In February I took a little break from reality and headed to Costa Rica for a month. I’ve spend my fair time in Costa Rica over the past couple of years. Ever since my first visit in 2016, I’ve been hooked – I’ve been there four times since then, so it’s really starting to feel like a second home. When the lockdowns in Valencia really started to get to me in January, I felt like I really needed to get away, preferably to somewhere warm, but for the most part I just wanted to see something else than the inside of my apartment (even though my apartment is pretty nice) :))
With everything going on in the world, I wanted to go somewhere I knew pretty well, since I wasn’t really in the mood to having to figure things out or having to think too much. I just wanted something easy and trouble free. With Costa Rica’s borders being open to tourists for a couple of months already, and direct flights from Spain, it was a pretty easy choice. I spent most of the time in Santa Teresa, which is one of my favourite places on this planet. I also visited Manuel Antonio and La Fortuna.
Getting from Valencia to Costa Rica
I didn’t really believe I was actually going until I actually had the boarding pass in my hand. Up until that moment, I just felt like anything could happen 🙂 But it all worked out and I landed in San José around 9pm after a 17 hour journey from Valencia, with a layover in Madrid. Since I do not have the ability to fall asleep on airplanes (yes very unfortunate), I was struggling to keep my eyes open when I landed. Luckily it only took about 30 minutes to clear immigration & customs. They check that you have a valid health insurance that meets their requirements, and that you have filled out a health declaration, which is a pretty basic questionnaire that you fill out online. Those are the two requirements to enter Costa Rica at the moment, they don’t require a PCR test to enter. You can see the entry requirements here.
Landing in San José
Normally when I land in Costa Rica, I buy a sim card at the airport and then get an Uber to my hostel. But since my flight didn’t land until 9pm, the stand where they sell the sim cards was closed, and therefore didn’t have internet connection to book an Uber. When you get out of the airport it’s very chaotic and you pretty much have everyone and their grandmother coming up to you asking where you’re going, telling you special price for you my friend, and all that. Another thing I want to mention is that there are people at the airport offering you a ride that aren’t official taxi drivers, so if you end up having to take a taxi, make sure it’s an official one and not just a random person that has a car.
I checked into my hostel and they gave me a private room instead of the shared one I booked – which was just what I needed after a long flight. I always stay at Hostel del Paseo when I’m in San José, I’ve stayed at a few hostels around San José but this one is my favourite. I don’t think anyone goes to Costa Rica to explore San José, but you usually need to stay there at least one night after you arrive and before you leave.
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I fell asleep within minutes and was expecting to sleep until at least 11am since I had been awake for well over 24 hours, but at 7am I was wide awake, thanks to the 7 hour time difference between Spain and Costa Rica 🙂 I really needed some coffee so I walked to one of my favourite cafés in downtown San José and then walked around for a couple of hours. Basically all my trips to Costa Rica start like this – and I always go the same café (it’s called Spoon) in San José haha 🙂 It felt so surreal to finally be back, San José always feels like home to me.
Santa Teresa
The following morning I got on a 6am shuttle to Santa Teresa, a surf town on the pacific coast. A true happy place. The journey is about 7 hours, including an hour on the Puntarenas Ferry. After getting off the ferry it’s a very sweaty ride, the tropical climates really starts to kick in 🙂 Arriving in Santa Teresa was such a surreal feeling. Honestly don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful to be anywhere.
The biggest problem (and probably the only problem) I’ve had with Santa Teresa in the past is that there were no nice hostels. I’ve stayed at many of them and not one was even remotely close to being nice. But this time when I opened up Hostelworld there was a hostel rated 9/10. I thought to myself well that can not be right, no one would rate any of these god awful hostels 9/10. But it turned out that this was a new hostel. It had those jungle vibes, a pool, and just looked really adorable. They even had ice coffees and avo toasts. I was sold. You can check it out here.
After checking in, I really needed something cold so I went out for a smoothie bowl & an ice coffee. Truly one of the top activities in Santa Teresa. And in the world :)))
One of the many things I love about Santa Teresa is that pretty much all the restaurants have these tropical jungle vibe going on, and are either outside, or at least partly outside.
On my way back I stopped at the beach, thinking I’d chill there for a little while. Ended up being a very short visit since I didn’t have any water with me. After almost passing out from the heat, I decided it was time to head back to the hostel.
What I love most about staying in hostels is that it’s so easy to meet people. Once you get to know the other people, it’s kinda like living with your friends in one big house, and no one can say that’s not fun :))) So the following morning, after sleeping for solid 12 hours, which almost cured my jet lag – I was ready to spend time with people and to participate in a conversation. Simple things like spending time with more than one person and being able to go out to eat, something you’d normally take for granted, really hit different after having been in Valencia where they had a social gathering limit of two people. Yes two people. That doesn’t even mean you + two other persons, your social circle could literally consist of you and one other person. Not so fun :))) But anyway.
I don’t know if it was because of the time difference or the fact that the sun comes up around 5.30 – but I woke almost every morning around 6am. Which is extremely out of character for me since normally I can not get up before 8am unless my life depends on it 🙂 I’m just not a morning person. Unless when I’m in places like Costa Rica, apparently.
There is something really magical about early mornings in Santa Teresa – it’s very quiet and since the sun has just started to come up, the light is kinda misty and magical. The few people that are on the streets are usually going surfing or coming back from surfing.
The atmosphere in Santa Teresa is very relaxed and slow paced – it’s largely based around yoga and surfing. Most of my days started with going out for breakfast, usually with some of the people from the hostel but sometimes by myself. I actually kinda enjoy having breakfast myself – I’d sit there for an hour or two, just taking it slow, maybe listening to a podcast, drinking my coffee and watching people come back from their morning surf. If I was lucky a dog would come by and say hi.
