Costa Rica - The Journey

Once upon a time, I went to Costa Rica. I got back early the morning after Labor Day & then waited a month to talk about it. This is my story. 

It all began on a random Saturday afternoon. A text with a screen shot came through in my groupchat and it was an image of a flight deal to San Jose, Costa Rica. Usually we will either pull the trigger, or give some reason why we cannot hop on the deal, but this day it was a full go from everyone & we were booked for Costa Rica. We were set to fly into San Jose the Thursday before Labor Day and be back in Houston in time for work that Tuesday morning.

We collectively decided to spend the majority of our time in the country in Puerto Viejo, which is in the Limon province where there are beautiful Caribbean beaches & and beautiful beautiful men people. This is the most diverse area in the country and where the descendants of hundreds of slaves brought to the country live. It's about five hours away from San Jose, but it was decided that we would fly there versus taking a shuttle.

 

We went directly to our hotel upon landing in San Jose, and set out early to grab some food, see a little bit of the city and head back to the airport for our flight. We had the BEST uber driver ever. He was from the province we were heading to, and graciously escorted us around San Jose and took us for the most delicious meal we had while on our trip.

I'm gracious for our driver because without him we probably would not have been able to navigate our way around the capital city. It was very crowded, very cluttered and very mountainous.... but beautiful. I'm still craving the beans and fish we had at the restaurant he took us.

That sauce was ridiculously good. Needless to say, I did more eating than picture taking....

To be honest, in my mind the flight to Puerto Viejo was going to be on a plane similar to the one we arrived in. It wasn't until we left Houston that I realized we would be in a super small plane flying over all those mountains. Two girls who were also on our flight there, talked so much shit about the type of plane we were taking. They obviously were doing a little bit of hating, but I didn't let it phase me too much. It wasn't until we had checked our bags, which consisted of not only the bags being weighed but us as well, did I slightly freak out. I kept it together for the sake of not having to curse anybody out, and we were off to our next stop... in a teeny tiny aeroplane.

Despite the fact that you could hear and feel every little thing, the flight wasn't that bad. We had a quick layover and about 35 minutes later we had landed in Puerto Viejo. We took a taxi from the shack where planes landed airport to our Airbnb about another 45 minutes away.

We literally traveled through jungle, and banana trees and villages & slightly got lost, but finally made it to our villa right as the sun was going down. Villa de Aragon would be our home for the next few days, and it was truly a beautiful property. I fell in love with the room on the back patio, but since there was only one air conditioning it was too hot to sleep back there. But in another setting, and a different climate, or if there was more air circulating, that back room would've been perfection.

We didn't spend much time exploring our home for the weekend because we were hungry and anxious to get out and see the town.

Not too far from where we were staying was a hotel and black sand beach. We walked to Hotel Banana Azul and enjoyed dinner and drinks before taking a taxi into the city to enjoy the rest of our night.

We walked a few feet away from where we had just dined, and took in the stars, the sounds of the waves crashing and the pretty black sand on the beach.

After that we bar hopped in town, and walked around mingling with the locals. We went to a reggae bar and made the DJ amp the music up for us from relaxing Marley, but flat out dance hall. We then proceeded to another venue called Lazy Mon's, where we literally got our whole lives. Well, I got mine. I can't speak for everybody else, but I can definitely attest to the fact that life was GOTTEN. But I digress....


My night ended with a few things crossed off my bucket list, and then it was time to head home for the evening. Well, I guess, the morning? We made it back to our villa and probably went to bed around 4 in the morning.

It was a great welcome and reception into the country.

It was the beginning of our journey.