Tiff & Jared's adventures

“Traveling with friends is a reminder of how beautiful the world is when shared with others.” — Tina Fey

Day 1

Let the girls trip begin! Some girlfriends from college and I planned this trip at the beginning of the year, and I was so excited when it was finally time to go on our vacation together. We were all flying in from different parts of the US (Virginia, California and Colorado) to Costa Rica, so out of the entire week, we were all most anxious about making it to Nosara together. After some flight delays, checked bags meant to be carry-ons and airport sprints, the four of us all made it to the domestic terminal of the San Jose airport with about 30 minutes to spare for our flight.

We were in for a treat! For the ~40 minute flight, we got to board a little hopper plane to fly out to the coast, which was basically an excursion on its own! Facing the front, there were two seats on the right side of the plane, and single seats on the left – no safety demonstration, no A/C knob at the top to adjust the temperature – just got in, picked a seat and we were off! The plane probably had a total of 12 passenger seats and we were so close to the pilots that we could see them eating their lunch (ha!). There were a few times where we realllllly felt the turbulence, and times when Taylor and I silently looked at each other with wide-eyes as we entered a patch of clouds and couldn’t see anything. Definitely a unique experience! We made it to the Nosara “airport” in no time (basically just a single landing strip in the jungle) and coordinated with our driver in advance to take us to our Nosara Blue airbnb. The airbnb included a beautiful outdoor pool, and complementary on-site yoga classes, but the best amenity might have been the owner’s five dogs on the property (they’re even on their bio page!).

The afternoon was pretty low-key as we were all recovering from long travel days. We meandered down to the beach and got some drinks at Olga’s Beach Bar. For dinner, we headed back towards the Airbnb and stopped at El Chivo, where we all got some tasty food (and some guaro shots!) before heading to bed.

Day 2

Our first full day on the beach! Nosara is world-famous for its surfing waves at Playa Guiones, as well as its focus on health, yoga and wellness. There’s a beach path between Pelada and Guiones that involves walking up and down some windy roads, cutting through the jungle for a bit, and then walking along the beach for a bit before reaching Guiones. I started the morning doing an introductory surf lesson with Nosara CR Surf School for 90 minutes, while everyone else participated in a pilates class at the Airbnb. The surf lesson kicked my butt! I was grateful for my snowboarding experience, which helped me with my balancing (I got up on my first try, woo!). The instructor explained how much of a physical and mental sport surfing is, including first getting the balance on your board before shooting up and trying to ride a wave. He helped explain that it’s helpful to breathe through the nose to ground yourself and avoid letting the unrelenting waves of the ocean cause any sort of panic on the water. 😀 It was quite the workout to move against the current and make my way back to the instructor, only for him to push me right back to try and catch the perfect wave. By the end of the lesson, I was in some pretty tall waves! While I wasn’t able to stand on the board for the more intermediate waves, I was really happy with the progress I made (I asked Marco to grade me on a scale of 1-10 and he said 6/7, so I’ll take it!).

After the lesson, the girls walked over on the beach trail from Playa Pelada and we all grabbed some food and drinks together. After some tasty papaya margaritas, we meandered back to the beach to get some “sun time” – queue foreshadowing. One thing we noticed in CR, since we visited during rainy season, was that the mornings started with full sun, then transitioned into rain in the afternoon to round out with gloomy/muggy nights. So, we got < 30 minutes on the beach before we felt threat of rain before making our way back to the Airbnb. We made the most of it and swam in the pool before we got out to get ready for our 5:15 “sunset” dinner reservation. 😉

Ha! Mother Nature had other plans for us. We knew there was a gamble visiting during the beginning of rainy season but holy moly, we were not expecting that amount of rainfall! Five o’clock came and went, and we realized we’d be waiting a while before we could venture back out again and walk anywhere. At one point, the on-site maintenance workers came and dug trenches around our door, and added sand bags in front of some doors just to be safe. We later found out from our host that 6 inches of rain fell within ONE hour, or 10 inches over three hours (some sort of record!). I have never seen that sheer amount of rainfall in one setting – it just kept coming and coming down. We even lost power for a bit – but after a while, we ended up saying “F it”, and walked to the restaurant as the storm finally passed.

Record rainfall in Nosara – May 26, 2025

We arrived at La Luna after dark, and were greeted with the most intimate setting of candlelit tables and could even see the the views of the ocean when the lightning struck overhead. We ate ceviche (some of the best on the trip), fish carpaccio, and La Luna steaks, and halfway through the meal, everyone hooted and howled as the power came back on! It was definitely a unique dining experience to say the least. We successfully made it back to the house and packed up our things as we headed to Monteverde the next day.

Day 3

Our private shuttle was scheduled to pick us up at 11, so we walked down the street to the bodega for breakfasts of smoothies and gallo pinto (rice and beans) before saying goodbye to the beach, and hello to the mountains!