Costa Rica from the Caribbean to the Pacific coast

Costa Rica is a very beautiful (small) country, here it is all about the amazing nature of central america. There is something for everyone, whether you are into surfing or relaxing over the sands, whether you are into the adventure or gazing in the skies. You will always have something to enjoy.

The people here are kind and always smiling, may be it has to do with the relaxing atmosphere of the country "Pura Vida".
The main language of course is the spanish and all "ticos" speak it but you can find that the younger generation are learning and practicing english now better than before.

The country has two coasts, one on the Caribbean sea and the other is on the Pacific ocean, we have been to the Pacific side twice and enjoyed every bit of it.

Pacific Coast

Our first time there we stayed at a small hotel which was just OK it was on Flamingo beach, the view was amazing, and of course if you are lucky and the weather is sunny, you can bet you will have a very nice tan :)

The sunset on the ocean is just AMAZING, no word can describe it, you can just spend a lot of time watching without looking anywhere else till the sun dives down the ocean.

The next time we visited this place, we came back after 2 years with our little angel and we decided to go to the Westin resort at playa Conchal; it is a great place with a huge pool. The beach is a bit different and the color of the water is so beautiful (again you will be lucky to enjoy it without clouds).
I totally recommend this resort for families, kids will enjoy the pool and the beach, they also offer a lot of activities inside and outside the hotel; you can go surfing, cycling, jet skiing or you can join them in their indoor activities like the water aerobics, volleyball, yoga classes, coffee tasting, cooking classes ...... etc.
It is an all inclusive resort with amazing restaurants, whatever restaurant you choose be sure it will be perfect.

Arenal Volcano

No trip to Costa Rica will be complete without a trip to the Arenal volcano, this was the country's most active volcano for the last 43 years, now (thankfully) in a resting phase.

View of the Volcano from our room

P.S. the drive to the volcano could get a bit rough as you go up the mountain, and it could get very foggy so better be careful and start your trip early in the day light.

My favorite hotel in Costa Rica is the one we stayed at when we went to see the volcano; Nayara hotel
It is a luxury hotel, it is very big; has a beautiful lake full of fish, the rooms have the best Arenal volcano views, the service is amazing and last but not least; you can treat yourself to a relaxing massage or "volcanic mud" body wrap at the spa ;)

Fish pond in the resort garden

Activities:

You can plan your activities ahead or you can ask the hotel to arrange them for you; there are a lot of things to do and see over there, among which are:

1- La Fortuna waterfall

2- The Volcano hike

3-The longest Zip-line
4- Horse riding
5- Enjoy the afternoon in a hot spring

Manuel Antonio National Park

The most beautiful national park, it is located on the pacific coast of Costa Rica. Try to visit early in the morning as it always starts raining around 11 am.

It is better to hire a guide to take you through the park as they come with their telescopes to show you all sorts of birds and animals even if they are hiding up in the trees.

When you are on the beach, try to be cautious as the monkeys there would jump around you and try to grab whatever you have in your bags, they specially go for the food :)

View from our hotel main restaurant

Manual Antonio beach

Monkey running after steeling crackers

San Jose

If you are going to stay in San Jose for a while, you can spend some time sightseeing here as well, don't expect too much though :)

Poas Volcano

This is an active stratovolcano, if you have some time in San Jose, you can drive for about an hour and a half to see this volcano and to enjoy the national park, the only thing is; you have to go early in the morning (about 9:30-10 am) to be able to see anything as it gets very cloudy there and chances are you won't be able to see anything....

That's actually one thing I hate about Costa Rica, the weather is so unpredictable that no matter how you plan and plan you can still be surprised how the weather would change and dramatically affects your visit or tour. It all depends on luck I guess :)

Downtown and around San Jose

There are few things worth seeing here in downtown, I will list some of which here:

1. La Sabana Park
2. The National Museum
3. Avenida Escazu (perfect for dinner or lunch)
4. Children museum

Shopping Areas:

There are 2 major shopping malls here in San Jose:-

• Multiplaza mall
• Paseo de las flores

If you want to go grocery shopping:-

• Walmart
• Auto Mercado
• Price Smart

Manuel Antonio week end

Last weekend we decided to go to Manuel Antonio national park so we booked our hotel, packed our bag and hit the road.
It was about 3 hours drive from San Jose during rush hour so you can easily take about 2:30 hours to get there. the road was simple and more of a straight road unlike the one you take to Arenal volcano for example. Our little angel was asleep most of the way which helped a lot :)

Arriving at Quepos city we just fell in love with the place. It was an alive city that stays awake at least till 10 pm, great change from San Jose.

