Costa Rica Week 6: A Week of Contrasts and Finally Finishing Over .500

This week was very much a week of contrasts, with three nights (and little sleep) sharing a small hotel room in the noisy, bustling tourist hub of La Fortuna sandwiched between two Airbnb stays in quiet, peaceful, natural surroundings. However, to use a sporting term, we finished well over .500 this week, which might be a first for us! That’s not to say there weren’t challenges (there definitely were, as you’ll soon see), but there were more wins than losses on the whole, a contrast to some of our more challenging weeks lately.

Most of our time in Costa Rica thus far has been spent focusing on school and assimilation while trying to live as cheaply as possible. In fact, we chose Costa Rica largely because we are operating on a pretty tight budget and we had read about the relatively cheap cost of living here.

Side note – In case you were wondering, our worldschool trip was not financed with trust fund money, but rather from a portion of the profits we received from selling our house (after paying off student loans and putting aside a sizable re-entry reserve). We were lucky enough to buy low and sell high, timing the market to perfection and putting in a hell of a lot of elbow grease on home improvements in between.

Unfortunately “living cheaply” in Costa Rica is not as easy as the internet would lead you to believe. It’s standard to see prices of $35-$50 or more per person for anything from curated tourist activities to even just short walks in the woods (on someone’s private nature trails, of course). Costa Rica seems designed to extract the maximum dollar from gringo tourists. The second part of this week, however, we went on a little break from school and got a chance to “play tourist” for a while.

Read on to learn about this week’s many and varied highlights, get everyone’s impressions of this week’s (many) highs and (few) lows, and see our (very valuable) lesson learned. As always, thanks for following along on our adventure!

Highlights of the Week

Guayabo National Monument

We inadvertently (but quite appropriately) spent Indigenous Peoples Day visiting Costa Rica’s largest indigenous archaeological site, Guayabo National Monument. Guayabo was inhabited between 1000 BC to 1400 AD, and during its remarkable 2,400-year-old history its inhabitants built a series of roads, aqueducts, buildings, and tombs which are still visible to varying degrees today. While history nerd Dad was the most excited about this visit, Mom and the kids seemed to enjoy it too.

The Road From (and Almost To) Hell

Unfortunately the road to get to Guayabo was, in a word, harrowing. I would have taken a picture to prove how insane (and dangerous!) the “road” was, but you’d have had to pry my fingers off the steering wheel first. On the best day, driving here can be intimidating, from the narrow, winding (often dirt/mud) roads with limited visibility to the motorbikes (and cars) passing constantly on the left and right. But this road was next-level insane – turns out it’s because the road had actually been closed since late August! We didn’t discover this important fact until some internet sleuthing upon our return (and we did NOT return home on the same road!).

In the Shadow of a Volcano

On our first day in La Fortuna, we decided to take a hike at Arenal Volcano National Park to see La Fortuna’s famous volcano up close and personal. Our hike was about 3 miles total, just long enough to experience plenty of Costa Rican nature (and heat and humidity!) but not so long as to totally demoralize the troops (though it was touch-and-go for a while). As always, we saw plenty of wildlife, including a coati, reptiles and birds of all kinds, and numerous beautiful ceiba trees – including a massive 400-year-old specimen. And by the time we arrived at the volcano viewpoint near the lava flow and had a snack, the clouds had lifted and we were rewarded with a beautiful view of Arenal in all its glory!

Seeking Thrills in La Fortuna

La Fortuna being a tourist hub, and us being on a “mini fall break” from school, we spent a little bit of time and money “playing tourist” for a few days. Sister and Dad went on a zipline tour, where we flew through the canopy along nine separate ziplines, experienced breathtaking views of Arenal volcano, and even made eye contact with a sloth just down the branch from one of our tree-top platforms!

Then the whole family spent that afternoon walking the famous hanging bridges at nearby Mistico Park, getting some epic views, not looking down too much, and adding some more new creatures to our field guide.

Going Out to Eat (meat!)

Mom got a nice break from having to prepare meals using unfamiliar kitchenware to cook unfamiliar ingredients in unfamiliar kitchens. And while we did go to one “American-style” brewpub, we (well, most of us) tried a healthy dose of local flavors too. And after spending the past several weeks being vegetarians due to the astronomical price of meat here, we also took advantage of the opportunity to eat lots of meat! Mom and Dad gorged on delicious beef tacos, Little Brother reported the chicken nuggets were the “best he’d ever had,” and we devoured plenty of hamburgers and chicken quesadillas too.

Mmm, Mmm, Chocolate

Our final morning in La Fortuna, we were treated to an amazing tour of Don Olivo farm, a family-run coffee and chocolate operation just ten minutes from La Fortuna. They plied us with endless rounds of known and previously unknown fresh fruit, freshly ground coffee, chocolate (of course) in all its various forms and stages, and even a bit of homemade rum (for Mom and Dad). It was a delicious way to round out our time “playing tourist” in La Fortuna! Now back to frugality!

