Costa Rica – Frugal Living

Our $100 Vacation to Costa Rica – Part 5

June 8, 2016 by Andrew 2 Comments

Shae, her sister (Auntie), Frugal Boy, and myself just returned from an 8 day trip to Costa Rica. We went horse back riding in the mountains, zip lined at 50 mph past a volcano, and forded a river in our 4×4. The frosting on the cake, we did it all for just $100! * Find out how at the end of this series. See Part 1 here. Part 2 here. Part 3 here. Part 4 here.

* Auntie paid some of her share of the trip and that isn’t included in our Out of Pocket total.

Day 7 – Water Water Everywhere

Today marked our last day at the ranch. We wanted to get a short hike in before sitting in the car for four hours so we followed the monkey trail to try and see some of the resident howler monkeys. A small ranch cat came along with us as we descended into the jungle.

We didn’t see any monkeys and the trail just kept going so we eventually turned back.

I finally met the owner of the ranch, Charlie. He is quite the character and made a strong impression as he walked out of his bedroom with a parrot on his shoulder. He kind of reminded me of “The Dude” Lebowski from the cult movie The Big Lebowski. I spoke with him for some time asking about the area and the road construction. He was a wealth of information and confirmed that the trucks were improving the inside road and had made a wet crossing over the Rio Caño Negro, the biggest obstacle to taking the shortcut between Monteverde and Arenal. He talked about how all of the studies and surveys had been completed for building a bridge over the river, but the funding got pulled at the last minute to help with earthquake relief. All of the plans are still valid, so sometime in the next ten years, I would expect a bridge to be in place. He also talked about how the president of Costa Rica had visited the area and in no uncertain terms stated that the road would never be paved. The government does not want commercial traffic through this eco sensitive area.

I was eager to try the river crossing and to take the inside road, if for no other reason, that it would be far more scenic and adventurous that the long winding outside road that we had taken to get to Arenal. The plan was to drive from El Castillo to Playas del Cocos on the Pacific ocean.

Charlie sent his son Eduardo with us on his motorbike in case we got stuck and needed a tractor to come pull us out. When we got to the bank of the river, I was both impressed by the size of the river and relieved to see the road construction crew hanging out on the other side. If they made it across, surely we could too and if we got stuck, they should be able to help us out between their laughter.

I took Charlie’s suggestion and walked it first to get an idea of what I was about to get us into. Then I popped it into 4 low and trucked it across. Wheeee!!

It’s worth noting that our rental agreement says not to do this, so I cannot condone my behavior. When I walked it, the water was below my knee, so while the river looked very big, it was also quite shallow.

The road on the other side was in excellent condition, no doubt because of the recent construction. While it was still gravel, it drove like asphalt. It was only when we turned west and headed into the mountains that the road got worse. There was one bridge that we ended up crossing amongst a handful of smaller streams. It sure didn’t look very safe with its height and lack of guard rails but we made it across just fine.

The volcano faded into the rearview mirror as we drove farther up into the mountains. Along the way we passed numerous turismo buses. The inside road seems to be the preferred route between Monteverde and Arenal by people familiar with the area.

After a four hour long ride, most of that in the bumpy mountain roads, we made it to Playas del Cocos. I had reserved an Airbnb condo that was hosted by an ex-pat named Robert and his native wife Marie. We met Robert in his bike rental shop and he was another character I won’t soon forget. Just think YMCA locker room, and you’ll get the right image in your head.

After getting a strange driving tour of the beach town where we followed Robert in his truck and he gave us hand signals for different sights and destinations we arrived at the condo. It was a nice unit with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Where were you second bathroom for the rest of the trip!

I picked this particular condo because it was only two blocks away from the Pacific ocean. Frugal Boy was delighted to go play on the beach.

As we walked along the shore towards downtown he spotted a playground.

Playas del Cocos has a thriving tourist strip selling all the usual trinkets. You could buy $10 keychains or $20 t-shirts. Smarter tourists would haggle the shop owners down a bit. We skipped all of that and bought some souvenir t-shirts at the end of the trip from MaxiPali, a Walmart subsidiary supermarket in Liberia, for $8.

Now that we were at sea level, the temperature had really picked up. Up in the mountains it was pleasantly cool, but down by the ocean it was hot. We stopped at a gelato shop and got a few scoops of ice cream. That made everyone quite happy.

