This post covers our trip to Costa Rica with our great friends, Todd and Edie.
DAY 1
We got up bright and early and were picked up by Todd and Edie at around 4am for our six-hour flight from LAX to Costa Rica. The flight was uneventful, and we landed at the Liberia Airport in Costa Rica. We breezed through customs and made it outside to look for the shuttle to our resort.
We stayed at The Westin Reserva Conchal, an all-inclusive resort. This was all of our first time staying at an all-inclusive resort. The resort is located in the northwestern part of Costa Rica, in the Guanacaste Province, on the Pacific Ocean.
We found our shuttle van, loaded up and were on our way. The resort was about 40 miles, from the airport. You would expect that drive to take around 45 minutes or so, and you would be wrong. It takes about an hour and a half. What we did not realize is Costa Rica is technically a third world country. The roads were in terrible shape. That being said, I mean it as an observation and not an insult. We never felt unsafe anywhere we went. The people were amazing, and we loved our visit. Here are some pictures along our route to our resort.
Once we finally arrived at our resort, it was amazing. It is in an actual nature reserve, The Reserva Conchal. That means you cannot bother any of the wildlife there in any way, and there was plenty. After check-in, we were shuttled to our rooms. Here is what the walkways and building exteriors looked like.
And a few pictures of our room.
The resort and rooms were top notch. We all freshened up and grabbed some dinner at the Mitra Market, their sort of high-end buffet with international and local cuisine.
The local food was my favorite. On our first night, I had the local version of Tortilla Soup, complete with tofu chunks. It was really good, and you know that I know my soups.
With full bellies, we returned to our rooms and got some much needed sleep.
DAY 2
We used our first full day at the resort to learn the lay of the land, book some dinner reservations, and book a few tours. We used Central American Tours (Catours) for our tours. They were the company that we were booked with for our shuttle to and from the airport. We liked our shuttle driver so much, we decided to use that company for the rest of our tours and we were not disappointed. They were always on time, professional, reasonably priced, and had a great variety of tours available. When in Costa Rica, we strongly recommend Central American Tours. Of course, you know where to find the link.
Here is what the beach was like in front of the resort.
There were iguanas everywhere, and I do mean everywhere.
Our pool had a swim up bar. We were going to make sure we used that during our stay.
Around mid-day, our downstairs neighbors left food out on their patio. This attracted some blue birds who had a feast.
We ate dinner at the Cauri Lobby Bar & Bistro, a tapas bistro with a great view of the sunset.
The food was very delicious. After dinner, we headed back to our rooms to get some shut eye before the next day’s activities.
Day 3
After a delicious breakfast at the Mitra Market, Todd and I headed off to golf at the resorts golf course while the ladies went to hang out at the pool. Here is how the resort’s webpage describes the course…………”Reserva Conchal Golf Course. This par 71 championship course was meticulously designed by Robert Trent Jones II, who created the course while preserving and enhancing the natural landscape. Lakes and ravines accentuate the 18-hole course and put a premium on tee shots and accurate approach shots to large, manicured Bermuda-grass greens. Each nine meanders through the rolling terrain as golfers are treated to outstanding ocean views, tropical forests, and glimpses of exotic wildlife.” It sounded too good to be true, but it was probably one of the nicest courses we have ever played on. Here are some picks from the links.
Of course there were iguanas on several of the fairways.
After a great round of golf, we went to the pool and found our wives.
Here is an aerial view of the pool.
1 is the swim up bar, 2 is an island where a very large iguana would hang out during the day, and 3 is where we would hang out on our pool days. That night we had dinner at the Faisanella restaurant. Once again, the food was top notch.
Day 4
Our fourth day was our first of three tours we had booked. We left bright and early at 7am and were in a large van with 8 other tourists. After a three-hour drive on average roads, our first stop was the Catarata Llanos Del Cortes Waterfall.
As we drove in the driveway, there was a capuchin monkey in a tree. All of the tourists scrambled to get pictures as our driver/tour guide told us how hated the capuchin monkeys because they are mean and nasty and kill the young howler monkeys and eat them.
Here are a few pictures of the wild and apparently nasty capuchin monkey we saw in the tree.
The waterfalls were crowded, but very scenic. See for yourself.
A short drive later and we were at the Centro de Rescate Las Pumas, a sort of animal rescue. There were a lot of animals and birds to see there. But first, the rules.
We saw monkeys, including the dreaded capuchin.
Along with a lot of birds.