After breakfast we’d often walk around, check out a few stores or something. When it got close to noon and the heat became too much, it was time to jump in the pool or find a shady spot at the beach to hang out. You would think that you could go to the sea to cool down, but the thing is that the sea is actually very warm in Costa Rica so it doesn’t really cool you down that much haha.
Smoothies are always a pretty solid way to cool down though, so I had at least one of those a day. Or five. Also drank lots of ice coffees, and whatever else that was cold.
In the afternoons everyone would head to the beach to watch the sunset. The sunset in Santa Teresa is really an event, and it’s magical. Both wifi and cell phone signal are pretty much non existent in Santa Teresa – so if you haven’t managed to get a hold on someone, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find them at the sunset :)))
We made an effort to try a new restaurant every night, but yet I didn’t get a chance to visit half the restaurants I wanted to try haha 🙂 Most of them are vegetarian friendly and some were even completely vegan or vegetarian.
Some nights there was a bonfire at the beach or something going on at the hostel – but most nights everyone was passed out by 10pm.
Manuel Antonio // meeting monkeys & chill
My next stop was Manuel Antonio, also on the pacific coast, and one of the most visited place in Costa Rica. I stayed at a hostel in the jungle, where you could expect to see monkeys and sloths any minute. They even had a sign in the kitchen reminding you to not leave any food lying around since the sloths would take it 🙂
It’s something about just chilling in the jungle, away from everything, that’s so relaxing. So I loved hanging out at one of the hammocks or in the pool at the hostel. There was about 15 minute walk from the hostel to the next town, Quepos. That sounds like an easy walk, but because of the heat & the humidity, it feels more like a marathon than a short walk. Don’t think that stopped me from going there for my morning coffee though. Here are some photos I took one morning when I went there for coffee.
One of the main attraction in Manuel Antonio is the national park, where you can see a very wide range of animals – that is unless you are dumb enough to not get a guide, which is what we did :))) They ask at the entrance if you want to get a guide, but we kinda just wanted to go at our own pace and didn’t really feel the need to bring a guide along with us. Thinking they would mostly be stopping next to all the different trees and plants and tell us all about it, something we were quite okay with missing out on. But that’s really not what they do – as we found out, it was almost impossible to see any of the animals without a guide. We definitely didn’t see that coming haha – I mean how hard can it be? If there is a monkey or a slot up in the trees, it can’t be that difficult to spot them? But yeah as it turns out, you need to really know where to look and preferably also have a binocular, which the guides of course had :))) So if you go to the Manuel Antonio national park, make sure to get a guide haha, they are more important than you’d think.
I have seen sloths and all sorts of animals in Costa Rica before though, so it wasn’t too disappointing, but would have been fun to see them since that’s mostly what this park is about. We did see a monkey though, only because he was directly in front of us haha.
A part from cute monkeys, the park also has amazing beaches and viewpoints.
Just like in Santa Teresa, and all of the pacific coast really, the sunsets in Manuel Antonio are pretty damn amazing. This is what the view was like from my hostel every night.
I loved just chilling in a hammock and watching the sun go down. Or we would grab a pizza or some drinks. Either way, I never missed the sunset :))
La Fortuna
My last stop was neither on the beach nor was it warm. It was up in the mountains, a small town called La Fortuna. It’s one of the most visited places in Costa Rica, but since there are so many activities in the area but yet it doesn’t get overcrowded with tourists. There are hot springs, zip lining, rain forests, waterfalls, volcano – all the typical Costa Rica activities.
Due to its location, the climate is very different from that in the rest of the country, it’s really its own thing. Rainy days are not uncommon in La Fortuna even during the dry season (december to april/may). This is something I should have known damn well as this was my third time there, but somehow I completely forgot about it so when I arrived it was pouring rain, and I was like ahh yeah that’s right, it rains a lot in La Fortuna :))) It ended up raining two out of the three days I was there. So keep that in mind if you plan to visit. Luckily there was a very cute doggo at my hostel so I could chill with him in the rain. It wasn’t all bad. For whatever reason I didn’t take any photos of the dog, but here are some photos of me & the hostel.
I did mange to visit the volcano in between rain sessions. It wasn’t like a went very far out of my way to visit it though – I literally walked about ten minutes up the street from my hostel to get a slightly better view of it, but mostly I wanted to snap a few photos :))) I didn’t wanna go all the way up to the volcano since it looked like it could start raining any minute, and I wasn’t equipped for rain in any shape or form.
So because of the seemingly never ending rain – I ended up not doing a whole lot. I had planned to visit the Tabacon hot springs, it’s basically hot springs that are a part of a resort hotel, Tabacon, it’s pretty damn expensive to stay there but you can purchase a day pass for a pretty decent price. I’ve been there once before and would definitely recommend it. I’ve also been to Baldi hot springs, which is a cheaper option, so if you’re on a budget it’s a great option. But in my opinion, Tabacon is worth the extra money.
I did do a zip lining tour one afternoon – I think I’ve done one of those every time I’ve been to Costa Rica, it never gets old. You basically zip line through the jungle, so it’s a bit of an adrenaline rush and then there is the added bonus of seeing the jungle from above.
La Fortuna was my last stop before heading back to San José to catch my flight back. In San José I met up with two girls from Iceland and stayed with them my last night. They live in this cute colonial style house with a very pretty backyard, which was a perfect place for our morning coffee :))) As always, I was pretty sad about leaving Costa Rica, but I will probably be back there next year, or maybe earlier.
Will end this post with a couple of photos taken around La Fortuna <3
