Hi Minga!
All are on the Pacific Coast. Playa Grande is the farthest north and the driest area. It’s close to Tamarindo which is one of the most popular beaches in CR and not too far (about 80km) from a major town. Playa Samara has a paved road all the way into town which is a huge plus and not common elsewhere. It also has a major town pretty close – about 25 km away, and Dominical is supposedly getting a paved road all the way there, has amazing beaches, a good ex-pat community and real estate is a little cheaper there.
I’ve done a TON of research. If you know what info she is looking for I can probably get it for you – or tell her where she can find it.
Our second stop was at La Paz, with is connected with the Peace Lodge. They charge $25 per person to explore the grounds, which seemed a bit steep, but it was really beautiful and we had a great time. The gardens are truly gorgeous. There was one hillside covered in canna lilies (which I love) of many colors. We started by exploring the hummingbird garden, orchid garden and butterfly observatory, which are all in the central area of La Paz. The observatory is huge, with several feeding stations that let you get a close look at several species of butterflies. They also have a ranarium (frogs) and serpentarium (snakes) that we skipped. After the observatory, we went left and took the Fern Trail past the Trout Lake and through the forest to the river. We followed the Rio La Paz Trail along the river. The first two trails were lovely, and also very quiet since most visitors go straight to the Trail of Falls. There are 5 waterfalls on the Trail of Falls, and the first 2 are really spectacular.
Arenal/La Fortuna:
We arrived at the Lost Iguana Resort by 4:00 pm and spent some time relaxing in our room. We loved our room and would happily stay there again. We had a luxury suite with a patio area that had a great view of the Arenal Volcano and a huge shower with lava rock walls and tropical plants that is open to the sky (with screens to keep out bugs). Only the first floor end units have these showers, so you have to request it and hope you get one. During our 3 nights at Lost Iguana, we spent a lot of time sitting in the leather rocking chairs on the patio enjoying the beautiful gardens and the view of the volcano. We got lucky and saw lava every night. From our room, we could see thin streams of lava coming down the left-hand side of the volcano. The room had wine glasses, and I recommend picking up a couple bottles of wine at the grocery store in La Fortuna and enjoying the show.
Since we didn’t have a car our first night, we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant despite some poor online reviews. Most of the entrees were in the $12 to $16 price range. The French onion soup and hearts of palm salad were very good, the steak was fine but the sauce wasn’t very exciting, the pork chops with berry sauce had an excellent sauce, but the meat was overcooked and dry.
The next morning, Alamo dropped off a rental SUV (Daihatsu Terios) at 7:30. There was no extra charge for drop off and pick up at the hotel, and it was very convenient to have our own car for 2 days. We had the free breakfast buffet at the hotel, and it was very good.
We got back to the hotel around 4:30, threw on our swim suits, and headed to the pool. It was happy hour at the pool bar, and we discovered Cacique sours – yum! We met a fun American couple at the bar. We enjoyed the cool and warm sides of the pool for a while, and then the 4 of us headed to dinner at El Novillo, since I had read so many good reviews of it online. El Novillo was wonderful. If you are driving from LI toward La Fortuna, it is a little past Tabacón on the left side of the road. It is basically a large concrete slab with a corrugated tin roof and white plastic patio tables and chairs, but the food and view are wonderful. I had a good sized and very yummy garlic steak for $8. Dinner for 4 (4 steaks, 2 salads, 3 side dishes, 3 desserts, 7 drinks) was $81 with tax and gratuity. The only clinker in the meal was the yucca "french fries" a guide book recommended as a must try item – they were flavorless. The lava was flowing on that side of the volcano, and we had a wonderful view of the action for 2 hours.
We discovered over dinner that we were all signed up for the Pure Trek canyoning tour the next morning, so we drove over together. This was our favorite tour of the trip. There was only one other couple on the trip and we all had such a great time together. The three guides were very safety conscious and friendly (offering to take pictures for everyone as they went down the waterfalls). Rappelling down 5 waterfalls and one rock wall was such a thrill, and I’ve never even done rock climbing before. The first time (on a 161’ high waterfall) was scary, but by the third one I wanted to go back and start over so I could really enjoy the first 2 once I knew what I was doing. We would definitely do this again if we return to Arenal. The lunch they served us after the tour was very good. It was the most flavorful rice and beans we’ve ever had.
After lunch, DH and I decided to head over to the Tabacón Hot Springs. My prior research had indicated that the price was $35 pp during the day, or $29 pp after 7 pm. Since I wanted to see the grounds, the plan was to go for a while in the afternoon, go do something else for a while, and go back to Tabacón at night, when the hot water would feel better. When we got there, we found out they had raised the price the week before to $45 during the day and $35 at night. I just couldn’t stand the thought of being gouged that badly to explore the grounds, especially since it was so hot and humid that the hot springs didn’t sound that appealing. We decided to just go explore the town of La Fortuna, and then enjoy the hot tub on our patio at Lost Iguana.
