Pura Vida!!
We had to make last minute plans for a spring break trip with our 16-year-old son as our original plan fell through and our 19-year-old’s college spring break had already passed. I booked plane tickets on a Monday for a flight on Saturday, during high season in Costa Rica.

I didn’t have much time to figure out where we were staying, book reservations, get a car and make it happen!!

I had some challenges finding a rental car and found something with Adobe. It was a little manual transmission thing which had the power of a mosquito. The folks at Adobe were very nice - We were picked up at the airport in a van and take to their off airport facility to pick up the car, we also rented a Wi-Fi hotspot through them - best idea and cheap!!!

We decided to visit Manual Antonio for 3 nights (even though DH and I had been - albeit in the 90s) and found a room at Gaia, more on Gaia soon.

The drive from the airport to MA was pretty easy. Traffic was slow in spots. We stopped at the crocodile bridge - always entertaining! Then on to Jaco to the taco stand, they had expanded the menu since DHs last visit about 10 years ago. And it took us a while to pick our tacos!

Gaia was fabulous! Guests are all teen and up, can’t remember exact age, but no small kiddos. We had a suite with a king size in the bedroom, a beautiful bathroom, the living room area with a pull out couch and a pretty balcony overlooking the property. You are assigned a personal concierge when you check in to help make your stay perfect. Our concierge, Andres, was so nice and helpful and used WhatsApp to communicate with us. He managed to squeeze us in to Manuel Antonio Park tour the next morning at 6 am, find us a place to go ATVing (the highlight on my son’s MA stay) and make us dinner and spa reservations. The restaurant at Gaia had an amazing view and was delicious - the made to order breakfast was included in the rate and dinner was a regular menu.

Then we drove What seemed like an eternity up north to El Silencio.
The area was called the Bajos del toro. It was in a cloud forest which was gorgeous.
We followed the GPS on my phone so probably Google or Apple Maps up to the property - it was quite the experience. The signage was poor we weren’t sure if we were ever going the right direction, the afternoon cloud cover with rain had set in, and the little Mosquito car wasn’t sure it could make it up the hills.

When we arrived for check in and let them know about our drive up they said oh yeah you shouldn’t follow GPS that road is very difficult. 😮

Every room is a separate casita with a private hot tub. We only had two nights here. Wished it was more. It was soo lovely! I’d call it rustic lux! We had hot chocolate and cookie delivery to our room in the late afternoon and enjoyed while sitting in our hot tub. Turn down service included hot water bottles in the bed to warm your sheets. Yes, it gets chilly up there! The stars at night - just spectacular! We had our sneakers cleaned after our climbing adventure and delivered to our doorstep in the morning. There was also fresh juice delivered to our porch every morning.
Our only full day - in the morning we stayed on property to do the waterfall repelling and zip line. I was completely petrified to push back over that section of the waterfall. My 16-year-old - no fear - how did they do that?
That afternoon we took our car and drove about 20 minutes over to one of the waterfall parks in the area. It’s owned privately and we paid an entrance fee and we hiked down to the base of the waterfall which is in an extinct volcano crater. It was spectacular we were one of the only people there - there were beautiful hummingbirds and lots of quiet. On the way to the waterfall we stopped for lunch in the teeny town and had comida tipica. And on the way back we stopped at the market and stocked up on linzano sauce!

Breakfast is also included at El Silencio - it was a buffet and we had dinner there both nights which had locally sourced products on the menu. The trout is from their own pond. Very delicious!

The first night at dinner we wanted to order some glasses of wine and our waiter suggested we order the bottle and they will keep it for us for the second night. What a great idea - we were definitely going to be eating both dinners there as we didn’t want to be driving at night it was really dark.

There’s a whole other adventure story about our final day hike, breakfast, and drive to the airport but I’ll add that later. Thanks to all who helped with suggestions!!