Last year, when my sister and I started deciding where to spend our summer’s holidays, there were 2 main prerequisites: the country should be in Latin America, and it should be small enough to be discovered within 2 weeks. In the end Costa Rica won, and we headed off, our minds filled with pictures of beautiful beaches and lush jungles. We were not disappointed, neither with the beaches nor with the jungles. And if you just go slightly off the beaten track you can find true wilderness. Here’s a list of my favorite places (so most of our whole Costa Rica trip summarized).
Parque Nacional Marino Ballena – whales and paradise beaches
Just a 2 hours bus ride south from the famous and crowded Parque Manuel Antonio lies the small town of Uvita. It’s really nothing more than a few houses along the highway. Some restaurants, an ATM and that’s it. If you want to go to the beach you will have to walk quite a bit, at least from the bus stop. But it’s definitely worth it. Just after the entrance of the national park you will find an almost endless, jungle fringed beach. Just walk a few meters and you’ll be all alone and have all the coconut palm trees to choose from to find some shade. Paradise!
But that’s not even the best part about it yet. As the name says, Marino Ballena is all about whales. Part of the beach is shaped like a whale’s tail and in the water you can actually observed them, at least in the right season. From mid july to november and from december to april, humpback whales migrate towards the warm Costa Rican waters to raise their calves. A whale-watching tour costs around 50$ and will bring you close the gigantic mammals. We also saw plenty of curious dolphins on our trip.
Whale watching in Parque Nacional Marino Ballena
Parque Nacional Chirripó – the other Costa Rica
When you think of Costa Rica, long hikes in chilly mountains are probably not the first thing that comes to your mind. But it’s not all about jungles and beaches. The other Costa Rica is definitely worth visiting.
You can already feel the change when you get off the bus in San Gerardo de Rivas, the tiny village where the Cerro Chirripó hiking trail starts. The air is fresh, colorful birds flutter through the trees, there are cows on green meadows and beautiful mountain views.
The hike to Cerro Chirripó, Costa Rica’s highest mountain, takes at least two days. On the first day you will reach the Crestones base camp just 400 meters below the summit. It’s not really difficult, but well, it’s 2000 meters of altitude difference, so you won’t make it in 2 hours. But you don’t have to, there’s way too much to see on the way. First, the trail leads through the cloud forest with it’s mystic landscape of ferns, epiphytes and hummingbirds. The higher you get, the less dense the forest becomes, trees become bushes and in the end you enter the Paramo, a beautiful high mountain landscape. The nights are freezing cold. For the most beautiful view, summit at dawn. It’s a two hours walk through the dark, but you can’t get lost. And seeing the sunrise on top of Costa Rica was definitely one of my highlights of those holidays.
The Paramo just below the Cerro Chirripó summit
Parque Nacional Corcovado – welcome to the jungle
In a country filled with beautiful and easily accessible jungles, why would you bother making it to the remote and expensive Parque Nacional Corcovado? Well, because it’s simply one of the most amazing and wild places on earth. It’s like stepping into a zoo, only that there’s no fences and it seems endless.
It’s quite a long way to get there, but the journey is already an adventure by itself. First you have to get to the sleepy riverside village of Sierpe, where you take a small boat which brings you to Bahia Drake. The views are spectacular, first the mangroves along the riverside, then beautiful deserted beaches and green hills along the coast. Bahia Drake is literally just a few houses behind the beach, most of which are hostels or tour agencies. As you can only reach the place by boat or plane it’s nicely quiet and there’s beautiful sunset views. A tour to Corcovado is expensive, but totally worth it. We took a day trip around Sirena Ranger Station. It’s one hour by boat from Drake Bay, then you land on a sandy beach in complete wilderness. There’s no signs of civilization, except for the small ranger station. And the animals you can see are just amazing. We saw toucans, scarlet macaws, monkeys, tapirs, collared peccaries, a sloth and many more.
If you have a few days to spare, there’s also plenty of other things to do around Drake Bay, like snorkeling, diving and some beautiful hikes.
Far away from civilization in Parque Nacional Corcovado
Cahuita – Caribbean vibes
After having spent almost all our holidays on the pacific coast, we decided to still head over to the Caribbean for our last days. A good decision, because the vibes were quite different. It’s less wild than the Pacific, there’s more palm trees and less jungle and it’s also a bit more touristy. Cahuita is small, but busy. There’s restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, reggae music everywhere and plenty of dreadlocked hippies on bikes. The best thing about it was the food. The Caribbean cuisine with it’s fish and coconut sauce was just delicious after having eaten rice, beans and chicken for 2 weeks.
Right next to the village is the Parque Nacional Cahuita, a small paradise with perfect white sandy beaches, crystal clear water and a cute trail through the jungle. You can observe monkeys, snakes and lizards or just find your perfect stretch of lonely beach.
White beaches and turquoise waters in Parque Nacional Cahuita