kaudrey

Hi,

My BF and I just returned from 8 days in CR (3/25 to 4/1) and had a great time. This trip report may be helpful to some who aren't into planning every little detail in advance, since we went with a fly/drive package and made the trip up as we went along. We used www.gate1travel.com to book the trip, and everything went perfectly. I'd use them again. We don't mind driving around, and saw it as part of the adventure.

Thanks to everyone on this board for all the info! We knew we wanted to go to Arenal and the beach, but other than that, we took it day by day.

Here's what we did:

Day 1: Flight on Taca Airlines from IAD to Guatemala to San Jose was fine. Our package did include the first night's hotel in San Jose at Hotel Balmoral. The hotel was fine, good breakfast. Finding it was interesting. Driving in cities is somewhat frustrating (here and Alajuela), due to lack of street signs and addresses, but once we knew we were close, we just asked someone and got there without too much trouble. I would stay in Alejuela or head away from San Jose right away if you have car - we would have if the first night wasn't part of the package. But, we walked around the pedestrian area and did a little gambling and found a sports bar to have a drink and watch the end of an NCAA b-ball game.

Dinner at El Esquina de Buenos Aires, recommended to us by expats we met in line at immigration, was fantastic, but not cheap. Recommended.

Day 2: Drive to Arenal via Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfalls. We drive to Poas, which, unbeknownst to us, had erupted the day before, after being silent for 12 years. So, it was closed. Oh, well, off to La Paz. This is beautiful! Not cheap - $25 a person, but in addition to the usual paths to the waterfalls, the park has other trails that it seems no one uses, except us. We hiked for quite a while without seeing any other people, which was nice. Good stop!

The drive to Arenal was fine. Roads pretty good with some potholes, but not too bad. We arrived in Arenal about 4pm or so. Walked into a tourist information center, asked about places to stay, and he offered a suggestion that I had in my notes: La Pradera. I HIGHLY recommend this place. It's about 1 mile outside of town. We had a big room with a nice porch and beautiful gardens, and it has a pool, and nice views of the volcano. Cost: $50 a night including tax and breakfast for 2 people. We stayed there 2 nights. Note: Places all over La Fortuna had "vacancy" signs. We could have stayed anywhere. Maybe not Observatory Lodge, but even Arenal Paradiso had vacancies.

In Arenal: We hiked down to the waterfalls and went swimming (cold water!); drove all the way around the volcano (some bad roads on the far side); went to the hanging bridges, did zip lines, went to Baldi Hot Springs. I don't know why people here don't talk about this place. We loved it so much we went back both nights! It's beautiful, a bunch of different pools, swim up bar, restaurant etc. Not too crowded. We did not go to Tabacon, so I can't compare, but Baldi is cheaper and you can get discounts by buying tickets from your hotel or from tourist info centers in town ($19 per person).

Zip Lines: Did this through Arenal Paradiso, and it was great fun. $45 per person. We booked it when we got there for 7:30 the next morning. No problems.

It was cloudy for 2 days in Arenal, so we didn't get to see the night-time lava. Disappointing, but I knew there was a chance that would happen. Oh well...

kaudrey

In Arenal we ate at La Chorza de Laurel (very good, but don't get the wine!), and Retaurant Nene's, which was FABULOUS! Not cheap, in fact, probably the most expensive place in town, but it was worth it. Great bottle of wine, amazing food, great service, nice quiet street. We ate lunch at "sodas" in town.

Day 4: With another cloudy day, we decided to head to Monteverde. Drive to St. Elena took about 3 hours (my BF drives fast, he LOVES country roads). This is where the roads got bad. For 30 or 40km into Monteverde, they are not paved, and it's not just dirt, it's mountainous, winding, rocky dirt. My BF joked that he no longer needs his wisdom teeth pulled because they fell out along the way! But, it was all part of the adventure.

Got to St. Elena about 1pm. Ate lunch at Stella's (very good), and found the Chamber of Tourism. Booked a night hike for that evening (guide was very good, saw a sloth, tarantula, lizards, birds etc); and a guided hike for Monteverde for the next morning (again, no problems with booking anything).

Asked for suggestions in mid-priced range for hotels, and stayed at La Cipreses, a cute little B&B just outside of town. Cost: $40 including breakfast, which they served us early because of our guided tour. Ate dinner at Johnny's. It's Italian, very good, and was a change of pace for us, after lots of meals with rice and beans.

