• • A very popular destination, known for its stunning beaches, wildlife and lush rainforest. Also, too many tourists. The town has nice restaurants. It is in the province of Puntarenas.
  • Manuel Antonio National Park: This is the highlight of the area and one of the most famous national parks in Costa Rica. The park comprises of pristine beaches, hiking trails, and dense rainforest. You can spot different kinds of monkeys like the capuchin and squirrel monkeys, colorful birds, and sometimes sloths.
  • Tours on water: Mangrove Boat Tours that sail through the mangroves where you can spot crocodiles, birds, and other wildlife. Companies offer boat tours to spot dolphins and humpback whales as they migrate along the coast, during certain times of the year.

San Jose’ and around

• • National Theater of Costa Rica: Stunning architecture and a symbol of the city’s cultural heritage. You can take guided tours to explore the theater’s opulent interior and history.
  • Poas volcano: An hour from San Jose’, Poás Volcano is an active volcano which is an amazing sight. Botos Lake is a beautiful lake within the Poas national park. The summit of Poas offers panoramic views of the valley and, on clear days, one can see the Pacific and Atlantic coasts from the observation deck.
  • Peace Lodge, a boutique hotel, is located in the Cloud Forest of Costa Rica just an hour from San Jose International Airport on the grounds of the private nature reserve. It is part of the lovely La Paz Waterfall Gardens Nature Park. It has a very nice aviary and a rescued wildlife section to see colorful birds and animals upclose.
  • Sarchi artisan town, is famous for its colorful oxcarts, and is a great place to shop for hand-crafted souvenirs.

Delicious local vegetarian food and I did not get bored of eating out for the two weeks. Signs on the roadside that say ‘Soda’ or ‘Typical Food’ means typical local Costa Rican, or also known as Tico food. Do not miss eating at these Sodas (think ‘Dhaba’ if you are from India). Whether you order the Gallo Pinto or a Casada, you will find some or most of these items on your plate – rice, black beans, scrambled eggs, fried plantain, avocado/aguacate, cabbage, carrots, greens, tomato, tortilla (this, only in Gallo Pinto), ….., give or take. There are plenty of wonderful fruits one can find and we really enjoyed many.

Try a Mexican Coca Cola with real cane sugar and feel the difference in taste. Try a coffee percolating through a cloth. Be aware that coffee everywhere can be very strong. ​​If you like tender coconut water, well, you are lucky that you can have lots of it. Eat fruits… many of the local ones are delicious. Tasty and cheap, an honest and authentic local experience! With so many American tourists, it is also not hard to find Pizza places and Mexican restaurants, if you crave it.
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​Your vegetarian Lingo would be “Vegetariano, sin peces (no fish), sin pollo (no chicken) , sin carne (no meat), only vegetables (solo vegetales), queso bien (cheese ok) and huevos bien (eggs ok). Aguacate is Avocado.

Go to the page on global vegetarian cuisines, you are interested to know more about various vegetarian cuisines.

Restaurants I enjoyed most? Sabor Tico in Monteverde (the plaza one upstairs) where the Casado Vegetariano and Arroz Vegetariano were excellent (like upscale soda food). There are many other vegetarian options on the menu and going by the preparation overall, I am sure you can’t go wrong whatever you pick.

Mundo Milo Eco lodge at Junquillal (Guanacaste) was an absolute delight. Run by a Dutch couple, the vegetarian options and creative cuisine was the most pleasant surprise we had! I looked forward to breakfast each morning and the Gazpacho she made out of beets, yogurt, pineapple, was wonderful, cooling and so satisfying. We so liked the food that we opted to eat here most of our meals except one. Anyone can dine in here, not just guests at the lodge.

Notable for tex-mex food and pizza, Jalapenos Central at Alajuela, in the San Jose’ area felt very eclectic. A mix of Mexican, Tex-Mex and Southwestern cuisine, there are plenty of options for vegetarians. The decor is very unique and colorful with license plates from US states hanging on the walls.
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Bon Appetit in Monteverde’ dished out some excellent pizza and amazing desserts. The place was simply teeming with people who were either going for a tour of the forests or were returning.

Junquillal beach, Tamarindo beach

We mainly visited here for the quiet and lovely beach and the hope of seeing hatching turtles. Playa Junquillal does not have many tourists. The eco-lodge run by a Dutch couple was very unique with individual cabinas on the property, some wildlife, a pool and lovely breakfast “hut”. The exotic, beautiful surroundings made for a pleasant stay at Junquillal. If you are afraid of certain creepy crawlies which might get to your room because of the surrounding vegetation, this place will not be your choice. A place for calmness and serenity. We saw a stick insect and a tarantula on the premises, you may have a lizard or two on your bedroom wall. But hey, its an eco-lodge!

