Day 1 – Thursday (14/03/2013)
We left from Puerto Viejo with the company Outdoor Explorers, which organizes several adventure tours around Costa Rica, to do the highly recommended rafting in Pacuare River. The cool thing about rafting with this company is that you can leave from Puerto Viejo and be dropped off back at San Jose, or vice versa, and you won't pay more for it.
If you would like to know more about our stay in Puerto Viejo, click this post.
I thought this was great because we saved on transportation and public transportation in the country is quite expensive, by our standards.
Rafting on the Pacuare River
After a few hours of traveling in the minibus, with a very lively guide explaining stories about the places we passed through, we arrived at the company's base, close to the Pacuare River. In this place there is lockers huge, where we could safely store our backpacks. We were treated to a very hearty breakfast, and waited for the other group from San Jose to join us.
We headed towards the river in great excitement. In a short time, we were already in the boats, ready to begin our adventure on the Pacuare River. The route taken by this company has class II, III and IV falls, with class V being the most “tense” on the route. ranking of falls. The whole tour was amazing. The view is beautiful, the guide was funny and the boat companions were very lively.
Oh, interesting information: Jurassic Park was filmed on this river. Cool, right?
We spent about 4 hours on the boat, but it felt like much less because we loved everything about it. I highly recommend it!
We left the river and went back to the company base, where we had a wonderful lunch. We bought some souvenirs, grabbed our backpacks and went to the minibus that was going to San José. What a great trip… the road has a lot of curves, but the driver went very slowly and we were able to enjoy the scenery and then, get some sleep. lol
Our hostel in San José
We arrived in San José after a few hours and were dropped off at our hostel, as promised. It turned out that our hostel, the Urban Hostel It is not in San Jose, but in a city next to it, close to the most important university in the country. It is a young area, full of bars and restaurants, really cool. Since we arrived at the room dead tired, we only had time to take a shower and go to bed.
Day 2 – Friday (03/15/2013)
We woke up without rushing, ate the breakfast provided (pancakes with butter) and went out to explore the city. We left our clothes at the laundry and then took a bus to the city of San José. According to the map we got from the hostel, there is a route that they indicate for tourists that passes through the main points of the city, and off we went.
Getting to know San Jose
We got off the bus at the starting point of the walk and followed the map passing several tourist attractions, including the National Library, the National Park, the Santa Teresita Church, the Post Office Building, Parque Espanha, the Municipal Theater, the Metropolitan Cathedral, etc.
After a while, I realized that San Jose is a quiet city. Yes, quiet. Because of the earthquakes, the city has almost no buildings, just houses and low-rise buildings. Because of this, the noise of cars and buses is not muffled in the streets, you know? The noise can disperse above the houses, so the city feels much quieter than normal.
Lunch in San Jose
We ate at McDonald's (I miss it!) and continued walking around until it was almost dark. We took the bus back to the hostel, stopped at the laundromat to pick up our clothes and went back to the hostel. We got ready and went to a bar nearby, which was really cool by the way, Jazz Cafe Club. We hung out there for a while and then met a friend of a friend, who I ended up meeting via Facebook.
We went with her to a really cool place on the other side of the city, La Oveja Negra. We ate some delicious snacks and tried some national beers that were also great. It was a really nice evening!
Costa Rican curiosities
She told us that all schools in Costa Rica teach Spanish and English and that the federal university is excellent and not that hard to get into. She said that Costa Rica does not have an army (!!!!) and that it is the second home of Americans (hence the huge number of American stores in San José). The health system works perfectly and the quality of life there is great. Furthermore, they do not have a zoo, only sanctuaries like the one we visited in Puerto Viejo. Just great information, right? It makes us fall in love with the country!
Day 3 – Saturday (03/16/2013)
We woke up, had breakfast and went to reception to ask about transportation to Poás or Irazu Volcano. We were unfortunately surprised to hear that the buses that run this route leave San Jose very early, so we had missed out on those options. It seems like it takes a while to get to them and they close early, so we should have planned to wake up earlier.
Renting a car in Costa Rica
After all the frustration, we came up with the idea of renting a car and making our own way. In fact, we would make all the trips ourselves, that is, we would travel around Costa Rica by car, a plan we didn't want to do while we were still in Brazil. We were too lazy to rent one while we were still in Rio, because we had read that public transportation was great. However, when we arrived in San José and asked the hostel staff, we were told that transportation is very expensive. It would be cheaper to rent a car.
So we did. We got ready quickly and took a taxi to the car rental office, which was closing soon. We managed to get the car and went straight to the Irazu Volcano, without GPS, only with a paper map. How tense, you know... We knew that the volcano park would close early and that we still had a long road ahead of us, but something told me that it would work out. And it did! =D
Irazu Volcano Park
After a few hours on a very winding road, with flower-filled houses and polite drivers, we arrived at Irazu Volcano Park, which is quite interesting.
The only problem was that both Celo and I started to feel a little sick. Maybe it was because of the stress, the altitude or the food from the day before… I don’t know. I know that when we were up there, we couldn’t wait to go back to bed. We hit the road again and when we got close to the hostel, we found a private parking lot and left the car. Only later did we find out that we could park at the hostel itself.
We lay down on the bed and passed out. I think it was around 4pm. I woke up in the night to eat something, but Celo didn't. He only woke up the next day, feeling much better, thank God.
Day 4 – Sunday (03/17/2013)
We woke up, we did it checkout from the hostel and we went to pick up the car from the parking lot where we left it. By the way, I recommend our hostel. The staff is very friendly, the environment is clean and the price is very fair.
By car, we drove around the city calmly and then stopped at the restaurant Applebee's to eat. How delicious to remember the USA! lol
Going to La Fortuna
Then we stopped at Walmart and bought some snacks for our stay in Fortune, our next destination. Great trip, calm, without GPS and with the right to some lost moments…lol…but we arrived safely!
If you want to know more about our stay in La Fortuna, read this post here.
Day 5 – Friday (03/22/2013)
Poas Volcano
On March 22nd, on the way from La Fortuna to Manuel Antonio, we stopped at Poas Volcano, which is on the outskirts of San Jose for a quick visit. What a beautiful place, guys!
DETAIL – the park closes early!!! Set aside at least 2 hours for the visit and keep in mind that the road is quite winding, so take it easy.
To learn more about our 30-day trip through Central America (Jamaica, Costa Rica and Panama), click on the links below:
2 responses
In loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... =)
Thank you for sharing your experiences.
Everything is great there!!! It's so perfect 🙂
Do you have a date to go?
Kisses