Welcome to “Pura Vida” ! Costa Ricans (Ticos) use this term to say hello, to say goodbye, to say everything’s great, to say everything’s cool. It means ‘ simple life’ or ‘ pure life’. Pura Vida is a lifestyle. When you see the phrase in the USA, you know where the marketeers stole it from.
After an early morning flight to San Juan, Costa Rica’s capital city, we hopped on a puddle jumper (two choices: NatureAir and Sansa) to one of the most remote tourist destinations in the country, Puerto Jiménez (pop. 1780) on the Osa Peninsula. We landed on a small airstrip which looked like someone’s backyard and backed up to a cemetery– a lovely landing with crucifixes and dangling clean undies in every direction.
The Osa Peninsula is where the rainforest meets the sea. Our first stop was the Iguana Lodge on the secluded Playa Platanares. The owners are ex-pats from Boulder, Co, who left their jobs as criminal defense attorneys to raise their kids in paradise 18 years ago. Our casita was set in a tropical rainforest but only steps from the ocean. There was another lodge called the Iguana closer to town that looked like it had seen better years, so make sure you choose the right one.
There was a beautiful sunrise every morning at 5:15 am. Ahem… Douglas only heard about the sun raises second hand and he seemed fine with that. Folks get an early start down here and are in bed by 9 pm. It’s a sticky black, volcanic sand beach. Douglas borrowed a lodge ‘boogie board’ every day to catch a few waves.
After breakfast, our morning routine was self-guided Kundalini yoga at the beach yoga shala and Bikram at the pool yoga studio each day.
The lodge serves an amazing family-style, gourmet dinner every evening by candlelight (sorry too dark for pics). Our stay included breakfast and dinner each day. There is also an additional restaurant/bar on the property to get drinks or lunch. This was a yummy tropical shrimp for lunch one day.
At night, the ocean and insects lull us to sleep until we hear a coconut ‘bomb’ drop on our tin roof to remind us that we are in a tropical jungle. So far we’ve only seen 1 monkey and a Macaw from a distance. Douglas prays to the ‘fan-god’ every night since the lodge is off the grid and hopes the breeze never stops.
We both love chocolate so our first tour was the local chocolate farm; Rancho Raices . This is an organic farm where you get to taste lots of exotic fruits and vegetables during the tour as well as learn how to make chocolate from the cacao pod, step by step.
So we are in a small forest of Cacao trees and every white blossom could potentially turn into a Cacao pod. When the pods turn yellowish, they are ready to be picked. The seeds are then removed and allowed to dry & ferment for 6 days. They are roasted for a short time over a low-heat, open flame and then hand crushed, de-husked and then the seeds are placed in a grinder. After 2-3 grinds you add the % of powdered sugar and then you have a nice rich piece of chocolate that is placed into a mold. This chocolate was extremely decadent and we could only eat a bit before we were very satisfied. I think we both ate an Easter Bunny!
Douglas cutting a rug at Disco/Salsa Pasta night at the lodge and green patterns everywhere.
Our favorite baby iguana at the Iguana Lodge…
A final sunrise at Iguana Lodge and we are ready to move to our next resort in Osa…it is just on the other side of those bluish mountains in below photo… Pura Vida!
