We have finished our romp around Costa Rica, covered nearly a 1000km in total, and dropping in on the main attraction centres, so here is a quick run through the main towns we stayed and what we thought of them.

Costa Rica is a really young country, unlike other countries it didn’t have a notable civilisation like Aztecs, Mayans or Incas, without a civilisation with an abundance of riches to plunder, the Spanish conquistadors didn’t show it much interest and neither did the Catholic church.

Consequently, there isn’t much history to look at anywhere, but its attraction is the biodiversity and coastline. There is hardly anything over 150 years old, so in some ways it is like being in the United States or Australia, but their indigenous people still have a deep relationship with nature, hence their strong commitment to conservation, a little bit similar to New Zealand and the Māori tribes.

The Costa Rican people are very friendly, helpful and they are proud to tell you they are one of the happiest nations on earth. With this in mind I was a bit perplexed as to why their homes all seem to have quite extreme levels of security. Nearly all of their homes have bars on their windows or bars around their walls. It isn’t uncommon to see broken glass on the tops of walls to stop people climbing over them or even razor wire along the tops. The only place where I have seen security like that was in South Africa and it transpires that the petty crime rates are high and tourists are the main targets, or anyone who is perceived to have wealth. With this in mind, we shouldn’t have been surprised to have all our money stolen on the beach at Uvita.

First stop was San Jose, the capital, most people land and move on, but we decided to give it a day to see what it was like.  To be honest, everyone else was right as there is nothing much to see here at all, other than wandering around two dull markets to get over your jet lag. We chose a hotel halfway between the airport and the city centre called the Country Inn Radisson. I thought being halfway between the city centre and the airport would give us the best of both worlds, but it just gave us heavy traffic in both directions.  Having spent our last night at the airport Hilton I’m glad to report it wasn’t such a bad decision, Hampton by Hilton San Jose Airport was very poor for our last night, rubbish breakfast and very basic.

Verdict – don’t bother and avoid

Second stop on the itinerary was Porto Viejo. This is in the far southeast on the Caribbean coast on the border with Panama. You will not end up here unless you are heading to Panama or make a conscious decision to go out of your way to see it.  About an hour away the highway hits the Caribbean and runs alongside it for the rest of the journey.

At this point you start to relax and feel the vibe, there are the odd small settlements along the way that sets the scene but when you arrive in Porto Viejo you feel like you have arrived on a little Caribbean Island, there is just a rough road through the town, a few beach shops, cafes and bars on one side with palm trees and a surf beach on the other side, it was like my idea of heaven.

We stayed here for 4 nights at the Cariblue Beach and Jungle Resort which was the real deal in terms of environment impact. Everything was built from wood, it processed its own water, and the lodges were surrounded by jungle, Wooksie was alarmed being that close to nature as it bites, but decent insect repellent kept things under control. Within the resort we had Howler Monkeys screaming over our heads and all sorts of other creatures around us, not to mention the amazing moment when we found the sloth on the ground outside our lodge. 

We did the jungle kayak ride and walk, and to be honest, we saw more animals on this cheap half day trip than pretty much all the other trips put together. We also did the Cahuita National Park which was disappointing as we only saw a couple of  Cappuccino monkeys but the thing that kept me most entertained was walking along the deserted beach, admiring the jungle on one side and surf on the other side, then finishing the day in the bar on the beach drinking cocktails and waiting for the torrential rain that arrived every night.

Verdict – A wonderful place, an idyllic Caribbean beach vibe but off the beaten track

Next stop was La Fortuna. This was a long trek and from the Northwest from the Southeast of the country. La Fortuna itself is a bit of a one horse town that has been growing, apparently the tarmac on the roads was only laid recently. There is a main street with bars and restaurants for travellers but that is about it, so people are here to do fun stuff not to see the town.

The main attraction is the Arenal Volcano, but also the Rain Forest and a range of activities that have built up around them.  Trekking on the volcano is limited because it is active, so you have just got to hope you get lucky and have a decent view, which we did. We also did the hanging bridges, which are a really impressive piece of engineering, the extreme zip wire tour, the La Fortuna Waterfall and volcano hike.

The only thing we didn’t do was the hot springs, but as our second hotel had a swimming pool heated by the hot spring we don’t feel we missed out on much and we happen to own a Hot Tub at home!

We had a dilemma regarding Monteverde, which is the other main town which we wanted to visit in the region. It is a very difficult route from La Fortuna, and we didn’t have a 4×4, it offers almost the same types of activities but at a higher altitude in Cloud Forests, based on chatting with local guides, we decided to give it a miss, and I think we made the right decision on that one. To be honest the jungle walks were disappointing to be honest but that is nature. We did all the activities we planned at La Fortuna in 1 ½ days, so 2 days is enough here, and I spent the third day catching up on blogs ½ creating videos.

