Some of our guests Favorite Places

Below you will find some places that our guests have recommended you might visit. These visits are based on their own trips and our guests believe you'd better not miss the experience if you are in that particular location. Perhaps some of these activities can enchant you and add to an unforgettable trip when you next come to Costa Rica:

Town	Location	Thing	Summary
Alajuela	Zoo Ave	The animals of course	It’s hard sometimes to tell which animals live in the zoo and which decided to hang around for the ambience.
Arenal	Paraiso Hotel	Zip Lines	Zip lining down at 40 mph over a lush canopy of rain forest and river, what a rush!
Uvita	Hacienda Baru/ Alejandra & Giovani	Don Lulos, Nauyaca Waterfull Tour	Beautifull Waterfull, Wonderfull Family, good food, bargain prices.
Cahuita	Cahuita National Park	Cahuita N.P	The large park with easy trails is a national treasure lots of wildlife too with a large barrier reef to snorkel.  Beautiful beaches, great wildlife, not a lot of people.
Cerro Punta in  Panama	Finca Dracula	Garden and orchid farm	Finca Dracula has a bazillion types of orchid, but the Dracula orchids hybridized at Finca Dracula are the stars. Lovely gardens.
Playa Cocles	El Gato Cicova, C.R. Italian Restaurant	Great restaurant	Food was gourmet Italian in the middle of this crazy jungle town. The music was enchanting. Great service.
Playa Cocles	Shawanda Restaurant	Great restaurant	Great atmosphere, ambience, service and great Food!!
Damas near Quepos		Mangrove Vayaking	Boas, Monkeys(Lots) and a great guide.
Drake Bay	Pirates Cove	Dinner and the park	Natural Food prepared very well. Day trips to Corcovado National Park.
Drake Bay	Elia, the guide	Corcovado National Park	Truly a zoo without bars. Grand Slaw on monkey species, Scarlet Macaws in the wild, anteaters, sloths, the whole menagerie, Sirena Ranger Station.
El Castillo	Linda Vista Lodge	The View	Perfect view of the Arenal Volcano erupting, the lake and more.
La Fortuna	Arenal Volcano Lodge	The hotel	Beautiful grounds with lots of flowers, super-friendly staff, and spotless rooms. Great restaurants and beautiful pools. And to top it off, the price is very reasonable.
La Fortuna	Anywhere in the area	Arenal Volcano at night	The lava flow at night is like fire works tumbling down the mountain!
La Fortuna	Arenal Hanging Bridges/Jose, the tour guide	Hanging Bridges Tour	Make sure you tell your guide what you hope to see so they can do their best to find it. We saw tarantulas, howler monkeys, two eyelash vipers, lots of lizards, a poison dart frog, leaf cutter ants, etc. Even a toucan!!
La Fortuna	Arenal Canopy Tour	Rainforest	Panoramic Lake views.
La Fortuna	1 mile out of town/ask any local teenager	Very Cool Rope Swing- 20ft drop	Some waterfalls (which you can also jump from).  What a blast & a special experience it was to laugh, cheer, and be cheered on by the local kids! It is located just off the small road over the same river that the waterfull in town falls into/creates.
Montezuma	Amor de Mar	Everything	Horse back riding and trip to Tortuga Island.  We rented both houses which are joined by an optional adjoining door at Amor De Mar. It was beyond our belief!!
Near La Fortuna	Arenal	Hanging	Waterfalls, Rivers, great views, beautiful walk. Suspended bridges & the jungle!
Near Sarapiqui	La Selva/ Christian the guide	The nature preserve	Fun guide, jungle walk, paved trails.
Nosara	Lagarta Lodge	The nature preserve	The lodge owns its own nature reserve that you can walk around and spot wildlife, with interesting information about trees and plant life. Sit in their bar and watch the sun set, and you need a car to get to Ostinal to see the turtles.
Ojochal	“Exotica” and “Citrus”	Restaurants in the middle of nowhere	Ojochal was adopted a few years ago by a lot of French Canadians so there are good French Restaurants. “Exotica” is one of the oldest and best. The food is not to be missed , and “Citrus” is so good too.
Puerto Viejo	Sarapiqui	La Selva	Great animals & birds. The scientist in residence were fabulous,  specially with my 8 years old daughter.
Samara		C&C Surf School	The ticos who work at the C&C Surf School are just good old fashioned bums. Good teachers. They also rent surfboards, boogieboards, and kyaks by the hour or day at a very good price.
San Gerardo de Dota	Savegre Mountain Hotel	The Chacon family	Surprisingly comfortable, operated by a family of very gracious people, terrific food, great birdwatching (with and without guide), easy hiking trails a little Shangri-La only 100km south.
Santa Elena/ Monteverde	Arco Iris Hotel / Monteverde	San Juan Coffee Tour	The coffee tour was nicely, informative and the coffee was the best. We also brave the Aventura Zip Line Canopy Tour. The cabins at Arco Iris were beautiful, saw monkeys during breakfast!!
Sarapiqui	Tirimbina Chocolate Tour		Demostration of how they made chocolate in the Mayan times. Interactive, good for kids. Brilliant chocolate!!
Sarapiqui, Tirimbina Rain Forest Center	Cocoa Plantation Tour	Wendy	Interesting and exceptional tour with the wide Wendy.
Tortuguero	Casa Marbella/ Daryl Loth	Seeing green turtles laying eggs	Daryl took us on the turtle tow for $15. It is incredible well managed and the turtles; not the tourist are the main priority. It was magical. Casa Marbella is a great place to stay, right on the river with great views, very comfortable, and the boat tows they run are also fabulous.

