Costa Rica - Day #4

 Costa Rica Trip

Day #4 - Sunday, January 11th

This morning we headed out from the Radisson Hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica at 8am - after a great breakfast at the hotel (fresh omelettes).  The drive to Monteverde took about 3-1/2 hours - which included a 15-minute pit stop mid-way through the journey.  We arrived into Monteverde and had lunch in the central town square.  Really small place - with tons of character and tropical charm.  

After lunch we walked around town for another hour and then took a leisurely stroll back to the hotel.  We got picked up at 2:30pm to visit a coffee plantation. What a really cool tour!   We visited Costa Rican Coffee - and had a 2-hr tour which showed us the entire coffe-producing process - from growing the coffee beans, to picking the beans, to the drying process, and the roasting process.  Some interesting points from the coffee tour:  coffee beans are only picked by hand in Costa Rica, the beans are ripe when they are red, each plant can produce beans for 25/30 years, it takes 3-years before a plant produces beans, dark roast has less caffeine than light roast.  

After the coffee tour, we went to a restaurant that had an amazing lookout at the Pacific Ocean.  We had a great dinner and watched one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen.  Just about perfect!

Back to the hotel - just in time to catch the last 5 minutes of the 49ers/Eagles playoff football game - pumped for the 49ers win. 

To end a great day, we went on a 2-hr night hike with a guide to view different animals in the region.  What an outstanding finish to the day!  We saw kinkajous, sloths, tarantulas, frogs, birds, scorpios, toucans, beatles, leaf insects, etc.   

Truly an amazing day in Costa Rica!

Lunch spot - Monteverde 

Hotel - Monteverde 

Coffee Plantation 

Ripe coffee beans

Excellent guide

Guide explaining process

Overlooking coffee plants

Banana Tree

Coffee seeds - from bean

Dried coffee seeds

Taste testing

Sunset

The fellas at sunset

Gus, Kip, Greg, myself

Awesome

Getting cold at dark

Wow!

Stroll through Monteverde 

Night hike - frog

Starry skies

Scorpion

Kinkajous

Sloth

Toucan

Tarantula 

Leaf insect

Cool bird

Kinkajou video

Sloth video 

Costa Rica - Day #3

 Costa Rica Trip

Day #3 - Saturday, January 10th

It’s about 2pm local time - we’re in a shuttle bus nearing our drop-off location in San Jose, Costa Rica.  After grabbing a hot tea from a Starbucks across from our hotel this morning around 9am - we took a pre-booked shuttle (InterBus) to drive us the 5-hrs from Liberia to San Jose, Costa Rica.  

Today is the start of our 7-day G-Adventures tour in Costa Rica.  We’ll be meeting our guide this afternoon and then meeting up with the rest of our tour group for dinner tonight.  Logistics are taken care of the next 7 days - now it’s time to just have some fun and start adventuring. I’ll check in later tonight. 

Later

We rolled into the hotel around 2:30pm.  Radisson Hotel - really nice in the heart of San Jose. Greg and I went out for a little walk around the city (3 miles or so). We made it to the center of the city - the National Theatre area.  Neat spot with a courtyard.  We walked a few of the busy, pedestrian-only streets around the main city square.  Back to the hotel.  

We met up with our tour group at 6pm.  The trip members include the following: (10 total)

Yacdany - Trip leader - born/raised in Monteverde, Costa Rica.  Married with 2 kids - lives in Switzerland part time.  

Gus - lives in California (near LA).  Done a bunch of traveling to Europe.  

Len and Heather - older couple who resides in Edmonton, Canada

Pam and Mindy - mom/daughter combo from Ft Wayne, Indiana.  Pam (mom) is retired - former speech therapist. Mindy (daughter) - works in a museum

Kip - 43-year old from St. Louis, Mo.  Lives in Maplewood and went to DeSmet High School.  Spent a few summers in Alaska - big hiker

Ursula - from Vienna, Austria.  Has been to Everest BaseCamp. 

We had a really nice dinner and got to know each other a bit.  Always one of my favorite parts of traveling - learning new people and getting inspired by their stories.  After dinner - we grabbed a drink and watched the end of the Packers/Bears playoff football game. 

