Costa Rica

In 2020, my former Equinox colleague Marie and I planned a trip to Costa Rica. We wanted to do a little yoga and some hiking in the rainforest. Of course, due to the pandemic it was cancelled and we had to wait two years for our Costa Rican adventures, but the time has finally arrived!

Marie flew into New York as she no longer lives here and plans to stay a bit after our return. We had the choices of an early morning flight or a middle of the night flight and opted for the latter. After some tacos on my block, we relaxed and got ready, and headed to JFK around 11 pm.

At the airport, I was reminded of the joys of traveling to South America as I went to several countries in succession some years back. This will be my first Central American country though - but the experience was just the same. The airline staff member was amazed we were there so early as you could tell that many families were not used to flying and trying to navigate all the different rules and procedures. Our flight was uneventful and lasted about 5 hours. Despite jokes about being on Tico time, we actually arrived almost an hour early in a pretty empty airplane. 

After immigration, baggage retrieval, and customs, we walked ourselves to the nearby domestic airline terminal where we were asked to wash our hands before entering and ate our ham and cheese sandwiches on rocking chairs that we were too sleepy to eat on our flight. Some photos:

We eagerly awaited for an attendant at the Costa Rica Green Airways counter as we wanted to transfer to an earlier flight due to our early arrival. When the counter agent arrived, ultimately he waived the transfer fees and offered us free coffees. Thanks Fernando, for the win!

The domestic airline was definitely very Costa Rican - our boarding passes were a piece of wood with a picture of a sloth. They offered us water and beer (at 6:40 am no less) as we climbed into a 12 seater prop plane for a 20 minute flight. You would think we would be more nervous, but we were calm, cool, and collected. The flight lasted about 5 BTS songs and the views were amazing and lush. Here are some pictures of the experience:

What a cool way to see a bit of the lush greenery and coastline of Costa Rica! And the landing was neat with a small landing strip starting on the beach cutting through the forest. The airport in Tambor was basically nonexistent with a small building and our taxi driver met us at the parking lot right next to the runway. He would drive us for 40 minutes to the Aves Hotel and Resort in Montezuma.

This was not the original resort or yoga retreat we booked, but ultimately is what we decided on this year. The resort is relatively brand new as it opened two years ago and it was a very slow opening due to the pandemic. The resort name means Birds and there were many that provided a lovely soundtrack to the beautiful resort and clean accommodations. Marie did a great job researching and planning. Here are some pictures of the resort, our room which had an extra loft area, and the giant tree:







After a tour of the facilities, we enjoyed breakfast and met our other yoga retreat participants. Eric is from Florida and Kerba is from Sweden. We have a small group as several had cancelled last minute. Our retreat-mates decided to go snorkeling at nearby Tortuga Island and Marie and I lazed by the pool and enjoyed a fried shrimp lunch.

After lunch, we called a taxi to drive us up and down some steep and rocky hills to the town of Montezuma. Definitely the cliché town where people come to hang and surf and where we tried to find cute yogi tank tops. Some photos of our jaunt into town which included a walk on the local beach:









We then headed back via taxi, relaxed by the pool until it was official snack time which consisted of ice cream, chocolate sticks, flan, and fruit. They are definitely feeding us well.

And alas, we were here for yoga and our first class was a sunset yin yoga class which is slow moving and highly meditative. It was in the yoga chalet up several steep hills and overlooked the canopy of trees. We enjoyed listening to the intermittent rainfall and experienced nature in all it’s glory in the buggy dusk time. Our instructor was Linea as our original instructor Brad had injured himself back in Canada. His also lovely partner and the retreat masseuse, Sarah, has been doing an awesome job being our cruise director. Some photos from yoga: 

A photo above of Marie in a seated eagle position in front of the tree mural and glow in the dark paint and a photo below of the amazing tree all lit up at the resort!

We ended the day with a lasagna dinner and chatted with the yoga retreat participants about our adventures ahead!