🇨🇷 COSTA RICA TRAVEL GUIDE 2023 | 10 Days in Costa Rica | La Fortuna, Manuel Antonio, Tortuguero

hey guys welcome back to Eileen's world and the next stop on my world tour Costa Rica we spent 10 days driving around the country to explore the Best of the West and East Coast if you want to find out what we did where we went and how much it's really cost to go to Costa Rica they make sure you keep on watching we landed into Juan Santa Maria International Airport in the capital of Costa Rica San Jose if you're arriving from the U.S you won't need a visa to enter so after we Breeze through immigration it was time to pick up our rental car and regarding cash it's best to withdraw money from an ATM the money exchange at the international airport has a terrible exchange rate I know from personal experience while most places accept credit cards cash will be necessary for toll booths small vendors and smaller restaurants some restaurants and shops will accept the US dollar but always double check to see if it's better for you to pay in US dollars or in colonis we rented a car from economy and upon arrival a shuttle took us to the rental pickup which is just a short drive away since we were going on a road trip for 10 days we made sure to get a car that had a trunk that was fully covered we arrived into San Jose pretty late in the evening so we stayed at one of the hotels nearby the airport for the night before starting our road trip the next day berler airport hotel was close enough to the airport and car rental and was good enough for the night it's small but it's clean and breakfast is included with the raid so that was a nice bonus and there's even a pool if you have time for that after stocking up on some road trip Necessities at Walmart we started our two hour drive from San Jose to La Fortuna we are leaving San Jose now we're headed to La Fortuna which is where we'll be staying for the next two days and it's about a two and a half hour drive so it's noon time by the time we get there we should be able to check into our hotel and then we have to head over to the chocolate tour that I have booked at three o'clock and let me tell you what you hear about the potholes in Costa Rica is definitely true some roads are better than others but just be careful when driving [Music] Secreto La Fortuna was located in the city center and cost us seventy dollars a night with breakfast and parking included when staying in La Fortuna you have the option of staying in town like us or closer to the hot springs of volcano I would definitely come back to this hotel I was very happy staying in town and it's just really a 20 to 30 minute drive to the Hot Springs volcano and hanging Bridges we just got to our hotel room in La Fortuna this place is called Hotel Secreto and it's really spacious two rooms we got a fridge which is always a plus to keep our drinks cold got a safe and here's the bathroom [Music] we got the pool area on this side oh and there's another pool it's pretty cloudy today but she said that when the clouds aren't here you could see the volcano we arrived with enough time to join a chocolate tour at Don olivo we purchased a tour on TripAdvisor for 25 a person the tour started with a walk through the fruit trees where we got to try star fruit papaya and orange volcano and even some freshly squeezed sugar cane juice and rum optional [Music] the tour ended with the walk through the cacao trees and a demonstration on how chocolate is made [Music] the name of the tour is a bit misleading it's more of a fruit farm tour than a chocolate tour but I think the price is fair for the experience and all the things we got to do our tour guide was the son of the owner and he kept us laughing and thoroughly entertained the entire time that night we had dinner at restaurant La Familia which serves typical Costa Rican dishes and it's located inside the Town Center in just a short walk away from our hotel we ordered a chicken empanada a poor Casado an iguana agua fresca the food was well priced tasty and I would totally recommend this restaurant if you're in La Fortuna yeah after filling breakfast at our hotel we made the 20-minute drive to aronal 1968 volcano View and trails for a walk so here is the entrance to the park where you can park over there there's plenty of space it's around 8 30 right now the Park's been open for 30 minutes and this here is where you pay for parking it looks like a tree but there's actually people inside we went all the way to here and we're waiting for someone to open the gate for us and we're like hello [Music] [Music] [Music] there is one part that we turned the corner and it's a little bit steep but they have these here to help help you which is nice I feel like you can still do it without the ropes but it's nice that they have these two hours later we finished the hike the trail I wouldn't really call it a hike it's a trail trail ends in a cafe beautiful Cafe which I'll show you guys and behind me is the view of the Arena volcano clouds in the top it's not smoke don't worry and then look at this over here we did it here's a cafe that I said that the trail ends at how well located is this we're gonna have a drink now I don't care how much it is it could be five dollars for water it might be five dollars for water I'll take