Traveling with World Strides to Costa Rica

These are my thoughts on the 10 day tour of Costa Rica I took my students on called The Grand Tour.

7 minute video recap of trip: https://youtu.be/puIKKno8j4U 

Things I wish I had known

• The students share a bed (was a complete surprise to me and my students!)
• Towels were provided for Tortuguero and the Hot Springs at Arenal
• It cost $1 to use the bathroom for Tortuguero and on the Crocodile bridge
• The bus is small and cramped (apparently this is luck of the draw)
• Need lots and lots of bug spray for Tortuguero and the Monteverde night walk. One can for every 2 people should be enough
• The hours were rough for me. Breakfast was around 6:30am every day and we weren’t usually in our hotel rooms until after 10 (which was midnight for my jet lagged brain)
• Manuel Antonio does not allow plastic (one use) water bottles or food of any kind (I was told this the day before we left by the tour guide and after I'd already told my students to pack a plastic water bottle so they wouldn't be sad if they lost it.)
• Pack your clothes in luggage cubes AND in ziplock bags. It was so humid all the time that even though I had my dirty clothes in plastic Walmart bags the smell migrated to my clean clothes!
• Bring a watch. As a chaperone, it was really annoying to constantly pull out my phone to check the time.
• Bring closed toe shoes and sandals. The sneakers (or closed toe shoes) will be needed for the Monteverde night walk, the jungle walk in Tortuguero, and the zipline. Also, white shirts aren't allowed on the zipline.
• Medication: Dramamine (even sleepy Dramamine for kids who can’t tolerate flying), benedryl, and tylenol

Day 1 Travel to Costa Rica

We traveled out of our hometown and had no problems with only one short delay. Our guide, Juan Diego (whom I don’t recommend) met us at the airport at 3p and took us out to eat because he said the box dinner at the hotel wasn’t going to be very good (and it wasn’t.)

What to wear: Airports and airplanes tend to be cold. I wear jeans, a tshirt, sneakers, and a light jacket. San Jose also tends to be cool so it works well for the whole area.

Day 2 San Jose to Tortuguero

We had breakfast around 6:30 and then got on the bus to Tortuguero. The bus took a very long time but partly that was because of a stop at a banana plantation. That was disappointing to me but the kids liked it. We stayed outside the factory and looked through mesh coverings to see the workers. We didn’t get to go inside, we didn’t get a banana, and we only saw the banana trees from far away (they were just across the road but I really wanted to walk under them). We continued our several hour drive and ended up at docks so we could get on the boat and continue to our hotel. We could use the restroom there but it cost $1 - absolutely no credit cards accepted. The boat ride was 2 hours long. I didn’t write down times but I remember it was 7 or 8 hours from the time we left San Jose until we arrived at our hotel; however, that included a stop for lunch and the 30 minute stop at the banana plantation.

What to wear: I went in June and it was HOT, although every time I mentioned it to a local the response was amusingly always, “It’s not hot, it’s humid." Shorts and a light t-shirt or a sleeveless shirt was perfect. Sneakers for the jungle walk. I couldn’t re-wear these shirts because of how sweaty I got and I don’t usually sweat. You will need lots of sunscreen and bug spray.

Day 3 Tortuguero

My kids loooooved it here but I didn’t like it. Howler monkeys woke me up every morning at 4:30am, the water was not drinkable from the tap (and it was a 15 minute walk to the front desk to refill the bottles), the rooms didn’t have air conditioning, and it was hot hot hot! We did get down time before dinner and the food was good (the food was always good). The bugs at dinner were disconcerting – mostly big black beetles that loved to dive bomb into people’s hair. Most people ate quickly and left. LOL The kids got pool time with the warning to not to swallow the water! The beds were comfortable and the showers were nice. Check your bags before you repack because I had a big cockroach (Palmetto bug?) in mine.

We had to be out of our room by 5:30am to start our tour of the waterways. We had juice to help tide us over and breakfast when we got back. The tour was nice and it was fun to ride around in the boat for a couple of hours. About 9:30am we had a walk through the state park and it was awful. No matter how much bug spray we used we were followed by clouds of mosquitoes and our tour guide kept stopping to point out spiders, ants, and termites. At one point, someone said, “Can we hurry up? We’re all getting bitten,” and he just laughed and said, “Yeah, it’s the jungle. We have mosquitoes.”

