Hallo! I am back with more recap of my recent trip to Costa Rica. (Read the first part here.)
Also I would like to share additional details about the hotel we stayed at, because it was amazing!
The most popular region for tourism in Costa Rica seems to be the Pacific Coast, based on information gleaned from my internet searches. Many of the luxury and all-inclusive resorts are to be found on the Pacific Coast. Wanting to escape the typical tourists and masses of people, we ventured to a more remote area of the country, to the town of Puerto Viejo, located on the southern Caribbean coast of the country.
We were also drawn to this location because it is the dry season here in September-October when we planned to visit. We could not have chosen a better time of year to visit, because we were very fortunate to having amazing weather for the vast majority of our stay.
The hotel we stayed at is called Hotel Banana Azul. It is located directly on the beach.
We spent our first four nights in the Red Frog Tropical Suite, and the final three nights in the Howler Suite. Both were fantastic.
In our first room, Red Frog, I adored the two private outdoor spaces connected to our room. Here is our front patio, where I loved to sip coffee and listen to birds chirp in the morning. Once I even heard howling (roaring!) howler monkeys.
After morning coffee, we headed down to the restaurant for breakfast, which was included in our stay.
For the first full day of our trip, we intentionally did not plan an activities other than lounging at our hotel. It was perfection and I am so glad we didn’t have anything planned after the crazy day we had getting there the day before! Here’s another shot of our HUGE, private front patio.
Tropical paintings on the walls of our room:
Huz lounging in the hammock. And we even had our own personal koi pond filled with fish. How cool is that!
Sometimes this friendly orange cat would come visit us on our patio.
Here’s a peek inside our room. I loved our it. It was spacious, comfortable, clean, and made me feel like I was in Costa Rica.
The glass doors led to our private, fenced in back patio.
A peek inside the bathroom. I loved the rain shower and the open air windows. Consistent with the Costa Rica theme, I really felt like I was in the rainforest.
Here’s why it’s called the Red Frog Suite!:
Please, step out of our side door, and I’ll show you the back patio now.
The best part of our room? Our own private pool. I loved it.
Plus our own private lounging area on the back patio as well. This mostly served as a bathing suit drying station.
After a few hours of GLORIOUS patio lounging (we did lots of reading!) and coffee drinking, we headed down to lunch. The lunch menu kept things simple with offerings like quesadillas (below), burgers, and sandwiches.
After lunch, it was beach time. Here is a view looking back at the hotel property from the beach. You can see how lush the grounds are.
Hello rainforest!
And ahh, the beachhhh! It was gorgeous.
Par. A. Dise.
Banana Azul offers a beach club and friendly servers will bring you delightful tropical cocktails while you lounge on the beach. The best ones?: Pina Coladas and Coco Locos.
After beach lounging, we readied ourselves for dinner. I intentionally took a picture when not many others were in the dining area so I wouldn’t make anyone feel uncomfortable about having their picture taken. However, there were usually at least 4 or 5 other tables of diners in the restaurant which kept things lively but not obnoxious or too crowded.
Each night there were around three dinner choices – a fish entrée, a chicken or beef entrée, and a meatless option. Often there were two additional Chef’s Recommendation entrées available too. On the first night I went with the sea bass with scallop sauce (it was fantastic), and dinner also included butternut squash soup and a fresh salad bar, which was nice. We splurged and ordered cheesecake for dessert, because cheesecake, and because vacation.
And that wraps up our first full day in Costa Rica.
Usually when I go on vacation, I plan full, daily twelve-hour itineraries full of activities and things to see, but on this vacation I forced myself to fit more relaxation time into our trip and it was life-changing. I never realized how rejuvenating actually relaxing on a vacation can be. (Um, yeah, makes sense, Megan.) I need to do this more!
Pura Vida!