Tomorrow - breakfast at 6:30am - then we’re departing for Monteverde at 8am.  Excited to get the party started.  Good night from San Jose, Costa Rica!

Halfway point from Liberia to San Jose

Iguana - Halfway Point

Streets of San Jose

National Theatre - San Jose

Inside National Theatre

National Theatre 

Streets of San Jose 

Streets of San Jose

Meet up sheet - GAdventures

Costa Rica - Day #2

 Costa Rica Trip

Day #2 - Friday, January 9th

Nicaragua Day Trip

Today we did an epic day tour to the country of Nicaragua.  An early wake-up call led to a 5:50am pickup at the Peri Supermarket (across the street from our hotel) in Liberia.  The tour included 9 total people with an additional guide and driver.  We had an extended van - pretty nice setup. 

It’s 6:30pm and we’re in the van headed back to Costa Rica.  A really good day is being challenged by a rough return.  We are dealing with tons of road construction and have been at a stand-still on/off over an hour now.   We still need to get across the border back into Costa Rica.  We’re looking at a 9pm (or so) arrival back to our hotel.  

Regardless of the challenging return drive - I will remember this day as a really interesting, educational day - where I got to see/experience a ton of new things.  

The sites/scenery were great - but I thoroughly enjoyed the education from our guide along the way.  Just a few things I learned:

Nicaragua 

• 300,000 soldiers

• Road extends from Alaska to Panama

• Biggest country in Central America by land mass - 2-1/2 times bigger than Costa Rica

• 6 million population 

• All Central American countries speak the same language (Spanish) but are totally different.   “Latin countries don’t like each other”

• Sugar cane - can use for 30 years if cut by hand with machete 

• Lake Nicaragua expands the southern portion of the country. 2 volcanoes sit in the southern portion of the lake - 1 active and 1 not

• Most expensive project in Central America - Wind Mills

• License suspended 3 months for traffic violation. Lots of check points

• $220/month - minimum salary 

• Rivas - city where ex-pats live - closest city to border in Nicaragua 

• December-January—- biggest holidays.  Nicaragua becoming more of tourist spot.  Lots cheaper - equally as beautiful as Costa Rica

• Food - lots of plantains.  Rice and beans.  Chicken. 

• Cocoa bean - originally from Central America 

• Roads are in really good condition in Nicaragua - upgrades ordered directly by President 

• Lots of road work today - traffic pretty bad

• William Walker - from Nashville, TN - had control in Nicaragua for 11 months.  Burned places down before he left - the Catholic Church in Granada.   

• Nicaragua has 2 Presidents currently 

• Volcano erupted into lake - formed 365 small islands

• Corruption in all Central American countries.  Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador - more industries than the other 4 countries 

A breakdown of the tour: (Claudio- tour guide)

• Crossed border (1-1/2 hours)

• Breakfast in Playa La Virgen. Walked to Lake Nicaragua and took pictures of 2 volcanoes 

• Catarina - look-out spot and walked around shops

• Volcano Masaya.   Active since 772. Drove to top of volcano - 2,100’ high.  One of the most active volcanoes in Central America.  Active smoke - mild eruption 1 month ago

• Granada - oldest colonial Spanish city in Central America.  Founded in 1524.  7 Catholic Churches

• Cigar shop —— 4 largest cigar makers:  Nicaragua, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras

• Chocolate Shop — demonstration, taste test, coffee shots

• Catholic Cathedral - center of Granada. Toured inside as well.  Most highlighted view in colonial Granada. 

• Lunch - great chicken/steak lunch in isolated garden spot

• Lake Nicaragua - 1-hr boat ride.  Viewed many of the small islands created from the volcano eruption in the past.  People own each island. 6 million dollars - most expensive island.  Mansions, helicopter pads. Monkey island - 2 monkeys live on 1 island

• Drive home - cross border back into Costa Rica

Today was a long travel day - but well worth it in my opinion.  Always interesting to learn new things.  Nicaragua - done.   On to exploring Costa Rica!