That night we ate at a little burger/seafood soda. It was essentially a towed trailer with a griddle and deep fryer. The food was good and cheap so that made us all happy. On the walk back to the condo we were treated to a rare sight during the rainy season, a sunset!

Day 8 – A Last Supper

This was our last full day in Costa Rica. We hit the beach early before the heat and rain arrived.

Frugal Boy learned some hard lessons about tides when the water came in and destroyed his fort. He was pretty darn cute yelling at the water to stop it.

After a few hours we had our fill of swimming and playing in the sand so we went back to the condo to cleanup and eat lunch. Robert, our host, came by with the maid because his wife and him had a flight to catch. We hurriedly packed up our stuff so the maid wouldn’t have to wait forever.

There are numerous coves along the Pacific coast and we wanted to see how the other beach towns compared to Playas del Cocos. I had heard that Cocos was the party beach and its northernly neighbor Hermosa was the family friendly beach. We drove up and around to Hermosa to check it out.

Hermosa had more beach goers and picnickers, but barely any shops and only a handful of restaurants. It definitely was the tamer of the two. The rain moved in and Frugal Boy didn’t seem to care, but the rest of us were ready to call it quits.

We drove back to the airport hotel where we could repack our bags and clean out the car. I was reminded of how ugly American tourists can be when I was waiting in line at the hotel to check in. There was a large group of Americans in front of me and they were just so loud and pretentious. They didn’t even bother trying to speak in Spanish to the desk clerk. I get that not everyone is bilingual (heck I’m not), but everyone should at least have hola, como estas, and gracias in their toolboxes. Shae and I always tried to start interactions in Spanish and we felt that we got better treatment because of it. I made it as far as asking for a crib in our room for Frugal Boy when she mistook me for someone who actually speaks proficiently and rattled off the answer at supersonic speed. My puzzled look tipped her off that I was still an American, just not quite as obnoxious as the previous ones.

We still needed to gas up the car, eat dinner, blow whatever colones we had left, and return the rental that night.

Gas stations in Costa Rica are like the ones in Mexico. They are all full service and the prices are the same regardless of what station you stop at. It cost about 20,000 CRC to take the SUV from 1/4 to full. So prices were comparable to US gas prices if not a little more.

Shae found a great restaurant in the heart of Liberia. I think it was called Café Liberia and it had a very colonial vibe to it. Again, I think we got better treatment from the waitresses for ordering in Spanish. They asked if we wanted bottled water or house water. By this point of the trip, I think our guts had built up an iron lining, so we earned extra brownie points by taking the house water.

Shae thought this was her favorite meal of the trip. She had a ceviche which is a raw seafood dish cured with lemon or lime. It was presented in a very appealing way. I aimed for something a little easier on the stomach. The one dish in Mexico that was a bit off for me was ceviche. Maybe next time I’ll be ready for it again.

Day 9 – The Not So Fun Day

This day was all about getting home. We had two flights. One from Liberia to Houston and then one from Houston to Chicago. The Liberia flight left at 6:50 am… at least it was supposed to.

What really happened, was they loaded up the plane and then we all sat on the tarmac to wait for it to stop raining. Did I mention that it was the rainy season?! It just seemed so ludicrously stupid to be sitting around in the tropics waiting for it to stop raining. After an hour and no apparent change in the weather they went ahead and took off. That little delay pretty well botched everyone’s connecting flight plans. So instead of eating lunch in Houston like I had planned, we instead waited at a ticket line with a hundred other stranded passengers to get onto a different connecting flight.

United put Shae, Auntie, and Frugal Boy on the next Chicago flight with me on the standby list. By some miracle I managed to get on at the last second. There were around 30 people on the list.

Arriving into Chicago we ended up sitting on the taxi way for 30 minutes because there was still a United plane at the gate we were supposed to disembark at.

In the future, I will pay a bit more to fly a better airline that doesn’t routinely overbook their flights, gates, and other resources.

We bid our adieu to Auntie at the baggage carousel before finding out shuttle van to the private parking lot where we had left our car for the week. After sitting on planes for almost 9 hours, only eating snack food, and not being able to do what he wanted, Frugal Boy lost it. I have to say that the driver was very professional for the 10 minutes that it took to get from the airport to the lot. It sure felt like a lot more than that.

With our own car, we were able to hit up a burger stand and everyone was happy again. Hangry is a very debilitating condition that affects people of all ages.

