I recently took a two week backpacking trip through Costa Rica. I ended up making it to all of the provinces and seeing a majority of the biodiversity the small country had to offer within that time, along with learning valuable life lessons and meeting several new friends along the way.
The trip started in San Jose. Although it's surrounded by beautiful mountains, the crime in the city itself is fairly high. All the houses and businesses have iron bars and often barbed wire for safety. Cab drivers are relentlessly in your face trying to get you to take a ride, and many fare scam artists and not actual cab drivers. So, when travelling in San Jose be careful of that. They have Uber in San Jose and Heredia now, so if you don't want to take the bus, that's also an option. I was lucky enough to get a ride from friends at the airport when I got in and taken to stay in Heredia, a city about 20-30 minutes north of San Jose. Heredia seemed a bit safer and quieter and we had no problems taking the bus in that area. We stayed my first night in the country with Jose and Leo. They are a couple that own a vet clinic in Heredia, and they are the sweetest people. The next day we took a bus into town and met up with 3 others that we would end up traveling with for the majority of the rest of the trip and headed to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. It was about a 4 hour drive if my memory serves me right. We checked into the Santa Elena Hostel for $16 a night, which I was very pleased with. All the employees and all the guests were very nice and I made some good friends at this hostel. The morning after we checked in we did a 4 hour hike through the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve. We opted out of the tourist attractions and decided to just go be in the nature without zip lining or any bridges. It was surreal to be in such a beautiful place. Because I have so many pictures of the trip, I'll be splitting off these posts into several parts. This particular post only covers the first 24 hours of my trip.
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| Heredia. |
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| Everyone has a job in Costa Rica. Their hustle is strong. |
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| Erin and I borrowed some dogs at Leo and Jose's vet clinic. |
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| On the drive to Monteverde from San Jose. |
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| A quick pee stop. |
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| The first morning at the Santa Elena Hostel. |
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| On a 4 hour hike through the Monteverde Cloud Forest. |
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| View of the Arenal Volcano from the Monteverde Cloud Forest. |
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| A break during the hike. |
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| As close to being in Fern Gully as you can get. |
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| E.T. joined us for the trek. |
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| 4 out of 5 of our traveling crew. Also my first and only attempt at using a selfie stick. |
