So here I am, writing on the balcony of our hotel room, surrounded by palm trees, birds singing and cocoa trees! Who can complain??
Let me backtrack a bit…getting here was an adventure on its own! My mum flew out a couple hours before me…so here I was sitting in our apartment waiting till it was time for me to head to the airport too. However, suddenly my phone lights up with a notification. My plane was delayed…by 30 minutes!!! Now I know that doesn’t sound like much, but when your layover is only 50 minutes, suddenly the layover is only 20 minutes, which is fine if you are transferring in a small airport. I, however wasn’t! My layover was in Houston international airport. So I quickly call the airline and ask whether I will make my transfer. Of course they say no! So here I sit all on my own stressing!! Anyways…I somehow made it!!!
My first impression of Costa Rica was the airport at 1am! What a crazy airport! So many people calling out names and signs everywhere! I managed to find my taxi pretty quickly and before I knew it I was in the hotel and reunited with my mum! So stress over!!!
So the next day we decided to drive to a nearby volcano…however, mum hadn’t checked to see if we could get there…luckily I did! Poas volcano was the initial volcano we wanted to visit. And we could have if it hadn’t been so active the last couple weeks!!! So for anyone traveling to Costa Rica, Poas volcano is closed indefinitely!!!! So change of plan and we ended up driving to Irazu volcano.
We step foot in the car and maps.me starts navigating us to Irazu. What we didn’t know is that it decided to take us through the scenic route…lots of small tiny villages, very steep hills (in an automatic, not so easy!!!) with no barriers between the road and the sheer cliff edge!! and who could forget the VERY big potholes!!!! But our scenic drive was cut short after a gorgeous viewpoint. My mum had forgotten at what height we were and opened a sports bottle full of watermelon juice. Safe to say there was a watermelon juice volcano! And due to her surprise she forgot to close it! So there we were, drenched in watermelon juice 11 miles away from the volcano. So close yet so far. Hotel here we come!
The following day we went to La Paz Waterfall Gardens (which I can HIGHLY recommend!!!). A Beautiful drive to get there (again steep hills!) and watching cyclists go up there!!!! Rather them than me!!! But the views you get are just amazing, right in the cloud forest!!! When we got there, we were straight away greeted by a hummingbird and then toucans…Now some of you may know that I am in LOVE with toucans and have been since a little child. Well my dream came true! I got to hold a toucan!!!!!!!!!!! It was the most amazing feeling! Ticked another major thing off my bucket list!!! The rest of the day was spent looking at all the rescued animals they have there (including sloths, macaws, leopards and various frogs and snakes) and hiking to the waterfalls!!
Then it was time for mum to go to work and for me to work on my masters. I can’t complain, sitting on the balcony in the sun with all the birds flying around (including parakeets, great kiskadees and bananaquits) is paradise!! This is pretty much how I spent my whole week (whilst indulging in some Wimbledon in the mornings and Netflix in the afternoons!). There are worse ways to spend it!!
Now on to the title of this blog. I really can’t recommend Costa Rica enough, and thats mainly due to their slogan ‘Pure Vida’. The lifestyle here is so relaxed and all about enjoying life to the full! When you visit here you really can’t help but relax…the nature, the people, everything here is just friendly! (they don’t even have an army!!). And the food… INCREDIBLE!!! Did you know there is such a thing as manga here, and their Gallo pinto is so good! Along with all the plantain, mangos and papayas!
So this is it for week 1!! What an incredible week and I am already looking forward to coming back here in a months time!!!