Wrapping Up

Despite the gastrointestinal distress that plagued 75% of us and the crummy trip home, we had a good time. Zip lines, horse back riding, hanging bridges, howler monkeys, tasty food, extremely friendly Ticos, and disconnecting from work for a week were all great experiences.

Costa Rica is a very modern Central American country with many of the creature comforts and conveniences that we enjoy here in the States. It would have been interesting to see the capitol San José as I think that would have a very different feel to it than the more rural areas that we saw on our trip.

We were a bit surprised at the USA level prices on items like grocery staples, to restaurants, to tours. I am not convinced that retiring to Costa Rica would save any money over retiring to a low COL area like the rural midwest.

I am glad that we went and now Shae and I are thinking about the next place that we’d like to see. Perhaps Cuba.

Cost Breakdown

Okay, so the big question that you most assuredly have. How the heck did this trip cost us only $100? The answer boils down to credit card and bank account sign up bonuses. I have written before (here and here) about how we were ‘churning’ or ‘travel hacking’ this trip by signing up for big reward bonuses and playing the system.

The total trip cost was $4776.51. Of that, we were reimbursed $4683.12. That makes our out of pocket, OOP, cost for a week long trip to Costa Rica just $93.39. Auntie ended up paying $590 + whatever her bus fare was to and from the airport and any other incidentals.

Below is the spreadsheet that I kept. Some of the credits are still estimated because we haven’t finished collecting them yet.

Our $100 Vacation to Costa Rica – Part 4

June 8, 2016 by Andrew Leave a Comment

* Auntie paid some of her share of the trip and that isn’t included in our Out of Pocket total.

Day 5 – Horses and Waterfalls

One of the add-ons at the ranch was a horse back slash hiking expedition into the bordering national park to see Cat falls. Auntie really wanted to do it, but Shae is allergic to horses and Frugal Boy is too little, so I got the honor of tagging along.

The owner’s son and brother-in-law wrangled up some horses for us to ride. Frugal Boy was chomping at the bit to go with, and our hosts entertained him for a bit.

The volcano was usually shrouded in clouds and this morning was no exception.

Finally, it was time for us to be off. It felt a bit like Swiss Family Robinson, with the foal staying close to its mama (Aunties mount) and a pair of dogs darting in and out of bushes while they waited for their humans to come along.

We took a short ride up through pastures to a bluff overlooking the lake. My horse, De Texan, was an opinionated old fart. Kind of like me.

Continuing up the hillside, we reached the edge of the forest and dismounted. From here the trail was too steep and narrow for the horses, so we continued on foot. We crested the ridge and went down the other side. Eventually we could hear the water and finally we could see it.

The water was deliciously cool, especially after our hot hike. With only a little prompting from our guides I stripped down to my skivvies and jumped in. Auntie and I watched as the two Ticos climbed haphazardly up the waterfall’s edge and then back down before doing backflips into the water.

It was interesting talking with them because they were both about my age. Both of them had girlfriends and they reminded me very much of my American peers. On the hike out, Eduardo was texting his girlfriend and taking selfies. The internet has been a powerful force of globalization.

The hike out cancelled most of the cooling effect of swimming and we were dry by the time we reached the horses.

Shae and Frugal Boy had kept busy moving all of our stuff from the second story apartment down to the first story. We had originally booked the first story because it was cheaper, but it was still being cleaned when we arrived the night before so they moved us into the unoccupied second story. However, a family a 8 was arriving today, so we had to move.

After a change of clothes and lunch we decided to drive to La Fortuna waterfall. As with most things Costa Rican, it isn’t far as the crow flies, but it takes much longer to drive, about 40 minutes.

The waterfall is very tall and the parking lot is at the top.

According to Shae’s Fitbit, it was 30 stories of steps down to the basin.

There were workers building out the new steps which we took all the way down. They were very nice and safe, but I couldn’t help but notice the old steps. Yowza! No wonder why they make you sign a liability waiver before going down.

Down at the bottom we took another group selfie.

There was an attendant at the bottom that explained the swimming rules. To the right was the waterfall basin and to the left was the gentler outlet stream. He warned us about flash floods and to stay alert for brown water (a sign that a flash flood is happening). Auntie has a waterproof camera, so she took most of the photos here. Suffice it to say that we had a lot of fun swimming on both sides. We kept Frugal Boy to the calm section, but Shae and I ventured into the hurricane force buffeting of the catarata. It was one of those moments that just puts you in awe of the power of nature.