Kids had some free time around lunch and at 2p we took a 30 second boat ride across the river to the town. We saw the beach, parrots, and toucans. It was neat! It was unpleasant to walk past all the young school children and have them hold out their hands and say, “One dollar! One dollar pretty American!” Also, there was no swimming allowed on the beach because of riptides. We had about 2 hours free time in the town but it’s so small that 20 minutes would have been fine. We were allowed to go back to the beach, and I badly wanted to, but I didn’t want to run the gauntlet of those kids begging me for money again. That was one of the saddest things I’ve seen in a long time. Where are they learning to do that? Who is teaching that to them? Dinner was good despite the dive bombing beetles

Day 4 Tortuguero to La Fortuna

This day was very difficult because of travel time. We had breakfast at 7:30 and were on the boat by 8:30. It was a 2-hour boat ride to get back, followed by a 4-hour bus ride but we did stop for lunch and to see iguanas on a bridge. It felt like we lived on that small bus. We had about an hour at the hotel and then back on the bus to go to La Fortuna and a little souvenir shopping. Dinner at the hot springs was amazing!  Literally, probably the best buffet I've ever had in my life! The hot springs were fun. I’d never experienced anything like it and it’s one of my favorite memories of the trip. This was also a very late night as we didn’t get back to the hotel until 10:30pm (12:30am to my tired brain) and we had to be out of the hotel by 6:30. This hotel was the only one that gave the girls their own bed.

What to wear: bathing suit of course. Towels are provided. La Fortuna was hot (but not humid) so a tshirt and shorts are fine. I could re-wear this tshirt since it wasn’t miserably humid.

Day 5: La Fortuna to Monteverde

This was another very long travel day. We drove about 4 hours into the mountains to get to a local school We played soccer with the kids in the pouring rain (none of my students cared it was raining) had lunch, and then spent another 2 hours on the bus to get to Monteverde. (Thank heavens for dramamine!) We had time to souvenir shop in town, a little bit of downtime at the hotel, and then we went on the night jungle walk. We saw a kinkajou which was very cool. Also a viper snake, several frogs, and some sleeping birds.

What to wear: The Monteverde area is cool-ish so jeans and a t-shirt are fine. You might (or might not) need that light jacket you wore on the plane. An umbrella or a cheap poncho is also a good idea. It rains a lot in Monteverde.

Day 6: Monteverde

Thankfully, Monteverde was for 2 nights. Breakfast was at a decent time - 7am, then a day walk through the jungle, followed by a cooking class which was also our lunch, zip lining, and then back to the hotel! This was a very good day although the zip line was terrifying. You will need closed toe shoes and a non-white shirt. Apparently, the straps are dirty and they don't want people to wear white.

Day 7: Monteverde to Manuel Antonio

Another long travel day with a 6:45am breakfast. Also, it takes 4 – 5 hours to get from Monteverde to Manuel Antonio beach. You will want bug spray but won’t need a lot. It’s also hot and humid so shorts and a t-shirt, or sleeveless t-shirt will be fine. You will need sunscreen but not a lot. The town was my, and my student’s least favorite in terms of people, but most favorite in terms of monkeys. There were monkeys outside our balcony, and everywhere in the park! We also saw toucans and sloths. Our rooms at the hotel didn’t have any hot water but the other tour groups did. We only got an hour at the beach but definitely could have stayed longer. (We only got an hour because our tour guide kept stopping to talk to friends.) The tour guide kept emphasizing that the town/souvenir area was dangerous for single tourists but fine if you were in a group and also emphasized to be super polite to everyone because the town was overrun with mafia? IDK...

Day 8: Manuel Antonio

Honestly, at this point I just don’t even remember. I think we had pool time and we went out to a fancy restaurant with an amazing view for lunch. Mostly pool time at the hotel.

Day 9: Manuel Antonio back to San Jose

More travel in the small bus. 5 hours this time? At this point, the bus and I are such good friends that I named it Steve.

Day 10: Tavel home

This was a very long day. We needed to be on the bus around 3am which meant I got up at 2am. There was a disappointing boxed breakfast: yogurt juice, an apple, and a meat sandwich. I can’t eat that early and I couldn’t take it with me to eat later since almost none of it could go through security (and who wants to eat a meat sandwich after it's been a backpack for several hours?). We had two layovers (Miami and Chicago) and the last one ended up getting delayed for 4 hours which got us home just a touch after midnight. This all meant that by the time I got home I had been up for almost 48 hours. I was about delirious with exhaustion!

My final thoughts? I’m an introvert and used to traveling alone, and in comfort, so this was a very difficult trip for me. It was difficult to be on someone else’s schedule and going where other people wanted to go and just being around people for 12 hours every day. Plus the tour guide was definitely sub par as he spent most of his time either with his friends off of the street or with anyone he considered pretty from the groups. He was also horrible at time management but after complaining to WorldStrides he got much better so I think they must have said something to him. 

My students LOVED the trip. My least favorite spot, Tortuguero, was their favorite. They hated the bus as much as I did but they loved seeing the country, talking to the people, eating the cuisine, and just exploring. I talked it up as if it were a buffet and they were seeing all of Costa Rica so they'd know where they wanted to come back and visit! I checked in with them all the time and, every single time I asked how they were doing, their faces lit up and they told me they didn’t want to go home. =) I will do this again but it will be every 3 – 4 years, and it won’t be any more than a 7 day trip. 10 days about killed me. My students were angels but my introverted self just can’t handle 10 days of being around people all the time!

Pura Vida!