Our Costa Rica Adventure – Part One

Pura Vida!

That’s a phrase, translated as Pure Life, we heard and saw over and over during our visit in beautiful Costa Rica.  It’s much more than a phrase though.  It’s an ethos, that all Ticos (Costa Ricans) live by.  After spending only a few days in the country it’s easy to understand the idea of Pura Vida.

The Surprise

Obviously we are a family that loves to travel.  The adventures, challenges, experiences, the bonding, and unknowns pull us in.  So, for Christmas I decided that I would get Reim the white, hard case luggage that she had been jonesing for.  But what good is new luggage if it’s not going somewhere.  After all the gifts were open there happened to be an envelope hidden in the Christmas tree.  A “treasure hunt”!  (Click on the link to see the treasure hunt clues Costa Rica Treasure Hunt)  The “treasure”…a trip to Costa Rica.  Note:  In the clues…Ellie is my truck and Baily is our hamster)

The Plan

My plan was to offset some of the costs by staying the majority of the time in Hilton hotels, using my points to pay for the rooms.  However, the rooms were relatively inexpensive and I decided to conserve my points for Hawaii, or Iceland, or London, or…

The next part of the plan was to fly into Liberia near the Pacific coast, rent a car, and use the Hilton Garden Inn near the airport as our base camp for the first 4 nights.  This worked great.  It was approximately a 30 minute drive to Playa Hermosa or Playa de Coco.  Then we would move inland to a tree house for Ireland’s 10th birthday.  After spending a few days/nights in the tree house we would relocate a final time to San Jose where we would fly back to Houston.

Basecamp – Liberia

We arrived in Liberia early in the afternoon on March 14th.  After making our way through immigration (our first Pura Vida greeting by the immigration officer) we collected our bags and went through customs.  It was a painless experience other than the United flight crew giving us the wrong forms to fill out (a 10 minute setback).

We caught the shuttle to the Avis rental car.  Renting a car in a foreign country is almost always a painful experience.  I knew going in that it was going to be near extortion so I was prepared.  I had received a quote a few months earlier for an 8 day rental.  It was around $260.  However, this is where the financial torture occurs.  You have to purchase at least mandatory rental insurance.  But, if you do this then you have to put at least a $1000 deposit (apparently as a deductible) down on the rental.  Sure, you get it back assuming you don’t play rental car crash up derby, but it still ties up $1000 until you return the car.  If you elect to upgrade the protection

to the Total Project Plan, “TPP”, (I believe this is an Avis term, but other rental agencies offer the same) which covers basically everything with the exception of negligence, the deposit drops to $500.  Now, rumor has it that some credit card companies such as American Express will cover you in the event there is an issue with the car in a foreign country eliminating the need for the TPP.   I didn’t do any extensive research on this, but I will prior to our next trip.   I took the TPP and my $260 rental became $718 plus a $500 deposit.  Again, I was prepared for this and I chose to mitigate as much risk as possible by taking the TPP.  Call it peace of mind.

After 30 minutes of confirming prices, agreements, and signing my life away we loaded our luggage in the car and made the 5 minute drive to the hotel.  The Hilton Garden Inn was across from the airport which is about 15 minutes from Liberia, 30 minutes from several Pacifica side beaches, and 45 minutes from a popular national park.  It’s not a resort hotel, which works well for us.  It was a place to rest, grab an adult beverage and a meal, and swim after a day of adventure.

Beaches, Monkeys, Zip lines, Horses, A Waterfall, and Snakes

On our second day we decided to check out the beaches.  After some research I elected to take the clan to Playa Hermosa as it was a less touristy beach.  Playa Hermosa is a beautiful beach surround on three sides by mountains.  During the morning hours there is some wave action, but nothing major.  We lathered the kids up with sunscreen and sent them on their way.  About 30 feet out the water is relatively clear, which made snorkeling fun for the kids…until they saw a puffer fish and freaked out.  As with all their freak outs this only lasted about 2 minutes before they were in explorer mode again.  It was a cloudless day that resulted in relatively severe sunburn for all of us…especially Luke.  It was also windy and the sand got everywhere and I mean everywhere.

For our third day we had a zip line tour booked.  We made our way over to the Congo Trail Canopy Tour center.  Not more than 30 seconds after we arrived the kids spotted white-faced capuchins in the trees.  This was their first experience with “wild” monkeys and the smiles and laughing said it all.  One of the workers gave the kids some chopped up bananas to feed the monkeys.  Note:  We also saw, and heard, several howler monkeys while zip lining.

We made our way up to the start of the zip line with Luke already complaining about doing this.  He has a major fear of heights and he had a horrible sunburn.  I suspected he was not going to enjoy this, but I wanted him to try.

We geared up and went to the first platform.  A relatively low and short line.  Luke started taking his gear off exclaiming “NO WAY”.  One of the guides talked to him and offered to go on the line with him.  He zoomed across and before I got to the next one he was already in line, by himself, for the next line. He completed the next 10 lines solo. He loved it and said he conquered his fear of heights!  Winner  winner chicken dinner!

We returned to the visitors center and Luke decided he wanted to do the animal and reptile tour.  So we paid the $5 and off he went.  I went to check on him 15 minutes later and heard him chatting with the workers.  They had given him a cold coconut and he was thoroughly enjoying the cool, tasty coconut water.  I can’t say enough about how good our experience was with the Congo Trail folks.

After our morning adventure we headed over to Playa del Coco for a late breakfast/early lunch.  Note: Playa del Coco is a much busier, heavy tourist beach destination.

We had no official plan for our fourth day so after some Googling I found a horseback/hike/waterfall/swim adventure.  Booked it and off we went to Hacienda Guachipelin near the Ricon de la Vieja National Park.  We met Johnny, our guide, mounted our horses (actually mules) and spent about 50 minutes making our way down gravel roads, across grassy fields and through jungle trails.  We dismounted our horses, tied them to some trees, and hiked down to a hanging bridge that took us to the majestic Oropendula waterfall.    We were allowed half an hour to swim in the very cold and extremely pristine pool below the waterfall.   I sent the kids down to swim, but they only waded in the pool as the cold water was too much for them.  That was until I decided to get in and encourage them and when I say encourage them I mean drag them into the deeper sections of the pool.  Once in the water for a few minutes our bodies acclimated to the temperature and we made our way over to the waterfall for a photo op.  We then followed the same route on horseback to the Hacienda.

Once back we took a snack break and then signed up for the reptile and butterfly tour.  Johnny was our guide on this tour as well, which was great as he is one of the care takers for the reptiles and butterflies.   We were the only ones on this tour and we got a special treat.  We got to help feed some of the snakes.  We have a pet ball python, but it was interesting to see how snakes captured in the wild attacked live prey.  It was also interesting to see the different attack methods used by venomous and constrictor snakes.  The kids and Reim also got to handle Lulu, a six and a half foot boa constrictor.   It was a great day!

We’ll post Part Two of our Costa Rica adventure in a few days.

Pura Vida!