After hiking back out and stopping at a grocery store to resupply we drove back to El Castillo so we could eat dinner at a Soda. Soda’s in Costa Rica are small family owned restaurants. There is at least one in every town. The one we went to was Mesa de Mama (Mom’s Table). It seemed to be popular with the locals and the food was good, if not a little too salty for my tastes. We ate comida tipica, typical food, that consisted of rice, beans, plantain, a meat, and salad.

That night our upstairs neighbors showed up. It wasn’t the most restful nights because we could hear every footstep, and let me tell you, a family of 8 makes a lot of footsteps. Eventually they went to sleep and the tides turned the next morning.

Day 6 – Hanging Around

Most of the places that we rented had two bedrooms, but they also usually had just two beds. That meant that Frugal Boy often slept with Shae and myself. Around 4:30 AM, Shae and I awoke to a bubbling gurgling sound coming from Frugal Boy. Yep, you guessed it. A flimsy disposable diaper had no chance against the awesome power of diarrhea. Shae went to swoop him up off the bed, only to get a handful of the slimy stinky mess. It was e v e r y w h e r e.

I took small comfort in the fact that Frugal Boy’s shower screaming undoubtedly woke up our elephant neighbors. With a little breakfast in our stomachs and everyone calmed down, Shae and I left Frugal Boy with Auntie and took the short drive over to Sky Adventures Arenal Park.

It was time for zip lines!

Shae and I both agreed that the zip lines were our favorite part of the entire trip. There were a total of 7 zip lines, the highest was 200 meters (656 ft) above the ground and the longest was 760 meters (2493 ft or just shy of half a mile). As part of the tour, we rode the gondola up the side of the mountain.

From the highest platform, we had a great view of Arenal lake. As a nice bonus, it was sunny!

There were 9 other people on the tour with us. Costa Rica is a popular destination for honeymooners and we saw several couples on this tour.

Shae was nervous for the first couple of lines, but then she started to really enjoy it.

It felt completely safe, but zooming at 50 mph over the tree tops still gives you quite the adrenaline rush. With our thrill seeking satisfied, we returned to the ranch to relieve Auntie. We had forgotten to explain to Frugal Boy that we were leaving for a couple of hours, so he freaked out. Here is a pro parenting tip. Explain what the hell is going on or about to happen to your kids. Just like adults, they like to know what to expect.

After lunch we talked about what we wanted to do. Aunties eyes lit up when I mentioned that there was another set of hanging bridges not too far away. Seeing as she suffered through multiple scream fests that morning, I felt obligated to indulge her.

Frugal Boy passed out on the car ride there so I joined him in napping while Shae and Auntie did the self guided walk through the Mystico hanging bridges.

This set of hanging bridges was Auntie’s favorite part of the whole trip because they got to see monkeys!

They also told me that the bridges here were shakier than the ones in Monteverde.

and Shae spotted more exotic flowers.

Here you can make out a baby monkey riding on the mama.

A DSLR camera is kind of a requirement if you want to get good shots of wildlife in Costa Rica. They are often far away and move fast!

We all stopped for a photo op before leaving the park behind.

It was still mid afternoon, and rain was moving in so we decided to head on over to the Butterfly Conservatory in El Castillo. The place was interesting and I later learned that the owner of the ranch we were staying at was one of the founding members. The grounds are a forest regrowth project. 60 years ago it was cattle pasture. Now there are all sorts of interesting flora.

Of course the butterflies are interesting as well.

They like to get drunk off the fermented fruit.

Saying goodbye to the butterflies, it was time to find a place to eat. We didn’t want to go back to the soda because it was just so-so. El Castillo isn’t a huge town and only has a handful of restaurants. We eventually settled on Pizza John’s, run by nobody named John. In fact, it was run entirely by two nice women who didn’t speak a lick of English.

While we waited for the food, I went downstairs to practice my Spanish. It was a nice place with an open kitchen, so I chatted with the older woman while she made up the pizzas. I had seen numerous dump trucks coming and going through the main road of El Castillo so I asked her if they were building a road. “Sí a Monteverde” she replied. I also asked if she had any children of her own. In Costa Rica, family is very important. Asking about one’s family is fair game in conversations with strangers. Beaming with pride, she told me that she had 12 children. ¡Aye carumba!

After eating way too much pizza, we ordered some ice cream to enjoy later that night back at the ranch.

