Right before our trip to Costa Rica, we received the job offers in Poland. This meant we had to shorten Costa Rica from 3 months to only a week.
Costa Rica was one of those places I was so excited to experience. I have only heard great things and couldn’t wait to see what this place had to offer. But with only a week and a super tight budget (Thanks, Galapagos!), I found it hard to enjoy it fully.
We stayed in an AirBnB that was originally booked for the 3 months. And when we arrived, man…I was so glad we had shortened our stay to a week. The house was not at all what I had seen or expected. The porch was covered in spiders and I’m sure the beds were just pieces of ply-wood stapled together. But, we are good sports and we tried to enjoy our jungle week the best we could. I hate to only complain because there were good things about the property. I loved the view! From the porch you could see out into the San Jose valley. Since it was the rainy season, every afternoon we would watch the clouds roll down bringing us rain and the valley fog. I also loved the outdoor space. We were able to collect fresh mangos that had fallen and watch leaf-cutter ants march through the front garden.
We chose to stay in the town of Santa Barbara de Heredia just 20 minutes from the airport. It’s a suburb of a suburb and I liked the small town vibe. They had small square with a great little playground and everything you would need. (i.e. claro, grocery store, restaurants)
Near our AirBnB was an herb farm, Ark Herb Farm. This was a spectacular place! It was a landscaped path that wound through different types of greenery. There are also gardens to explore that are separated by use: essential oils, cooking, medicinal. We had a really great time here and saw they also have a meadery where they use the honey from the bees collecting in the gardens. They weren’t open but I’m sure it is worth a trip!
A random, awesome thing we did was check out the Oxigeno Human Playground Mall. (Malls are such a big deal on the Gap Year. Weird.) This mall is special and definitely not like the rest. Yes, there are shops here and a food court but there is so much more. First, the food court can turn into a sporting arena. And speaking of sports, outside the mall are playgrounds, a running track and a climbing wall. The rooftop is a green space to relax, run or take in the multiple volcano views. Inside are several creative and unique playgrounds. This is also where you will find KidZania (dumb name, great idea) Created in Mexico, KidZanias are popping up in over 20 countries. Its a “playground” that also provides learning experiences. It’s basically a “city” with different “businesses” that kids can explore and play in. When you walk up, there is half an airplane parked in front and everyone at the ticket counter is dressed like airport gate agents. This sets the tone for a creative and genius play space.
At the end of our trip we finally went out and did a very touristy thing and saw a volcano! We hired an Uber driver for the day (I think it was like $40) and he drove us through the coffee fields up to Paos Volcano. This volcano was great with kids for one big reason: the “hike” is only 10 minutes! You drive all the way up and once you get out, they give you a hard hat and you walk along a paved road for 10 minutes. I’ve never seen a volcano that close before and I will not soon forget it. You could smell and see the sulfur bubbling up. The smoke was a constant drift and you could not stop thinking that this thing could blow and any moment. It was so cool and beautiful and easy.
Along the way, I spotted the Starbucks farm and we decided to stop there on the way back down. Turns out, this is Starbucks’ ONLY coffee farm. (That really surprised me.) The farm is more of an R and D for all of the other coffee growers in the area. Starbucks uses this “micro” farm and any information they learn along the way is provided (for free) to the other farmers in the area. Presumably, those farmers are Starbucks growers too.
The farm has THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STARBUCKS IN THE WORLD. I can’t even describe it so here are some pics that probably don’t do it justice.
Well, that about wraps up our short and cheap and a little lacking trip to Costa Rica. Since we had originally planned on living here, we chose a suburb we could afford that lacked a lot of the fun Costa Rica stuff. Our next trip here will most likely be to a resort!