it thank you here is a map of the mystical Arenal hanging Bridges park it looks like a theme park and it says it should be two and a half hours long but since we don't have a tour guide we didn't pay for that extra future he says should just take about an hour and a half so we'll see [Music] thank you we made it to our first suspension bridge that walk was paved but it wasn't here [Music] this one has a view of Arenal partially covered by a cloud [Music] that's it we're done that was the last suspension bridge that we just crossed took us an hour and 20 minutes and that's what the stopping around the garden and the waterfall as well so that was pretty cool there's not many people here so pretty much every time we cross the bridge it was just us we got our wristbands to use the hot springs at Los Lagos Hotel spawn Resort it was 17 for just the entrance and if you want like a lunch package it's 35 but we're just doing the entrance silly me did I bring towels from the hotel uh it's two dollars each per towel and then you also need to put a 10 deposit luckily Jose had cash uh US dollars in his pocket so that worked out I'm starting to learn that it's very convenient to have U.S US Dollars on you I could just use this shirt to dry myself and save two dollars but I just left the hot springs because I was feeling very lightheaded and even getting out of the pool I was so we moved on to the Natural pool it has just pictured the I don't know here no clouds let's get in [Music] it's day three and time to head to Monteverde it was a three-hour drive from La Fortuna and I have to say this is where we experience the worst potholes of the entire trip we drove directly to Monteverde cloud forest and bought tickets on site for 25 dollars per person since we went to the park so close to closing we found parking right in the front of the park otherwise there is an option to park and take a shuttle here are our tickets to go to Monte Verde and if you lose these they will charge you a couple dollars each I guess the benefit is that why can't I read the benefit is that you can access the park you can go in and out privileges I guess for the day but we only have two hours so it's not like we'll be doing much in and Outing anyway we got two hours so we gotta go this was the route that was suggested for us which is the Sendero El Camino and I think it's a 40-minute round trip and we should be able to see a hanging Bridge somewhere along the way back on that uphill Journey but at least it's much cooler here than it was in La Fortuna lots of shade nice and cool [Music] so I'm wearing my Tevas which I always wear they're very comfortable to walk in no matter the terrain and I'm getting bitten by all these giant ants so just wear clothes covered closed-toed covered shoes [Music] here is the view from the end of the Mirador La Ventana Trail [Music] foreign hotel for 35 dollars which included parking and breakfast at the Mexican restaurant downstairs it's located in the small City Center so it's close to all the restaurants and a short drive to and from Monteverde cloud forest the room was small with no air conditioning and since it was facing the street there was a lot of noise but considering the price that we paid we can't really complain too much and it did the job for a one night's day we're at Tico and Enrico Tico eureko for King food it's also happy hour so some drinks are two for one our beef steak Casado with beans plantains and fried eggs salad a tortilla with cheese and the Aztec soup it comes with bread salsa tortilla strips avocado and cheese look at that the food was okay nothing to Rave on about but I think it was too expensive so I don't really recommend coming here if you're looking for a place to have some local beer then head over to Monteverde Brewing Company we ordered the passion fruit and strawberry hard Seltzer which they make to order by mixing fresh fruit with hard Seltzer and it was so delicious and so refreshing on day four we have breakfast at the hotel and drove from monteverdi to kepos which is the gateway to Manuel Antonio Park and also the last stop on the west coast it was a three and a half hour drive and we took a little break in between to stop by the crocodile Bridge stretch our feet and get a drink we stayed at Bongo hotel for 77 a night which included parking and breakfast the rooms were all separated and it feels like you're surrounded by nature and Wildlife and you can even see the capuchin monkeys wandering around or the macaws flying by we didn't have anything planned once we arrived so we spent the rest of the night at the marina before it started pouring I was so hungry that when the food came and my mouth was watering I completely forgot to make a video of it but we got uh huevos rancheros for breakfast I'll insert a picture up here it was very very very good uh we are now headed to Manuel Antonio National Park our tickets are to enter from 8 to 8 40 and it's already 8 15 ish we're about a 13 minute drive from the park I'm very excited to get in and see if it really is like a horror movie uh just like what they said In Google reviews [Music] we made it into Manuel Antonio Park so I got a couple tips for you guys make sure you're paying very close attention so what we did is that on our way up here even before