Day 5: The Monteverde tour was very good. Got to see the elusive quetzel and lots of other interesting things. But it was raining and kind of cold, so we were ready for it to be over 3 hours later.

After the 2 tours, we decided that we were ready to move on. St. Elena is very small and not much to do there, so we left. We decided to head to the beach. We picked Samara based on some reviews here and in our Lonely Planet Guide.

We get there about 3 1/2 hours later, and....hate it. It's tiny, even smaller than St. Elena, the beach seemed nondescript, and we just didn't get a good vibe at all. BF commented that he was glad we didn't make reservations here in advance!

We spent about 20 minutes, walked around, and decided we didn't want to waste anytime there. So, we got back in the car and drove 2 hours to Tamarindo.

Much better! Even though it was a long day of driving, we were glad we decided to move on from Samara.

The first night we stayed at Hotel Tropicana - I would NOT recommend it. I don't know why, but it was pretty much deserted even though it's right in the center of town. They have let it run down and the rooms are bare and the place just left us with a bad feel.

We ate at Smiling Dog Taco Stand for lunch (very good, it's outside of town), walked around exploring, had a happy hour drink at Witch's Rock Schrimp Club (or something like that, you can't miss it).

We gambled a little in the tiny casino, had fabulous pizza at Portofino (1 pie feeds 2 people, you have been warned!), and went to a place in the middle of town that hade a live salsa band. It was a lot of fun.

kaudrey

Day 6: Tamarindo: We went swimming in the ocean, and got sunburned despite our 30 SPF waterproof sunblock. We decided to splurge and stay at El Jardin de Eden, which is up on the hill with amazing views of the ocean. This place was FABULOUS. If you want to splurge (it was $140 for the night), I'd say stay here. It's across the street and up the hill from the beach, so not as convenient as Diria, but it was amazing. Great pool, great restaurant, the renovated room was beautiful and we watched the sunset from our deck with a bottle of wine. We spent time lounging by the pool (under their umbrellas!) and relaxing, which was great.

They are doing construction, but that didn't bother us at all.

We ate dinner there, and it was excellent. Outdoor setting, good food, good wine. Pretty expensive, but it was our last night before heading back toward the airport the next day.

Day 7: We tried surfing in the morning. It was cheap to rent boards and we just kept practicing until we got up! First time for both of us. We did it for about 2 hours and then had to check out and head to Alajuela.

The drive was awful. Not because of the roads, but because of traffic. CA 1 is unbelievably awful with all the trucks. There was a stretch of about 30km where we both thought we'd never get to Alajuela. But, eventually, the road opened up to 2 lanes for a while, and we made it.

We couldn't find the hotels listed in Lonely Planet. We were trying to use the cathedral as a landmark from our little map, and the "cathedral" we were using turned out to be just a church. 20 minutes later we found the actual cathedral, and then we were OK. BF was stressed out at this point...

We stayed at La Guaria. It was cute and cost $60. We looked at another one first (name escapes me at the moment), but we didn't like it.

We ate dinner at La Mansardo (I think that's the name), and it was very good. We sat on the balcony, with a view of the cathedral. Went to bed early because we had an early flight.

Day 8: We leave. Returned car, no problem. Flight on Taca again was fine. Long layover in San Salvador, but BF and I took turned fast-walking up and down the long corridor to get some exercise (we did it for an hour each, people were looking at us funny).

kaudrey

We had a great trip. We drove more than some people might like, but we didn't mind it at all, and we saw a lot in a week.

Despite all the dire warnings you get on these boards, the usual tourist places are NOT completely packed with tourists. We had our choice of places to stay and booked tours a day or a few hours in advance with no problem. I guess if you want Tabacon or Lost Iguana or something, you'd have to book in advance, but if you are even a little bit flexible, you'll have no problems.

We liked the freedom of not having to be somewhere because of a prebooked reservation. I know this isn't for everyone, but it worked for us. It took us no time at all to find places we liked to stay, and all of the places would show us rooms if we asked.

Driving was a great way for us to go. Yes, some roads were bone-jarring, but it was kind of fun. We had no problems with anyone trying to break into the car, let air out of the tires, or anything else you get warned about.