A 10 Day Tour - a worthy route suggestion

A nice couple from Barcelona showed up late last night "on the fly".  They just landed on the Iberia flight from Madrid (the only jumbo that lands in Costa Rica), snagged a car at the airport, found us in the guide book and drove the 10 minutes to the hotel without getting lost.  2 or 3 accomplishments all in their first evening in Costa Rica!  They headed for bed with the statement, "We'll need some ideas tomorrow morning!  Buenas noches."

We get quite a few guests landing at the airport with little idea what to do . . . but this couple had two basic destinations in mind at the breakfast table the next morning.  First the Caribbean and then the Southern Zone or south Pacific side of Costa Rica.

So we spent the next hour in the garden plotting out a route on a map.  Two maps we recommend the National Geographic which has all the parks and indigenous areas marked nicely - this works well if you are visiting parks and such.  The other, perhaps better map, is the Toucan map of Costa Rica - it has very good road markings as well as points of interest and some good town maps.

The route started from Alajuela heading across the top of San Jose (best to avoid San Jose on weekdays and definitely not a place to get lost in at night).  The road goes through Heredia (a bit convoluted there) then up to San Rafael (caution: there are 47 San Rafaels in Costa Rica) and then over to a road that on maps says the number 32.

Just as a point of reference (or lack thereof), it should be noted that the number 32 or any numbers that show on Costa Rican maps are rarely to be found on Costa Rican roads.  If you are expecting signs, numbers and such they are few and far between but that's part of the adventure.  Personally I hate GPS (in Costa Rica as you miss a lot of good bits to get lost in) but do recommend a cheap compass when you get turned around in a barrio somewhere you don't know the name of.

If you are trying to follow this route on a map  . . . look for San Jose heading north from Tibas and then "westish" towards the big road in the direction of Guapiles.  This route (#32 :-) will lead you into a cloud forest,  through a big tunnel (well actually a small tunnel but big for us) and you should be careful as visibility can drop down to nothing in a cloud forest.

This is the main highway to the Port of Limon so there are lots of fast big rigs on this 3 lane road coming at you though they are usually slowed to a crawl by slow big rigs overloaded with things like concrete blocks.  There ARE times when such impediments to progress can be appreciated and driving in a cloud forest is exactly that circumstance.  Slower is better.

After Guapiles you are now coming down the Caribbean slope and a complete climate change.  Cold mountain air is being subsumed by very warm and very humid tropical goop.  You'll gradually notice the transition but soon get used to it like you lived there all your life (maybe).  You'll pass through Siguirres without even noticing it (but you should because you need this turn off for a very interesting and different route back).

The road now flattens past pineapple and bananas everywhere and eventually to the Port of Limon (this town is best avoided - this week it was voted 81st worst town in Costa Rica . . . it could have been better except there were only 81 towns in the survey).

 The road south (assuming you are still following me on a map?) skirts around the bottom of Limon town and eventually cuts right towards Cahuita and Puerto Viejo (we have a few Puerto Viejos too, this one is known locally as Puerto Viejo de Talamanca).  You will notice you are now very Caribbean as you pass through a bit of a dump south of Limon and in an hour or less you'll see the Cahuita signs on your left (take any one of them - its worth a brief visit even if your hotel is not to be there this night).