We had an early dinner at La Choza de Laurel in La Fortuna. The charbroiled chicken was juicy and flavorful and came with fun sides. My husband had the casado with beef, which was also good, except the waiter did not ask how he wanted his beef and he did not think to specify, so it came well done and a bit tough.
Monteverde:
We decided to take one of the van/boat/van transfers from Arenal to Monteverde. The 30 minute boat ride was fun and we had great views of the surrounding countryside. I think DH took around 40 pictures on the short cruise. The road up to Monteverde was pretty rough, but the driver did a very good job at minimizing the bumpiness.
We spent 3 nights at the Monteverde Lodge. The room was large (larger than we needed), but kind of boring. I think it was just a bit of a let down after Lost Iguana. Our first opinion was that we could have stayed someplace smaller and less expensive since our time in Monteverde was all about hiking through the cloud forests and rain forest. However, after long days of hiking through damp and rainy forests, it was so nice to be able to go back to the hotel and relax in the large hot tub in the solarium. (I think only one other hotel has a hot tub, and it is pretty epensive.) The hotel also had beautiful grounds with water features and a sloth.
There are so many places to hike in Monteverde, so we didn’t want to lose any time. After we dropped off our luggage, we headed out to the Children’s Eternal Rain Forest for the twilight tour (5:30 – 7:30). We arrived 2 hours early so we could walk most of the trails in daylight before the guided tour. During the tour, we saw a kinkajou, an agouti, 2 porcupines curled up in a tree, frogs and tarantulas. Since it was after 8 when we got back to the hotel, we had dinner there. The food was good, but the portions were very small for the prices.
The next morning, we took a guided tour of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve with Carlos (arranged by Monteverde Lodge). We usually prefer to hike on our own, rather than with tour groups, but there was only one other couple in our group and Carlos was excellent. Thanks to his good spotting and the use of his telescope, we saw several howler monkeys, two quetzals, and numerous other birds.
On our way back from the forest, we had the driver drop us off near CASEM Coop, which sells crafts made by local artisans and we thought it was the best place to shop in Monteverde. We walked all the way back to Santa Elena (the main town), stopping for lunch at Stella’s Bakery (tasty, inexpensive sandwiches, meat pies and desserts) and to poke around the various galleries and gift shops. We wasted a meal at the Treehouse Café in town because it looked cool (the restaurant is built around a tree) and was convenient. We just wanted a light dinner, so we ordered nachos and a cheese plate. The cheese plate had one kind of cheese (or 4 white cheeses that tasted identical) cut into 4 different shapes. The nachos were tasty, but puny by US standards, especially for $8. The tab for the 2 appetizers, 2 beers, and 2 mixed drinks was $35 with tax and tip, so it was a rip off compared to other local offerings.
We did the Selvatura Walk Ways on our second morning in Monteverde. We figured $40 for 2 people wasn’t a horrible price since it included transportation from and to our hotel and the round trip fare to the nearby Santa Elena Reserve would cost us at least $16. In retrospect, we should have skipped it. The Walk Ways (elevated hanging bridges) offer a neat perspective on the forest canopy, but they are too close to the zip lines, so there are no animals in the area because of the noise. I wish we had done the Hanging Bridges in Arenal instead because I heard people were seeing wildlife there. The Selvatura shuttle back to town only runs every 2 hours, so we had to leave at 1 pm to make it back in time for our horse riding tour. After finishing the Walk Ways, we only had 2 hours left for the Santa Elena Reserve, which had some nice trails. As a side note, the gift shop at the Santa Elena Reserve had the best prices for carved wood items.
We had the Selvatura driver drop us off near Restaurante de Lucia, which is on the side street that leads to the Ecological Farm and Butterfly Garden. We had a fabulous lunch at Lucia, which is a very cute restaurant. I had the chicken a la’orange, which was a large portion of moist and wonderfully flavored chicken breast, served with a small potato and perfectly steamed mixed vegetables for $10. DH had a nice casado for $6. We skipped dessert at Lucia because we had heard great things about Sabores Ice Cream Parlor, which was just down the street. We had wonderful ice cream for less than $1 per cone (the coconut was so yummy and creamy).
We went on a 2-hour sunset horseback riding tour with a company recommended by the hotel (I think it had caballeros in the name). It was a pretty slow-paced boring tour. After 3 days of hiking through the forest, riding horses through a less impressive forest at an only slightly faster pace wasn’t much fun. There was supposed to be a sunset view of the Gulf of Nicoya, but we couldn’t see much.
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