We are in the Miami airport, headed back to Kansas City from our Costa Rican adventure. And an adventure it was! After travel time (more on that later), we only have 4 ½ days in Mal Pais, so we made the most of it: waterfall tour, zip lining, deep sea fishing, beach days, and lots of Costa Rican food and beer!
Before we get into this week’s post, I want to direct you to the Facebook page of Travis Wessel Photography (https://www.facebook.com/twessphotos). Travis was one of the intrepid travellers on this trip and, as a professional photographer, he also spent a lot of time documenting our adventures on video. I highly recommend you jump over there really quick to watch his videos and then come back here to read this week’s blog.
Nothing is close in Costa Rica
One thing to note about travelling in Costa Rica – be prepared to drive a bit to get there. One day of our vacation was eaten up with airline travel. We spent half of the next day travelling from San Jose to our Airbnb in Mal Pais. That required a 2-hour drive, a 1-hour wait for the ferry, a 70-minute ferry ride, and another 2-hour drive to Mal Pais. Actually, in our case, that last leg was about 3 hours thanks to a wrong turn and some very steep, curvy, bumpy roads!
Settling in
We arrived in Mal Pais right before dark. Our host met us at the gate to out Airbnb and walked us through what we needed to know. After we settled into our rooms, we walked down the road to Focacha Pizzeria for some really amazing wood fired pizza. Then we hit the small grocery store down the road for some essentials (coffee, eggs, bread, beer, etc.). After the adventures of the day (almost dying on a mountain road in a minivan), we all went back to the room and went to bed early. We were spent.
Beach Day
The next morning, we discovered Steph’s favorite breakfast place, Ritual Coffee Shop. This place has locally sourced, fresh breakfast food and really good coffee. Steph discovered matcha and immediately fell in love. We might have matcha from Amazon waiting for us at the house as we speak. We ate here again on our last day and Steph stopped in on day three for a matcha to go.
On this day we also went to the beach in Mal Pais. It was a little rocky, but almost deserted. It was like we had our own private beach! We spent several hours there, then went back to the Airbnb to float in the pool and relax in the shade.
That night we went to a brewery/restaurant that was a 3-minute walk from our gate! The beer was really good and the food was great! Our server was also the brewer. We also saw him doing some cooking and dishwashing, which reminded us why we are happily out of that life.
Once again, we were all in bed before 10 pm. The beach really saps your energy!
Amberjack and humpbacks
This was deep sea fishing day! We all piled into a boat loaded with large fishing poles. Our guide, Emilio, drove us out into the ocean and taught those of us who wanted to fish how to use the rods. He demonstrated first, and immediately hooked a fish! It was Travis’ birthday, so he got the honor of reeling in this huge amberjack! It was a really exciting three minutes of man versus fish (man won). Which was great, because it was the only bite we got all day.
After we decided to call it quits for the day, Emilio found a pair of humpback whales and followed them for a while, letting us get some great pictures and video. Then he drove us by an underground volcano that continuously emits bubbles under water – like a natural hot tub!
That night we had a home cooked meal of amberjack filets, amberjack ceviche, beans, and rice. It was the freshest fish we had ever eaten – from ocean to table in less than four hours!
Off roading to a waterfall
Our host set us up with an ATV tour of the Montezuma waterfall on Friday. Our guide, Nano, was stellar. He and his crew taught us how to work the ATVs (we still needed coaching throughout the day), and off we went. Imagine our surprise when we realized that the roads we were taking with the ATVs were the same roads we had acciendtally driven in the van on our first day in Mal Pais! We aren’t sure if they were any easier in the ATVs. Those roads are for advanced drivers only, no matter the vehicle! Nano stopped to point out interesting things to us, like the oldest tree in the area, and Cemetery Island.
When we got to the waterfall, we had a 20-minute hike to get there from where we parked the ATVs. It was not an easy hike. By the end, we were all tired and sweaty, so the cold water at the waterfall was very welcome! We were able to stay at the waterfall as long as we wanted. The boys climbed a 20 foot rock and jumped off like they were kids, Travis got some really cool shots over the top of the waterfall with his drone. The place was a little crowded, but everyone made space and was polite.