This blog item is not about the destinations - that you can find in tour books easily.  It is about a route for 10 days so apologies if you wanted more (email me for that).  The road then continues south and eventually dumps into Puerto Viejo and points south.  There are a couple of things you could do going further south - one is to drop down to Panama for a few days to the Bocas del Toro (only about 3 hours south) but if you do that I'd leave the rentacar at your hotel and taxi to the border (and one heck of a bridge) at Sixaola.  Be aware this area can experience devastating floods in the high rainy seasons.

Another trip we'd highly recommend is a day or two in the Bribri village of Yorkin - your hotel can tell you how to find this trip.  You'll drive past the village of Bribri and then take a dug out canoe upriver to Yorkin.  This is a delightful indigenous visit - they even have a little lodge now if you'd like to stay and experience a lovely people or you can return the same day.

Continuing our 10 day itinerary, I'm going to assume you made it to Puerto Viejo and maybe stayed with our friend Wendy at Cashew Hill Lodge and perhaps stayed day 2 and 3 there.  You'll need a few more days to stay longer on the Caribbean and will kick yourself that you couldn't but come back next time.

Now head north back past Limon (there's a great canal route, not road to Tortuguero just north of Limon).  Head to Siquirres again and cut across the mountains to Turrialba (Route 10 - hmmm like you'll find that number anywhere?).   Here's an optional overnighter we'd not miss - the excellent Casa Turire would make a nice 1 or 2 day stopover to see the Irazu volcano, lake Cachi area, the Orosi valley, the precolombian ruins and such in the area.  We'd suggest day 4 and 5 in the area.

Day 6 will find you heading west to Cartago (stop at the cathedral) and then south on the famous Cerro de la Muerte (sometimes known as the Pan American highway) and the scene of the 1948 escape of the wife of Don Pepe Figueres who was busy taking over the country with a small insurgency of 2000 folowers to right a bad election.

You might stop a few hours at San Gerardo de Dota (but you don't have time to birdwatch the amazing Resplendent Quetzal that inhabits this beautiful region).  Keep going south to San Isidro and perhaps drop by the delightful indigenous region centered on the village of Boruca (needs a 4WD).

Keep on going south turning at Palmar and the strange perfectly round pre-colombian stone globes.  Turn right at Chacarita and meander down the little road to the super nice one horse town of Puerto Jimenez.  There's lots of places to stay but you'll be tired so try Nico's Black Turtle Lodge - rustic tree houses for the night of  Day 6 and 7.

 Day 6 will take you maybe 10 hours of traveling if you skip San Gerardo!  You don't want to miss a sunset paddle in the Golfo Dulce . . . absolutely a treat for kayakers of all sorts of shapes and sizes.

For the adventurous you'll want to go to the end of the road at Carate (most people say that Pueto Jimenez is the end of the road but adventurous types say it is 2 hours further across some rivers and loads of dirt roads and tracks).  You'll maybe stay at Lana's Luna Lodgewhere they'll REALLY take care of you . . . and let them show you the way into Cocovado - one of the most bio-diverse areas anywhere on the planet and still barely touched by humans (see above - 2 hours past the end of the road . . . plus when the dirt track ends drive another 20 minutes into the jungle.)

That gives you Day 8 and 9 in the jungle with pecaries, sloths, lovely ant eaters and a trillion species of bugs.  Again not long enough but our visitors from Barcelona wanted to see both sides of the country in 10 days.  Which you can't really do!

So day 10 is taken driving back from Carate - its a tough 10 hour adventure up the coast road through Palmar Sur, Uvita/Ojochal, straight through Quepos/Manuel Antonio (assume you are following this on a map of Costa Rica?).

Its then another grind into San Jose at least as far as the airport and your last night and a delicious gourmet dinner at the Pura Vida Hotel in Alajuela.

Thus we'd recommend a stopover at Uvita (well that will make it an 11 day journey except you gotta stay 2 nights at our friends Daryl and Donna and the amazing hospitality, ludicrous humor and 180 degree views of the south Pacific at Shelter from the Storm ).  Or if you wanted to also visit the famous Manuel Antonio you'd want to spend another 2 nights there perhaps at Mango Moon .

OK, so to do this lot you can't easily stay 2 nights at every location and do this trip in 10 days.  It's so hard to get a feel for a place in an overnight stay so you'll need to cut some corners somewhere or maybe just do the rest on the next trip.

 If you have questions and need help with an itinerary idea, just email us at The Pura Vida Hotel - we'd be happy to give you some insights into what may work for you on your next tropical adventure.