Early morning pickup

Pickup spot - Peri Supermarket 

Walking across the border

Breakfast spot

Makes maracas

1st views of Lake Nicaragua 

Breakfast town

Map of Nicaragua 

2 volcanoes in Lake Nicaragua 

Lake Nicaragua 

Wading in Lake Nicaragua 

Catarina - lookout spot

Catarina - lookout spot

Full tree

Gates into Catarina

Tuk-tuk

Volcano Masaya

Our guide Claudio in blue

Lake Masaya

Cigar shop

Cigar shop

Solid

Interesting cigar shop

Chocolate Shop

Chocolate shop

Catholic Cathedral - Granada

Lunch spot

Granada

Boat ride - Lake Nicaragua 

Boat ride - Lake Nicaragua 

Costa Rica - Day #1

 Costa Rica Trip 

Day #1 - Thursday, January 8th

It’s been a minute since my last international trip.  I’m currently on a flight from Denver, CO to Liberia, Costa Rica.  It’s 3:30pm (Central Standard time in the US - same time zone as the country of Costa Rica) on Thursday, January 8, 2026.  We have roughly 1-1/2 hours before landing on this flight.   I just finished watching the movie F1 - really good movie by the way.   I’m feeling inspired - so I thought I’d write for a little while.

My buddy Greg and I are starting an 11-day, 3-country adventure today.  We’ll be going to the countries of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico.  The vast majority of the trip will be spent in Costa Rica - with a couple side tours to Nicaragua to get us going and Mexico to finish it off.  I’m meeting Greg when I land - as he’s flying direct from his home in Raleigh, NC.

This will be my very first trip to Central America.   I’ve traveled to several countries in South America - but never to any of the 7 countries that make up Central America:  Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Belize.   

Costa Rica has long been a country on my list- as it’s often highlighted in the “Best Places to Visit in the World”.  Many people I know have already vacationed here.  Costa Rica and Nicaragua will be countries #65 and #66 on my journey to visit 100 countries in the world. 

This trip is a bit unusual for us - as we have a shell plan layout- but the meat/potatoes of the journey will be largely spontaneous.   We have a 7-day adventure in Costa Rica with a company called G-Adventures.  They’ll be providing lodging, transportation, meals, and a guide.  We get to choose our daily activities.  The goal is for lots of thrill-seeking experiences ——like cliff-rappelling, zip-lining, forest canopy hikes, white water rafting, etc.  

Today has been a crazy journey to this point.  I got an Uber ride to the airport at 6:30am.   The Uber driver tells me he had just ran over something that fell out of the back of a pick-up truck - but “everything seems fine with the car”.  Well - as soon as we got on I-25 - the car was shaking and pulling side-to-side.   The guy reduced the speeds and things were much better.  So - we proceeded to the airport not exceeding 50mph.  The driver says as I’m getting out of the car:  “Yeah - it was touch and go for a while there”.  1 obstacle dodged.  Next, I’m sitting at the gate waiting to board, when a women sitting across from me effectively passed out (or it so appeared).  Next thing I know - there’s 7 emergency personnel tending to this women.  Feet in the air and an IV started right there on the floor.  She gained consciousness and appeared to be doing much better as I boarded the flight.  

I’m always a little on edge at the start of a trip - hoping I didn’t miss anything and getting back into the travel mindset.  Well - these 2 events this morning - didn’t really help me so much.  

It’s OK - doing a little better now.  We’re almost ready to land - and I’m starting to feel that excitement, that feeling of getting out of my comfort zone, ready to see new places, meet new people, and have some unique adventures.  This is the feeling that makes me want to travel - that feeling of “Being Alive”.  Stay tuned - let’s make some things happen!!

LATER 

8:50pm.  Made it to Liberia, Costa Rica.   No issues getting through customs.  My flight had been delayed - so I grabbed a taxi and met Greg at the hotel.  Hotel Boyeros is our home for the next 2 nights - right in the central part of town.  Costa Rica only has about 5 million people in the whole country - so this city is fairly small in the grand scale of things.  

I checked in and then we went out to dinner.  Mariajuana - a place recommended by the hotel.  Dinner was great - beef/chicken empanadas, tortilla soup, and a couple local brews. 

Back in the hotel room.  We have a day tour to Nicaragua tomorrow.  We have to meet at the pickup spot across the street at 5:45am.  Time for some shut eye. 

Good night from Liberia, Costs Rica!

Dinner location

Outside dinner - maybe mid 70’s for temperature 

Nice restaurant