Hotels charge less if you pay cash. Most places took dollars or colones. ATMs worked fine(except Banco National doesn't like Citibank debit cards). We avoided the long line for the exit tax by buying it when we first got there, before going to immigration (this took all of about 30 seconds). Most people spoke English but we practiced our Spanish whenever we could, and people seemed to like it. Despite my DEET, I got a bunch of mosquito bites, but BF didn't. Mosquitoes in general love me, and in CR, it was the same.

We got pulled over by police on the way to the beach. He told us to pay him $40 in cash to avoid a ticket, which would cost $120 and have to be paid before we could return the car. BF just chalked it up to experience (did I mention he drives fast?). The policeman didn't speak much English, and BF doesn't really speak Spanish, and my Spanish is really rusty, so I was trying my best to understand what the policeman was saying. Basically, at his suggestion, we bribed him not to write us a ticket.

It's a beautiful country!

Karen

sandyc

Good for you -- sounds like a great trip!

Sandy

capecodgal

Karen, (I'm also a karen)
I was interested to hear that you didn't care for Samara. This was one of the places we were going to visit. My sister and I are in our early 30's. Could you possibly tell me even more about it and more as to why you didn't like it? I would appreciate any info. Many thanks, Karen

kaudrey

Hi Karen,

Samara is very small. The town is a few blocks long and seems very "sleepy". It just didn't look like there was anything to do. We didn't want to just sit on the beach and fry, and didn't see any place interesting to explore or eat or anything. We pictured ourselves in our room at 9 at night with nowhere to go. The beach is small, average in "prettiness", and there was no one on it in the middle of the day, which seemed kind of weird.

Tamarindo is what we think of as a beach town. About 10 blocks long, it's still walkable from end to end, but it had lots of places to stay, eat, wander around etc. It also has a very small casino and several bars that have live bands and are opened late.

BF and I are in our 30s also, and although we like peace and quiet, Samara was just too quiet. It just didn't give us the "vibe" we wanted.

Hope that helps a little.

Karen

capecodgal

Thanks Karen,
I'm working with someone in CR who is helping me with my itinerary and he has us going to MA for four nights as our 'beach' destination. Lots of hair pulling going into figuring out this initerary. I guess I'll just have to make another trip sometime to see the things I didn't before. Thanks for the info. You had a really indepth trip report which I loved reading and probably will again soon.
Karen

maineisit

Hi,
Sounds like fun trip! We leave in 9 days. I am starting to pack and wondering if you found it cool in Arenal. I wasn't planning on taking any pants, but I have read that it might be cool. We are coming from Maine, so I am not sure what is cold to some people. We are also going to MA which sounds hot.(I hope) Thanks, Susan

kaudrey

Hi again,

capecodgirl - it was a toss up whether to go to Nicoya Peninsula or MA. We chose Nicoya, but I'm sure MA would have been great too! You'll have a wonderful time, it's truly a great place to visit.

maineisit - Arenal was not cold. We were in shorts at night with no problem. During the day it was in the 80s - we went swimming in the very chilly water at the waterfalls and it was refreshing. Even without the sun being out, it was fine. Monteverde was pretty chilly, - needed my pants and long sleeve shirt there at night. Tamarindo was HOT and HUMID. We were sweating from the moment we stepped out of the car. Luckily, the ocean was the perfect temperature for long swims.

Karen

kaudrey

My pictures can be found at:

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AYuGbdo5ctWH7

I haven't labeled them yet, but you can sort of follow along in order: on the drive from San Jose to Arenal, with a bunch taken at La Paz Waterfalls (butterflies, hummingbirds, falls), Arenal/La Fortuna (including La Pradera, zip lines, hanging bridges, lemurs, cows in the road), the drive from Arenal to Monteverde (look for the pic of the bad road), then Monteverde night hike and day hike, then Tamarindo, starting with the sunsets.

kaudrey

capecodgirl - pic 1308 is Samara Beach. The rest of the beach pics are Tamarindo.

Karen

58smom

Enjoyed viewing your pictures! We leave in a week. As far as traveling without reservations, I guess it depends on the time of year. We'll be there over Easter break and might not have the same luck "winging it" for accomodations. I imagine Christmas holiday would be the same kind of situation. Your photo's make me all the more anxious to get there.

Suzie2

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

It does make a difference what time of year you go as to whether you can just wing it. I used to be able to just about any time of year but not now.

Sounds like a great trip.