Costa Rica

by Sophia Dyer

Chillaxin' to the max

Jaco Beach

After hiking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu for 4 days (and now a year into traveling around!), we were ready for the "chill" part of our year off. Think nature, pools, and sunshine. But in order to get to our oasis in the jungle, we first needed to rent a car and spend a night in Jaco beach.

Jaco is a quaint little beach town, that surprised us by having a few craft breweries. We got in late, felt the water - it is insanely warm - and made our way over to PuddleFish Brewery.

For those of you unfamiliar with Costa Rica, it is beautiful, but boy, is it expensive. The prices are similar to the US, and be prepared for an extra 25% tax-plus-service charge when the bill comes.

After PuddleFish, we stopped by a cute little bar run by a Canadian expat called The Beer House. We'd recommend this place over PuddleFish. The beer was much better, and the owner is super friendly. He'll even give you a history lesson on craft beer in Costa Rica.

Realizing that our wallets couldn't keep up, we headed back to our hostel.

Jungle Oasis

The following day we drove the remaining two hours to a little area called Ojochal where we would be spending the next 6 days. After stocking up on groceries, we found ourselves basically off-roading it to get to the house. In Costa Rica, once you're off the main road, it's a whole lot of rocks and dirt. They are serious when they say a 4x4 vehicle is necessary, but oh my, was it worth it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our little jungle hideout.

Just what the doctor ordered

The Schedule

So what did we really do for 6 days? A whole lot of - whatever... the... hell... we... wanted. Which definitely consisted of more than a few of these:

Since we only left the house ONCE (to buy more groceries), our days typically went like this:

  • Wake up between 6:30am - 7:30am.
  • Coffee and reading on the balcony.
  • Workout time!
  • Breakfast - we are very good at making eggs.
  • I would then swim, tan, and read (on loop), while Mirek usually read or worked on a coding project.
  • We would typically make lunch around 12:30pm - almost always sandwhiches - because we're basic.
  • Back to reading / to-do list things (write my part of a wedding ceremony, taxes, blog posts, practice Czech, etc).
  • Some afternoons Mirek and I would play a video game together - Hollow Knight. And by together I mean he would play and I would tell him what to do as if I knew what I was doing. It was very entertaining.
  • The sun usually set around 5:45pm and we would watch from the balcony while enjoying a delicious beverage.
  • We would then cook dinner around 7pm and relax for the night watching a movie, the Warriors, or catching up on a funny show.

Yes, dad, hearing it out loud does make it sound like we're an old retired couple. But aren't we, kind of?

On our way back to San Jose, we stopped by nearby Uvita waterfall and had ourselves a nice picnic on the beach.

It was, by design, the chillest of chilled-out weeks. Exactly what we needed, and the perfect appetizer for Nicaragua (aka Costa Rica part 2: beachside edition).