This Central American country has it all!
We flew to San Jose, the capital city, on JetBlue from Ft Lauderdale (a great airline, by the way).
He spent one night at the Carriari Doubletree Hotel and then headed to the state of Guanacaste on the Pacific Northwest coast of Costa Rica. The trip takes about 4 hours, depending on the pit stops (not too many for us, the girls were in a hurry to the resort for some reason). There are many, many options for side trips on this trip. I regret now, in retrospect, that we didn’t take some… like the volcano and/or the Cloud Forest.
The road from San José to Liberia (the city where we turn left to reach the coast and the resort) is a section of the Pan-American Highway. As you can see in the photo, the Costa Rican government is rapidly expanding it into a four lane highway. The expected completion time is about two years. This improvement will easily reduce the driving time between San José and Guanacaste by an hour or more. (The existing two-lane highway is in good shape…it’s the traffic that slows it down.)
The next five days and nights we enjoyed luxury in a small duplex bungalow at the Hilton Papagayo All-Inclusive Resort on Papagayo Bay.
We share the other side of our unit with our daughter and friend. Our hillside location turned out to be perfect for accessing the “adults only” section of the resort, and the area consisting of the spa, a pool, a dining room, and the beach.
The grounds (and trees) surrounding our bungalow are shared with some very large but friendly iguanas and howler monkeys. A quick note about the monkeys: although shy, they are also very curious. We were warned not to leave anything unattended that might be of interest, whether it be on our front porch or on the beach. It seems that little devils have a habit of taking objects, such as towels, cameras, clothes, etc. – Go back up the trees with them. Then, once their curiosity is satisfied, they leave the objects there. So unless you want to find your belongings in the treetops when you return, it’s best to leave them indoors or under guard.
All non-motorized water sports are included at the Hilton Papagayo. Jet skis and deep sea fishing are extra, but reasonably priced. Newly engaged Joni and Cameron caught half a dozen grouper during a morning excursion, which were cleaned, cooked and served for lunch by the resort chef within an hour of landing. Talk about cool!
Little trucks — actually golf carts on steroids — constantly ply the resort’s paths, offering guests rides between the bungalows and various attractions on the property. We found it best to walk the distance as a means to exercise and enjoy the wonderful food! As you can see in my shadow on this path to the dining room, I have grown taller and thinner.
We found some not-so-shy howler monkeys at a zoo located at the base of the zip line facility. One seemed perfectly at home on Savey’s shoulders.
One afternoon, the staff at the resort’s spa arranged a couples beachside massage…it was a mixture made of honey, ground coffee beans, and some type of moisturizer. The iguanas and I opted out of that little event.
Did I mention the food? Fabulous! Plenty of fresh seafood and several alternative restaurants to choose from…at no additional cost.
The zip lining was very different from what we expected. Instead of a single trip to the ground from a tower or a cliff, we experience a series of eleven trips through the jungle treetops. Once elevated to treetop level, it was exhilarating to travel from one station to the next without ever coming back down to earth…until the last zipline dropped us off on “mainland” about an hour later.
We enjoyed an audience of various ‘bugs’ as we invaded their lofty domain.
Monkeys are fast! One of our group got too close when taking a photo. On the one eye block, one of the little buggers grabbed his sunglasses. A trainer had to retrieve them.
Costa Rica is truly a nature lover’s paradise. And the Hilton Papagayo is particularly attractive, all-inclusive and reasonably priced. To see the rates for this property, enter here.