After leaving La Fortuna, we spent a couple of days in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. A quarter to third of the population (depending on who is telling you!) lives in this one city. It is a large city by anyone’s estimate and contains everything you would expect. Traffic is congested. Lots of buildings and people. I enjoyed the time we spent here anyway. We took our usual city strolls, but the highlight was a tour of a Doka coffee planation. Right outside of the city, our guide took us around the entire place. We saw coffee in all stages of growth as well as the process from picking to bagging. They also had a school for baristas which I found quite interesting.
Although it would be difficult for me to say exactly what my favorite place is, Puerto Viejo would certainly be in the running. Located on the Caribbean coast, it was as physically beautiful as the rest of the country but it had a different look. Puerto Viejo itself is a small town absolutely full of restaurants, bars, and stores of all type. And, of course, there was the Caribbean Sea. Oh, and we stayed in probably what what is my all-time favorite hotel- Namu Garden Resort and Spa. Despite its name, it was not a large resort but a small hotel with gorgeous grounds, large yet cozy rooms and a top-tier restaurant.
This part of the country is not generally recommended to visit, due to the lack of large resorts and that is the way the locals want it to stay. Don’t stay away because of that however, there are hotels here, you just have to look a bit more. Oh, and the locals are incredibly friendly!
High Season in Costa Rica is December through April. We went in September/October-the wet (optimistically called green) season. The first two days we had no rain. After that it rained every afternoon but with one exception it was short lived. We feel the short afternoon rains were off-set by the lack of crowds and lower prices.
The picture is the Caribbean Sea in Puerto Viejo
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