On the way back up the driveway we encountered a small car that had gotten stuck. The driveway is only one car wide, so it was an interesting bit of driving to get around. Frugal Boy was very concerned about the stuck car, but then changed his tune to “Mama, my tummy doesn’t feel good”. That brings us to #4 of our top grossest moments in Costa Rica. Frugal Boy’s retching all over the apartment floor, leaving a trail to the bathroom, before finishing in the toilet. I hate to say it, but he takes after his old man. That sound is awful. The incident may have also irreparably damaged Shae. For the rest of the trip any burp, cough, or fart was enough to send her into a heightened alert. It was a rough trip for everyone’s gastrointestinal tracts.

Read the final part and conclusion here.

Our $100 Vacation to Costa Rica – Part 3

June 7, 2016 by Andrew 1 Comment

* Auntie paid some of her share of the trip and that isn’t included in our Out of Pocket total.

Day 4 – Saying Goodbye to Monteverde

Today was our last day in Monteverde before we made the drive to Arenal. As the crow flies, it is only about 10 miles between the two destinations, but because of the mountainous terrain and developing infrastructure, it is a longer 4 hour trek between the two popular tourist destinations.

We decided to spend our last morning in Monteverde by visiting the Reserva Biologica. One of the neat things about the reserve is that it straddles the Continental Divide. The divide runs north south and is the deciding point as to whether water runs into the Atlantic ocean or the Pacific. In the United States, the divide is along the Rocky Mountains.

We hiked for about two hours from the visitors center along the Sendero Bosque Nuboso to La ventana (The View) and then back along Sendero Camino.

Along the way we saw some neat flowers.

The view from La Ventana was nice but not anything that we hadn’t already seen on the trip.

After getting back to the car, returning to the house, eating lunch, and checking out with our Hosts, we hit the road for the drive to El Castillo, a small town nestled at the base of the Arenal Volcano.

We followed the red dotted line from Monteverde, up through Tilaran, around lake Arenal, through Nuevo Arenal, and then down into El Castillo. The purple dotted line represents an alternative way that we could have taken. The locals call it the inside road and it differs in one big way from the outside road (red line). The inside road has no bridges! May is the start of the rainy season in Costa Rica and we were traveling in early June. All of my internet research said that the last river crossing right by El Castillo was the largest and only passable during the dry season (winter). As the navigator on the trip, I opted to play it safe and take the longer outside road. It would have been very frustrating to get within sight of our destination just to find a raging river and have to backtrack a couple of hours.

Along the way, we spotted cows grazing alongside the road.

Then just north of Tejona, we got our first view of the volcano from the northwest shore of the lake.

Driving over the dam on the south east edge revealed the might volcano even more.

Lake Arenal is man made and very important to the country. Depending on who you ask, it supplies between 25-38% of the electricity. The volcano last erupted in 2008, but it continued to spew smoke and ash for another 3 years. During our stay, it slept like a lumbering giant.

Our destination for the night was our second Airbnb rental house. This one was part of a dude ranch in the sleepy town of El Castillo. It was a long, bumpy, and mountainous driveway to reach the ranch where we were promptly greeted by the owner’s son Eduardo.

The guest house was split up into a top unit and bottom unit. For the first night, we were treated to the top unit and it had spectacular views of both the lake and volcano.

Parrot Hill Ranch even had its own mascot. You guessed it… a parrot.

The horses in the pasture behind the house were also a big hit with Frugal Boy and there was a two year old girl with her mom who was cleaning one of the units. It is fun to see kids of different nationalities interact. They don’t care that the other kid doesn’t speak the same language. They are just glad to have someone to play with.

With a little bit of daylight left, we decided to do a rain hike on one of the ranch trails to Walden Falls.

The rain was really coming down and the steep muddy trail down to the river reminded me of the scene in the movie Romancing the Stone where the characters slide down the mountainside. Auntie turned back, but the rest of us pushed on.

I couldn’t see any waterfall when I got to the bottom, but I did see a raging river that Frugal Boy foolishly wanted to play in.

Back at the house and dried off, our hosts brought some chicken and rice plates along with soursop juice. YUMMY! The rest of the evening we entertained ourselves with cards and Wall-E.

Continue reading part 4 here.

Our $100 Vacation to Costa Rica – Part 2

June 7, 2016 by Andrew 1 Comment

* Auntie paid some of her share of the trip and that isn’t included in our Out of Pocket total.