you get to the park Maybe I don't know everything's kilometers I don't know I'll give you minutes maybe like three minutes before you get into the park driving you're gonna see signs that say official parking lot well the signs are not very official they're very janky they're made by a three-year-old and then guys with whistles um blowing blowing the whistle at you telling you to stop or flagging you down pointing you left right to ever the trick is just drive past them don't even acknowledge them don't slow down don't rug on the window they don't do anything you just keep on going that's on the main road which is kind of far off from where the entrance actually is Once you turn to the main street that leads into the park you'll still you'll see less parking guys but you'll towards the end you'll see a couple more so we met one who actually writes as soon as we got to the gate where you couldn't even drive further we met one and he showed us his badge it says he's official tourism blah blah blah we were very skeptical we were going to take a picture of his badge anyway so he pointed us to a parking spot that was literally as close as you can get to the park and he said it was 4 000 Colones I did the conversion it's about like over six bucks fine whatever again it's very very close like five steps and you're into the park right now it's like 8 30 almost nine there's no line so super easy to get in make sure you bring an ID though because they do verify and we were asking the guys that were bag checking us and they basically said nobody who is working outside of the gates is official pretty much what you have to do is just pay them Park and just get on with your day because if you don't want anything to happen in your car so for me hopefully nothing happens to our car but again kind of have to play nice because they know where you park and they know that you're gone but I can totally see that if you don't speak Spanish or you're you assume that an official parking lot sign is actually official then how you can easily be Bamboozled but yeah a lot of the parking lots that we first saw they're very far away so it's quite of a quite a bit quite a bit of a walk Jose went back to the car to grab something that he forgot and our official tour guide oh he asked Jose if everything was good inside because he saw Jose talking to the officials he even said he had the audacity to tell us that we could even ask the people on the inside of these official and if he isn't they can we can take him to jail or sue him or whatever it is [Music] lost [Music] I was trying to find out what this stop was all about but just a little hard to read [Music] I think it's time for some maintenance here so we're gonna give this feedback to our to our tour guide in the front that we met earlier since he's an official tour guide we're gonna bombard him with all of our feedback from this uh National Park basically all of the viewpoints that are part of this Trail are closed that trail we just did pretty much was in this foresty area and after we cross that bridge one way or another we ended up going down these stairs so we didn't get back to where it started we're back on the beach which is fine visiting Costa Rica during the wet season to be like this I'm going to show you how close our car is we're done with the park and our car is right there well I didn't see any sloths we saw two types of monkeys the TT monkey which is the small monkey which is also what can be seen at our hotel and the power alert howler monkey the one with the white face we saw one of those at the picnic area which was pooping from a tree saw those three animals didn't see any sloths there are barely any animals out here pointing much I thought that of all these places everything now it's time to lunch we paid our Mafia um who paid our Mafia man our 4 000 colonists checked our cars no scratches all the tires seemed to be in working order and now we're gonna head on out on our way back we found a great lunch spot El Chino pizzero and I caught our attention because we don't normally see Chinese food and Pizzeria combinations we ordered the oroth Canton which is fried rice the Taco Chino which is an egg roll and the pizza Tikka which had plantains mozzarella bacon and ham this meal was the best affordable meal that I had in Costa Rica [Music] today we got some guyo Pinto plantains eggs Mayo and a local cheese I forgot what it's called he just told me good morning we are headed to tortuguero uh which should be about a five hour ish drive so we're heading out early so that we can make the Boat Boat shuttle you got to take a boat to get to your hotel and the last boat's at 4 30. we're gonna Park our car in LA pavona then read online boat ride through the mangrove now like I mentioned earlier there will be a bunch of tools that you'll have to go through during this road trip and most of them except credit cards but not all of them do so make sure you have cash [Music] we're waiting for our contact to come fetch us our hotel connected us with him and he's supposed to be the person that's going to help us get the tickets and get on the boat Etc oh there he is Donis is his name he said that it's four dollars for the trip and then two dollars for luggage 13 600 Colones to park two nights here is the parking