Costa Rica

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica
June 6th 2009

Published: June 7th 2009

Edit Blog Post

Ludwig

Pura Vida

Sunset on the beach in Tamarindo on New Year's eve

Pura Vida!

After another short night in Santiago de Chile and a pretty heavy earthquake during breakfast at the airport, I took a flight to Lima and transferred immediately to San Jose, Costa Rica. I had been warned that Central America was probably going to be the most "dangerous" leg of my trip. Costa Rica, however felt more like Disneyland, overwhelmed by thousands of (pretty loud) US tourists during this Christmas and New Year holiday season.

Karen, a very nice Tica girl I met on WAYN a couple of months earlier, showed me around San Jose and neighbouring villages for a couple of days and provided me with great advice on which highlights I had to visit in her country and the rest of Central America. Pura Vida Karen! (Pura Vida -> Pure Life, is the most used words combination in Costa Rica I believe, Pura Vida this, Pura Vida that...and hence, Pura Vida Karen!)

Jacques, a very close friend of mine who lives in New York, joined me for a 10 days roundtrip in Costa Rica. We rented a 4X4 and drove a couple of hours northwards to Arenal where we would spend Christmas Eve. One of

Around San Jose

With Karen, lunch outside of San Jose on a nice day out of the city

the most active volcanoes in Central America, the Arenal volcano spits huge quantities of lava everyday, best seen of course at night, weather conditions permitting... sadly enough, we could not see much more than heavy mist and clouds. However, we took advantage of all that heat while chilling out in some hot springs at the foot of the volcano, a cold (set of) beer in hand.
On the next day, we went canyoning in the mountains close by. Canyoning is, as per Wikipedia, travelling in canyons using a variety of techniques that may include walking, scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling, and/or swimming... and that is exactly what we did in the tropical forests surrounding Arenal. A pretty wet but cool experience!

We drove a couple of hours on dusty roads across the mountains to finally arrive in Monteverde's cloud forest where we went on a two hours guided night expedition to discover a vast array of mammals, birds and, yes, lots and lots of insects. We even had the pleasure to be introduced to a pretty big tarantula! Given that we had not had enough of the forest yet, Jacques and I went on yet another adventure trip: zip-lining! Suspended

On the road

Our 4X4 that drove us across Costa Rica

on a cable several dozen meters above the ground, holding on to a freely moving pulley, we were cruising above the rainforest canopy for several hours, sometimes at impressive speeds!

After all this effort and adventure, we moved northwards to relax on the beach town of Tamarindo and rented an apartment for several days. Enjoying the beach and surfing during the day (I made huge improvements from the days I first surfed in New Zealand), good food, music and drinks at night...what can you ask for more? Once again, we discovered that the world is small... by talking to Kasia and Sylwia, two very nice polish girls with whom we spent New Year's Eve, one of them happened to be a very close friend of a school friend of mine from Belgium...crazy, what are the chances? Anyway, this was my second New Year's Eve party on a beach, the last one was back in 2001 in Singapore...!

We drove back to San Jose where Jacques needed to take his flight to New York while I spent one more week-end in the city before leaving luxury life behind me and jumping on a bus to Granada, Nicaragua.

Additional photos below

Photos: 20, Displayed: 20