This week, as most Americans gathered with their families for Thanksgiving, I headed down to Costa Rica with eight friends for a week of fun without the ever-increasing Chicago cold.

Random facts about Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a central American country, wedged in between Nicaragua and Panama
Costa Rica is one of the few countries in the world to not have an Army
Over 25% of Costa Rica’s land is protected for conservation

The good

Nature

Costa Rica is one of the most lush, and beautiful, countries I have visited. Despite being a relatively small country (the entire country almost fits into one Google offline map), Costa Rica has a number of diverse ecosystems.

We began our journey by visiting Arenal national park. The park surrounds active and dormant volcanoes and has a mix of rainforests and more desolate volcanic fields closer to the volcano. Within hours of reaching our AirBnB, we had already seen a Toucan and the rest of the park did not disappoint. We went on a night safari (where I ate a termite which surprisingly tasted like carrots), swam near a waterfall and climbed to the base of the volcano.

We then moved onto the cloud forests of Monteverde. During a nature walk in Monteverde reserve, we were able to see sloths, numerous different birds (including one that ate an entire worm) and lush rainforests that had an eerie feel from being permanently clouded.

We followed Monteverde with the stunning beauty of Manuel Antonio National Park. Although it is the smallest national park in Costa Rica, it is easily one of the most diverse and stunning. The park has rainforests that are overflowing with animals – we saw sloths, howler monkeys (including a sleeping mother holding a sleeping baby), raccoons (which tried to open our bags and steal things) and countless crabs. The park is also bordered on one side by beautiful beaches with warm water. Swimming at the beaches and being surrounded by dense forests of large tropical trees was a unique experience that I hadn't seen before.

Adventure activities

In Arenal, I went horse riding for the first time. Horse riding was an incredibly fun, but surprisingly tiring activity. This was made even more so by our guide, who was overly enthusiastic and energetic. He was also an absolute showman, who did tricks including standing on his horse and jumping between volcanic boulders. While the horses maintained a slow walk for much of the trip, our guide would occasionally encourage the horses to trot faster or even gallop, which was a lot of fun.

In Monteverde, we managed to do some real adrenaline junkie activities by going ziplining. One spectacular moment was a 2km ‘superman’ zipline where you are lying forward and zipline above the forest canopy as though you were flying. After getting over the initial panic of thinking the harness is going to break and send you crashing into the ground below, the experience was very peaceful and visually spectacular.

The highlight for me was the freefall swing (known as the 'Tarzan Swing'). Here, you stepped off a platform about 100m in the sky, fell in freefall for 3 seconds before the road you were attached tightened, sending you into a large swing. The experience was one of the scariest and adrenaline pumping things I have ever done, but I loved it and wanted to go again.

The bad

Unpaved roads

For a country that is so heavily reliant on tourism, I was surprised that many of the roads to the most popular tourist destinations were unpaved. For much of our drive to Arenal and Monteverde (basically the first half of our trip)., the roads were unpaved and bumpy, with the occasional landslide and the very common pothole.

Dangerous driving

Outside of the cities, Costa Rican is scary at best, reckless at worst. We experienced buses coming around blond corners, halfway into the opposite lane. We also witnessed a near multiple pile-up where a truck and a car simultaneously tried to overtake two other trucks. Thankfully, the end result was only a lot of honking and such aggressive braking that we could smell burnt rubber for the next few minutes.

Some aggressive scamming

Near Manuel Antonio, we witnessed some of the most aggressive scamming I have ever come across. A couple of people, wearing shirts that looked like park rangers, stood in the middle of the road and asked us to pull over to the side of the road. They claimed that the road ahead was closed and, when we saw cars going forward, they told us it was only open to locals. After we told them that we were going to go forward anyway, they threatened to take down our details and report us to the police when we came back. Of course, the road ahead was open and open to all.

You should go to Costa Rica

If you haven't been to Costa Rica and like nature, beaches, adventure activities or just travel, you should definitely go!

#12 - On a week in Costa Rica