Traveling in Costa Rica

You can turn it around and see it in any way you want: Costa Rica just wasn't for us.

After our stay in San José, we rented a car, but no matter where we drove, the time was essentially a series of silly experiences: we didn't get along well with the mentality of the people (we never really understood what this lifestyle 'pura vida' that everyone is so proud of was supposed to mean), and especially the many American and European expats were strange. The food and accommodations were expensive and, overall, disappointing. The offerings in supermarkets were so one-sided that cooking for ourselves wasn't even fun. For every little natural spectacle (keyword: waterfall), you had to shell out money. When we wanted to visit free places, the road conditions were so bad that we had to turn back (and we thought we were tough enough for South America) to avoid putting too much strain on the rental car. The hiking trails in the national parks we visited were paved, and most of the time you could hear the incredibly loud truck traffic from nearby country roads. It was especially bad when Freddy was attacked and bitten out of nowhere by an aggressive shepherd dog named Terror, the owner behaved like a jerk, and we called all over the country and couldn't get rabies vaccine. Fortunately, the rabies risk in Costa Rica is generally very low, and we were able to reach the veterinarian, who confirmed that the stupid dog had at least been vaccinated. Unfortunately, swimming was out of the question with the fresh wound.

In between, we kept asking ourselves if something was wrong with us because so many people praised how wonderful this country was during the trip.

But: it wasn't all bad, and nature compensated for a lot. At one point, we had accommodation right in the jungle, where monkey troops would swing right past us in the mornings. We found that we were quite good at spotting animals even without a guide and discovered various poison dart frogs, snakes (like a fantastically camouflaged viper guarding its nest and a coral snake in a tree), toucans, bats, lizards, coatis, alligators, peccaries, and agoutis. And for the first time in our lives, we saw sloths (three-toed sloths), some with young. What special animals, which are so agile and elegant in their slowness. Those were wonderful, unique experiences that we will fondly remember, and the rest is checked off.

Completely independent of the fact that Costa Rica was the first country that we didn't like as a complete package, we also realized that we were ready for a change of scenery and culture, and we were very excited about the USA.