Costa Rica: Days 5 & 6
Day 5 – Traveling from Tortuguero to Sarapiqui
Leaving Tortuerga today I would be shocked if it wasn’t going to be my favorite stop of the trip. I love the location and our off the path hotel only accessible by boat. The amazing birds, monkeys, and sloths we saw just on the daily. I’m going to ignore being woken up by howling howler monkeys each day because it was still a beautiful day and we should be asleep wasting it.
We got on our bus and off we went. Gustavo had us stop at a local shop which prepared a delicious tasting of local fruit cut up and separated for everyone to try. We the Caribbean people love fruit so I was in heaven to be eating something fresh and healthy. I had a feeling I would have tasted everything already has we have similar weather but to my surprise, there were a few new selections and a few of my regulars that just had such a different taste.
I also want to point out the pineapple here is the best I’ve ever had, to which many people agreed and commented on. Perfectly sweet and less acidic. No mouth burning for us.
So let’s discuss Sarapiqui for a minute. Wonderful Landscape and on this particular lodging we would be staying in some form of a tent camp.
I have never been ‘camping’. But I knew if I was going to go camping it would be nice to have a real bathroom attached to my tent and that was a benefit we had at this tent camp.
In all honesty, it WAS a very cute camping style situation. So that was a plus.
The negative for me was the openness of bugs passing through said tent house. But no biggie. Checked those bed quite thoroughly for little bug friends, plopped our bags down and headed out for our activity this day.
After dropping our items down and checking out the tent we headed to our next tour.
Samantha and I have been looking forward to the chocolate tour… because yum!
When we entered the Reservation Biological Tirimbina we were greeted by a lovely lady named Hilary (pictured below) and we started out on our mini-hike into the cocoa reserve. She let us know the reason we have to go so far in is that the Coco plant needs a very particular environment in order to grow.
After taking a skinny bridge, hanging over a rocky river, which would give literally anyone a slight case of the ‘Ummm oks’. We entered into the jungle/rain forest were learned so much about the process of how chocolate is made and tasted cocoa in so many of its forms. From the Coco Fruit down to the dried beans that are you can grind down and turn into the Drink of the Gods aka Hot chocolate.
Such a memorable experience and such an amazing tour guide. This reminds me I need to head over to trip advisor and give her a little shout out because sis was hella funny. She singled me out of the group and asked me to demonstrate how to open a Coco Fruit. Then she said do you want to do it the monkey way or the human way. Why was I put on the spot like that? Had me saying “Ahh the monkey way…no I mean the human way…wait ahh heck I don’t know.” [see video 😩]
After arriving back to the Tent Camps we had dinner in the dining area and basically drank wine and played cards until everyone was too tired and not scared of any possible creatures that could enter into our room that night.
Playing cards and charades with some of the people still awake and also drink was so much fun especially because of all the different cultures and accents it made for quite an interesting game.
I’m going to end this day by saying it was another good day but my fear of insects definitely got the best of me and I slept on top of everything with my towel as a blanket because I was nervous of waking up with a scorpion in my bed or touching my leg.
SOZZ. I guess I’m not a ‘camping’ girl yet *cries in boujee*. But one day (maybe).
Day 6 – White water rafting in Sarapiqui and moving to La Fortuna/Arenal Volcano
Waking up this morning felt like a treat. Mainly because I wasn’t sure what insect was going to visit me in that tent bed. I can’t say it was my most restful sleep but I did it and I was proud of myself and Samantha. She likes to pretend she didn’t mind it but she was literally touching everything with the tips of her fingers LOL. She also didn’t get ‘under’ the covers or make any movements while sleeping. So girl please haha.
Wait, I almost forget the best part. When we went to bed she didn’t have glassed on. When we woke up she had glasses on and they were like smooshed to the side of her face. When I asked her why she had glasses on she said so that she can see whatever crawls on her on whatever spider she was about to eat. I died.
Anyway,I tried to be cool but after dinner last night I touched the largest grasshopper of my life and I decided to sleep in a coffin position all night.😅
This morning was actually the first really cool activity we had an option of doing today. A group of us signed up for White Water Rafting. This was something I have always wanted to try and therefore my first time (many firsts on this trip) and lucky for us our guides were super silly and gave us really great directions. While also making fun of us for speaking Spanglish. Well played by them.
Did you know that in rafting you sit on the sides of the raft and not the middle? I didn’t. So you can imagine my surprise when we take off and I am on the front left of the raft just sailing down the river padding with force. What you may ask is keeping me from the rocks of doom? My foot in a pocket holder.
Turns out a very sturdy pocket holder.
I don’t have any photos of it but it was an amazing right. Halfway through we took a stop off by some rock and got to climb up a small hill to jump off the rocks and float back down to our rafts. When we floated our way back they had cut up some fresh pineapple for us to have as a midday snack. Adorable and also tasty AF.
After another few hours of bus ride, we made it to our next hotel which was also a spa which was also BOMB AF which was also UNDER A VOLCANO.
Sorry for shouting but it was a beautiful hot spring place and after staying in that tent camp phew I was ready for the blessing.
What did we do next? Hot Spring action for some cocktails and volcanic springs action.
Tonight we had dinner at a local restaurant that was opened by a guy from LA who has opened his house up to rescue dogs. <3
Perfect ending to another day of excellence. Ps. We played cards again tonight because we love the game asshole.