Sajal and I spent the month of August in Costa Rica. We had heard how amazing the place was from our many friends so we had to go check it out. We lived in the largest beach town of Costa Rica called Jaco (pronounced Haco cause it's Spanish). Jaco is 2 hours away from the capital of Costa Rica, San Jose. We lived on this beachfront property on Jaco Beach. The waves were always so loud so I would sit out on the balcony and enjoy the cacophony of the waves. (Jaco Beach is very dangerous and is known for many deaths that occur there every year).
Since we lived in Jaco we got to know the surrounding town very well. The town is super cute and fun to walk around. We always parked at Jaco Walk and just walked about. There's a ton of yummy restaurants and cute shops. One of our favorite restaurants was El Chicano Mexican Food. The cheese in Costa Rica is literally out of this world so the cheesy Mexican was absolutely delicious. Aloha Beach Front Bar was a restaurant that was 5 minutes from our house, and we got takeout way too many times. Highly recommend the Chalupa here! Chalupas in Costa Rica are not like the ones from Taco Bell which we found out; It's basically a huge circle nacho with all of the nacho toppings on top. Sajal was obsessed with these, so much so that he wants to make them at home. He says it's everything a nacho should be: all of the crunch with all of the ingredients in one bite.
In Jaco we also drove ATVs. This was my first time driving ATVs and I had a really fun time. We drove it threw the forests of Jaco and up this really tall mountain. The view at the top was really breathtaking. Costa Rica has a ton of mountain ranges, and this was just another view of that. We always marveled at the mountains as we drove between Jaco and San Jose.
Afterwards, we saw the Jaco waterfall. Sajal also took a dip in the water, but it was too cold for me so I didn't go in.
An hour and a half drive from Jaco is Manuel Antonio and the town of Quepos. Manuel Antonio is a famous national park in Costa Rica. You can hike, see sloths as well as many other animals, and go to the beach. We went to the beach there and it was really pretty. We also went white water rafting in the Savegre River. Sajal and I have gone white water rafting before in the Grand Canyon. But what we did this time, a level 2-3, was much harder than what we did there. Our raft hit the rapid the wrong way and everyone except one person (including our guide) was thrown out of the boat. Thankfully we all got back in the boat. Surprisingly, falling in the river was also fun. We also saw a beautiful waterfall. The force of the waterfall was so strong, it was so captivating.
In Quepos, we went to this restaurant with an old airplane. It's one of the most popular restaurants in this town due to the unique attraction. It also has a killer bakery and a beautiful view of the valley.
Speaking of the view, Sajal and I also paraglided off a mountain in Manuel Antonio. Something I learned on this trip was the difference between paragliding, parasailing, and hang gliding. Parasailing is when you sit on a parachute on a boat and then go flying back over the ocean. Paragliding is when you jump off a mountain with a really big parachute. You ride the airwaves until you land on the ground. Hang gliding is when you jump off of a mountain with a triangle-shaped aerofoil. Hang gliding is a lot more dangerous than paragliding. Paragliding in general is very safe. The scariest part is jumping off a mountain, but after that, the force from the wind is so strong you know that there's no way that you're just going to drop to the ground. I loved paragliding so much! It was a really exhilarating experience and we had a beautiful view of the beach as we paraglided down.
In between Jaco and Manuel Antonio is a really fun Monkey Mangrove Boat Ride. There are multiple companies that offer this. You go on a boat and just enjoy the beautiful Mangrove. We saw so lmany animals in the Mongrove: sloths, snakes, lizards, crocodiles, fish, and of course monkeys! The boat operators call out to the monkeys and feed them with a little bit of banana. The monkies hop on top of your shoulder and/or head. We got to feed them as well. It was so much fun seeing these monkeys out in the wild enjoying some bananas. This was one of our favorite things that we did on the trip.
While in Costa Rica we also visited 2 volcanoes. We went to Irazu and Poas, which are close to San Jose. We first visited Irazu. At the top of Irazu you can supposedly see both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Of course, we went to Costa Rica during the rainy season so it was pretty cloudy the day we went up there. Still, the crater of Irazu was really cool and the drive itself was breathtaking as you saw the city. Warning - because it is so high, it's pretty cold up there. Without our family friend warning us, we would have frozen up there. Sajal also saw a baby goat and had to hold it, as you can see in the pics below.
We also went to Poas. Poas was actually a little active when we went there. There wasn't any lava or anything, but the volcano was definitely up and running. We were hanging out by the crater looking at the beautiful crystal blue lake, suddenly everyone started coughing around us. My throat was getting scratchy and irritated; we could feel the sulfur and toxic chemicals in the air. We looked at the conditions posted at the safety station and surely enough the conditions had shifted from safe (green) to slightly more dangerous (yellow). It was so amazing to see how quickly everyone reacted to something that was invisible to us. We also hiked up to a previous crater, now lake, of the Poas Volcano.
On the way down from the volcano we stopped at the Starbucks Coffee Farm. The coffee grown on this farm is used by Starbucks to create their coffee. There's also a Starbucks coffee shop on premise of course and it was the coolest thing ever. The food there was absolutely to die for delicious. We had the bread, grilled cheese, chicken sandwich, and coffee! You can order to make your coffee the "original way" by siphoning the coffee. What that means is that you use heat to move the water from the lower chamber to the upper chamber which is where you add the coffee. Some coffee experts say that this is the only way to drink coffee, but Sajal isn't one of them as he said he couldn't tell the difference hahaha. Of course, the best thing here is the waterfall. There's a gushing waterfall right next to the coffee shop so you can sip your coffee, read a book, and hear the water rush by. We loved this place so much we came here TWICE!
And that's it! We had a wonderful time in Costa Rica. Our next stop is Medellin, Columbia.
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