lot there's a restaurant Supermarket souvenir store over there this is the restaurant restroom mini market next to the parking lot and you can use a bathroom comfortable bathrooms and you know what they are very comfortable and they're very clean it costs one dollar or 500 Colones and sometimes you have to do the conversion because right now it's about 600 kilones is one dollar so if you have colonists then just pay Colones because then it's more like 80 cents than a dollar save 20 cents you know every 20 cents helped me [Music] [Music] [Applause] we made it to our hotel hotel Sunset rooms is the name exactly one hour to get from LA pavona to here and we were the last people to get dropped off on the ride it wasn't so bad it feels like you're going through the Amazon River or whatever but let's check out the room we have a fridge pretty big fridge we have a little wardrobe here we got two beds we got an AC and look at our view oh God it's very sunny right now but we can be right there have a drink right by the trash we are facing the river all right let's close where the mosquitoes get in here's the bathroom very simple basic shower all that electricity that's just right by the water our room is the one that's right over here reception's there and this is where we got dropped off they have happy hour from five to seven two drinks for six thousand so two for ten dollars [Music] just a five minute walk away from our hotel is the beach and this is the Atlantic side Atlantic Ocean and the sand is quite dark the water looks dark I read in my guidebook that they didn't want to call it Caribbean Sea or Caribbean beaches because they don't want people to think of like white sand and Blue Waters because this is definitely dark of the darker side [Music] I hope you can hear me and I hope I don't step on any Turtles while I'm doing this so we just got on the beach and just started walking and didn't really know what exactly to look for to see where the turtles were we kind of saw a crowd of people and then we realized there was one that was making its way over to the ocean but if you're here this is what you should look out for look for all of these marks these little Trail the trail the turtles lead that's when you know they're hatching ordered the medium pepperoni pizza that's pepperoni and onions good size for the both of us there's like what eight slices and I got the pasta carbonara if you're like me and always craving pizza and pasta then check out Buddha Cafe the prices are pretty standard for Costa Rica there's outdoor seating to view the sunset and the pepperoni pizza and carbonara was so good it's our first full day in tortuguero and Jose took a canoe trip this morning at like 5 45 obviously could not be bothered to wake up that early and I just feel like I've been bamboozled so many times and seen no animals so I'm excited to see what he saw on his trip there they are returning on their Journey the canoe tour was 30 and highly recommended by Jose he saw Caymans sloths different birds just to name a few I'll leave the guide's information in the description box below since breakfast was not included or available at our hotel we went to Door Ling's Bakery to try their famous banana bread they have a variety of breakfast options available and the best part is the outdoor seating with the view of the waters if you come to dorling Door Lane Cafe you gotta get it right out of bread because it's the moistest bread you'll ever eat make sure you're wearing closed toe shoes you're coming to the park because there are a lot of ants and you know I've experienced an ant bite in Monteverde it was a very big ant that wouldn't let go the humidity here on this side of the island and apparently it's wet season all throughout Costa Rica but here on this side it's always raining so when it's wet season in the other parts of Costa Rica it's actually drier here is what I've learned [Music] okay I'm not quite sure how long this Trail is but we're just going around and around it all really just looks the same you're walking through the jungle alongside the beach and I think they should rename it blizzard National Park because there's a lot of these rainbow looking lizards scurrying by and we saw blue butterfly and oh like a giant bird that looks like a turkey slash peacock I knew something smelled bad and we found a dead Turtle here [Music] we found a bunch of vultures and they're eating something by Turtles I don't want to compete with the vulture so I'm not getting very close and this part of the beach is covered by a lot of dead turtles headless Turtles and the birds are waiting for us to leave so they can eat as I was saying about this being a grim visit to the park here are some Turtle remains just the shell and the bones this is more like a turtle Cemetery we're at the end of the trail and guess what it's a one-way Loop it's not even a loop it's not even a little now we gotta go back past the turtle Cemetery past the dead decaying turtle all the bones we are just finishing up with portuguero National Park spent three hours there a lot longer than I expected especially since I heard it's a very small National Park so my review is the trail is kind of unexciting uneventful it's just like walking through the jungle then once you get to marker like 