Three Perfect Days: A Trip to Costa Rica

I’ve plotted a full day of hikes and outdoor adventures in Guanacaste province. My alarm is set for 5:30 a.m. It turns out I don’t need it—the deep growl of howler monkeys outside rouses me a half hour early. I open the blackout curtains of my room at the Andaz Costa Rica Resort at Peninsula Papagayo to rays of light reflecting off Culebra Bay.

I make my way to the Andaz’s stunning outdoor lobby, its arched wooden roof awash in the glow of the morning light. My guide, Luis Diego Soto, greets me in English. I respond in Spanish. As the daughter of Salvadoran and Cuban parents, a visit to Latin America feels like a homecoming, and a chance to speak my first language. Without a language barrier, there's an instant rapport between me and Soto. He has dedicated the better part of four decades to shepherding travelers around Costa Rica’s many marvels. For the next three days, it’s my turn.

First on the itinerary is the hour drive to Hotel Hacienda Guachipelín. This hotel and adventure center lies in the shadow of the Rincón de la Vieja volcano. At 6,286 feet high and nine miles wide, it's the largest and most active in Guanacaste. Before heading out to explore Rincón de la Vieja Volcano National Park, I fuel up with a buffet breakfast at the on-site La Hacienda Restaurant: scrambled eggs, home fries, two razor-thin tortillas, a salty slice of queso fresco and some gallo pinto. I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but in Costa Rica it’s a must. “It tastes smoky because it’s made using firewood,” Soto notes.

Satiated, I head to the property’s stable to meet Joanella, the horse who will be carrying me along the area’s mountain trails this morning. My tour guide, Erick, wears a well-worn sabanero hat. I get a less cool blue helmet, and a lift into the saddle. I’m not sure if it’s the coffee or Joanella’s rogue spirit, but I start to get a little jittery, and the horse can sense it. She ups the pace to a bouncy trot, sometimes trying to veer off-trail when we come upon other horses or stopping to eat fallen cas, a type of guava found in Costa Rica. I can’t blame her; I had a glass of cas juice at breakfast this morning, and it was delicious.

I hear the sound of rushing water before we reach our final destination: the 82-foot Oropendola waterfall. Erick herds our horses into a holding area, and we hike further into the forest, down a wooden boardwalk and across a log-rope bridge to an observation deck. The waters of the Blanco River cascade down on me as I wade into the turquoise-blue pool at the base of Oropendola. The cold water halts my breath, but it’s the perfect balm after the humid journey here.

I meet back up with Soto, and we head out on another one of Hacienda Guachipelin’s many excursions. At the Rio Negro Hot Springs, just 10 minutes away, I soak in mineral-rich natural pools heated by the Rincón de la Vieja volcano. I can't stay long, though, as the waters can run up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

After a quick change back at the Andaz, Soto and I go to lunch at Rio Bhongo, one of the property’s three open-air restaurants. “Have the monkeys been around today?” Soto asks our server, Daniela. “In the morning,” she responds. But as I scarf down my lunch—a quinoa bowl topped with grilled vegetables, pumpkin seeds and chimichurri—I hear their growls in the lush canopies.

Those howls beckon me to the next activity: a jungle monkey tour with Ersel Aguilar Villalobos. The operations manager of Papagayo Explorers picks me up in a camouflage UTV, and we drive into a dry tropical forest a few minutes away. “There are 16 families of monkeys here,” Aguilar tells me. “12 are howlers, and four are white-faced [capuchins].” Pumas and jaguars also call this forest home.

I tell Aguilar that I’ve come to Costa Rica looking not for pumas or monkeys, but for birds, so he keeps a lookout. As I step onto my second log-rope bridge of the day, he gasps and stops me. He points to a bright, multicolored bird on a nearby branch: a turquoise-browed motmot, the national bird of my mom’s home country, El Salvador. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might see them here.

Upon reaching the canopy lookout, we hear rustling in the branches a few feet away. I know from past bird watching experiences to look for movement in the trees before drawing my binoculars. Sure enough, as soon as I spot the swaying branch, I come face to face with the culprit: a white-faced capuchin. We make eye contact for a moment before he leaps away.

Clouds start to gather overhead, but Aguilar and I push on. “Even if it rains,” he tells me, “we’ve already gotten very lucky.” Indeed, our sightings during the hour-long hike include a juvenile white-tailed deer, a worm-eating warbler, a northern tropical peewee, great kiskadees and industrious army ants carrying leaves many times their weight.

Just as I spot my first baby howler monkey, riding its mother’s back, we hear a rumble of thunder. Mom and baby jump down, seeking cover in a lower part of the canopy, and we take the hint. A wall of rain chases us as we power-hike back to the UTV.

I’m beat from all the hiking. After a shower at the Andaz—with golden-hour light peeking through a frosted floor-to-ceiling window—I get an early dinner at Chao Pescao. The menu offers dishes from across Latin America and the Caribbean. I choose Costa Rican casado: rice and beans with chicken, green papaya, mango salad and sweet plantain.

