I got the opportunity to visit my boyfriend while he is working in Costa Rica.  He brought flowers and wine when he came back to the hotel from work!  ( I had to be creative about finding a vase, so I used our ice bucket with a bag liner.)  They instantly made our hotel room more comfortable ( or maybe it was the two glasses of wine!)

My boyfriend’s co-worker and co-worker’s girlfriend were also in CR at the same time, so we were able to explore the country together.  Better yet, they both spoke fluent Spanish, so we also had our own translators ( I took 5 years of Spanish in Middle/ High School and could only remember a couple of words- hola and gracias.)

The hotel we stayed at had really delicious breakfast every morning.  I had an omelet, fresh orange juice, fresh pineapple, and coffee every morning.  Here was our view while eating breakfast:

We rented a car so we made day trips everyday from our hotel, right outside of San Jose.  One day we visited Volcan Poas (about an hour and twenty minutes away.) There was a $10 admission for each person, but it was well worth it.  We put on our long pants and bug spray and hiked (more like walked because all the trails are paved) to the volcano’s crater.  I was not expecting to see the crater so suddenly when I came to the first clearing.  It was pretty smoky, so it wasn’t until after I got to the ledge of the lookout did I see this.

Yeah it was pretty sweet.  Volcan Poas has the second largest crater in the world so this is pretty awesome.  We then hiked to a lake nearby.  Pretty…

Close to Volcan Poas are the La Paz Waterfall Gardens.  This cost is $35 a person, but was also worth it be because there is so much to do there (it takes about 3 hours to see everything.). The lodge where you enter is very cute and has the coolest bathrooms with stone waterfalls for the sinks.  It also has great views overlooking the rainforest:

We started with the wildlife section.  There are different areas for different rainforest animals.  The best part was the birds which were all around you when you walked through the area.  My favorite part was the toucans.  They were so cute and I got to hold one on my arm!  There he is!

There were also parts for butterflies, hummingbirds, snakes (I avoided this one), frogs (ran through this one), jungle cats, and monkeys. The jungle cats and monkeys were caged separately so there were no real interaction with them.  Although this place was basically a zoo, it was really cool to see all the animals of the area- especially the toucans!
Oh hi!

We then somehow got a ride on a cart pulled by two bulls.  I am not quite sure how this happened since all the interaction was in Spanish, but we got a free bull ride (brought me back to the days of playing Oregon Trail.)

Next, we hiked to the four waterfalls, and once again, I use the term hike softly.  We saw some really amazing views of the waterfalls and the rainforest.  There was so many great scenes for pictures. M and I  got so many great photos of us from our trip which is great because we do not have a lot of photos we love of us together.

We got very close to one of the waterfalls.

We finished the waterfall adventure at another lodge with a gift shop were my boyfriend bought me a toucan magnet and a little monkey ( yeah, I bet my nephew T is going jealous of my monkey because he loves him some monkeys!)

Another day we went to the beach on the Pacific side.  This took us three hours to get to.  It was overcast that day, so although beautiful, the beaches were a little dreary.  We still went in the ocean and it was surprisingly warm!

Another day we drove about an hour and a half to another Volcano- Volcano Izura, which is still active.  We found a small hotel that had a hot springs pool that is heated from the volcano.  We also had our own tour guide, who showed us around the place.

The trip was a lot of fun and soon as you knew it, it was time to go home . :(  There was many parts of the country that we didn’t get to visit because they were just too far to travel in one day.  Even though, all the tour books and websites I read said how bad the roads were – they were not impossible to get around (or so it looked from the backseat:)).  I would recommend staying at multiple hotels to be able to see and travel around the country more.  We wanted to go visit the Arenal Volcano area on our last day but it was 3 and a half hours away and way too far for us to do in one day.

*Trip tip-  The couple we were traveling with have traveled a lot and had a great idea to go to the local grocery store to buy food, snacks, and a Styrofoam cooler for our day trips to save money.  We found a Wal-Mart (of all places) and stocked up on water, soda, granola bars, and snacks.  They do this everywhere they visit.

Overall, it was a really great trip and it was very sad to leave my boyfriend and come back to the U.S.  Although I did miss my apartment and my blog!  Have you ever traveled to Costa Rica?  If so, what was your favorite part?