¡Pura Vida!

¡Pura vida! Translation: "Pure Life" or "The Good Life" as our local cab driver in Costa Rica told us when we got in the car. We were distracted and we repeated back: "Puta Vida?" he laughed, "uhm no, that means something completely different" LOL! "Oh", I said...."Pura Vida", I corrected myself. Our driver laughs, "that is right!"

We basically laugh all the way to the small beach town of Coco, about 30 minutes from the airport and on the Pacific Northwest side of Costa Rica in the Guanacaste province. We are on a 'Friends' Trip' with some of my best friends and former roommates from college. I am so excited to be on this trip and explore a

whole new country! My husband and I meet up with my 3 friends who are already out and about in Coco, at the beach! We drop our bags at our VRBO and we head down to the beach to catch some late afternoon beach time and dip into the Pacific. This beach is absolutely beautiful, and I pinch myself, I can't believe I am here!

Costa Rica: Rich Coast! Located, Deep in the heart of Central America. Ranked as one of the happiest and most peaceful countries in the world! I am here 5 minutes and I totally get it! It starts with their motto: Pura Vida! With their vibrant culture, absolutely gorgeous and diverse geography, and delicious/HEALTHY food just all over the place, it's no wonder! Why did it take me so long to get here and how long can I stay!?! Seriously! You will not believe the feeling and state of mind Costa Rica will put you in. My words are just not good enough and it is amazing. I am longing to return, bring my kids just so they can see and feel "it" for themselves. This is not just a vacation; it was a transformation into a whole other mind set. And I get to experience it with my best friends! We watch the sunset from our VRBO infinity pool (5 stars) and we are all just in awe!

The next day in Coco was more hanging out at the beach and having lunch. Then we had an afternoon of sailing, snorkeling, swimming, and catching the sunset out on a catamaran. We had so much fun, and this afternoon was so relaxing! I loved jumping in the water and snorkeling. We sailed around Bahia Coco taking in the waves, laughter, music and the gorgeous scenery of a small town off the coast of Costa Rica! We caught another incredible sunset and by dark we headed back to our nice VRBO bungalow to hang out at our pool. We spent 3 days as friends just relaxing, catching up, taking in the beach, and eating wonderful food. In the mornings we brewed our own coffee and ate the best mangos I have ever tasted in my life! The best part of our mornings was hanging out on the front porch and listening and watching the Howler Monkeys who lived in the trees. They talk to each other and get so loud, cracking us up! LOL! After 3 days in Coco, it was time to load up

in our rental car and road trip over to La Fortuna! By way of Lake Arenal, this was a slow and scenic way to go to La Fortuna and I absolutely loved it! Lake Arenal is a huge lake, famous for windsurfing and breathtaking views. The HWY curves all around the lake, giving you one of the most scenic drives you'll ever take and leads you to Arenal Volcano National Park. We make a pit stop for lunch at Cafe Macadamia, for a yummy lunch and the most delicious chocolate macadamia cookies you'll ever eat. I can still taste them 4 years later writing this blog. Warm, fresh out of the oven. The menu and views from this cafe provide the perfect road trip lunch, that I catch myself daydreaming of this perfect day with friends, on the perfect road trip. After lunch, we keep curving around the hairpin road, making our way across the lake, closer to La Fortuna. As we get closer to La Fortuna, we see lush farms, see rain forests and many stops for hot springs swimming spots and resorts. We get closer to Arenal Volcano and the land surround is absolutely beautiful with farmlands, rolling hills, streams, rivers and various hot springs spots. We make it to our Hot Springs Resort, Paradise Hot Springs. This place sits right at the base of the Arenal Volcano and such a relaxing spot to spend a few days.

A beautiful and cozy boutique resort, Paradise Hot Springs is a thermal water Resort of relaxation & wellbeing through natural thermal water at different temperatures, hydromassage, instrumental music, tropical gardens and a maximum capacity. This is one of the best hotels, resort type places I have ever stayed in, ever! It wasn't super fancy, but it was nice. This place was tranquil, not crowded and I would wake up every morning and walk over from my bungalow with my delicious Costa Rican coffee and go stare at the beautiful volcano. On clear mornings, It had a little smoke plume swirling out on top, like a tea kettle on the stove. Very mesmerizing and something I made part of my morning ritual, just like going out to pick up the paper, I had to go see the volcano. It really was a magical place to stay!

We spent 4 glorious days in the La Fortuna area, exploring and going on daily adventures and ending our days soaking in the thermal hot springs. We went rafting down the Balsa River, visited the Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges in the tropical rain forest through hanging bridges in front of the majestic Arenal Volcano in La Fortuna Costa Rica. We visited and hiked around Arenal Volcano National Park. We hung out in the town of La Fortuna and took a dip in the La Fortuna waterfall. This was one of my favorite activities, swimming in the waterfall and hearing all of the gasps and the yells of the word "cold" in different languages. After we did our "Cold" yell after daring each other to take the plunge, we would just laugh at everyone else jumping in. "Frio! Kalt! Freddo! Kall! Cold!" We found some delicious restaurants in the evening in La Fortuna, with so many great choices. La Fortuna is surrounded by some great cattle farms, which made for some really great choices of local cuisine of beef. Pretty much everything on the menu was local and the quality of food was so amazing. All of these excursions were within 30 minutes of our stay at Paradise Hot Springs and honestly, we could have spent a whole week or longer exploring the area, it has plenty to offer!

After spending four days beside Arenal volcano, we loaded up our friends-mobile and headed down the highway to the central part of the country, towards San Jose, the Capital of Costa Rica. I loved driving through Costa Rica! First of all, they had Kendrick Lamar blasting on their radio stations and all the older models of Toyota Land Cruisers driving all over the place, numerous ranges of model years til the cows come home! So many and all in mint condition, didn't matter the year, it was incredible, like seeing a Toyota commercial in real life. We took our time driving from rolling hills, town to town, seeing the beautiful countryside of Costa Rica. I would imagine what would it be like to grow up here? Maybe in a different time and how life would be like here, Costa Rica definitely made me daydream like this. It was heaven. We arrived and stayed in a beautiful Air BnB home nestled in the mountains in between Naranjo de Alajuela and the town of Grecia.

The best thing about this stay was the awesome back porch and of the views of the mountains, and watching the toucan birds fly around. This part of Costa Rica has many coffee estates and tours. Of course, all of us are avid coffee drinkers, so we found a coffee estate to tour and it did not disappoint. It was such an educational, yet laid back, and fun tour. Coffee estates exists all over this part of Costa Rica many are generational family operations and make some incredible coffee. We all bought loads of coffee to bring back with us and if you haven't tried coffee from Costa Rica, add it to your list, it is pretty fantastic! We spent 2 days in this area and of course, we wished it was longer. On our last night we went to the grocery store and cooked ourselves a friend-feast before we all traveled home.

Overall we spent 9 days on our friends trip and it was so much fun!! I dream of our next trip together; where will it be? Will it ever be better than this trip? I don't think anything could be "better" than this trip, just different. The tranquility of this trip will be burned in my brain and heart forever of enjoying all the things, little and big. Seeing new animals such monkeys, sloth, toucans, blue jean frogs (thank god, no jaguars, LOL).

I still dream of going back to the Paradise Hot Springs and experiencing that therapuetic place all over again. I dream of venturing some place new with my best friends and we just pick up from where we left off and enjoy a new adventure together. If you have friends that you can travel with and love you no matter what, hold on and cherish them. Great friends are a special gift in this life and if you can weave that into the magical hobby of traveling, then friends, thats the icing on the cake of your journeys!

Click Here for Costa Rica Trip Itinerary