Two Weeks in Costa Rica Part 1: Three days in Costa Rica

There's a really well known (and super useful) blog called Two Weeks in Costa Rica. I think they called it that because they originally came on holiday for a fortnight (and then they kept coming back and eventually birthed a child or two here).

I thought it would be good to tell you about some of the things we did in our first two weeks in Costa Rica:

Day One: We are HERE! The sun is shining in San José!! When we drove down to Heathrow there was horizontal rain, terrible wind and it was cold, cold in your bones cold. We pick up our ridiculous hire car and drive ten minutes to a hotel. There is a pool. We drink cocktails. There are butterflies and dragonflies, we see a parrot in a tree. It's 27 degrees C. We've been travelling for 37 hours. We pass out.

Day Two: We have amazing, delicious breakfast. It is fried banana, rice and beans, fresh pineapple, papaya and watermelon. Why have I never had this before? We swim, we eat crisps made out of bananas. I get the impression we are not going to be lacking in potassium whilst we're in Costa Rica.

We get an Uber for the first time in our lives (although it is illegal here!) to go and visit my friend Stephanie's cousin's supervisor's cousin and his wife and kids. We have no idea what to expect. We find ourselves at a gorgeous, beautifully decorated, spacious home in a gated community. They have a massive garden, a shared pool and a live-in maid. I ask if they are millionaires (they say not!) and we get why Escazú is called the Beverley Hills of Costa Rica. They are *so* nice and their two year old - Mila - is the cutest. We have made our first friends!

Day Three: We are getting up at 6am and falling asleep at 9pm. This is fairly standard here so it seems jet lag is perfect. Though we feel a bit weird and tired. Today we planned to drive up to the mountains and go to a recreation park at a lake. But, we got a message to say that Carlo, who lived at the farm we're going to go and stay on, is setting up a coffee company and is in San José and can we go and meet him. We have been messaging him about buying his 4x4. It's a 1993 Toyota 4Runner. So instead we are going to the mechanic to make sure it works.

We spend the day in San José traffic jams driving between the mechanic, the notary, the mechanic and the car hire place with a little side trip to a bank thrown in. By the end of the day we are driving our own super expensive illegal jalopy (we have no road tax). It is laughable to compare it to the pristine 8 day old, as yet unplated, behemoth Chelsea Tractor that we have been driving, but she feels very much more us and I love her! (The people at Alamo were incredibly nice and also didn't charge us a cancellation fee for bringing back our car two weeks early to the wrong place!).

Carlo and his co-owner Natalie (both from Chile) are also really lovely and have made our lives so much easier in just one day. We think it is probably a world record to have bought a used car in Costa Rica within 48 hours of arriving in the country. Iris names the car Burger Burger Burger Burger Mousey, we add on her already given name Jungle.  Welcome to the family!

We set off for Poás - theoretically not far away, but we have already experienced the traffic, and this is up hills and not all on main roads. We see a car in a ditch, we climb higher and higher. It is beautiful. It is foggy. It is cold. We arrive in Poás and it is raining and windy. This is not what we expected. We eat a huge dinner in the restaurant because we missed lunch and retire to our cute little chalet. We put on the heater and get into our warmest pyjamas. Tomorrow is La Paz Waterfall Gardens Day!

Read Part 2: Two more days in Costa Rica here.