Pura Vida in Costa Rica

By: Jade Waddy

Southwest’s launch of their international terminal and flights is a great perk of living in Houston. When the flights launched a few girlfriends and I that are avid Southwest Airlines users hopped on the deals. The prices are reasonable for a nice extended weekend getaway to Mexico or Central America. We landed the dart on Costa Rica. We selected San Jose, Costa Rica and more specifically Jaco Beach, a popular beach town about two hours from San Jose.

The late Wednesday flight meant we could still work that day and meet up at the airport for drinks in time to board. We arrived in San Jose at about 11 p.m. and hopped in our private shuttle to and through the mountains and hills of Costa Rica in the pitch black night. Many thanks to our driver with Costa Rica Holiday Rentals, for getting us there safely. Our hotel of choice was the one-year old resort, Croc’s Casino Resort. This beautiful resort is small and just enough for anyone wanting to get away. It’s tucked between rental condos in a neighborhood within Jaco and walking distance from the center of town.

While I typically have an itinerary filled travel schedule, I vowed to chill and really enjoy “Pura Vida” as the Costa Ricans say. Our first day, we spent our entire day hopping between the beach and our pool. Although the resort was not all-inclusive, we received complimentary breakfast for each day and brought more than enough alcohol to spike our drinks.

Since its not a heavy travel season, there were very few children or guests at our hotel so we were able to hog umbrellas and lounge chairs as well as the pool slide. For breakfast, I opted for the “Costa Rican Breakfast” which included rice and beans, plantains, scrambled eggs and bacon. Our food was washed down with mimosas, which brought the stares from the elderly travel club that was on site. From 10 a.m. until about 5 p.m., we spent our time in and out of the pool and basking in the humidity free and perfect weather. Costa Ricans are not pushy and are known to be very laid back.

That night we ventured into town via local taxi and ate at a small place called, Taco Bar. The best part of TacoBar was honestly the swings. The food while very fresh, lacked in the flavor department. This is what happens when you take Texas girls to Costa Rica and receive food recommendations from Alabama travelers. We decided to walk back to the hotel since so many people were out and about walking. We passed many shops and restaurants and bars. There were just enough people out for us to feel safe on our mile and a half trek back.

The next day, Friday, we were out for our only adventure of the trip, zip-lining and water repelling/waterfall climbing. Whose bright idea was this? Just kidding. We booked our trip through Viator.com, a resource I’ve relied on for most of my international travels to get good rates on excursions and activities. When we initially booked, I thought we would be with some rogue company in an unoccupied jungle of Costa Rica but my adventurous side just prayed about it. Much to our amazement we actually arrived at Rainforest Adventures Park Costa Rica. This is a chain with locations throughout the Caribbean and Central America. Here we strapped up, sprayed ourselves down with DEET and hiked up to where we would meet our demise, jk, but that waterfall climb kicked our asses. I went first and served as the guinea pig and path creator of my friends. I’ll admit it took me the longest to make my way a) I still stand on there were missing pegs to assist and b) I was not a climber and attempted to rely mostly on my upper body (lack of) strength. FAIL. After we all made it up, and I narrowly missed a large rock crashing into my face/head, we zip-lined through the jungle. This was probably my favorite part and I’m definitely looking forward to another zip-line excursion with more lines. We thought we would want to do more lines but after the water fall climb we were just ready to be back at the beach. After all three of us screamed through the line, we had to hike back down to reality.

Jade

The rest of the day, was spent eating and drinking and mingling with other guests. That night we went back into town and ate at Grafiti Bar. Everyone that recommended this place said we should try the cocoa marinated beef tenderloin. We all enjoyed our food AND the drinks. It was a very modern location and we met people from all over in our brief dining experience. This time on our walk back we stopped in some of the local stores and purchased some goodies to take home. That night we went to the disco in the hotel and enjoyed live music, a Beyonce request (because anywhere you go you have to represent), and lots of the local beer. The next morning we packed it up and left the laid back coastal city of Jaco and took our shuttle back to San Jose. Apparently it was a treacherous journey through mountains, small narrow bridges and even passing a forest fire. Keep in mind all of this was pitch dark when we first arrived, THANK GOD. Due to my occasional car induced motion sickness, combined with too much of that local beer, I closed my eyes so for 85% of the journey and prayed that I wouldn’t lose my breakfast.

San Jose was definitely different than Jaco. While Pura Vida is still the theme, its a a big city. We walked around near our hotel, ventured to the city park where there was a skating competition and hundreds of families and pets out. It was a beautiful site to see that many people out enjoying the outdoors and the weather was perfect. Dinner we kept it simple and ate at a pizza and wine place across from our hotel.

All in all it was a great getaway much due to the laid back nature of the Costa Ricans! Pura Vida really is the way of life and I couldn’t have picked a better place to really relax and not have a full itinerary, on one of my international getaways. I’ll definitely be taking advantage of another extended weekend down in CR!