Nature-Based Recharges

Our Airbnb in Guapiles was truly a breath of fresh air after the heat and humidity of the Caribbean. We’ve included a few final pictures from Guapiles below. We loved the babbling stream and trails that ran through the 10-acre property, and even saw our first sloth “in the wild” from our balcony on our final evening. In much the same vein, Bijagua de Upala (where we arrived last night – pictures to come next week) has been the perfect antidote to the overcrowded, over-noisy, sleepless, too-many-people-in-a-small-space introvert’s nightmare that was La Fortuna. And now we breathe…

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good

Dad – I had some really great experiences this week, several “wins” that I really needed to help drag me out of my recent doldrums. First, Guayabo National Monument was exactly the kind of place I like most – historic, surrounded by nature, uncrowded, budget-friendly, and full of great interpretive signs. I nerded out and went into full-on teacher-on-a-field-trip mode.

Second, our time spent in La Fortuna proved to be a nice respite from both “school” and “business as usual.” Living here on a tight budget, it’s been hard to constantly feel priced out of much of what Costa Rica has to offer. However, the decision to just “be tourists” for a few days, go on “school holiday” and spend a few dollars was well worth it, in my opinion. The day spent ziplining and walking hanging bridges in La Fortuna helped quell some of the FOMO I’ve been experiencing, and was just plain fun.

Mom – Sooooo much good this week, where to start! Per our host’s recommendation plus Luke’s research, we went to the Guayabo National Monument, which was a great spot! Getting there was a bit rough, to say the least….. It had been a while since we had gone on a nice walk through nature and this was a great nature preserve with a historical element. One of the best parts of visiting Costa Rica in the rainy season has been the lack of crowds at popular places.

Arenal Volcano hike was another highlight! After a rough transition to a hotel that was located in downtown La Fortuna we went for a wonderful hike at Arenal Volcano. We had felt a little defeated that morning and the hike was so good for our souls and definitely lifted our spirits – just what the doctor ordered, if you will. We saw some new-to-us creatures like a coati and a yellow eyelash viper, along with beautiful flowers and amazing ceiba trees, all while listening to the music of the local birds. We hung out at the viewpoint for a while and our patience paid off when the clouds covering the top of the volcano cleared. After that hike we gave in and did the touristy things and indulged in some delicious dinners out which was such a nice treat! I had been wanting to try ceviche since we got here and now I just want more, it was so fresh and tasty!

The hanging bridges in Mistico Park were high on my list of things to do when we decided we weren’t going to risk going to Monteverde (more to come on this itinerary update next week). It was a 2-mile trail that consisted of 6 hanging bridges in the canopy with a deep ravine below. I loved that we were able to truly take our time and enjoy the sights and sounds without feeling rushed or moving through crowds of people. We got some great views and saw some more fun creatures.

Chocolate tour- oh so much fruit! Fruit on a chocolate tour, oh yes! The tour started with a frozen chocolate covered banana (Yum!), and we also got to sample pineapple, papaya, mango,  mamo chino, mini bananas, raw sugar cane and rum made from the sugar cane. At the end of the tour we were able to grind and sample both roasted coffee beans and chocolate nibs. The chocolate nibs were turned into hot chocolate for us, while they demonstrated the traditional way of making coffee and we were given samples. This tour was very informative and fun, the guide was very knowledgeable; it was his family’s farm after all.

We ended up leaving the hotel a few days earlier to preserve our sanity and in hopes of getting a peaceful night’s rest. The best part of having some time off from school and doing the touristy things is that there were a lot more positive attitudes this week! Also, the weather has been pretty much perfect! A little cloudy/overcast turns sunny and then cloudy and rainy in the evenings (by the time we were done “adventuring”).

Older Brother – The restaurants near us in La Fortuna had great food. One night I got a chicken and mozzarella quesadilla and I also got chicken fingers with chips and my mom gave me some of her sweet potato fries. We also got hotel breakfast and the pancakes were AMAZING !!!

We went to a volcano and at the end we sat there for 20 minutes but when the clouds cleared the view was AMAZING 👍. We also saw a coati, a yellow eyelash pit viper, a Central American whiptail, an agouti and LOTS of ants and other insects.

We also went on a chocolate tour and got to try a bitter chocolate and I am pretty sure (at least I think I am) it was raw chocolate.

Sister – We visited Arenal Volcano National Park, and saw a four hundred year old ceiba tree. We got a great view of the volcano once the clouds moved away. We saw a White nosed coati.  I went ziplining with my dad and it was really fun because we saw a sloth a few feet away from us. We went on a chocolate tour too, and that was also really fun.

Younger Brother – I loved the chocolate tour and Costa Rican chicken nuggets and the pancakes at the hotel. I got to see a Yellow Eyelash Viper which was cool.

