Costa Rica
Sep 7, 08:30 AM by Eric Allen
Whew, what a crazy month of August. I finished up my internship on August 7th, brought my stuff back to Troy, headed out to California for a week, and then it was off to Costa Rica for ten days! My travel buddy, Rishi, and I had been planning this trip since April, but we still left most of it up in the air. Ten days is not nearly enough, but it was awesome nonetheless.
We hit the ground running in San José, Costa Rica around noon on Monday, August 17th. We settled in at Kabata Hostel and hit the town. We were planning to spend a couple of days in the city, but tired of it quickly. That night, we sat down with our hostess, Katia, and re-did our entire plan.
We woke up Tuesday morning at 4:45am to get on the early bus to Buenos Aires (the one in Costa Rica, not Argentina) on our way to the Dúrika reserve. We arrived in Dúrika in time for lunch, and spent Wednesday there, as well. It was an amazing place to be, and I will definitely go back.
Thursday was the insane travel day. Five hours on a bus from Buenos Aires to San José, a two hour layover, and then another 5+ hours to Monteverde. All I could do when we got there was eat dinner and crash at the Pensión Santa Elena. We spent Friday in Santa Elena touring the Santa Elena Preserve, going on the Selvatura canopy tour (zipline), and taking a night hike through the Children’s reserve. Time was short, so the next morning we got on the taxi-boat-taxi ride to La Fortuna.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we spent in La Fortuna, through which 80% of all tourists in Costa Rica pass. We saw the volcano (complete with lava erupting), went tubing on the river, and hiked up to Cerro Chato, a 2-hour hike up to a lake at the top of a dormant volcano through 3km of dense forest. Sunday afternoon we boarded the Interbus (“Gringo Bus”) for Quepos.
Our last real day in Costa Rica was Tuesday, August 25th, and we made the most of it. After arriving in Quepos the previous night, we headed for the Manuel Antonio national park. While Rishi sunbathed, I went on the guided tour and saw all three species of monkeys and both species of sloths, among other wildlife. We got ourselves back to Quepos in time to catch the 2:30 bus back to San José, and did some last-minute tourist shopping before crashing at Kábata again. Wednesday morning we got up early yet again to fly out at 8:00am back to the U.S.
There’s lots more I could write, but that will come in time. For now, I just wanted to give you a taste of what we did and where we went. We took hundreds of photos, so at some point I’ll post a link to the album where you can go see them. I even learned how to use manual mode on Rishi’s digital SLR to take better photos. I am so glad I got to go to Costa Rica this month.
