Travelogue, Costa Rica 2025

In the north-central volcanic highlands of the Central American country of Costa Rica, I sit on my terra-cotta veranda, bedecked with hammock, two rocking chairs, indirect sunlight casting shade from the leafy trees blowing in the intermittent breeze.  A tree being cut down, first cracking then falling, gravity-assisted rustle through through its neighbor trees.  A hummingbird flitters by.  A rooster crows, pauses, crows and goes silent.

A clank clank clank of the hammer on metal as a stable hand reshoes a pride of horses, a dog barks far off, always dripping water from someplace near and Germans and French speak insularly in this out of the way lodge - The Rinconcito Lodge - on the edge of the volcano region, on the edge of Rincon de la Vieja.

This is day 11, maybe 12 of this 3rd annual Costa Rican trip, the 2nd with my son, two of his friends and wingman-nephew Eli. Again landing in the airport in the city of Liberia, 2 hour drive to a hightop home in Tamarindo, then off to a few days in Playa Grande, and then into the volcanic mountains sporting hot springs, dense overhead cover and organized ant marches that can blow the mind.

By day 12, especially if you are working while resting, you’ve barely scratched the surface of rest and recovery.  Since we were so busy back home, I’ve been directing traffic daily, which is not really what I should be doing from a rest and recovery vantage, but required from a ‘we got a lot of moving pieces going on and in the end it’s my money at stake’ point of view.

You might think it’s a fortunate thing that I was away when the first real blast of winter came through, covering the northeast with 6-8” of snow and delivering artic single digit temperatures, and you’d be right.  But only because my team did a hell of job without me - and it’s not easy, being pummeled early in the season when you are in the business end of putting 5 new houses in the ground across 3 counties.

The problems can by myriad and somewhat disastrous to be caught mid-stream like this - but in our case, each vendor dialed in and took care of their end of the problem.  It might be some concrete blankets to help the concrete set, perhaps a quick set concrete.  Maybe the framers have to spend half a day shoveling out before they start - the basement, all the lumber, lurching around in 8” of snow, type of thing.  Not an easy lift, but veterans will suck it up and soldier on.  

Last winter, the cold hit right around this time, maybe a week later, and then stuck around through April.  Tough, long, cold, dark winter.  Then I think it rained for a 2 months.  Then it got HOT.  And then we literally had some of the most temperate, most sunny, most day in day perfect weather until last week.  That’s exactly how you get caught - you get lured into thinking the moderate nature of the nature will remain.  Then bam, 2x4 to the head.

We surfed; jet-skied; swam; ziplined; horsebacked; hiked; and road tripped. As well as bit of R&R in each of our locales. In Tamarindo we had slow mornings, and then a chef and assistant came in each morning for a hardy in-house breakfast, which was a great way to start to the day. Our friend Zion Colon, a local wrestling stud, had to drop some quick pounds for his weight class when he got home - which he did, then got the blue ribbon in a match.

Summary of places we stayed on this trip - 

Tamarindo - busy beach town.

Playa Grande

Sardinal - SuitTrees

Rinconcito Lodge

I hadn't travelled in awhile to areas where both the other guests and the lodging staff were lackluster in their English. Up in the volcano lodge, the french and germans and luxemburgers were all of an older ilk and less so good with their english - it's a big world out there, you forget we aren't the center of it for everyone walking this planet.