Costa Rica is a prime vacation destination, attracting over 2 million visitors a year.  Costa Rica translates to “rich coast” and it has 762 miles of coastline – Rainforests, Cloud forests, great surf, uncluttered beaches, eco-tourism, adventure tourism, and a volcano!  It is a place I had heard so much about and always wanted to go.  Finally, I was getting my chance!!!  My friend and Playmate Amber Campisi joined me and we flew into San Jose and drove to Playa Jaco.  Playa Jaco is a surf town and their motto is “Pura Vida” meaning the “pure or good” life.  This is a quaint little town with lots of shops, restaurants and cute little beach bars.  We rented quads and drove around the town, stopping to look in shops and eventually making our way to Playa Hermosa.

Playa Hermosa is a black sand beach.  It has black sand because of the volcanic activity on the island.  It makes the water look darker and therefore giving you the illusion that it is also colder…but don’t be fooled!!  The water in Costa Rica is nice and warm, actually the perfect temperature!  Warm enough to be inviting and cool enough to be refreshing.  While at Playa Hermosa Amber and I took a sea kayak lesson from two instructors Leonardo and William.  This was crazy, rough stuff!!!!  We really took a beating.  We would literally get air and fly out of the kayak!  My paddle even broke in half!!!  There is a definite system and talent to doing it properly and I think Amber and I could use a lot more practice!!  It was fun to try but I’m really glad we were wearing the proper safety gear!

We stayed at an amazing resort with gorgeous rental condos called Los Suenos.  Los Suenos is on a marina and from there you can catch a yacht to different islands.  We took an AMAZING sport fishing yacht to Isla Tortuga. The boat was named “Let it Ride.”  This yacht was gorgeous with all of the amenities.  It went really fast and we arrived at Isla Tortuga pretty quickly.  When we arrived we found that this Island was a lot different then the Playa Jaco and Hermosa on the mainland.  The beaches were white sand and the Island had lots of coconut trees.  From the yacht I could heard drumming and it made me think about a scene from King Kong and I felt like at any moment he was going to come bursting out of the jungle looking for a human sacrifice.  As soon as we got there we walked around, found the band responsible for the drumming and danced along with the band on the beach and had lunch.  They made us this amazing drink called a Blackberry and it is made from the Blackberries that grow wild on the island.  They were delicious!  We had a traditional Costa Rican meal that consisted of chicken, rice and plantains.  After lunch we walked around some more and explored the islands wildlife: a wild boar that wasn’t so wild, a parrot, unique looking, super cute crabs, chickens and even wild turkeys.  When we were done exploring we decided to go on a pedal boat and we got so far back that we decided we couldn’t make it back to shore so we summoned for help and got towed back to our yacht!!! LOL

The next day we went to Montezuma also known as “Montefuma” to the locals and hippies in the area.  We walked around the little town that is cute, colorful and underdeveloped in a charming way that made it feel like a perfect little Costa Rican beach town.  We went horseback riding and rode to the Dunes of Teresa on the beach. It’s a really beautiful beach with huge boulders and crashing waves.  Perfect for wading and watching but not for swimming.

When we got back we went to a famous restaurant/bar called the Backyard Bar.  We tried several drinks including a shot of Guaro (this is similar to a moonshine and it is made out of sugar cane) and Coconut Milk.  They’re called “Miguelitos” they tasted kind of like Bailey’s.  Then we tried flaming cucarachas. They are made with Tequila, Kahlua and Vodka and then set on fire.  I tried to drink it several times but my straw melted every time!!!  Later, we continued the party out by a giant bonfire on the beach.  It was a great way to get to know some of the locals and unwind after a fun filled day.

The beaches of Costa Rica were great but you can’t go there without doing the rainforest!!  So that was our next destination!

ARENAL

From Playa Jaco we drove to the La Fortuna area and the base of the Arenal Volcano. Little did we know, our adventure was really just beginning!!! Staying that close to an active volcano was a little intimidating to me at first you can actually see it smoking and lava to still spills out of it on occasion.  But, the beauty of this area is unsurpassed.  The gorgeous volcano, the thick, tropical, lush, green rainforest and the beautiful hot spring waterfalls make this truly a destination of its own.  We stayed at the Tabacon resort and spa and it is probably one of the most amazing placed I have ever been.

One of the first things we did was go whitewater rafting on the river called the Rio Toro with a guide named Daniel from Desafio Adventure Tours. This rafting was the real deal!!  There were times that were real intense and we really had to put our newly acquired paddling skills to the test and other times the river was smooth and calm.  The river was really low and at one point we even got sot stuck on a rock.  It was a fun and exciting ride and an awesome way to see the jungle and overall beauty of the Costa Rican jungle.

The weirdest thing happened while I was floating down the river.  When we came to a spot that was calm our guide pulled out a bottle of French’s yellow mustard!!!   Now for those of you that don’t know, I’m very picky about mustard.  I like classic yellow mustard and on an episode of The Girls Next Door we were in New York and I tried to get a hot dog with plain yellow mustard.  Apparently, this is very hard to come by in NY because none of the hot dog stands had it!!!  It’s the only way I eat my hot dog so I was on a mission to find it.  I went to probably eight hot dog stands before I finally found one that had it!  Alas, yellow mustard!!!  So now, months later, I’m in Costa Rica floating on a river in the middle of the jungle and our guide pulls out a giant bottle of French’s!!   Apparently, he watched The Girls Next Door!!!

The next adventure we went on was zip lining.  Zip lining through the rainforest in Costa Rica above the Arenal River was exciting!!!  Some of the zip lines are 1,000 feet long and 250 feet high above the ground. At one point I even got to go upside down!!!  So FUN!!!  On our bumpy bus ride out of the jungle we even saw howler monkeys hanging out in the tall trees.  It was so cool to see these monkeys in their natural habitat just hanging out!!!

Like I mentioned before, the Tabacon is a spa resort and is officially called the Tabacón Grand Spa Thermal Resort.  It is a five-star resort located at the foot of the Arenal Volcano.  I couldn’t wait to begin my spa extravaganza.  The General director, Uwe Wagner started us out with a tour of the spa.  The spa is incredible! The spa treatments are literally given right in between the hot springs with sound of rushing water, bird and saccades all around you.  We started out with a mud massage.  It’s a volcanic mud massage in a private treatment area in the middle of the rain forest. I thought the mud might be smelly since there is a lot of sulfur in the volcano but it didn’t smell at all and it feels great and exfoliates skin.  Once we were massaged with the mud we took a naked dip in a private hot spring to wash all the mud off.

After lunch, we went exploring the hot springs.  Words cannot describe how amazing this resort is.  There are bridges, waterfalls and rainforest all around.  We went wading in different temperature pools with waterfalls.  Some were very hot, like 90 degrees and one was even cold!

A very unique thing we did at this spa resort was an underwater massage.  This unique treatment is called Watsu it is a very soothing type of massage that takes place in waist deep water. Its name comes from a combination of the words “water” and “shiatsu.” and looks more like a stretching technique then a traditional massage.  It is supposed to feel like being in the mothers’ room and then being “reborn”.  It was very soothing and relaxing.

At the end of the day we took a ride on the water slide that was a lot more powerful then it looked and had a drink at the swim-up bar.  The perfect end to a perfect day and a perfect trip!

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