And of course, some large and small cats.
The Centro de Rescate Las Pumas is a really neat place and one you should visit. Not only will you get so see some interesting animals and birds, but your entrance fee helps the center care for the animals they have and any future animals that need help. A win win. Use the link at the end of this blog to help some animals. Our next stop was lunch at the Hummingbird Cafe. It was an outdoor patio cafe in a lush tropical setting.
The food was fine, but the scenery was outstanding. After lunch, we had a guided tour of the Finca Verde Lodge, a small sanctuary next to the cafe. The goal was to find some sloths in the trees. Here is some of what we saw on our tour. A toucan, some tourists, a red-headed woodpecker, and a howler monkey.
There were some amazing and beautiful plants and trees.
There was a really small Black-eyed Tree Frog hiding under a leaf.
During one part of our tour, our guide got excited and showed us a yellow snake that was sleeping on a tree branch. She told us to stay on the path, and she would use our phones to take pictures of it. I immediately noticed the snake had a triangle shaped head, an indicator it was venomous. I asked her about that, and she assured us it was quite venomous because it was an Eyelash Viper. She didn’t have to tell us twice to stay back.
About halfway through our tour, our guide spotted a sloth sleeping up in a tree. We were able to get pictures through a telescope. We actually saw two more during our tour, making the sloth observing complete.
After a several hour ride, we were returned to our resort. We dined in the Mitra Marketplace and finished the day off with a nightcap at the Bar Imperial.
Day 5
This was our power down and relax by the pool day. There were some iguanas on the pool deck.
And a huge iguana that hung out at the island in the center of the pool. He would swim off the island and it was funny to watch all of the people get out of the way like it was a shark. We heard the iguana averaged biting at least one person a day who got too close. We were told it was usually children.
We also had a howler monkey in a tree near us.
The swim up bar was empty, so Todd and Edie solved that problem.
And here is the best-looking guy in the pool.
For lunch, we walked about a half of a mile down the beach to a restaurant in the downtown area next to our resort. It was called Patagonia Del Mar.
We sat on the patio with an ocean view.
Todd had a whole fish and I had a local dish of rice and shrimp. The food was pretty good, but not cheap.
We had several locals tell us if you want inexpensive food, you have to go to a soda, which was a small family-owned restaurant. However, we were cautioned to be careful because the cleanliness can vary between sodas. That was enough to get us to pass on trying to eat at any local sodas.
We walked back to our resort via the beach route and settled back in by the pool for the rest of the day. That night we had dinner at the resort’s Italian restaurant. For some reason, I have no pictures of the that. The meal was very good, as was to be expected.
Day 6
Day 6 was the day we took a Jungle River Cruise at Palo Verde National Park. We were promised that we would see some crocodiles and other wildlife. The cruise definitely delivered on that. It was a several hour drive to the Palo Verde National Park, so it was broken up with two stops. The first stop was at a sugar cane field that was being harvested. Our guide explained how the night before the harvest, the field is set on fire. This removes most of the loose undergrowth and drives out most of the vermin and snakes. The sugar cane is then harvested by hand using machetes.
Our second stop was at a beautiful plantation home for some drinks and snacks.
Finally, we arrived for our “Jungle” Cruise. It turned out we were the only ones in our tour group doing the cruise, so we had a whole boat to ourselves.
The river cruise was amazing and a must do if you visit the west coast of Costa Rica. We saw some really neat scenery.
Several different types of birds.
Of course we saw the dreaded capuchin monkey.
And there had to be iguanas too.
There were even tiny bats sleeping under a tree.
And boy did we ever see crocodiles. They were everywhere.
To book one of these tours for yourself, just use the Central America Tours link at the end of this post. We all napped on the long drive back to the resort. Once there, we freshened up and had a pre-dinner drink up at the reception area so we could see another sunset.
We ended the evening with dinner at the resort’s steakhouse. It was delicious.
Day 7
This was our last full day at the resort. We spent the morning at the pool, relaxing.
After lunch, we were picked up by our tour guide from Central American Tours. We had scheduled a 6-hour private tour for the afternoon and evening. We had some grand plans for the tour. We wanted to visit some of the local shopping areas, spend some time in the coastal town of Tamarindo, have a beachside sunset dinner at Lola’s, a mere 20 miles from the resort, and add on whatever our tour guide thought was worth seeing. We started with a stop at touristy type shop called Sea Star Souvenirs just outside our resort. It was interesting and I think we all picked up some sort of souvenir either for ourselves or as a gift. Next, we drove to near the top of one of the cliffs near our resort. The view was gorgeous.
