What to write about Costa Rica? The vacation was truly amazing! A lot of information can be found on the Internet today; either from the offers of travel agencies or, even better, from the stories of those who have already been there. However, not all information corresponds to the current situation, partly due to the fact that it refers to years when the reality in this country was significantly different from the current state, or the described vacation of those who were there was completely in the hands of travel agencies, and so these information largely influenced by the guides and those who prepare these trips and subsequently provide the information.

There is no point in going into detail about where Costa Rica is located, how many people it has, what the capital city is like, because a person who wants to spend his vacation here can easily find similar information on the Internet. The first thing that comes to mind, and what I consider to be basic information for all potential travelers, is that it is really far from the Czech Republic. Yes, this information may seem funny at first glance, but it is really very far. First of all, you need to get to the airport from which you can get to Costa Rica, because there is no direct flight from Prague to Costa Rica, and also choose a connection that won't break the bank with the price. There are basically three basic options – fly either directly from Germany with one of the German airlines, another option is to fly via the USA, or there is a third option and that is to fly via Madrid. Of course, there are probably other options, but these three are among the most frequently used in our country. And then the "proper" air adventure begins. A full 11 hours on a plane seems interesting at first, but after a few hours the flight loses its charm and becomes quite boring. There were times when a ticket cost 25-30 thousand (for similar, but probably higher prices, you can of course still buy it), but if the person is looking, he can easily get a ticket nowadays and even during the "Costa Rican season" even with all fees around 13-15 thousand. By "Costa Rican season" I mean the period from December to April, which is the dry season in Costa Rica and thus the tourist season.

We finally chose Iberia Airlines flying via Madrid and during the end of February and the beginning of March we traveled a considerable part of the Costa Rican territory. In the end, the chosen time turned out to be very suitable, because the weather was kind to us even in places where it is not so common, but more on that in a moment. During the 12 days we spent here, we traveled with a rented car across the country from the north to the west, then to the south and the east, and finally we ended up where we started our journey, i.e. in the middle of it – in the mountains. The chosen orientation is deliberately listed in this order, because this is how we discovered and traveled through Costa Rica. In addition, we planned the entire trip entirely by ourselves, so the chosen route as well as what we wanted to see and visit was completely in our hands.

A few sentences above, I wrote about the fact that we traveled with a rented car, yes, it is true – nowadays it is not a problem to book a car online, even in a country as far away as Costa Rica. In the same way, i.e. via the Internet, you can secure accommodation and, with the help of e.g. TripAdvisor.com or a similar service, find out and find those accommodations that have high ratings and choose the "right" one based on these recommendations and your financial capabilities. In the end, we changed 6 different places of accommodation and, except for a few more or less small things, we were satisfied everywhere. As for the prices, they vary according to the equipment, services, but also the place where they are located (meaning mountains vs. the sea, more or less tourist attractive place, etc.) and their range thus varies from $30 to several hundreds dollars a night! Of course, I'm talking about classic "European" accommodation and not accommodation where you try to save money at all costs.

Before I start to write about the individual locations visited, I will mention one more point of interest, or the unusual thing that a potential visitor should prepare for, and that is the roads, i.e. transport in general. They lead to some destinations and places, or they are not roads, but rather paths full of stones and sand, and it is not unusual to travel on them calmly for several tens of kilometers. Local compliance with traffic rules is a chapter unto itself.

During our vacation, we visited many well-known and lesser-known parks. Be prepared for the fact that entrance to all of them is paid, and it is not an exception to spend up to $80 for one such visit. The most famous ones are frequently visited (e.g. Monteverde, Manuel Antonio, Cahuita, Poás) and you will meet many tourists along the way; in others, you will not come across tourists even during the season (e.g. Caño Negro, Arenal). Over time, you will realize that many parks are similar and you will start to think that if I had known, I could have saved several tens of dollars. However, there are places that are really worth visiting. We particularly recommend Caño Negro and the Jaguar Rescue Center in Puerto Viejo. We recommend the first one because you won't come across any tourists here, but you'll see so many wild animals here and so close to you that you didn't even think about it (caimans, herons, turtles, etc.). Well, and the second recommended place is the rescue station, where more than anywhere else you will come into real contact with otherwise wild animals, and thus find out for yourself that even if these animals are normally inaccessible to humans in the wild, in the event when they need help, it is the reward of those who help them, their infinite gratitude. I do not rule out that there will be more similar stations in Costa Rica, but we have only encountered similar behavior towards injured animals here.

At the beginning of the article, I wrote about the fact that the weather was very kind to us, to such an extent that at the viewpoint at the Poás volcano we had weather that, according to a local reliable source, had not prevailed here for a long time. By the way, did you know that the remnants of more or less active volcanoes stretch through Costa Rica and if you are lucky, you can see some of them active?!

And how is the food in Costa Rica? No need to worry about that either; on the contrary, many of the local delicacies that we tasted here were more than excellent and we have not yet come across anything similar elsewhere.

Of course, the biggest currency of this country is its natural wealth, i.e. fauna and flora. Frogs of the most incredible colors, butterflies that can only be seen here for one month a year in the Fata Morgana greenhouse in Prague, are quite common here in the wild, colorful birds led by the well-known toucan or caimans that are quite common in the wild, etc. – all this makes Costa Rica one huge zoo. Well, what about the flora – the abundance of orchids and other plants unknown to us make Costa Rica a huge tropical greenhouse.

I mentioned the word tropics – Costa Rica is located near the equator and therefore there are days with high temperatures throughout the year, which, however, are different from the warm tropical days of Europe, because here high temperatures go hand in hand with high air humidity and a person thus he tolerates it much better or, more precisely, in a different way than when he visits, for example, Greece during the summer. The fact that Costa Rica lies between two oceans also has a significant effect on the temperature; it is washed by the Pacific in the west and the Atlantic, more precisely the Caribbean, in the east. Both oceans have a non-negligible influence not only on the weather in the given locations, but also on the character of the local landscape, especially on the type of beaches, and what is interesting, it is also reflected in the type of people living here.

One way or another, everywhere we met smiling and helpful people, who almost always spoke English in addition to their native Spanish, and thanks to that, everything went without any major problems. In the Caribbean, in contrast to the Pacific, you will meet typical blacks, such as you know from, for example, Jamaica, on the other hand, in the mountains or the Pacific, if they are not mixed with whites, they are types with Indian blood in their blood.

A little above I mentioned the beaches and their differences in individual oceans. Near the Pacific you will find beaches with black sand, on the contrary, near the Caribbean there are beautiful white beaches with azure, beautifully clear water. I do not claim that it is uniformly distributed like this, but it was the case in the locations we visited. Moreover, we have never had such warm water anywhere else (meaning in Europe).

The chapter itself is then the mountains with their rich dense forests and their rich life. However, it is also true that discovering this life often requires a lot of trained eyes and a lot of patience, and even then it is not always possible to discover something and it is even more difficult to discover the specific animal you are looking for. But sometimes you get lucky and find what you're looking for. Often a significant dose of luck and chance is also needed.

One way or another, I think that everyone will find something for themselves in Costa Rica, whether it's relaxing on half-empty beaches, photographing animals unusual for us, or interesting landscapes, or getting to know new cultures and countries. Therefore, we recommend that you definitely visit Costa Rica and allow the local nature to penetrate the human heart and leave a part of its amazing beauty in it.

In our eyes and hearts, Costa Rica will remain a beautiful country with amazing nature, wonderful and pleasant people, and that is exactly how we want to keep it in our memories!