I sit at the bar and listen to an acoustic trio play salsa and cumbia as couples eat candlelit dinners on the terrace. Watching the reflection of the moon on the water around Marina Papagayo, I’m sad to leave Guanacaste, but comforted that today was only my first taste of Costa Rica.

I’m up before my howler monkey alarm today. Soto and I have a long road trip ahead, from the Pacific to Costa Rica’s geographic, cultural and political center, San José. It’s about a four-hour drive, but we’re taking the scenic route with pit stops along the way. Before we hit the Pan-American Highway, we stop for breakfast in Guanacaste province’s largest city, Liberia.

The muraled facade of Secretos de la Abuela (Secrets from Grandma) has a simple message, but it catches my eye. “Comida casera: Desayuno, almuerzo, y cena” (“Home-cooked meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner”). I’m in.

I’m already settling into my Tico (a colloquial term Costa Ricans give themselves) routine, so I order a repeat of yesterday’s breakfast. The hot-off-the-stove tortilla is much puffier, and my glass of fresco de cas is just as refreshing. Soto orders a pork tamal and scrapes every last bite off the banana leaf in which it’s wrapped.

The homey atmosphere tempts me to linger at this soda (the name for this type of traditional Costa Rican mom-and-pop restaurant). But we’re up against the clock, so we get back in the car. We drive east for 90 minutes, through fields and green mountains. Finally we arrive at Café y Macadamia, a roadside restaurant and souvenir shop that overlooks Lake Arenal. We sit down to contemplate the views of Costa Rica’s largest lake, with the help of some caffeine. I’m still full from breakfast, but I indulge in the shop’s specialty, coffee mixed with macadamia nut liqueur cream and topped with ground macadamias. I pick up two pastries for the road: a puffy, dark-chocolate cookie topped with—you guessed it—macadamia nuts, and a thinner, flatter option with guava spread and sprinkled almonds.

As we continue on, Soto tells me more about the manmade lake and its link to its namesake peak. Arenal Volcano has been dormant since 2010, but it wasn’t that long ago that it was Costa Rica’s most active: In 1968, it erupted suddenly for the first time since the 1500s, burying three villages and killing 87 people. About 2,500 people had to be relocated in the wake of the eruption. “There was a river in the valley,” Soto says, “so they decided to build a reservoir for the production of hydro-electric power.” There are still villages buried underneath the lake today.

Our commute reveals the lake’s scale: It takes another hour of driving along the shore to reach the volcano. We park at the trailhead and begin an hour-long hike up an old mile-and-a-half-long lava flow. As the incline escalates, the rocks beneath my feet evolve from pebble-size bits of gravel to massive boulders coughed up by the volcano nearly six decades ago. Along the way, Soto points out some of the life forms that have risen from the ashes. The hum of cicadas, for one, is deafening. “That’s an indication of good weather,” Soto tells me as a young family carrying walking sticks passes us on the trail. “I hope so,” says the dad, and I agree—running to a UTV to hide from the rain isn’t an option up here.

Soto highlights a plant that looks like any other to me. When he turns over the leaf of the Columnea consanguinea, however, I see it’s covered with heart-shaped red splotches that make the plant appear to be bleeding—an adaptation that attracts pollinators.

I’m still marveling at the dramatic trait when a screech cuts through the cacophony of the cicadas. Soto recognizes it as the call of a white-collared manakin, but I can't find the bird’s yellow belly, white throat and black cap in the forest. We watch patiently, but I catch only a glimpse of its distinctive bright-orange legs.

I have better luck as we approach the end of the hike, briefly spotting one of the more than 50 known hummingbird species in Costa Rica. The hummingbird isn’t even the highlight, though. It’s next to a gorgeous scarlet-rumped tanager—the most striking bird I’ve seen since… yesterday’s motmot.

Vultures circle overhead and two majestic crested caracaras perch on branches below as we reach our lookout point, the Lava ’68 Cafeteria. I treat myself to a fried empanada, the gooey white cheese oozing out of it resembling the now-dormant lava flows that lured travelers to this spot for decades. Before we go, I crawl onto a hammock for a front-row view of Arenal’s peak. A passing rainstorm covers the mountaintop, but we wait long enough for the clouds to part so we can see the volcano in all its glory.

During our final three-hour stretch to San José, we drive through La Fortuna, where most travelers stay when they visit Arenal or the nearby Tabacón Hot Springs. Soto brakes suddenly as we come upon a turkey-like brown bird on the road. “A great curassow!” he yells. “That is very rare to see!”

As the sun sets, we drive past other Costa Rican landmarks, including the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve, which Soto says is one of his favorite places in the country. Unfortunately, we have to skip it to limit our time on the road after dark. Sensing my disappointment, Soto rolls down the windows so I can experience the steep temperature drop as we climb to an elevation of 4,364 feet.

As we descend the other side of the Continental Divide, I watch the rolling hills disappear into the fog in our rearview. Two hours later, the twinkling lights of Costa Rica’s capital city illuminate the way in front of us.