From there, we were off to the town of Tamarindo, a short 12-mile drive away. Now I have already mentioned the poor road conditions which slow down your commute, but on this drive, we got to add heavy traffic and the fact there are no traffic controls at most intersections. No stop signs, yield signs, traffic lights, nada. In heavy traffic that makes for chaos, which we got to experience. Our 12-mile drive took almost an hour. Since we had reservations for a sunset dinner on the beach, we had to cut our visit to Tamarindo short. That worked out for us because Tamarindo is like most of the tourist towns. A lot of restaurants, bars, and tourist shopping. Tamarindo is where there is a large ex-pat (former US citizens who now live in Costa Rica) population and one of the hot surfing spots on the west coast. Since we are not looking to move to Costa Rica and do not surf, we had just the right amount of time there. We left before 4:30 pm and had a 5 pm reservation at Lola’s, a beach side restaurant with beachfront patio seating, and tables right on the sand near the water. Our reservation was for one of the tables on the sand so we could enjoy the sunset with our dinner. Lola’s was only 12 miles from Tamarindo, so we should have had time to spare. We made it four miles to the tiny town of Villareal when traffic just stopped. I don’t mean slowed down, it stopped. For 20 minutes, we sat in traffic, not moving. Our guide guessed it must be a bad accident. As it approached 5 pm, I called Lola’s and asked how long they could hold our reservation. They said they would hold it for 30 minutes but could not guarantee anything beyond that. Fair enough. Suddenly, the traffic started moving. We learned the street was blocked because of a funeral procession going to the cemetery located on that same road. We now needed to go eight miles in about 30 minutes. Boy did we have the adventure ride. Our guide drove as fast as he could on the very poorly maintained roads, so he was driving on both sides of the road, as traffic would allow. It was an E-ticket ride. We skidded into Lola’s parking lot at 5:30 pm on the nose and our table was waiting for us.
Here is the ocean view from our table.
And this is looking back toward the restaurant.
We ordered our dinner and sipped on drinks while watching the sunset.
The food was very good, but nothing special. The view, however, could not be beat. This is a must visit for a sunset dinner on the beach. Use the link at the end of this post to make your reservation, because they are needed. The direct drive back to the resort was only 16 miles, but still took an hour. While I loved Costa Rica, I really did not like the roads and traffic.
Day 8
This was our travel day back to California. Cindy and I were greeted by a few of our wildlife friends on our way to check out.
Our shuttle driver picked us up at noon for a 40-mile drive to the airport and a 4:30 pm flight. Based on the one and a half hours it took us to get to the resort from the airport, we figured to have around 3 hours to get to our gate before the flight departed. That math would be incorrect. The drive back to the airport took almost two and a half hours. Here are a few sights we saw while sitting in traffic.
That left us just over 2 hours to get through security and to our gate. We all took a deep breath and entered the hot, humid, open-air airport. We were greeted with a Disneyland style back and forth line that may have gone on forever. The red arrow is where you eventually needed to go to get through customs and security.
The good news was about every ten minutes an airport employee would come out and announce a flight that was boarding. If you were on that flight, you got to go to the front of the line. That made us pretty confident we were going to make our flight. The line only took about an hour and we made our flight with no problem.
Here are a few take aways from the trip. First, the country of Costa Rica. Even though it is a third world county that has a few issues, it is 100% worth visiting. The people are amazing and welcoming, and there is so much to see and do. All we saw and experienced was the northwest portion of the country. And I can say with absolute confidence, that part of the country is worth taking the time to visit. Next, the Westin Reserva Conchal. This was the first time Cindy and I, and Todd and Edie as well, had stayed at an all-inclusive resort. All I can say is, “Wow!” We all had an amazing time. Ten out of ten. More than link worthy and there is a link at the end of this post. We will definitely stay at an all-inclusive resort again, but not every time. The reason I say not every time is because it depends on the type of trip you want to take. The all-inclusive resort is perfect for relaxing and being pampered in luxury. We love that type of trip. Who wouldn’t. But we also like taking the kind of trip where you do a lot of sightseeing and move around a lot. Like when we went to Ireland. So, if you’re taking a relaxing type of trip, indulge yourself with the all-inclusive.
Stay tuned for the next post where Cindy and I visit Palm Springs for the Desert X 2025 art show.
LINKS