Shortly after we began planning our move to Costa Rica, one of our best friends, Leslie, started planning her visit to Costa Rica. Her birthday and mine are two weeks apart, so it seemed only natural that she come out to celebrate them both (#libraseason)! Nikk and I were so excited to welcome our first guest and show her all around the country we now call home.
Week One
Leslie and I kicked off her visit to Costa Rica in our absolute favorite way – with yoga! We practiced at my new home studio, Sattva Yoga, and then we spent four days in Playa Negra at a small retreat.
Playa Negra Yoga was an absolute gem of a place to stay. They had onsite dining, their own yoga studio, a pool, clean and comfortable rooms, and plenty of communal spaces to relax in. If you want to visit Costa Rica on a yoga retreat, I highly recommend checking them out!
The gorgeous open-air relaxing area at Playa Negra Yoga retreat. We spent a lot of time here! 
Playa Negra beach was gorgeous. The waves grow much higher here, so it is known as a surfer’s haven!
Our retreat included lots of yoga, massages, a sunset meditation, and lots of good times. Two other local friends joined us at the retreat and the four of us had such fun together. We rang in Leslie’s birthday with cake on two occasions!
Happy Birthday to Leslie! Happy Cake to all of us! 
Surprise brownie for someone’s birthday!
After Nikk picked us up from our retreat, we went to the first-ever Oktoberfest in Tamarindo. Our friends from Cervecería Independiente (the brewery close to our house) were there, along with a couple of other local craft beer purveyors. We had an awesome time, but not as awesome as TJ did in this funky beer-drinking-contraption!
You put the beer in the floating part and then try to drink it… “try” is the optimal word… 
Besties At Oktoberfest in Costa Rica!
Week Two
Our second week together was jam-packed with tons of touristy things that are “must-do’s” if you visit Costa Rica!
First stop on our whirlwind tour was the Diamanté Eco Adventure Park, just north of us in Guanacaste. Diamanté has a bunch of options when you visit – ATV rides, zip lines, and horse-back tours. We opted for something a little more low-key, though and checked out their animal sanctuary and Cultural Tour.
The view from Diamanté’s gift shop. Ocean for days! 
Were we excited to be at Diamanté?!
The animal sanctuary was awesome! It might be my new favorite spot in Costa Rica (besides the beach of course). The sanctuary boasts tons of animals native to Costa Rica like frogs, butterflies, jaguars, monkeys, and sloths. Best of all, there are tour guides positioned at each area to tell you more about the animals. It was a rainy day when we visited, so we had the place almost completely to ourselves and the animals were all very active. Check out some of these creatures!
Baloo reaching for some extra snacks 
This is not zoomed in! You could get so close to the monkeys! 
Can you spot the butterfly gathering? 
It’s hard to see, but the blue on this butterfly is iridescent… it was incredible. 
This is Pepe. He is huge. 
A “Blue Jean” frog – native to Costa Rica and named for his denim-blue legs. 
Prrrrr… 
I wonder if they train the birds to sit on the signs like that??
After hanging out with all of our new animal-friends, we walked along the botanical gardens to get to the Cultural Tour. Again we were the only ones visiting during our time slot, so we had the place to ourselves! The guide taught us all about sugar cane, coffee beans and cocoa beans – three things native to Costa Rica. We were able to try the extraction from the sugar cane, fresh-made coffee, and even make our own chocolate as part of the tour. It was so engaging and interesting, we didn’t even take our phones out to get pictures! Guess you’ll just have to see it yourself when you visit Costa Rica!
The next day we planned to go to Isla Tortuga and do a night-time bioluminescence tour. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans and it was pouring rain all day, so the tours were canceled. When you visit Costa Rica in the rainy season, you have to be prepared to adjust your plans as you go! Pura Vida, right?? So we decided to head to our next stop a day early – a hot springs resort at the base of the Arenal Volcano!
From the window of the Jeep… Lake Arenal with the volcano in the distance. 
Arenal Volcano 
I spy… something that starts with “V”
The Arenal Volcano is one of the top destinations for people who visit Costa Rica. Nikk and I hadn’t been there yet, but now we can definitely see why! It was incredible!! The views are breathtaking, the hot springs were heavenly, and the whole area is quintessentially “Costa Rican” with its diverse natural beauty.
We spent two nights at the Los Lagos Hotel, Spa and Resort. They have seven of their own hot spring pools – all heated naturally by the volcano – as well as several natural pools that are not hot. The hotel room we had was enormous and had a perfect view of the volcano from our balcony. If you don’t want to stay overnight, most of the resorts (Los Lagos included) offer day passes to access the hot springs. If you’re planning to include the Arenal hot springs on your visit to Costa Rica, I highly recommend this article from My Tan Feet that goes into a bunch of detail about each resort area.
Arenal Volcano from one of the pools at Los Lagos Resort. 
The view from our balcony! 
Lizard is not to scale… 
Volcano Selfie!
After two days of absolute relaxation, we hopped back in the (very muddy) Jeep and headed to the next stop on our visit – San José, Costa Rica’s capital. When we first started planning Leslie’s trip to visit us in Costa Rica, we were so excited to learn that Foo Fighters and Weezer were playing a concert in San José while she was here. So of course we bought tickets and booked an Air BnB!
The concert was outstanding and such a fun time! It was held in the National Stadium, which is mostly used for fútbol (soccer to Americans). The place was gigantic, but the fans really turned out and it was pretty full. Seeing a concert in Costa Rica was similar to seeing one in the US – you were patted down when you entered, someone was sitting in your seats when you got there (eye roll), and the bands were jamming! It was definitely a cool experience, though, and we were all glad we went!
Weezer crushing it! 
Foo Fighters! 
The National Stadium in San José
The next day we did a little exploring of the downtown San José area and went to the Jade Museum. The museum was more of a Costa Rican history museum where we learned all about the pre-Columbian natives and their lifestyle, which included making incredible things out of jade! There were a lot of interactive exhibits within the museum, many of which were geared towards kids, but that we had fun with. We enjoyed it and would recommend the Jade Museum for your visit to Costa Rica.
A cool old building in downtown San José 
These two are so excited to see all the jade!
Week 3
That’s right – our first visitor to Costa Rica stayed for three weeks! For our final week, we kept things low-key and showed Leslie what it’s like to live in our town… meaning we walked to the brewery a lot, went to our “home” beach several times, and spent a ton of time looking at the cool animals in our yard.
My first birthday spent in Costa Rica was spent with new friends, my oldest friend, my best friend (Nikk 😍), and watching the show Friends (because it was my birthday and that’s what I wanted to do!). We walked along the beach, drank good coffee, hung out in the rain at the brewery, had a lovely dinner, and laughed until my cheeks hurt. It was the best birthday yet.
Cheers to 25 years of friendship!
All in all, having our first friend visit us in Costa Rica was a huge success. We loved having Leslie here and can’t wait for her to return. There’s so much more to see in Costa Rica! Have you visited Costa Rica? What should we do next?? Leave us a comment below and maybe we’ll go there when our next visitors arrive!
Thanks, as always, for reading and following along in our adventures!
Nikk and Shannon
