Almost a year later and I'm finally finishing this post. Last year I backpacked central America with my sister, and here is a quick overview of what I did.
I arrived In San Jose, Costa Rica in the early afternoon of July 4th 2019 after travelling for almost 24 hours so my first day was a relaxed day in our air b&b followed by a dinner at Capra. Capra was the most amazing Vegan resturant close to the centre of town where we sat outside in their garden area eating empanditas and a rice bowl followed by the best dessert we've ever eaten- a vegan victoria sponge with the lighest vegan butter cream icing!
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| The amazing vegan blueberry cake (right) and vegan cinammon roll (left) from Capra |
Places I visited in San Jose:
The area surrounding universidad de Costa Rica (UCR). This area is very cheap and had lots of resturant choices as well as a very artist area featuring graffiti by local arists. It was a great place to get some artsy pictures. The university itself was beaming with students and there was a fantastic running track of 3 kilomteres surrounding the university which lots of people train on and a small outdoor gym.
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| Some of the cool graffiti in the area |
In Barrio Amino (I think this was what the area was called but cannot remeber exactly), a very hipster area which looks very fancy, however in the resturant we went to the food was awful- the sauce on our pizza fell off the pizza and tasted quite watery and their "speciality gnocchi" tasted bland like flour barely masked by the vegetables it was served with. The food cost £30 as well so was very overpriced. In our uber home, the driver said the area is better for having a nice drink but the food is rubbish.
I was only in San Jose for 2 days before going to visit Drake Bay (which i will talk about in another blog post), after Drake Bay we went to Manuel Antonio. The night before going to Manuel Antonio we stayed in a campsite, in a town around 45 minutes from the national park, called Jungle House which had been recommended by our hire car company. This was not really a campsite but camping in their open car park but there were security cameras to make us feel safer. The toilets were broken so they let us use one of their rooms for a toilet which was very kind; the kitchen was disgusting as there were dirty plates everywhere and the bin smelt and hadn’t been emptied. We were very luckily and a sloth pooed in a tree just behind our car which was amazing to see a sloth so close, we were impressed that sloths moved faster than we thought.
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| This is a picture of a sloth I saw |
After having being told Manuel Antonio is super busy and get there very early, we very surprised when we arrived at opening time and there was almost no one there, however walking from our car to the national park we were hastled at every turn by people trying to sell tours and souvenirs, we almost missed where we had to buy a ticket because we thought they were trying to sell us a tour. The park itself is amazing, here we saw spider monkeys, agouti, white-faced capuchin monkeys eating fruit, lizards, coral crabs. iguana and more! This was all without a guide, however guides could help you see frogs and spiders too. We walked along a monkey path down to the most beautiful beach with clear water. The beach was incredible and a lovely swim after a long walk but it was a shame how many people left plastic on the beach after multiple signs and being told not to as we saw the capuchin monkeys playing with plastic bags which was very depressing.
After Manuel Antonio we camped in Playa Matapalo. This beach was so empty and it seemed like an amazing place to surf. The owner of the campsite was very friendly and had set up areas to sit in when it rained which was nice and offered us helpful tips about Costa Rica, unfortuntately I have lost my photos of Manuel Antonio so cannot show you anything.
We set off after 2 days to head for Monte Verde cloud forest, which I will write about in another blog post.
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