Pura Vida Costa Rican Style – Absolutely Directo !

Pura Vida (POO-rah VEE-dah), literally translated means “Pure Life.", rather intriguing....We asked a friendly Costa Rican to define it for us. And he spent the next ten minutes extolling the virtues of PURA VIDA. Contextually, it means “Full of Life”, “This is living!”, “Going great!” It is used as a greeting, a farewell, and anything else. Our view –  a Costa Rican expression of a leisurely lifestyle, of leisurely pace, good fortune and un-inhibited friendliness for one and all. The local population certainly make it easy for us tourists. No wonder, tourism has emerged as the major industry for Costa Ricans – casting bananas and coffee by the wayside. The tourist traffic into Costa Rica has gone up exponentially every year, and now draws more than two million visitors from all over the world.

Views of Quepos - near Manuel Antonio

As we emerged from immigration at San Jose airport....seemed quite chaotic. I was almost expecting Sakaram to tap me on my shoulders to help with my luggage. We had packed light (very unusual for us) considering the hefty airline charges for checked in baggage and it just made travel lot more comfortable. As it turned out, we didn’t buy unnecessary touristy junk that ultimately gets discarded after sitting in the garage.  There were couple things on our immediate agenda, as we exited immigration – currency exchange and the Hertz rental. The Fodor’s 2010 Costa Rica guide, that we had thoughtfully picked up from the library had tons of valuable information – that we had skimmed over on the flight. Some very valuable pointers indeed!  The Bank of San Jose located within the aiport (24 hours service) was very convenient. We didn’t have to exchange any more currency after this first exchange, and we hoarded the Colones until the last day splurge. We rented a 4WD Daihatsu Terios, which turned out unexpectedly to be a stick-shift. We loaded up on the insurance – collision, 3rd party, wind-shield/ tires coverage, added up more than the rental itself, but well worth it considering our language handicap. For the most part though, the folks we met were quite nice, affable and there is generally not a need to be extra precautions. Armed with the directions from the folks at Hertz, we were zipping along the highway heading to La Fortuna, Arenal volcano area.The initial hesitation with the stick-shift quickly faded away. There were fruit stands along the highway, and we found it a bit strange to stop roadside / on the inter-state highway, but this all was destined to change towards the tail end of the trip. We passed through towns such as San Ramon, Sacramento and San Francisco – and we were going through a major identity crisis.  We stopped at San Ramon to stock up on some snacks and drinks. We hit some rain and fog as we drove up, sometimes stuck behind a slow truck. The country side was clean, roads were great in some parts and just about bearable at others, but nevertheless it was easy driving on the narrow highways. You certainly don't want to be lost in those parts though. We kept a lookout for the the Arenal Volcano signs and found ourselves at our hotel just before nightfall.

The next few days were spent at Hotel Montana De Fuego with some excellent views of Arenal volcanoe, which one of our friends had recommended. It was located a couple miles from the Arenal National Park. The lush tropical vegetation around eased us into the vacation spirit. The hotel was probably at 30% capacity and our evening dinner at the hotel restaurant was great, thanks to all the extra attention.  The meals had an almost home cooked flavor to it and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The kids ended up playing pool prior to dinner and the itouches and iphones were active thanks to the Wi-Fi. My blackberry had international coverage turned out, but AT&T and it's alliances, unfortunately did not have coverage (what's new!).  We called it an early night after a stroll around the hotel's lush vegetation. The hotel TV had quite a few Spanish shows going on and we chanced upon a Brazilian based soap with an Indian theme and even snippets of Hindi interspersed with the Spanish....very interesting. Read bout it here

