04/23/2026
My trip to Costa Rica April 2025:
I had been to Costa Rica twice before, so wanted to see it from a different perspective this time. The Trek Hidden Costa Rica is basically a jungle tour through the inland parts of the country, a very different vibe than beach and resort activities.
Arriving in San Jose with a day before joining the tour allowed me time to visit the Gold Museum, a 3 story underground inverted pyramid, and the National Theatre, both very interesting. Day one of our tour took us by local bus to San Isidro, 4 hours away through mountain ranges and cloud forest. A quick overnight, then the adventure began! At 4:30am we loaded into 4X4 vehicles for a 2-hour ride to the trek start point. We hiked about 4 hours, 16km and arrived at our home stay in the jungle with the Lopez family. We stayed in dorm rooms - one for girls, one for boys, matrimonial rooms for the couples. We helped the family with the cooking for dinner, made sugar cane candy, swam in the river, up with the roosters in the morning. Next trek was to the Gonzalez family home stay. We picked tropical fruit from their orchards, made banana bread, and cheese curd. Lots of jungle sounds overnight! Our next day's hike was to the Forseca family home stay. This place was like a massive treehouse very much in the jungle, with open deck beds, a community garden, tree climbing, sweat lodge, river swimming hole, waterfalls, frog sanctuary, heli landing pad, and lush garden area. In the evening, we went for a night walk spotting spiders, scorpion, snakes and lizards!
We hiked out of the jungle to the Savegre River where we boarded rafts and navigated Class 2, 3 and 4 rapids with our guides for the next 4 hours. Beautiful waterfalls and scenery along the way. At the end, we hopped on a shuttle to Dominical, just 45 minutes away. Dominical is on the ocean and a popular resort area for surfers and those looking to escape busier tourist areas. Fabulous beaches to walk at sunrise!
After a free day to relax in Dominical, we were off again to Baru. A remote area reachable by 4x4 jeeps. We hiked in from the end of the road to a jungle camp where we slept in tents, hiked to waterfalls and swam in the pools, and explored caves. The next day we hiked out, 4X4 down the mountain, shuttle to Uvita. Experienced some torrential, tropical rains upon arrival, but it's warm and once it stops, the sun comes out to dry it all up! From Uvita, we visited Bellena National Park where we saw toucan, macaw, lizards, monkey and sloth. Took a local bus the next morning back to San Jose where we overnighted and said our goodbyes to a great group of adventurous souls!
Check out all my travel history here. https://www.maritimetravel.ca/agent-details/2209/carla-nelson