We got at the hotel at about 8 pm, they all spoke English to our surprise, the hotel is located 5 minutes drive from the national park. It is more like apartments hotel instead of rooms, we had an apartment (huge one) with 3 bedrooms but they only opened one for us to keep the others well maintained if not to be used (good thinking actually).


They welcomed us with the most refreshing orange and mint juice (AMAZING). They had everything already arranged for us, we took the elevator that opened directly into our apartment, just as we went to the window we found a perfect view of the ocean which in the morning was breathtaking.

View from the main restaurant

The pool area before sunset

We loved the hotel pool, it was a big infinity pool overlooking the ocean and it had attached to it a shallow small pool for the little ones as well.

Going to the spa we walked through the greenery just to have some amazing views of the ocean.

View of the Pacific ocean 

In the morning and after breakfast we hit the road going to Manuel Antonio national park; what a place, for me and after staying in Costa Rica so far for 4 months this is my best and favorite place of them all.

After getting our tickets and entering the park, we started walking in the middle of a huge rain forest, we had monkeys jumping around us up on the trees, we saw different species of them too.
TIP: Hire a guide to explain all about the birds, animals and plants there, they come with a telescope as well to show you the hidden ones ;)

We walked for about 30 minutes before we arrived at the best beach in Costa Rica, the most beautiful one by all means. It is kind of hidden in the forest from the big waves of the ocean, the water is clear and the waves are minimum, be careful though as being in the middle of the wild life you will find monkeys and raccoons running around the beach trying to find something to eat in those tourists bags.

Manuel Antonio beach

Someone is missing their crackers

Sitting for a photo shoot with the crackers

I would recommend going early though as it usually gets cloudy and rainy around noon so the perfect thing would be to go around 8 am, yes you will do a lot of early waking up in Costa Rica if you want to enjoy it. Also, being a national park the beach here has no services at all except the showers and toilets so be prepared with anything you might need (Towels, snacks, water...etc.).

We managed to go there twice, first day it actually rained on us on the middle of the trail to the beach and we decided to leave but as soon as reached the car it stopped raining and the sun came out so we went back again. The next day we were much better prepared, we went around 9 am and left around noon, it was really worth going.


In the evening and after a long day walking and swimming, we had dinner at the Marina Pez Vela and enjoy the sunset there. They have several dining options you can choose from, we tried the Runaway restaurant; the portions were really big and the food tasted really good. We tried the Crab dip for starters (amazing) and both of us had the coconut shrimp, everything in this place was so good that we regret having only one dinner there.

We are hoping to go again to Manuel Antonio may be next weekend or so :)

San Diego for a week end

We were staying in LA for 2 weeks and we decided to drive to San Diego for a weekend before we get back to Atlanta, the drive was really smooth and our little angel just slept all the way ;)

This place was like a whole city built for families, we loved spending time there and the weather was really perfect as well (we went in early April).

We were staying at Sheraton hotel - very close to the airport- and we enjoyed everything about the hotel:-

 The Amazing View

view from the club lounge

The Club lounge:  It was convenient for breakfast, we were not around to try the afternoon snacks though.

The Pool:  It was so big and overlooking the sea with the view of all those Yachts... it was perfect

The hotel pool

And it was only 10 minutes drive from the main attractions.

We have been to two of the main attractions there, we chose them based on ratings and what could be a first time to experience.

Sea World

An amazing place to see, one day is not enough but it was all that we had unfortunately.
P.S. rides are for kids who can walk, if your baby still can't walk then you should take that into consideration.

From the entrance when you get to interact with different kinds of fish and your kids can touch them and put their hands in the water so the fish would touch them, through the rides in different theme areas to the shows and the different exhibitions of the penguins and the Beluga whale....etc.

The most amazing thing we loved there was the whale show.

Also the flamingos were such a treat to the eye..

We all loved this place and we had lots of fun.

San Diego Zoo

To be honest we had expected more from the San Diego zoo but may be because we have been to a lot of open zoos in Africa so we were not so impressed, but one thing to say is it has very distinctive collection of animals.

The one thing I really wanted to see was the Panda, it was my number one on the list but unfortunately and after a wait time of 20 minutes we only saw the panda sleeping :s

A must see  while you are here is the Kuala section, who would imagine you can find Kuala in this part of the world...

Also, the Bears (you can see them swimming when it gets hot)

And you finally have to pass by the Hippo, if you are lucky you can get to see the baby hippo (we were not).

San Diego in general is amazing, you can take a walk or go jogging by the ocean at sunset and enjoy a beautiful view.

I can rate this city as a number 2 in family cities in the united states. If you are on the west coast plan visiting this place.