The next day, the rains came down hard. We had to literally coax ourselves out of that monsoon stupor for th drive upto Arenal National Park.... it was still pouring. We took a detour to the Hanging Bridges/ Arenal dam area. That had indeed some beautiful sights, and made it worthwhile. The hanging bridges are good too, but the ticket price is a bit steep and coming across wild-life is a hit or miss…..the bridges tour has been highly recommended by everyone. We ended up at Baldi hot springs. Pretty impressive array of 27 pools that inter-mix the hot springs with cooler water to make it a splendid experience (un-adulterated hot springs is at a burning 152 F). Lots of different options, spas are dispersed around the hotel. Highly recommend it! La Fortuna has tons of hotels which go a-begging in economies like these - one of which is  Springs Spa and Resort in Arenal which has 19 natural hot springs, neon red, blue and yellow birds on your balcony, a straight-shot view of the volcano. We had thoughts of heading to La Fortuna for dinner, but decided to try the hotel restaurant for the 2nd night. Later that night, our son threw up in the middle of the night and had some mild temperature the next day - which we attributed to the restaurant food. But, turns out, kids are prone to get sick after going to the hot springs - perhaps drinking the pool water? Be prepared, take some medication as that is inevitable. Coconut water helps with such cases and we had plenty of that - helped towards a quick recovery.

Next morning, we were supposed to drive up to Monte Verde, on the way to Manuel Antonio, but the upset stomach put the brakes on these plans. Having a rental provided some flexibility. We lingered around in the Arenal area before heading down to the Central Coast tourist trap - Manuel Antonio via Jaco. We had to skip the horse-back ride that we had planned at La Fortuna Water falls. We have heard the drive from La Fortuna to Monte Verde is scenic too – we obviously missed out on that. The signs are not too clear at major intersection points and we relied on local taxi drivers to direct us – who were mostly too helpful, even referring us to their English speaking colleagues. The macro directions were provided by the hotel, but we had to rely on the locals for micro directions. We stopped by roadside fruit stalls to enjoy the fresh fruits and the coconut water. Driving in the countryside didn't have too many issues – we did try to ensure that we were not driving in the night, as we share the highways with cyclists – and driving can become a tense experience. Jaco is very touristy, becoming a spring break destination for the east coast universities.

We arrived at Manuel Antonio – and headed to Casita Eclipse, where we were staying. The published web rates are $300. We had done some upfront negotiation to drop the rates at tad – but this hotel had some major challenges. Apparently, all the hotels in Manuel Antonio are over-priced, but this one was a rip-off we felt. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g309274-Manuel_Antonio_National_Park_Province_of_Puntarenas-Hotels.html We had made the cardinal mistake of making a reservation without going through the trip advisor reviews. Never again! As we parked and walked into the registration area - our kids remarked that the hotel was not very impressive. We made another mistake, we should have checked the room and that might have coaxed us to negotiate ourselves out from this one. We almost wanted to leave after the first night, but that would throw our plans astray and we had no choice but to grin and bear. We were so annoyed with the overpriced room - we ended up not taking the hotel packages. The hotel breakfast package was no great shakes @ Del Negro - with a soup-nazi type waiter.  The hotel trails ares extensive, with some wild life, but the zillion steps deterred us from exploring it (a half hour hike to the Manuel Antonio Park from inside the hotel). Monchados Restaurant in Quepos was quite good and also the Acai Sandwiches and Smoothies (above the Super Mas – across the bus stand). Banana chips flavored with lime was our favorite snack that most of the super markets stocked. The coconut water and guavas sold on the beaches and road-side were a treat too.

We negotiated the mangrove tour from the company itself - almost 50% off what the hotel offered us. The mangrove tour is worthwhile, but hyped up a tad - we were waiting to see the Boa Constrictor and Alligators which somehow eluded us. We also went through the Canopy Safari zipling experience, very safe and very well done – well worth it, includes the tarzan swings and rappelling. You just need to be a bit careful to ensure you research the safari for safety, governmental approvals prior to making the reservations. The hotels are generally good at providing that info too. Canopy Safari had an excellent set of folks manning the different areas and there is not much room for error. Make sure you put on some strong mosquito repelleant if you head out into the wilderness. We missed heading into the beach inside the Manuel Antonio State park - but that is worth checking out.

The drive from Manuel Antonio to Juan Santamaria Interrnational airport takes barely 3 hours thanks to the wonderful freeway – recently built (Make a left turn where the freeway ends once you are in San jose and go DIRECTO). We were finally back in San Jose. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express near the airport after returning our rental. 

All in all, an excellent experience. We do hope to be back someday.

Mangrove Forest and the beautiful Manuel Antonio sunset