Costa Rica seduced the young solo traveler me … with visions of tropical beaches, smoking volcanoes, abundant wildlife and friendly locals

We then had a 3 hour drive to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, where we checked into rooms with mosquito netting on the beds before all meeting at an open bar space with wood tables by the small pool.

The alarm at 4:30am signalled the start of one of the main adventure elements of the trip. We would white water raft down the Pacuare river to a lodge in the middle of the jungles of Costa Rica.

We climbed aboard a flat bottomed boat and sailed along the lake toward La Fortuna and the volcano. The lake is dammed at one end and used as a hydroelectric plant which provide 50% of Cost Rica’s power.

After refreshments, it was direct to Montverde, through some incredible terrain, Costa Rica is stunningly verdant and even at higher altitudes there are tall trees and lush grass. The town of Monteverde itself is quite small but well served by shops and restaurants aimed at tourists.

Sunday was an early start though easy to manage as we had all had an early night the night before. Breakfast was very local, and something we all later found out we’d need to get very used to, Gallo Pinto, Costa Rican Rice & Beans, a staple of breakfast and several other meals. Once we were full of rice and beans it was then on to the bus for the 4.5h drive to Montverde.

The flight Miami to Costa Rica had some lovely views as we traveled south, although we were nearly redirected to Liberia due to bad weather which would have been a bad start to the trip.