Hey y'all! For my first real blog post, I will be writing about my first trip to Costa Rica/anywhere. I went to Costa Rica in the beginning of March in 2017. This trip was led by the AMAZING Outdoor Adventures club at my school. The trip was fully planned and everything (except the millions of gifts I bought for everyone) was included. Since the trip was planned through the outdoor adventures office, the first half of the trip was all based on Costa Rica's gorgeous natural activities, such as ziplining, hiking, mud baths, and more. The second half of the trip which I will cover in a later post was more focused on relaxing at the beach.
We flew into Liberia Airport, which is one of the two airports in Costa Rica. This airport is closer to the west coast, in the Guanacaste region, and closer to Rincon de La Vieja, a major hotspot for all things outdoors. We went immediately to our hotel which was located on the outskirts of the rainforest. Our hotel was absolutely beautiful. It featured a collection of lodges, as well as a restaurant and a lovely little pool. There was a hike behind the hotel, as well as horseback riding and ziplining available at request. The breakfast was to die for and everything was very clean. The hotel itself was close to everything we needed, but everything was somewhat difficult to access due to road conditions.*
*TIP: This trip would be very difficult without renting a car. If there was no way for you to get yourself to where you needed to be, this trip would be incredibly difficult. Everything is very spread out, and the roads are not paved after you leave the city nor are they well kept. However, unless you or someone you are traveling with is 25, this would not be possible because almost every country (including Costa Rica) requires all renters to be 25 years of age.
Rincon de La Vieja itself is the volcano located in the park. Due to the geothermic activity there, there are a number of natural oddities in the park surrounding the volcano like bubbling mud and warm springs. There is a pristine trail that is not terribly long or steep that is self-led has stops at all of these features like bubbling mud puddles and craters. And of course, animals. Animals everywhere, although mostly monkeys, and they are adorable.
Another neat feature near the park are the famous Rio Negro Hot Springs. The Rio Negro Hot Springs ire a perfect way to end any day by painting warm, mineral infused mud all over, jumping into an ice cold river to rinse it off, and then warming back up in the various warm springs available.
One of the most incredible part of this trip was the Oropendola Waterfall which is a hidden treasure in Rincon de La Vieja. It is a short walk that begins near the parking lot of the park and goes down into the rainforest. The hike is relatively steep and the bridge that is necessary to get to the fall is suspended AND stairs, and, frankly, terrifying. But the waterfall if incredibly worth it. There are stairs that lead into the "puddle", if you will, at the base of the waterfall, but if you are feeling more risky, there is a large rock that you can climb onto and then jump off of. I did this and I have no regrets. If you make the trek all the way to Rincon de La Vieja, this is a MUST.
A day trip that we did was to a neat little resort called the Canyon Lodge. This was located very close to our hotel. We came here for some more adventures, specifically ziplining, horseback riding, and river tubing (and a delicious lunch). These were both packages that were fairly inexpensive (the horseback riding and tubing were one package). The zipline was actually many ziplines that were not connected and required you to take a lovely stroll to the next zipline. One not so lovely part of this was the bit of section where they mentioned "adrenaline rush" that I did not read. However, it was an amazing experience that I would do over again if I could. Rather than one of the sections being just another boring old zipline, it was a sort of repelling/they just attached you to a bungee and pushed you off into the canyon itself and swung you over to the other side where you had to rock climb back up and continue ziplining.
As for the horseback riding, they put you on a horse that was very experienced, and what I mean by that is you do not have to do anything at all which is good because as much as you try to steer they are going to the river. Even for those who are not fans of horseback riding, this is definitely worth it, but if you really do not want to horseback ride, you can take a bus to the river. When you get to the river, there will be tubes available that you will carry down to the river. This part of the adventure takes a while, and features the perfect mix of calm floating and chaotic almost falling out of your tube. But don't worry, there are workers that wait at the big drops to scoop you back into your tube. I do not have any photos of the ziplining, horseback riding, or tubing because we all left our phones in the van (live in the moment, everyone), but I can promise, all of the photos that would have been taken would have been me with a huge smile.
Thanks for reading! I hope it inspired some of y'all to consider putting Costa Rica on your list of places to go (preferably number one because it is literally amazing but...). If you have any questions about anything on here please let me know and get ready for Costa Rica: Part 2!
Addresses and Locations:
Hotel: Rincon de la vieja , Liberia, Liberia 50101, Costa Rica , 50101 Hacienda Santa María, Costa Rica
Rio Negro Hot Springs: I do not have an address but many tours include this and I am sure any hotel/information center can point you in the right direction
Canyon de La Vieja: 3 km east of the entrance to Curubande, Liberia, San Jose, Guanacaste, 50101, 506 2665-3161
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