The Bad

Dad – A deep introvert at heart, I love quiet, I love nature, and going from our peaceful nature-based stay in Guapiles to the commercialized, bustling tourist hub of La Fortuna was initially a shock to the system. Our stay at Guapiles had re-centered me, and cured my homesickness and “overwhelm” for a short while, but sitting on our hotel balcony the first night in La Fortuna surrounded by buildings and the incessant noise of a city, I was ready to call the whole trip off again and just go home. Thankfully cooler heads (my wife) prevailed (again), and I actually ended up having fun in La Fortuna. However, I’m also pretty glad we’re now back in another rural Airbnb in nature for the next week!

Mom – Leaving our favorite Airbnb thus far for a small hotel was hard. We also decided not to go to Monteverde due to the potential of cold/rainy weather (we all know how well that went in El Guarco when we first got here). Also a lot of the things we wanted to do in Monteverde wouldn’t have been great if it had been cold and rainy and the views from the hanging bridges would have been mostly of clouds.

Older Brother – All the hiking trails are sooooooo hot and tiring and a bit muddy and very buggy. The Hawaiian pizza I had had big chunks in it and I would have preferred it if the chunks were smaller.

Sister – I didn’t like how hot it was on the Arenal volcano and Mistico Park walks. We went out to eat and I didn’t like the food at all.

Younger Brother – I didn’t get a frozen chocolate covered banana on the chocolate tour because I still wasn’t feeling that great (see the ugly).

The Ugly

Dad – The boys got sick again, which really put a damper on an otherwise nice “school vacation” in La Fortuna. The silver lining of Older Brother’s sudden sickness was that I got to take Sister ziplining (which wasn’t originally in the plan) and he was feeling well enough for an afternoon outing by the time we got back. In contrast, Younger Brother got sick quite dramatically and explosively in the middle of dinner at the hotel’s restaurant (and again halfway up to the room), perhaps inspired by our proximity to Arenal volcano? It’s the second time both boys have been sick in our five weeks here.

Mom – The boys yet again had gastrointestinal issues and I’m developing a stye on my right lower eye lid that’s very uncomfortable. Also, changing Airbnb’s comes with pros and cons. Sometimes it feels good to move after feeling like you’ve made good use of a space and seen all there is to be seen. The con comes with having to constantly find new grocery stores that may or may not have the essentials you’re looking for (such as peanut butter, which is an essential staple of our household and probably the younger two kids’ main source of protein).

Also each space has a very different dynamic and some come with a unique kitchen set up. Most don’t have dishwashers- not a big deal. Some don’t have ovens or have sketchy-to-light ovens at best. Some have gas burning stovetops, this one has a 2 burner induction stovetop. Most have some variety of an instant pot, slow cooker, rice cooker, blender, microwave and toaster oven. I’m learning a lot of interesting things that can be cooked in a rice cooker such as cornbread. This all ends up taking a lot of time and energy and can at times feel exhausting and overwhelming to figure out meal options and how to make them. Other times it can be fun to experiment with what can be made in a variety of appliances.

Older Brother – I got sick again and the next day I was completely fine but we had to change the chocolate tour reservation to the next day ( DOES COSTA RICA HATE MEEE 😡???? ).

Sister – I hate the heat!!!!!!!!!

Younger Brother – I puked all over myself in a restaurant and then again on the way up the stairs of our hotel.

Lesson Learned

Use Waze and check road conditions first before going anywhere.

As I mentioned in our highlights, the road to Guayabo National Monument was nasty, nerve-shredding, and harrowing, and the reason is because it was not technically open to traffic! Turns out the road had technically been closed since late August, which we only found out upon doing some research at home afterwards, because nowhere were there any signs indicating “do not pass” or “road closed.” And plenty of Ticos were still using it, so it was impossible to know there were any particularly bad problems until…

Rounding one corner, the road simply disappeared down the hill, swallowed by landslides, and replaced by muddy DIY tracks carved into the hillside with some caution tape separating you from the drop-offs. We made it through this spot only to be forced to later drive around and between rock falls, boulders, and mud strewn across the road. Then there were the foot-high gouges, sinkholes, and elevation changes that resembled a recent earthquake. Despite my growing apprehension, there was no going back because there was no turning around! Thank God we had an AWD car with high clearance, or we’d still be walking home or worse…

Once I got home (by a different route) and started sleuthing online, my horror only grew, as did my confusion at the lack of “official” notifications that the road was not meant to be driven on. Google Maps, which we were using at the time for navigation, was useless. On Waze, we discovered a few user reports that the road was impassable (so lesson learned – use Waze), and there were several Facebook posts that I translated from Spanish to English accompanied by some intense videos of people trying to navigate the aforementioned road hazards and failing. But again, no big orange signs, no official notification well in advance not to take the road… I’m just thankful we all emerged alive from that drive. But now I do my research first.