Day 3 – Exploring Monteverde

On our third day, we woke up early to the deafening sound of howler monkeys. They sound a lot like dogs. Speaking of dogs, there was a large population of mutts wandering about Costa Rica. They were easy going and seemed fairly harmless, but it still surprised me a bit to see so many dogs just out and about.

Shae and I were eager to try out some local baked goods, so we hiked down the hill to Stella’s Bakery. To our dismay, the panaderia section was quite small. Instead it was more of a sit down restaurant. You may have heard of “Island Time”, well in Costa Rica, it is “Tico Time”. Tico time is the pace that things get done by the locals. From when we ordered, to when the food came out, it was about an hour. If you are going to travel abroad, get used to the idea that “XX Time” is a real thing and will likely affect your schedule. I took Frugal Boy outside to play while we let Tico Time happen inside.

We had #2 of our top 5 grossest moments at Stella’s Bakery when Frugal Boy lost the contents of his stomach on Shae’s breakfast platter. Sometimes you just really wish you left the kids at home with grandma and grandpa.

With half of our party fueled up and ready to go we made the short drive to Selvatura Park so we could walk on the hanging bridges and be among the canopy dwellers.

One of the big differences that Shae and I noticed on this trip from our Mexico trip was the handling of US dollars. In Mexico, we paid for almost everything in the local Pesos, and by doing so we got a better deal. In Costa Rica, prices were advertised in US dollars and paying by colones wasn’t advantageous. A prime example was Selvatura Adventure Park. The advertised rate for the hanging bridges admission was $30 per adult ($90 all together). I paid in colones and was charged 49,000 CRC, or about $92.45. After realizing there wasn’t much savings to be had by paying in the native currency, we used our IHG World MasterCards with 0% foreign transaction fees to cover most of the remaining tours. We didn’t have these cards in Mexico and only had credit cards that charged foreign transaction fees, so it was nice to have a new option. We did encounter some places that only took CRC, but they were few and far between.

The hanging bridges themselves were very cool. It was a self guided 2 mile walk that included 7 or 8 suspension bridges that placed you either above or among the forest canopy.

It was hard to capture on camera the full scope of your surroundings, but just think Jurassic Park and you’ll get an idea.

After completing our walk we ate some lunch back at the house and then moseyed down to the Monteverde Coop. The Coop is a group of café (coffee in Spanish) farmers who are trying to grow and sell organic coffee.

There are a bunch of different coffee tours in the area, but this was the one recommended by our host so we went for it.

After riding a shuttle out to the farm, we met our tour guide who gave us a brief history of coffee, how it relates to Costa Rica, and how plantations affect the rain forest.

I had never seen a coffee plant before. They look like this:

and the coffee beans grow on them like this:

About 20 years ago, the Costa Rican government mandated that all coffee plantations switch over to an Arabica variety. Arabica is associated with premium coffee, but it also has different growing requirements.

The farm was growing several different varieties of arabica coffee. Every 7 years, the plants get too large to easily pick, so they chop them down to the ground and the root system sends up a new trunk. There can be coffee bushes that are twenty or thirty years old with 5 or 6 trunks.

Different varieties are susceptible to different diseases and fungi. The farm continually grows replacements onsite.

Our tour guide talked about the evil cattle ranchers who were cutting down the rain forest, but didn’t seem to be bothered by other coffee farmers who cleared land for their crops. The farm also was touting how environmentally savvy they were for switching over to manure based fertilizer to replace the chemicals. They didn’t explain why chemicals were bad, it was just a dirty word. Instead, the tons of manure required to fertilize the farm necessitated that Nicaraguans be bussed in and housed in small dormitories to provide the labor needed to ‘go organic’. Obviously, you can tell that I am skeptical of the personal and environmental benefits of ‘organically grown’.

Moving on, we just finished walking through a field when we arrived at the roasting/tasting/gift shop building. It was fortunate timing as well, because it had just started to rain. Inside, a new guide explained the different drying processes for the picked beans.

On the right hand side is the entire coffee cherry picked and dried. To the left of that is the coffee bean with the outer husk removed. Left of that is the same thing, except washed, and finally the left most box is the fully peeled coffee bean. So each whole coffee cherry contains multiple beans inside and then there is a husk that can be removed and a pulp. Think of it like peanuts.

The top row are the raw un-roasted beans and cherries in their respective drying strategies. The bottom row is just the corresponding beans after they are roasted.

