Costa Rica Passion?

Hey Matt, I spent some time in Costa Rice and here are my thoughts.

Places I highly recommend are:

Mount Chiripo: This is the highest mountain in Costa Rica and on a clear day you can see both coasts from the summit. It is a tough hike up and you'll need 3 days to do it. Day 1 go up to the base camp, day 2 summit and then return to base camp, day 3 descend the mountain. We did it in 2 days, we went up the first day and decended the second day, it was really hard and a very bad idea. I could not walk right for a few days afterwards from muscle damage. It gets cold on the top so pack intellegently and you'll want to pack light. There is an awesome little hotel, it is a couples home and they built a nice room into the mountain. Very cool, I forget what it is called but with some research you should be able to find it. It is a walk away from the beginning of the hiking trail.






Manuel Antonio: This is one of the most beautiful places in Costa Rica that I saw. Do not cheap out on a hotel here, the hostels are very sketchy so avoid them. The place is touristy but still small and very nice. It has some resorts, a lot of nice restaurants and bars, and a very lively night life. The main strip was a great time! We did some scuba diving with a company outside of Manuel Antonio for really cheap so if thats something you want to do let me know and I can look into the name of the company. Manuel Antonio park was amazing, the beaches are the most beautiful in Costa Rica, the nature is brilliant, and the wildlife is amazing. There are monkeys, sloths, and other tropical animals everywhere as well as birds. Manuel Antonio is a must see place!







Monteverde: We went here on the way to La Fortuna. This place has some of the best zip lining in the world and definitely in Costa Rica. It was a phenominal experience!



La Fortuna: We spent quite a bit of time in La Fortuna. We stayed at the backpackers Paradise hostel, it was the best place I stayed while in the country. Cheap and the place was fantastic. Big pool, a bar with great meals, a walk away from a fun karoake bar, has an amzing view of the volcano, and a short walk from great cafes for breakfast. While in La Fortuna we did a tour of the Arenal volcanoe, did a canyoning trip, went to Baldi Springs, rented dirt bikes for the day (don't even need to have ever ridden one, i figured it out on my own), saw La Fortuna waterfall, and enjoyed the sun. This is another must see area, it was amazing!









Jaco: Stay away from Jaco, it is very touristy and developed. Great surfing if you want to do that but expect lots of hookers and drug dealers and a very dirty and disgusting city. I did not enjoy it at all.

Montezuma: A very nice little town. This place was amazing. We stayed in a little villa style room and it was fabulous. Not sure what they were called but I do remeber it was a bunch of little villas that someone had built on their land. They stayed in a home on the land and let us use the pool there. It was fantastic. I really awesome little town definitely worth checking out. We took a speedboat to Montezume from Jaco which was enjoyable. Things to do here are relax, wander through the nice village, rent some quads or take a hummer tour.




To be continued:

Puerto Viejo: This town is on the Carribean side of the country. It is always super hot there and even during rainy season it hardly rains. Prepare for some very intense heat! This part of the country feels like Jamaica, Jamaican and hippie culture is big out here but everyone is friendly, the beaches are gorgeous, and the parties are great. You may run into some military check points in the area due to being near the border but the police/soldiers are friendly and funny. We did a tour in the area, went up to Puerto Limon (dirty and crime ridden city), some banana plantations, and on a canal ride to see alligators. It was a fun place to be. The beach in Puerto Limon is really nice but the city is dirty! Puerto Viejo is awesome, its a trip to jamaice without going to Jamaica. There are some places around here where you can rent a hammock on the beach for really cheap. It comes with a mosquito net so the bugs won't bother tyou overnight, really brings out your inner hippie.









Those are my recommendations, hope they help. Enjoy Costa Rica!! Drink lots of Imperial, its delicious!!

Cheers

ive been 5 times in costa rica, hell of a trip.

Places to see: Volcanoes are always nice, the Arenal, an active volcano is always a pretty cool sight and place to stay, there are a lot of hotels and things to do all over town There's the longest canopy (zip line) trip in Costa Rica (something like 700 meters long, 300 meter high - 2100 ft long and 900 ft high if i recall correctly). Poas and Irazu are also nice sights, these two are pretty close to San Jose. If you take a nice hike on the Irazu you could see both the Pacific ocean and the Caribbean, something like 3500 meters above sea level. Rafting is pretty cool too there are plenty of sites and rivers that offer every skill level. Where we stayed (about 20 minutes from san jose you see a lot of mtb trails, we only went up to one of them and we went up to Braulio Carillo national park, great place for hiking or riding (almost all of it are fire roads, but there are some pretty cool sights)

Beaches: as previously noted, stay away from Jaco, there are better beaches like Tamarindo, Playa Negra and Playa Avellana, also a lot of cool beaches and surfing spots all over the northern west coast.

Didn't really get to do a lot of mountain biking, but in San Jose and Heredia (the placed we stayed in, 20 minutes away from San Jose) we saw a lot of mountain bikers, didnt really see any on the other places we visited!