Lots of traveller’s head for Manuel Antonnio, which is at the southern tip of the popular tourist route. We drove through it on the way to Uvita. It seemed busy and congested but it was difficult to tell, there was lots of tourist activity going on as it is a major centre for travellers. We, however, were heading to Uvita to spend a week with our daughter who was volunteering in a hostel.

We stayed at two different hotels.  The first was the Secreto La Fortuna, which was tucked away in one of the side streets and offered really good access to the town and tour pickups. It had a nice pool and even had its own resident sloth in the tree above reception.

The second hotel was Hotel Lomas del Volcán which was recommended by a friend. It was a totally different resort experience outside of the town, it even had Its own nature walk in the surrounding jungle. The problem with a resort is that you need your own car to get to town, or you have to stick with the resort facilities. I wasn’t too impressed with the building noise but that’s life. What was impressive was the hotel swimming pool that was heated by the volcanic streams, it is the hottest pool I have ever been in.

Verdict – Essential as part of any Costa Rican holiday

Next stop was Jaco Beach. After Porto Viejo this was our favourite resort. It is the closest resort to San Jose, so it is very popular with locals rather than tourists, though it is also popular for US short breakers.  It is little more than a busy high street; it was the only place we saw the big US food chains like KFC in Costa Rica.

There is a fabulous sandy beach that is around 5km long and has surf breaks and board rental stalls on the beach, various beach bars for watching the beautiful sunsets and kids playing football on the beach. It was at Jaco we realised that nearly all the resorts seem to have the same offerings in terms of trips, zip wires, nature, quad bikes, white water rafting and waterfalls.

We stayed in the resort twice on our trip. The first time going south, we stayed at a lovely place called Hotel Ibiza which had a mock Greek feel to it, was located 100m from the northern end of the beach and was very friendly. On the second visit we stayed at the south end of the beach because the surf breaks are better, and I didn’t want to have to walk the length of the beach to go surfing.

The second time we stayed at the Laguna Resort and Beach Club. Talk about a fantastic location, I walked out from the hotel, picked up the board and walked straight into one of the best long board waves I’ve ever surfed. If anyone wants to learn to surf this is the place to do it, the conditions are nearly perfect. The hotel wasn’t as nice as Hotel Ibiza but for location, wow.

Verdict – make it a priority – a wonderful beach and plenty of things to do

Uvita is nothing more than a pit stop on the way to Panama and not a normal traveller location. It is about an hour south of Manual Antonio and is a mecca for whale watching scuba diving and surfing in the Uvita National Park. It has a huge beach, and a unique headland called the Whale Tail due to its shape, so people tend to come here from other resorts for the activity and then leave again. Hence it is quiet in the evenings but at least there is space in the little selection of restaurants.

The major blot on our Uvita visit was having all our money stolen from our bag on the beach, in hindsight, we had to take a lot of responsibility for our own stupidity, and we were very lucky not to lose a lot more than cash. Our robber was clearly benign because he left everything other than the cash, if he (or she) had taken the cards and phone we would have been in serious crisis.

We were here for 6 nights at that Yuli Hotel, which was very nice and happily very reasonable as well, with a nice pool and friendly staff. Some nights they also had a lively restaurant with great chilled house music playing. There is a lot of development work going on and I suspect 3 years from now it will have expanded a lot and will grow like La Fortuna.

Verdict –  it’s a one night  place if mixed with an activity like whale watching

Our last stop was Porto Jimenez on the OSO peninsula. This was another 2 hour drive south and around 25% of the Costa Rican biodiversity is on display here, if you can find it. We planned to take the road around the peninsula, but when we got arrived it became obvious that we needed a 4×4 to get anywhere, and we had a Nissan saloon, so it didn’t end well.

The peninsula is big, and the roads are rough and full of big potholes, so we gave up, we had hoped to walk to the national park along the coast from Port Jiminez but there was no route through the jungle, so again we were stumped.

The thing about this area is that hotels on the peninsula are hugely expensive, most of them are around £1000 per night but that wasn’t an excuse for our hotel, which wasn’t cheap, but hotel was a shocker, Cabinas Agua Luna Frente al Mar as well.

The roads were impassable, there were no nature walks from the town and the hotel was at the end of their little airport runway, so the whole thing was looking like a disaster. However, it was saved by a little beachside restaurant where we were treated to the best meal of the holiday and when the dogs woke us up at 530am we had a great experience watching parrots and toucans on our beach sidewalk.

Verdict – research and plan your trip.

I hope this summary of our itinerary proves a useful reference point if you chose to do a similar trip, if we can provide any more help, please contact me on email fun@rarefutures.com