Now that you are as confused as I was, it was ready for the taste test challenge. Could we correctly identify light, medium, and dark roast? Could we identify whole dried versus washed dried?

I’ll prefix this with a, I am not a coffee drinker and probably never will be. To me, it tasted like this:

Ugh

blah

meh

Ugh

meh

It turns out that I am not a light roast fan. We learned that there is only a minute difference between light and dark roast coffee.

Of course at the end of the tour you could buy ground or whole bean coffee from their little shop. We saw the exact same bags back at the Coop ticket booth for $4 less. The best place to buy your coffee is where the Ticos buy theirs, the supermarket! By the end of the trip, we had purchased 2.25 kg of genuine Costa Rican ground coffee to give to friends and family for a fraction of the cost.

Cafe Britt is probably the best known coffee to Americans, but we chose to buy what the abuelas were snatching up in great big sacks. Chances are good that it all comes from the same conglomerate of farms anyway!

Frugal Boy really wanted to drink some coffee. He settled for some dregs and fruit snacks.

With our shuttle waiting to whisk us back we donned our rain gear and left the coffee plantation behind.

That night we followed our other Host’s recommended eatery. An upscale Argentinian place (Cabure) that was right next door. I had a wonderful sea bass with almond topping for 8500 CRC. It was a splurge, but it was also my favorite meal from the trip.

Continue reading part 3 here.

Our $100 Vacation to Costa Rica – Part 1

June 7, 2016 by Andrew 4 Comments

* Auntie paid some of her share of the trip and that isn’t included in our Out of Pocket total.

A Primer of Costa Rica

Costa Rica is located in Central America, just north of Panama and south of Nicaragua. The capitol is San José and there is a second international airport located just west of the city of Liberia in the northwestern province of Guanacaste. An established republic, like the United States, Costa Rica is sparsely inhabited and has no standing army. Ticos, a colloquial term used to describe the citizens, have their own currency called colones. The USD -> CRC exchange rate was about 1:530. So one US dollar would get you about 530 Costa Rican colones. The official language is Spanish, although many Ticos have at least a transactional level of English proficiency. The country has a thriving ecotourism industry, exports about 1% of the total coffee production in the world market, and is an attractive place for international companies to set up shop.

Now that you have a working knowledge of Costa Rica, let’s go! Or as the Ticos would say, ¡Vamos!

Day 1 – Getting There

We chose to fly into Liberia airport, not the capitol, because it was closer to the activities that we wanted to do and it was slightly cheaper. Even so, flying from Chicago required about 7 hours of sitting on a plane. We had a layover in Houston that added some more time to our travel day. All-in-all, you can count on sacrificing an entire day just to getting there. Expense wise, tickets were about $500 per person round trip. Frugal Boy is over the cut off for ‘lap child’ so we had to pay for his very own seat.

He enjoyed watching Finding Nemo on the first flight, even without any sound.

Other large expenses that we budgeted for included a meal at the airport, approximately $45, parking for a week ($82), and checking one piece of luggage roundtrip ($50). We saved money by bringing our own snacks from home, packing as lightly as possible to avoid more baggage fees, and booking our airfare well in advance.

An unexpected expense on day 1 was a $10 taxi fare from the airport to our hotel upon arrival. We were expecting a complimentary shuttle to be available, but couldn’t find it and I was feeling extremely unwell at the time and didn’t want to deal with one more thing.

Day 2 – Hitting the Road of Adventure

The first goal of the day was to use the ATM in the lobby to get native colones. Our primary bank refunds ATM fees, and you usually get the best exchange rate by using an ATM instead of a money exchange. Shae withdrew 250,000 colones ($470.06). The second goal of the day was to pickup our rental car. I chose Dollar Rentals because they had some of the best pricing, were off airport (not subject to extra taxes), and had the most transparency about insurance and coverage on their website. The morning’s challenge however was in getting over to their rental office which was about 2 miles away. Both Auntie and I needed to go because we were both going to be drivers. I asked for a ride from the hotel shuttle, and they said they only went to the airport. I tried calling the rental office and no one picked up. Thankfully, I saw a Hertz representative and he agreed to drop us off because their offices were right next door to one another. Yay Hertz!

Once we got there, it was a very easy checkout process. I don’t think I’ve had a checkout be so easy before. I did have a moment of weakness and switched from bare insurance coverage to full coverage. It was $90 more for the week, but after spending a night curled up to the porcelain throne, I wasn’t ready to take any more risks on this trip. For $414.15 we had a 4 wheel drive SUV that comfortably seated all of us and our stuff.

