Our Spring Break Trip to Costa Rica - Part 2

I didn't intend to wait so long to post Part 2 of our vacation, but April proved to be much busier than expected. 

On our first day in Costa Rica, we arrived at dinner time. We got to meet our host family at Drake Bay Greenleaf, eat, and relax. Unfortunately for me, I had been fighting off a bad cold from the week prior, and the lingering congestion caused me terrible ear pressure issues after the short flight to Drake Bay. I tried to make the best of it, but I was really uncomfortable. It felt like my right ear was stopped up, but I couldn't get it to pop no matter what I tried. It felt like I was underwater. It wasn't painful, but it sadly put a damper on the first three days of our trip for me due to the discomfort. I had never experienced this before when flying, but now I know how bad it can be!

On Monday, we were up bright and early. We headed down to the beach to go to Cano Island for snorkeling. We took a private boat that chartered us to the island. It was a gorgeous morning and we even stopped the boat to see a pod of dolphins, which was neat. I loved our guide, Kendall. He was informative, helpful, and kind. 

I knew prior that the snorkeling would be in the open ocean (we'd just be jumping off the boat in deep water with strong currents), so my expectations were so-so. I figured it might be a bit more challenging than just snorkeling from the beach. From the boat, it just looked like the regular ocean. You couldn't really see down into the water from above, but once we had on our snorkeling gear and jumped in... WOW! It was spectacular!!! The clarity underwater was so unexpected. Beautiful, large fish were everywhere! Schools of fish were swimming by me and then I would turn my head and a giant fish would be right in front of my mask. I saw several fish that we have in our saltwater aquarium at home.

I truly loved it....for about 10 minutes. And then I started throwing up, lol! I think it was related to my ear pressure issues. My ear was still feeling uncomfortable - as if I were underwater - and then when I actually did go underwater, I started puking. I immediately got back on the boat while the others continued snorkeling. We stopped in a second location to snorkel in deeper water at another spot, but I chose to not  participate. This was a huge bummer because they saw sharks! I was very bummed to have missed out.

Fortunately the day wasn't a total bust for me. Once the snorkeling ended, we went onto Cano Island to explore, relax, and have a snack. Thankfully the nausea only happened when I was underwater, so I was able to recover fairly quickly from that. Kendall showed us how to crack open and drink from a coconut, which was super fun for Cam. We hiked up to an overlook on the cliff. We saw thousands of hermit crabs all over the beach! 

The second part of this excursion involved lunch at Playa San Josecito. This is a gorgeous beach that was back at Drake Bay. We had lunch and hung out in the sun for a couple of hours while Cam played in the ocean. 

Overall, and despite my puking in the coral reef (!!!), I thought this was the best day! When we finally got back to Drake Bay in the late afternoon, we walked over to a cute coffee shop on the beach for iced coffee drinks. 

After dinner that evening, we went on a jungle night hike with a tour guide named Gustavo. Gustavo would be our guide for many of the excursions all week, which was great. 

After the hike, we emerged from the jungle right near a convenience store in town. Cam loved stopping in for a soda (this was a trip highlight for him, haha!). 

On our third day, we drove out into the middle of nowhere to hike to a waterfall. This was the most authentically Costa Rican/least touristy day hands down. No one spoke English for this waterfall hike. Our taxi driver couldn't communicate much other than, "You're here and goodbye" and even that was in Spanish LOL! So then we were at some guy's farmhouse that also didn't speak English, but thankfully with some hand gesturing, we followed him into the rainforest for a 20-minute hike that led to a waterfall. 

This was very isolated, which was good because it probably would've been awkward to swim at this waterfall with strangers, but it also felt like we had just been stranded in the middle of a nowhere, ha. Overall my ear was still bothering me which kept me from enjoying this more than I did. 

In the afternoon, we headed an hour down dirt roads to visit a "chocolate farm." I was expecting a chocolate farm tour, but when we arrived, it was clear that we were just at someone named Sandro's family home. Sandro welcomed us into his home and showed us how he lives off the land. We went through his gardens eating food from the trees and learning about his way of life. This ended up being one of my favorite things we did in Costa Rica. We got to experience the step-by-step process of how he makes chocolate, starting with the cocoa plant all the way to our end result where we made hot chocolate and chocolate soufflé. We made tortillas with his mom and had dinner with his family. Two baby chicks hatched while we were there, so Cam and I got to help him with the chickens. 

This was an experience that words won't do justice. I felt so much gratitude for our time there at Sandro's house. 

On our fourth day, we went to the main attraction of the Osa Peninsula: Corcovado National Park. This is one of the most biodiverse and most protected regions in the entire world! Everyone who comes to this rainforest must be accompanied by a guide and they limit it to 250 people per day, so you have to plan in advance. We explored the park with our guide Gustavo and enjoyed a nice lunch and more hiking. We ended the hike by finally spotting the elusive sloth!

On our last full day in Costa Rica, we went on a mangrove boat tour through the Sierpe river. This was really neat. Again, we had Gustavo as our guide. We explored through the mangroves, spotting tons of animals (more than we saw in Corcovado, surprisingly, and with better views!). Monkeys, crocodile, and a mangrove Boa!

We stopped at a restaurant for lunch in a town called Las Vegas. Like all the days, the weather was absolutely perfect! The boat rides were fun and often more thrilling than I anticipated ("thrilling" sounds much better than "I feared for my life" lol!). I often wondered if we were going to capsize in the waves, but these guys knew what they were doing and it felt like this was just another day for them.

After the mangrove tour, we walked down to the beach and hit up the coffee shop again. It was bittersweet knowing our time in Costa Rica was coming to an end, but I felt like we had done all there was to do in Drake Bay, so truly it was the perfect amount of time. If I had to do it over, I would pick the same itinerary. 

We really lucked out on the weather, the tour guides, and the lodging was spectacular - the food, the host, the room! 

I deem this trip a huge success!