Costa Rica was a destination I was traveling without working/volunteering anywhere, which I was very excited about considering the amount of hours I had worked in Guatemala.

I had a super early flight and had to be at the airport at 3am, which meant I landed at 7am in San Jose, Costa Rica.

From there I jumped into a taxi (I was supposed to take a bus but the taxi drivers would not help me find it and everything else in the airport was closed due to the early hour), which took me to a gorgeous estate in San Ramon. I had the privilege of staying with an older lady from the US named Sharon for free, who happened to have one of the most gorgeous houses I have ever seen. Her house was in the middle of coffee plantations, and I could not see another house. There were hummingbirds flying around and she had a cat and a dog that I loved dearly.

But I did not only stay with her, she also included me in her plans and she truly had an active social life.

One day, we went to San Jose together to see the National Orchestra and Choir perform Carmina Burana by Orff, and I have seldom been this excited about something. It is one of my favorite pieces and seeing it life has been a dream of mine for a long time. Before we went to the concert, Sharon took me to her favorite restaurant in San Jose, an Argentinian Steak restaurant. Upon sensing that I was overwhelmed with the sheer amount of options, she ordered for me and truly hit the nail on the head. I got a steak with blue cheese sauce and potato puffs and I still dream about it.

When we were finished eating, we walked to the concert and found our (fantastic) seats. The concert was even better than I could’ve ever imagined. It was very long though, and after it ended I went straight to bed.

A few days later she was invited to a big luncheon at her friend’s estate and I ended up being her plus one. To not show up empty handed, I made apple cinnamon cupcakes with vanilla frosting, that ended up being amazing, if I may say so myself.

The other days I spent sitting on the terrace of the gazebo, watching hummingbirds and butterflies while reading my books or just relaxing. I also tried to offer my help to the coffee farmers, but they would not have it.

I liked it so much that I ended up extending my time, but after a full week it was time for me to see other parts of the country.

I took the bus to La Fortuna, a town at the bottom of the Arenal volcano. On the day I arrived I just explored the town on foot and had some amazing local food.

Early the next morning I went to the Arenal Volcano National Park, where I hiked down to the waterfall and even ended up swimming in it. The water was absolutely freezing though, and I really had to fight against the drag of the water so I didn’t stay in very long.

After drying off and watching the fish for a bit, I hiked up again and had some food while waiting for the bus to pick me up and bring me back to my accommodation. I randomly met a group of Germans and one girl from the Netherlands that evening and we decided to go on a hike to the volcano the next day.

Therefore, I once again had to wake up earlyish for our pick up.

We all piled into the bus and off towards the volcano we went. We once again were brought to the national park and hiked for 4 hours I believe. The hike in itself wasn’t that hard, but we spent the majority of it in the rainforest, with a humidity around 88%, so we were exhausted at some point. Luckily there was lots of distractions, like different kinds of monkeys, lethal spiders and very impressive ants.

When we made it to the actual volcano, we had to climb on volcanic rock, which I opted out of about halfway through, due to my knees starting to feel unstable, even though I had taped them. After climbing back down and walking a bit more our van picked us up and brought us to lunch. After we were full, we went to some hot springs for relaxing, but it ended up pouring, which ended up being an amazing experience, sitting in the hot water while the big cold drops come from above.

Afterwards, we all showered and I had to catch the cat that snuck into my room and then we went to eat pizza. The pizza was unfortunately mediocre, but we had fun nonetheless and there was live music as well, which prompted us to play a game of guess the song. I had to retire to my room quite soon though, as I was going to Puntarenas early the next morning.

I got picked up by the van and met another Quinn, and we had a lovely conversation, but unfortunately we were separated when we had to transfer to a boat and I never saw her again.

The boat ride was gorgeous though and our captain even made it into an animal spotting experience. Afterwards, we were once again split up into vans to take us to our final destination of the day.

When I finally got to my room, I met Sara. Sara and I would become great friends and I am even going to visit her when I am back in Germany. I got situated and then went to the Santa Elena Reserve where I spent a few hours walking through the cloud forest and over hanging bridges. It was gorgeous but also really quite cold, which I was not prepared for.

After a while, it also started to pour so I made my way back to my hostel, where I met Mmiri and promptly convinced her to go ziplining with me the next day, which we did. The ziplining itself was amazing and the views were absolutely gorgeous, but the weather turned bad halfway through, and ziplining in the rain really was not that great, as it was not only cold but also hurt our faces. That did not stop us from zip-lining in positions like the superman, or doing the Tarzan swing, where we were dropped 50m on a single cord attached to us, so we just swung around for a bit. When we finished all possible activities and were also absolutely soaked, we went back to our hostel with a quick snack-shopping stop in between.

The next day Sara and I went to Manuel Antonio together, where spent our days lounging around the pool, exploring the woods and having breakdowns about the absurd cost of groceries. We also kept having to rescue frogs out of the pool, which Sara thoroughly enjoyed, as she is a big fan of frogs.

One day we took part in a tour of the Manuel Antonio National Park, which was more boring than expected, but we did see a sloth and a super dangerous snake, as well as some nice birds.

When the tour ended Sara and I spent a few hours at the beach of the National Park, but unfortunately I kept having to fight monkeys that were trying to steal my backpack, which were surprisingly strong and extremely fast, so it was a hard fight.

The next day was our last day in Manuel Antonio and together, so we treated ourselves to a nice dinner and some enormous brownies afterwards and it was amazing.

The day we were leaving we were woken up by a Toucan in front of our window, which was a little scary to be honest.

After we had recovered from the shock and packed our things, we made our way to the bus terminal, where we had to say goodbye, as I was headed to San Jose and to the airport, and Sara still had places to see in Costa Rica.

Considering my flight the next morning was at 5am, I just had some dinner and went to bed early.