To begin my first foray into Central America, my buddy Jeff and I decided to backpack through the politically stable, laid-back tropical paradise of Costa Rica. We booked our flights before we had any semblance of an itinerary or travel plan, so the weeks leading up to our departure date of March 4th were filled with dissecting Lonely Planet's newest guide on Costa Rica. After hitching a 4:00 am ride to Ronald Reagan International Airport in D.C. with some classmates that morning, our trip was officially underway.
Jaco, Costa RicaOne missed layover flight and one night in Miami later, we finally caught our plane into San Jose, Costa Rica's capital city, and caught a public bus for dirt cheap out to the "Las Vegas of Costa Rica", Jaco. After settling into our awesome hostel, Hotel de Haan, and taking a swim in its pool, we proceeded to make our first purchases in Costa Rica: a six-pack of Imperial beer and Cuban cigars.
After a night of chilling with University of Maryland grad students at our hostel, going to a Jaco nightclub where we inadvertently crashed a bachelor party, and taking a late night swim in the pool, we were ready to start our first full day in Costa Rica. A local Jeff and I met on the beach the evening before, Louie, offered to give us surfing lessons for cheap, and so we got up painfully early at 8:00 am to meet him out on the beach. It became apparent during our hour lesson that Louie was a dangerous combination of friendly and psycho, but after successfully standing on the board and catching a few waves, i was very appreciative of his expertise. Jeff and I knew next to no spanish, so Louie hooked us up with transportation to our next destination, Montezuma, and we departed Jaco around midday.
Most people opt to take a boat ferry from Jaco to Montezuma, but waters were too rough that day and so we were forced to take a 2.5 hour overland trip to the port city of Puntarenas, a 1 hour ferry across the bay, and another 2.5 hour overland trip down the Nicoya Peninsula to Montezuma. Time consuming, to be sure, but we got a lot of good sightseeing in we otherwise would've missed.
Montezuma, Costa Rica
Upon rolling into Montezuma, a chilled-out little town of about 3 or 4 bar, restaurant, and artisan-lined streets, Jeff and I decided to set up camp in a beach-side hostel called Pension Arenas run by an old grandmother and her grandson. We explored the town, which took about 15 minutes, before settling down at the main bar, Chico's, for one of the best Pina Coladas I've ever had. After lounging around on the beach and its hammocks for the remainder of the afternoon, we headed back to Chico's to see what Montezuma "nightlife" might be like. No sooner than we sat down and ordered our Imperials when two German girls sidled up to the table next to us and threw glances our way. We made our move and brought two more Imperials over. However, the girl on my side of the table spoke next to no English, which even liquid courage cannot overcome. We headed back to our hostel, fully satisfied with our first full day in Costa Rica, and excited for our remaining two days in Montezuma.
Day 2 in Montezuma started early, as the morning heat awoke us around 7:00 a.m.. On today's agenda was to explore and climb a series of waterfalls up the road about half a mile, and rumor had it the place was full of monkeys. After a huge breakfast we headed out and made our way over another half mile of a rocky stream-bed to where the first waterfall pooled up. Stumped as to where the trails to the other falls started, I started climbing aimlessly up a slanted rock face when another German tourist followed me, assuming I knew where I was going. Somehow we stumbled upon marked trees near our climbing spot that took us on a steep, twisting trail up and around the side of the waterfall. After half an hour of tough climbing, we were more than ready for the refreshing swim that awaited us at the top.
After our morning waterfall climb, it was back to the beach for the standard hammock to ocean to hammock routine. Tourists here were very friendly and we ended up meeting a Canadian named Kyle who had been working on a Costa Rican farm for the past four months and was on vacation. We quickly befriended him and hilarity ensued when he challenged us to what we later called the Montezuma olympics, in which the loser to various beach challenges owed the victor an Imperial. The three of us then introduced ourselves to a large group of women further down the beach who we asked to meet us at Chicos later that night. It only took half an hour of blatantly hitting on them to finally realize that they were a group of women on a spiritual religious journey, so it was safe to say they were neither interested in us nor Chicos.
On our final night in Montezuma we organized a huge bonfire of dried palm leaves out on the beach. A few locals joined us, playing Biggie on their portable ipod speakers. Kyle, the German girls, and the group of girls seeking religious rejuvenation all showed up as well as a Canadian family whose kids we put to work fanning the flames of our bonfire. The night went on as we began singing bad American eighties music, and the group grew until the fire died out well past midnight. The next morning we did the breakfast and beach routine again before leaving on the same overland route again, but I can say that Montezuma is easily my favorite place I've visited thus far in my travels.
Leaving Montezuma knowing we had only one more destination on our amazing journey through Costa Rica was somewhat sad, but we caught some great pictures on the ferry ride over to Puntarenas, where we would catch another shuttle up into the mountains to carry us to our cloud forest destination of Monteverde. Jeff slept the whole way there, while I bounced around nervously in the back of the car, watching our shuttle driver get precariously close to the edge of the unguarded dirt mountain road.
Monteverde, Costa Rica
After getting brutally sun-burned for three days straight in Montezuma, the cooler mountain climate of Monteverde was exactly what we needed. Jeff and I stayed in a great hostel right on the outskirts of town that had free internet and breakfast for 6 bucks a night. The owner hooked us up with the main attraction in town of ziplining through the Monteverde cloud forest for around $45 bucks. Sounds like a lot of money, but it was worth every penny. The ziplines started out small and got increasingly longer and faster as our three hour canopy tour continued. After zipping through more than a mile of ziplines through forests and across valleys, our guide brought us to the superman. It is what it sounds like: They attach you to the zipline so that you are hanging parallel as you zoom across a half mile long valley hundreds of feet up in the air. The superman was, and will probably remain, one of the biggest adrenaline rushes I experienced in my life.
Jeff and I apparently did not get enough of a nature fix ziplining the entire morning, so to make the most of our one full day in Monteverde we decided to hike through the nature reserve on the other side of town. It wasn't exactly roughing it, as there were neatly lined trails and signs, but it's hard to not enjoy hiking through a cloud forest no matter how built up it is. Some highlights were a lookout sight at which one could see the clouds drifting through the steep mountainous terrain and a cable bridge through the canopy.
That night we explored the town with some Ohio State students in medical school. Monteverde does cater a lot to the tourists, but that night out at the restaurants and bars it was fun to meet both locals and other English speaking students. Unfortunately, everyone in Costa Rica salsa dances unless you're at a touristy club, so Jeff and I were stuck trying to convince a group of Yale undergrads that we could teach them how to salsa. They quickly found out our deficiencies, but it was fun to at least try to fit in with the local culture. The next morning it was up and out early again to catch our bus to the airport, and it was safe to say neither of us wanted to go back to the States.
Final Thoughts on Backpacking through Costa Rica:
- Best time to travel in Costa Rica is December-April: Higher prices but better weather.
- Pack light: Bring only the bare essentials but make sure you have an under-the-clothes pack for money, passports, etc. Bringing a midsize pack enables you to not have to check bags.
- Switch/Take out money in units of colones rather than dollars, most stores/restaurants have prices listed in colones, and you may get ripped off if you pay in American dollars.
- Taxis and public transportation is safe, just keep all your bags near you as some theft occurs at certain bus stops.
- Definitely brush up on some Spanish: Most of the locals on the tourist path know English, but hostel and transportation arrangements will go much more smoothly if one knows Spanish.
- Eat at local sodas: There will be many more expensive and tourist oriented places to eat, but the sodas serve up awesome food anywhere from 3-5 dollars a healthy plate.