Back at the hotel, we loaded up all of said stuff and remaining passengers and hit the road for the city of Liberia to the East. We made a quick stop to load up on groceries before traveling south on the Pan American highway #1.

I had read about a local swimming hole that was just off the highway called Catarata Llanos de Cortes.

It proved to be a wonderful stop and Frugal Boy was very excited to play in the water.

It was 2000 CRC to park, and we made a donation of another 1000 CRC to two nice abuelas at the entrance who were collecting money for something or another. Finding the local spots is a great way to see the country and save money. We visited several other waterfalls during this trip and they were aimed more at the tourists and our wallets felt that in a big way.

After we had our fill of swimming, we decided to try and find a place to eat lunch in the nearby town of Bagaces. Bagaces was not a tourist town, but I was on the hunt for a local eatery. As Auntie drove farther into town and clutched the steering wheel harder, I spotted the Bar Renur Restaurant with several people inside (always a good sign).

The three women behind the bar greeted us with typical Tico hospitality. They especially loved Frugal Boy and even turned on some cartoons for him to watch while we ate. They didn’t speak any English, but our Spanish has improved a bit from our January Mexico trip, so we were able to interact just fine. Auntie and Shae both ordered lunch, I was still feeling a bit nauseous from the previous day so I just snacked on a banana. The lunch bill was a very affordable 5800 CRC (about $5.50 a person). One thing that surprised Shae and myself were the Costa Rican prices. We had heard beforehand that Costa Rica was an expensive country to travel, but as we later learned first hand it really is on par with USA prices. Really getting off the tourist path and eating like a local was still a pricey meal in comparison to our Mexico trip. Costa Rica would not have much of a geographic arbitrage advantage for retirement purposes.

From lunch, we continued down highway 1 until our turnoff at Las Juntas so we could get to Monteverde in the mountains.

On the drive up into the mountains there was a pull off that had a great view of where we had come from. You can easily see the Nicoya gulf that connects up to the Pacific ocean.

Finally, the winding, bumpy mountain roads delivered us to Monteverde, our first destination of our week long trip.

Monteverde is world famous for being a cloud forest. The elevation was around 5200 ft, making it pleasantly cool, and true to its name, enveloped in clouds more often than not. The last bit of driving was up a very steep and rocky road.

And then we were at our first Airbnb rental house!

For $246 we had a two bedroom house all to ourselves for two nights just minutes away from some of the best attractions in the area. I have yet to have a bad experience with Airbnb. The hosts lived in a house on the same land and they had two energetic little boys that made Frugal Boy light up.

I knew beforehand that the woman host was an ex-pat from the Boston area, so we brought a jar of pure maple syrup as a gift. Of course we bought it at Aldi for $6.50. She was ecstatic to get it and told us that pure maple syrup cost around $40 locally for a similar sized container. We also found out that peanut butter was around $6.60 a pound in Costa Rica.

If you were planning on eating peanut butter in Costa Rica, you might want to bring it from home!

Here is one more photo of our rental house in Monteverde.

After settling in, our host helped us make a reservation for a guided night walk to try and see some of the wildlife. The major tourist draw of this area is the biodiversity.

Standing in the parking lot of the Curi Cancha biological reserve, Shae told Frugal Boy to take a picture. He happily obliged, camera need not apply.

I don’t have any good photos from our night walk. It was about 2 hours long and our guide Adrian tried to spot critters for us. We heard plenty of birds, frogs, and bugs. Highlights included seeing a giant tarantula, nectar drinking bats, a phosphorescent scorpion that shone under a black light, and a Keel-billed Toucan. The latter of which, I learned is an omnivore instead of a herbivore and is not very popular with other animals because it will eat their young.

It’s worth noting that because Costa Rica is so close to the equator, they have 12 hour days year around. That means that it is dark by 6pm. This combined with the switch to mountain time, really screwed up our internal clocks. Shae and I both learned that living near the equator, probably wasn’t for either of us. We like having sunlight in the evening (at least until 8).

With the tour concluded, we were hungry (even me!) and decided to follow the recommendation of our host for an Italian place (Tramonti’s) just down the driveway. We ordered a pizza (5000 CRC) para llevar and enjoyed it back at the house.

Continue reading part 2 here.