I traveled to Costa Rica with my boyfriend over the Christmas break in December 2013.  We picked Costa Rica because we heard so many wonderful things about it from others who traveled there.  We were also anxious to spend the holidays in a warm climate.  We didn’t spend a lot of time researching the trip once we settled on taking a Caravan tour.  We traveled from San Jose to Tortuguero National Park, Arenal Volcan, Guanacaste Coast, and back to San Jose.  We had many stops in between.  We were especially impressed with the wonderful people we met along the way.  We also loved the variety of flora and fauna.

We took a side trip for a few hours to explore San Jose.  We went straight to the Plaza de la Cultura to see where people gathered and played.  We laughed when we saw this guy dancing with the street performers.  Somehow the world is a little bit smaller when you realize “this guy” is in every city we have visited :).  The kids were everywhere playing soccer and feeding pigeons.  Otherwise, it was just another day to hang out.

From San Jose, we traveled north to see Volcan Poas and a Coffee Plantation.  Apparently there is only a 35% chance of viewing the volcano due to the heavy cloud cover in the Cloud Forest.  We were very lucky. We were a little disappointed in the Coffee tour because we didn’t actually get to see how they harvest and process the coffee beans.  The tour of Cafe Britt was enjoyable nonetheless and the coffee was excellent!

We left San Jose and headed for the Caribbean Coast.   Along the way, we saw banana plantations and visited a butterfly garden.  We really wanted to see some of the colorful, poisonous frogs that are so famously depicted in Costa Rica.  The only one we saw (actually, only my boyfriend saw it) was at the butterfly garden.

The bus could only take us as far as Cariari and then we had to take an hour and half boat ride through the canals to our jungle lodge in Tortuguero National Park.  We saw several animals during our canal cruise.

We visited Tortuguero Village across the canal from our lodge.  This is a famous turtle nesting conservation site, but we were not there at the right time of year to see any turtles.  Instead, we walked the beach and watched people.

We left Tortuguero and headed towards Fortuna where we stayed at the foot of Volcan Arenal.  Along the way, we encountered a 3-toed sloth (very cool animal), and a pineapple plantation.  We took another wild life excursion on the Rio Frio in the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge near the Nicaraguan border and then hiked along the Hanging Bridges trail on the day we left Fortuna for the Guanacaste Coast.

From Fortuna, we headed to the Guanacaste Coast along the Pacific Ocean.  We stayed at a fabulous JW Marriott resort right on the beach.  We just kicked back for a full day which we were ready for.  The bus tour was great, but we needed a change of pace and this is just what we needed.

We took one more river cruise on the Rio Tarcoles before heading back to San Jose and home.  What a great trip!!  We saw a lot of this beautiful country in these 8 days, but there is so much more to discover.  Maybe we’ll be back!