Christmas dinner. 

Tonight Manuel joined us for our family evening of Christmas food and fun, which also gave us a chance to get to know him even more. Manuel is currently taking English classes to try and get a better grasp of the language. Despite this his use of the language is very good and he tries hard to always try and find the right words. He hopes to go back to school within the next year or two and find a career path for himself. He aspires to have a home of his own one day. 

He was very intrigued learning about our Candian culture asking questions about everything from our house size to our food to our wildlife. Canada and England are the two places he would most like to visit some day. 

We were sitting at dinner when he said one of the most heartfelt things I have heard in a while "I'd rather have a million friends than a million dollars". He went on to talk about how good of friends he has here in Costa Rica in lieu of his family. 

I think we can all take something from Manuel, especially on Christmas. Here is a man that has very little but yet has so much fulfillment out of life. We should all take a step back and put the things we have into perspective every once in a while. When we're having a bad day at work or are upset about the present we didn't get for Christmas be grateful. Be grateful for the family and friends that are always there with you, as they're more precious than all the things. 

Manuel ended the evening stating this was the best Christmas dinner he'd ever had and gave us all a hug. Before he left we had to remind him that Santa didn't forget him and gave him a soccer ball and flip flops that we had bought at the local store. Dinner and a few presents lightened his day, which is all we could ask for this Christmas when we are already so blessed being in this gorgeous location. 

Screw Malls! My Favourite way to spend Christmas Eve

After the adventures of the last few days we decided to take it easy today (or as easy as the Nicoll's can). 

We went out for breakfast at taco bar, where they offer $3 morning meals. We once again enjoyed the swing seating. 

Then we were off to the MaxiPali to do some grocery shopping. MaxiPali is like a condensed Walmart where they have everything from computers to produce. It's always an experience grocery shopping in a new country! 

Dad especially liked MaxiPali because of their beer selection. 

After our morning outings we finally got a chance to enjoy our condo pool. 

After a cool down swim we took a walk to the north end of the beach (again), which is covered by large volcano rocks. 

Dad went into survivor man mode cracking a coconut to drink the water and eat.

We celebrated Christmas Eve this evening, with a dinner at one of the finer resteraunts in Jaco; Lemon Zest. What a great meal with great company! 

A beach day on Christmas Eve is my favorite way to spend the lead up to the holiday!  

Curled up in the condo now watching Christmas Vacation! That's all those who can stay awake. 

L