59 or so on the Jaguar Trail is when it gets very interesting we are at Mi Nino number two because there is a number one somewhere down the street and they have happy hour from 12 to 8. so that's what's up look at these chicken fajitas oh this is so dense is what I needed buenos dias it's six o'clock in the morning we're on the beach and we have to leave in about two and a half hours from tortuguero because our water tax is gonna pick us up but we're at the beach now because we want to see if we can see any Turtles this early in the morning before it gets super hot [Music] we haven't found any hatching Turtles yet I think a lot of them were hatched this morning because I see the footprints on the or thin prints whatever but look there's a this has to be a trail of a mama that came last night and laid her eggs dang they really do dig up quite a hole we found some here there's two the ground moves from time to time maybe there's gonna be a whole bunch whoa wow oh oh my God [Music] wow that was the most magical thing I ever witnessed in my life look at all of the little prints left by the turtles that just went into the ocean and none of them were snatched up by any vultures we enjoyed our last breakfast in tortuguero at soda Oasis sodas are what Costa Ricans or ticos call their local mom-and-pop restaurant serving traditional Costa Rican cuisine my Pinto huevos rancheros a giant plate of food [Music] we made it adios I guess it's p time for everyone to try to get off of the try to leave portuguero I keep on calling it an island it's just the strip of land that you can only get to by water after getting back into La pavona we made the four hour drive south to Puerto Viejo de talamanca [Music] we just got to our room in amidodo rooms Beach rooms it's um connected to the restaurant of the same name but this room is huge we got a bed here twin bed a microwave a desk whole shelving area bathroom upstairs is another room as well there's a common kitchen area that we can use too got your microwave stove sink [Music] the owners of the abimoto restaurant and hotel are originally from Italy so we had to try out the restaurant for dinner we ordered The Bolognese amimoto salad and amimoto cocktail it was definitely a splurge and the most expensive meal we had in Costa Rica but completely worth it because we finished every last bite thank you we spent the morning and early afternoon at Punta Uvas which is a 11 minute drive from the city center got the gentleman over there selling chips so I bought a bag for a thousand Colones if you're at Punta UVA and you didn't bring any food or drinks don't worry because there's people coming by selling empanadas plantain chips a guy came by selling some brownies sweets uh oh someone is also selling Ceviche as well so you definitely have options for food if you didn't bring any [Music] on our way back from Punta UVA we wanted to treat ourselves to a nice lunch with the beach view so we stopped by Noah Beach Club [Music] so we ordered the happy hour drinks which is by the day of the week today's Friday so we got a mojito add that something about cocktails in Costa Rica doesn't even give me a buzz just like a tourist scam or something Sushi's here we've got the cochles sushi which has tuna and cucumber and a mango sauce on top that was the worst Sushi ever had oh praise the Lord I finally found a sloth live in action up on the tree at our spot that we're at for lunch Noah Beach Club see I found a sloth for free and it's very slow our post Beach lunch is done that was the most underwhelming expensive meal that we've had here almost forty dollars for two drinks and mushy sushi but you get to see two sloths and the place is nice surface is kind of slow and then you also get to see this is spooky all these birds [Music] very early by my standard 7 42. it's our last day in Costa Rica it's our last day in cuerto Viejo the talamanca and uh our flight tonight is from San Jose at 8pm so we have time to go to the beach we're gonna go to another Beach today uh for some snorkeling his snorkeling me just going neck deep in the water and then check out and then we're gonna make the four hour drive back to San Jose we may have a little bit of time for lunch or something but otherwise we gotta head on out we made it to Playa cochles I forgot my hat but it's literally just us and two other couples I think they're staying at one of the hotels that has beach access so they're just here chilling we have time to get in the water despite the sign that says Dangerous Waters or dangerous oceans [Music] [Music] we got a big sloth up there scratching away [Music] thank you with traffic heading into San Jose it took us longer than expected to get back we had just enough time to drop off our car and head directly to the airport so that wraps up my 10-day road trip in Costa Rica if you guys plan on visiting soon and have any questions about visiting the country or any of the places that we went to please leave it down in the comments below [Music] thank you

Channel: eileen's world

Views: 66,355

Keywords: Costa Rica, Costa Rica Travel Guide, Costa Rica Travel Vlog, La Fortuna, Monteverde, Manuel Antonio, Tortuguero, Puerto Viejo

Id: y3ItNIB6EY4

Length: 40min 30sec (2430 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 20 2023