Not far from at Ostinol wildlife preserve you will be able to see hatching Ridley turtles if you visit in the right season. ​​Tamarindo beach is not too far a drive and has restaurants and shops. It is very touristy.

Creatures of the night forest

A wonderful cloud forest

Tropical rain forests, hikes, walk on bridges hanging on tree canopies amidst mists ,make Monteverde’ very dream-like. One can even rent a tree house which we didn’t. We stayed in a very lovely wood cabin with views all around. The furniture was all from local pine.

The highlight of Monteverde was the night hike through the forest. Seeing a sloth moving high up in the tree was a treat, we spotted other nocturnal creatures, seeing varieties of frogs and hummingbirds and little vipers on leaves. We also visited the Butterfly Gardens and Serpentarium in the day time.

After the night tour, we had pizzas at the restaurant Bon Appetit. The place has great reviews, pizza was good, it did have a very nice ambiance to enjoy a dinner on my birthday :-).  The desserts were fantastic. We kept reordering desserts! The added bonus was Wi-Fi which we had been deprived of for a while.

La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano area, hot springs

The hike through the national park near the volcano was most memorable because we got to be apes swinging on trees and having the most fun. Supposedly, spotting the elusive peak of the Arenal volcano is quite difficult as it is often covered with cloud. However, we did see it many times and wondered if the locals simply say that to the tourists to make them feel they saw something that few others did! Back in the resort and sitting in hot water springs after a long day, was therapeutic. We stuck to awesome breakfasts at our resort called Volcano Lodge and Springs and ate at many Sodas in La Fortuna. The resort was beautiful with greenery, flowers and birds. Enjoying several rain showers, the hot springs and food, had us really chilling in the Arenal area.

We really enjoyed visiting the La Fortuna waterfall. It is one of the greenest areas and one has to walk down 500 steps to get to the bottom of the fall. It is well worth it as you can spend a couple of hours in the water down there.

We kept picking up local fruits from the street stall and enjoyed tastes of these fruits we had never had before.

Enroute, we stopped at Jaco beach and we also stopped at a restuarant where we spotted hundreds of scarlet macaws in trees.

Jaco Beach

As we drove from La Fortuna to Manuel Antonio, we stopped to see the crocodiles under the Tarcoles bridge. This is quite a sight as we see hundreds of crocodiles swimming and lying next to each other. It does look rather grotesque (depending on the beholder’s point of view) to see so many together. Next, we stopped at Jaco Beach with the black sand. We ate some fab food at a tree top restaurant here but this restaurant seems to have closed down, sadly.

Manuel Antonio

The stay in an eco-resort was absolutely beautiful with its huge premises, lush vegetation and rooms overlooking the ocean. It was also memorable as we were completely spooked about the scorpion that was walking across our bedroom floor soon after we checked in! Independent units and fantastic views, we had monkeys coming to the balcony. The beaches in Manuel Antonio are lovely with white sand but very touristy. The park itself that includes the beach has some very good hiking trails. In the town, there is no dirth for restaurant choices. We had some good Mediterranean food.

Playa Hermosa

This beach was enroute as we drove from Manuel Antonio to San Jose’. We spent a long time watching them riding the waves. Note that there are two Playa Hermosas in Costa Rica. This Hermosa beach is in Puntarenas. The other one, a busy beach with grey volcanic sand is located in Guanacaste.

San Jose’, Poas volcano, Peace Lodge and La Paz waterfall areas, Sarchi artisans

​​Once in San Jose’, it was strange feeling of end of holiday blues especially because we were back at a regular city. The Poas volcano required an early morning visit to see the activity of the volcano. Later in the day, clouds cover this phenomenon from being visible. The crater has a turquoise-colored lake with erupting steam and gases that can make onlookers feel a bit nauseous though it is some distance away.

A drive to the Saarchi village was worth it as one can find many artisans and wood souvenirs, including the Oxen cart, a symbol of Costa Rica.

We loved dinner at Jalapenos Central at Alajuela, an American owned restaurant. It had car license plates from every state in the US decorating the walls.  Seems like a popular restaurant and the owner is friendly. We tried several items as a group.

We also visited the La Paz waterfall. Seeing the Toucan bird had evaded us the entire trip. On the last day we were desperate to catch a sight of it somewhere! Finally, the Peace lodge gave us a lovely close up of the Toucans in its aviary though it was not in the wild. It was definitely worth the visit for us. I don’t think I have seen a better example of nature’s miraculous creation.

Drinking the Waterfall – Who did it best?