Authentic Costa Rica Recipe: Arroz con Pollo, Rice with Chicken Taste the flavor of Costa Rica in your own kitchen, with this authentic arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) recipe, one of the quintessential dishes of the country. This is our friend and neighbor Pastora’s very own recipe that you can sample when you stay [...]
On A Tennis Team but Can’t Find a Way To Win? You (or you and your partner) practice really hard during the week, but get to the match and the result is always the same, you lose the darn match … no matter how close it is! Your frustration is building up and now you [...]
Balancing Act over Rio Celeste, the blue river, our most popular rainforest excursion. If you like roads to be smooth and the miles fast, Costa Rica is not the country for you. If you go into new places with preconceived ideas about what you’ll experience and how you will feel about them, Costa [...]
Besides Okinawa, Japan, the place where people live the longest in the world is Guanacaste, where we are! Meet our friend Plinio, high in his 80's, and still going strong, and happy! He stays active all day long; taking his cattle back and forth to different grazing pastures and water, chopping wood, and walking all [...]
We explored caves and waterways that were carved out by the action of rain filtering through the limestone over 70 million years ago! The Barra Honda caves will be a new excursion next season, as well as swimming in off-the-beaten-path bioluminescent plankton pools. Check out these ghost-like formations! Come with a group of friends or [...]
Watch this short video below showing part of an Easter tradition that takes place in a few small villages in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, including our own, Paso Hondo. Not quite a church-sanctioned event, villagers parade a puppet of Judas around on horseback, and go door-to-door singing and asking for liquor to corrupt Judas. Then at [...]
Oh, the strange and delightful sights you'll see when you see the REAL Costa Rica with us at Pura Vida House. Oxen pulling ox carts are a symbol of Costa Rica, looking back to the days they were used to haul coffee and bananas. But these are not oxen pulling this cart! Yes, you're seeing [...]
Experience some street marimba with us after the Santa Cruz, Guanacaste rodeo. Toros a la Tica are great, but marimba music, the national music of Costa Rica, is a huge treat in the streets of the cultural capital of the country! Enjoy!
Watch the new video we took of the majestic Olive Ridley sea turtle arribada. This is the mass arrival of these sea creatures to Playa Optional, Guanacaste, Costa Rica each month to lay eggs on the same beach year after year, generation after generation. Watch now! When you stay with us at Pura Vida House, [...]
Here's how we made friends with a giant blue magpie-jay at Conchal beach the other day. Pura Vida!