After we made the hike back to the ATVs, Nano led us to a beachside restaurant for lunch. There he introduced us to a local drink called a michelada, which is a salt-rimmed glass with lime juice and ice. You pour a beer on top for an incredibly refreshing drink! You can bet we were ordering those everywhere we went for the rest of our stay!
That night we decided to stay in and have leftover amberjack (it was a BIG fish!), and, no surprise, we were all asleep by ten.
Zip lines, tide pools and a cemetery at low tide
Our last full day in Mal Pais we had a zip line tour planned in the morning. Steph had never been zip lining before and wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do it! But when the time came, she did just fine. It was an amazing experience, zipping through the rainforest with the ocean past the treetops. Again, for some great videos, check out Travis’ Facebook page.
After zip lining, and another amazing lunch at a beachside restaurant, we decided to check out the tide pools that Mal Pais is famous for. After a traffic jam in Santa Teresa that would have made Californians homesick, we made it to El Peñon. We were surprised, after the massive traffic we drove in to get there, that this beach was practically deserted too. We sat in the tide pools and watched starfish, tiny crabs, and snails just going about their day. Because the water there was sheltered from the tide, it was much warmer than the surrounding ocean. Every now and then a small wave would make it into the tide pools and cool everything down. This was Steph’s favorite part of the trip. She could have stayed there all day.
But we had more plans for the day. We had visited Cemetery Island the day before on the ATV tour with Nano and we wanted to go back. Cemetery Island is an island in Cabuya that houses a local cemetery. Besides graves, there are no other structures on the island. There is no infrastructure and there are no (live) inhabitants. The most interesting thing about Cemetery Island is that there is a land bridge that exists from Cabuya to the island at low tide. People can literally walk to the island across a series of sand bars. But you need ot be aware of the tide schedules and watch the water levels. If you mis-judge the timing of high tide, you are going to be stuck on the island overnight with only the graves for company.
We got a late start to Cemetery Island, so we decided to take the road that Nano used on the ATVs the day before. In a minivan the ride is quite different! The road is basically a long series of potholes, hairpin turns, steep inclines and steep declines for about 20 solid minutes. Once we go to Cemetery Island, we only had about 20 minutes to cross over and get back. A few of our party decided to push the limits and stay a little longer on the island to get some pictures of the graves. We were more conservative; we walked over and pretty much turned right around and walked back. We weren’t going to chance getting stuck there!
After Cemetery Island, we found a nice place for a seafood dinner in Cabuya. Stopping for dinner meant that we would be going back over the bumpy windy road back to Mal Pais in the dark. There are no street lights on that road (aptly named the Mal Pais to Cabuya road), but luckily there isn’t much traffic either, so we turned on our bright and pretty much had the road to ourselves. But we all breathed a big sigh of relief when we pulled into Mal Pais again!
Full circle
On our last day in Mal Pais, we hit Ritual Coffee Shop again for breakfast before hitting the road back to San Jose. Then we backtracked our trip from Monday: back to the ferry point, onto the ferry, on to San Jose, and then back to Hotel Aeropuerto. Just like Monday, only in reverse!
Today has been our last travel day. We flew from San Jose to Miami early this morning. The we had an 8 hour layover in Miami. Because we had such a long time, we decided to check our bags after Customs and then do some sightseeing. We ended up in Little Havana at the Bay of Pigs Museum and Library. It is a museum dedicated to the memory of the Cuban and American soldiers who attempted to resist Fidel Castro’s Communist regime. There was a chronological history of the Bay of Pigs invasion planning, tons of artifacts, and a very emotional video. But the most amazing part was that there was actually someone there who actually fought at the Bay of Pigs and we could ask him questions. I asked him if his family got out when he was exiled. He wasn’t married at the time of the invasion, but he said that he has not seen any of his extended family since 1961. Can you imagine that? The whole experience was informative and moving. We highly recommend a visit.
We spent the next few hours wandering Little Havana, through cigar shops, coffee shops and a public park dedicated to the Cuban citizens who fought for Cuba’s freedom. The missed opportunity for a free Cuba still seems very raw and real there. Some of these people live with being exiled from their family thanks to Cuba’s government.
After Little Havana we came back to the airport, boarded a plane and are currently on our way back to Kansas City. We learned some things during this trip that will help us in future travels. We’ll write about those next week. This post is already too long!
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