Our aircraft has stretched its wings over the United States’ Eastern seaboard overnight, whilst the early morning has been spent flying over the Caribbean and lining up with the runway at Juan Santamaria Airport.

Approaches into this airport, nailed right in the heart of Central America are usually bumpy, mainly due to the crosswinds that descent through all corners of the Alajuela valley in frantic waves of wind swirls, rocking the aircraft side to side.
Once we touchdown, I enter the small yet modern terminal, the immigration control, one of the friendliest I have experienced in my life, waving me a welcome into Costa Rica with a signature smile.

‘Costa Rica es Pura Vida!’ reads the sign at the luggage claim room. Feeling full of live, I also rejoice at the thought that this very same day, I can say I have visited every inhabited country in the world, only Antarctica now standing in my way to world domination.

I meet my friend, a blond former swimmer I had the chance to meet in a competition held in tropical Guayaquil some ten years ago. Social media at its best, more than coordinating efforts to meet in Costa Rica a decade later, she invites me to stay with her, patiently waiting outside the arrivals hall.

Strikingly lush green, Costa Rica is a place that really does what it says on the tin. The high mountains dramatically rise from every corner of the horizon, the volcanic nature of its figures providing ideal conditions for agriculture, for Costa Rica has the freshest fruit in Central America.
The “Bosterito Merenguito” (nickname for my friend’s car, a combination of two football passions) revs at the warm motorway, whilst a briefing about our plans for the day is recited in a mellow tico accent.
Nearby Heredia vibrates with the bust of local festivities, the sunshine turns the air deliciously sweet in tones of ripe banana and pineapple and the palm trees cover the hills in cloaks of endless and overwhelming green. The road turns narrow and winds clinging onto the hills before meeting a long esplanade only dominated by the sight of Volcan Arenal. La Fortuna being our destination for the day.

Recharged with a symphony of flavours, we check into a wooden cabin sitting atop a steep green hill, its glassed living room drawing a painting of lush vegetation and geological activity, for the Arenal passively roars in outbursts of ashes, like a spoiled kid stomping its feet right to the core of the Earth.
Toucans and monkeys play along the canopies hugging thick trees that raise up a narrow and humid valley carved for centuries by a stream of refreshing and crystal clear water. At a time in which we find ourselves lost in the charms of the forest, we manage to get a lift back to the hotel by hitchhiking on the main road.