I’m tempted to crash once I check into my hotel room at the Costa Rica Marriott Hotel Hacienda Belen, but the cool San José air lures me out once more, onto the pool deck. The bartender at Bar 10, the property’s casual soccer bar, sees me wandering around and invites me in. I’m too tired to eat dinner or watch a game, but I’m never too tired for a nightcap. After a pint of Imperial, Costa Rica’s national beer, I head up to bed so I can get the most out of my last day here.

Was it wise to decompress in nature for two days and then end my visit by running around a fast-paced city? I’m questioning the decision as I prepare for a packed day of sightseeing. When I exit my guest room and step into the open-air hallways of the Hacienda Belen, the cool breeze of Costa Rica’s Central Valley washes over me, calming my anxieties.

I skip breakfast at the hotel, because I’m about to embark on a tasting tour. I meet Alex González of ChepeCletas Tours on Avenida Central, one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares and home to the historic Central Market, which dates back to 1880. “This is the heart and soul of San José,” González tells me. Costa Rica’s last census counted about 5.2 million people in the country, with up to 1.5 million of them regularly visiting the Central Market. More than a third of the country’s population lives in San José's greater metropolitan area, and many Ticos commute to the market to stock up on traditional fruits and grains.

González spotlights some essentials, from maíz pujagua (purple corn) to tapa de dulce (a tub-shaped block of raw sugarcane). He’s a regular here. We stop by many sodas throughout the morning, and he’s on a first-name basis with most of the shopkeepers. “We’re going to eat a lot,” he warns as we step up to the counter at Soda Tala, run by owner Doña Blanca. Banana leaves are stacked in a corner of the stand, pots bubble on the stove and fried cheese gleams on plates strewn about the cramped space. The servers, clad in black hairnets and colorful shirts do a delicate dance to avoid bumping into one another as they cook and serve.

González orders a chorreada, a pancake-like blend of maize, sugar and eggs, and a corn-and-cheese tortilla. A creature of habit, I also order more fresco de cas. “It’s usually yellow,” González notes, but the fruit juice in my glass is green because it’s blended with leaves of culantro—the way his own mom makes it. “If you ask my mom,” he says, “traditionally, this juice was always green.”

The sweet chorreada is my favorite, but I pace myself to save room for the rest of González’s market go-tos. Just across from Tala is Marisquería y Soda Brigitte, where we sample a caldosa, ceviche poured over a bag of Picaritas corn chips. The snack dates back to the ’90s, when a young child in Palmares, unable to afford ceviche, asked a shopkeeper for broth to pour over his chips. Today, it’s sold by street vendors and sodas around the country. “The idea,” González says, “is for the chips to soak in the ceviche.”

We wrap our culinary tour at La Sorbetera de Lolo Mora, a Central Market institution. Founded in 1901, the ice-cream shop serves just one flavor: vanilla mixed with a blend of spices ranging from nutmeg to cinnamon and clove. What the stand lacks in variety, it makes up for with the memories it has created for generations of Ticos. González tells me that his father, as a child, visited the Central Market every Monday to buy supplies for his father’s shop. His grandfather was a stoic man, but he’d always end the day with a scoop of ice cream from Lolo with his son.

“It was their quality time, so, since I was a child, my dad has brought me here every time we’ve visited the Central Market. I think he’s very emotionally connected [to those times].” The elderly woman sitting next to us also shares a testimonial: She’s been coming to Lolo every week for 55 years.

I’m stuffed and need to walk off that feast, so I make my way to the nearby National Theater of Costa Rica. I’ve just missed a rehearsal by the National Symphony Orchestra, but I still get some behind-the-scenes insight from Alicia Zamora Murillo. She's the director of ConArte Restauración, a Costa Rican art conservation company restoring the 127-year-old theater’s foyer. The project is expected to span 16 months, with each golden ornament taking days to restore. The process involves mechanical and chemical cleaning, structural reconstruction, polishing, painting and the reapplication of the original gold leaf. For a few minutes, I watch Zamora Murillo and a member of her team, Ericka Martínez, meticulously working on the walls. I’ll have to come back and see the theater again when the project is complete.

After that brief glimpse into Costa Rica’s future, I’m taken back in time once more at another historic building. The Museum of Costa Rican Art is a rotating collection housed inside San José’s former airport. The atrium showcases works by contemporary national artists such as Juan José Alfaro and Basthian Magaña Moreno. Upstairs, the bronze-painted stucco mural in the Golden Room depicts scenes from the country’s history, ranging from pre-Columbian times through the arrival of the airport (when the space served as a meeting room for dignitaries) and its closure in the 1970s.

Exhausted, I take González’s dinner suggestion and finish the day at another building with simultaneous identities. Orvieto is an unassuming restaurant in a dimly-lit historic home just outside the city center, and doubles as an art gallery. I order a black truffle risotto and sit on the back porch to watch golden hour settle in. As I wait for my meal, a tropical kingbird serenades me from a perch on an avocado tree in the yard. I listen to his trill, remembering it was the birds that first brought me to Costa Rica. I’ve seen plenty of them, and it turns out that here, in the middle of the busy city, they’ve also found me.