Starbucks Coffee Farm – Teaching Abroad- American Teacher Overseas

I spent my 45th birthday in Costa Rica and my husband came to help me celebrate. We booked a full day tour of adventure. If ever you’re in Costa Rica and looking for some fun, this post has ideas to consider.

We were picked up by our tour company pretty early in the morning and set out on explorations. One of the things I absolutely adore about Costa Rica is how you can find these large signs posted all over the country identifying where you are. They make for great pictures.

We received some history tidbits as we drove through different provinces too.

Monumento a Juan Santamaría– Juan Santamaria is one of the most popular figures in Latin America. In Costa Rica, he is recognized as a national hero for his role in maintaining the country’s independence.

Monument of Tomás Guardia- was President of Costa Rica on two occasions: from 1870 to 1876, and from 1877 to 1882. He enacted Costa Rica’s 1871 Constitution, which remained in force until 1948

Our first official stop was to the Tres Generaciones Coffee Plantation, where we had the most amazing cup of coffee. Of course, we had to buy some. The plantation is also vast and beautiful.

Coffee beans are not ripe when they are green. They need to be bright red and glossy.

Hey did you know that Starbucks has a coffee farm in Costa Rica? And they offer tours.

After coffee and sweets, we continued our drive to the Cinchona Waterfalls. This waterfall reminded Darryl and I of the Wailua Falls on the Road to Hana in Maui. There is a bridge in the front of the Cinchona waterfall that you can take pictures from just like Wailua. I recommend walking to the middle of the bridge to get some interesting pictures of the waterfall and on the other side of the bridge to get some more. Be careful on this bridge because it’s small, vehicles take turns going in either direction and they don’t really pay pedestrians any attention. The waterfall is beautiful and cool. I could spend a day right here.

We stopped at the Soda y Mirador Cinchona. Here you can enjoy typical Costa Rican food with the Hummingbirds while admiring the waterfall in the distant. The snack provided here, by the tour company, wasn’t anything I could eat so I can’t comment on the quality of the food. But being so close to the tiny birds was nice. I was also able to get a behind the scenes view of cooking happening in the kitchen and pick up some snacks.

Up close and pesonal with hummingbirds

It’s not Costa Rica if there’s no Gallo Pinto

The next part of our adventure was seeing some animals in the wild. Along the side of the road, we met up with a Coati. It’s a medium sized rodent that favors a raccoon. My husband had the fabulous idea to exit the van to get a closer look at the coati but he forgot he had a bag of food in his hand and the coati smelled it. The Coati jumped up and ripped the bag trying to get to the food and I caught it all on camera. Hahaha. Check it out…

A hungry Coati

Along with the coati, we were able to catch a glimpse of a sloth and some large iquanas in their natural habitat.

The sloth was in this banana tree. I think the way bananas grow is so interesting.

We had a Casada lunch (typical Costa Rica meal) during our travels. And the true adventure happened in the trees at “go.adventure” at the Arenal Park. It is here where we were able to see the amazing Arenal Volcano and what a beautiful site it is.

Arenal Volcano- An active stratovolcano, built upon layers of ash, rock and lava – and at 5,437 feet (1,657 meters), it stands high above the rest of the countryside

We got our adrenaline pumping by flying through the forest. We conquered 8 zip lines in total. Some were long and fast, while others were short and sweet. We zipped past some gorillas and through trees. It was exhilarating and fun.

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Nothing like flying through the trees

Darryl enjoyed it too

I even repelled down a wall for the first time and I think I found a new hobby.

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This was awesome

Before heading to dinner and back home, we stopped at one of the hot spring resorts in La Fortuna for a couple of hours. I can’t recall the name of the one we visited, but they have warm and cool spring pools that you can enjoy. Some are secluded and hidden behind trees. You can order drinks from the bar and enjoy spectacular views of the Arenal Volcano. The resort is nice but I was expecting natural hot springs not pools. The resort would be a nice place for a stay but if you’re only there for the day, they offer changing rooms for your convenience. We enjoyed this resort until the rain finally caught up with us.

Afterwards we stopped at a large souvenir shop with many handmade and authentic Costa Rican items to purchase. It was dark by the time we got dinner. Dinner was at a Soda (restaurant with typical Costa Rican food). The food was okay, but we weren’t impressed by the other patrons, dogs. The restaurant workers had to keep chasing them away. (Side Note) There are a lot of stray dogs in Costa Rica. You don’t really encounter them so much in the central valley though.