A quick visit in Dominical and Uvita, Costa Rica

After a few really good days in Manuel Antonio, we felt ready to explore two small beach villages, that we'd heard great things about, about 1-2 hours bus ride away; Dominical and Uvita.

Problem with Costa Rica is that the bus system is not as extensive as it is in South America. Here you really have to plan your trip unless you want to sit at a bus station for hours. We've found that even if there are bus schedules, it changes all the time and buses are rarely on time. When we were gonna take a bus back from Domincal to Uvita for example, the bus left 20 minutes before the scheduled time.. 

So because of this we had some trouble getting from Manuel Antonio to Uvita, as there is only 2 buses a day. But after getting help from very friendly locals we somehow managed to get there.

As usual, we had reserved our two nights accommodation through Booking.com, and realised that we shouldn't have for these places as almost nothing came up, and the once that did were pretty expensive aswell. The best thing here would've been to just rock up to one of the hostels.

But in the end we had a pretty good accommodation and were able to explore one day in each village. They are really different, even though we'd heard that they are similar. Domincal is more of a cosy little surf village, with monster waves. Whereas Uvita is far more stretched out. It has like two small centres next to each other by the main road, so it feels like you're on the countryside somewhere in the US and from this center we had to walk for about half an hour to get to the beach. Anyway, here's how we spent our days in each village.

Uvita 

With the constant intense heat humid air, our first aim was to find the Uvita Waterfall. It was only a short walk to the entrance, where we had to pay $2 each in order to see and have a lovely swim in the refreshing water. It wasn't busy with people at all, which made it even better.

Then we took many detours on the many different dirt paths before we found the beach, where, in low tide, you can see that the beach is shaped like a whale tale.

We found that the beach is actually a part of a national park, with loads of screaming monkeys and I feared to get a coconut thrown in my head. There were loads everywhere. I wish I was able to open up coconuts myself!

We stayed to watch the sunset on the beach and it was a perfect beach for an evening stroll. Before we went back to our hostel (when we got lost again by the way, this time in the dark and THAT was freaky) we ran into a small little restaurant along the road that served vegan soy meat burgers. So random and almost too good to be true. Well, actually it kind of was as we both had bad stomach cramps later on that night..

Dominical

The next day we took one bus from Uvita to Dominical, which is about 20 minutes away. We came here mainly for the food, as this village is way more vegan friendly and is a place for a yogi. Well, it would probably be paradise for someone who wants to eat vegetarian, surf and do some yoga. 

The beach in itself was a bit disappointing, a lot of trash and the waves were, like I mentioned earlier, MONSTER waves. And for someone like me who's scared of waves, it was just too much. They even have big warning signs to look up for the strong currents.

There were also lots of souvenir stalls where we could kill some time by just looking at everything, but the highlight was of course the food. I could've spent the whole day eating if I wanted to (and if I had the money!) 

First food stop of the day, was vegetarian Cafe Mono Congo where we had some brunch. They know vegan here, but unfortunately there weren't that many meals that could be turned into vegan. We had the burrito, which wasn't great but still good. 

Still regret not trying one of the vegan desserts and shakes (I mean chocolate papaya cake!!!)

But we did have dessert next door instead and that was awesome. Mama Toucans is a little natural food market with loads of vegan food items. Everything from tofu, tempeh (!!!), to almond cheese, quinoa, grains and, most importantly, ICE CREAM!

I almost screamed for ice cream when I saw that they sold all different kinds of ice creams, different flavours of sorbets and coconut cream based ones. 

As the chocolate maniac I am it didn't take me long to decide to go for the coconut chocolate one, which I sprinkled with some dried banana/coconut granola we got as free tester (the friendly guy working there also gave us free samples for peanut butter with chocolate flavour.. Bliss)

We spent most of the day in Dominical on the beach, recovering from all the yummy things we've had. It was pretty boring in the end to be honest, as it's not much else to do around here. 

We did have more room in our bellies before we left Dominical for the day though, and therefore stopped by the more posh vegan friendly restaurant Maracatu. They knew vegan by heart, and had such an amazing menu. Guy had the vegetable curry, which he'd been longing for for a very long time and I finally got some tofu when I ordered the teriyaki tofu with brown rice. Such a satisfying meal, so I didn't care that it was a tiny bit more money than we usually pay for food.

In the end of the day, it felt totally worth going to Domincal from Manuel Antonio, just to fill up on great vegan food.

The first days of Costa Rica in Manuel Antonio

It makes me so sad to think about the earthquake in Ecuador. Such a beautiful country, with beautiful people where we had the best time of our travels so far. My love and my thoughts are with the people who are having to suffer from this. 

We were extremely, incredibly lucky to be at the airport in Quito when the earthquake hit. Our plane was delayed and we would've been in the air when everything started shaking all of a sudden. I didn't really understand what happened until I saw some people getting panicked and everyone stood up to stand by the walls. This was of course nothing close to how hard the earthquake hit in other places in Ecuador, so again, having to evacuate the airport for about 30 minutes and waiting a lot longer for our flight didn't feel like that big of a deal. I am surprised however, that we actually took off that night, but we did.

This is probably the longest journey I've ever had for such a short distance. The cheapest flight option to get from Ecuador to Costa Rica unfortunately meant that we had to do two stopovers in Colombia and El Salvador. About 24 hours after arriving to the airport in Qutio, we were finally at our hostel in Manuel Antonio and felt absolutely exhausted.

We took a public bus to downtown immidately when we got the airport in San Jose, had to get a short taxi ride to the bus terminal and from there we were able to take a bus all the way to Manuel Antonio on the central Pacific coast. After that journey we could just about enjoy the gorgeous sunset before we passed out in bed.

Manuel Antonio is a national park, just next to the little town of Quepos. Most people come here to enjoy the incredible wildlife around here. Of course that is something they take advantage of. Even though all of Manuel Antonio is a national park in itself (with beaches, hotels and restaurants and where we've seen monkeys running around and playing in the mango trees everywhere) there's an area where they say that you'll see most wildlife, and of course you have to pay loads to do so. The park is open from 7am-4pm for an entrance fee of $16, which felt like a rip off (especially since we heard afterwards that you can go on your own to another part of Manuel Antonio to spot wildlife for free) but I hope that this money goes to helping the animals and nature.

We spent several hours in here and saw so many different animals. It was such an amazing day here.

The highlight was of course when we were just about to leave, because the park was closing, and we saw this sloth just hanging of a tree branch, munching on some leaves. So cool!

There are so many different paths to go on in this tropical park and it's a great little hike. Because it is super humid I was also very grateful that there is beach access from the park so that we could have a nice break and get refreshed in the sea. I was pretty happy that we didn't meet a crocodile though.

Besides falling in love even more with animals, Manuel Antonio has been a great place to relax in. We've managed to find a good pool we can use to cool down in (because honestly, this heat is insane) in exchange for us buying a drink and we've found another place to have many games of pool aswell.

We also took a long walk down to a more hidden beach where the waves aren't as big as on the main beach. To get here we had to go through some jungle and spotted even more monkeys, you can probably spot sloths here aswell if you're lucky!

Of course everything's more expensive here than any other place we've been to in South America, which was a bit of a shock at first even though we knew that it was gonna be a lot different before we came here. We realised after buying a bottle of water for $3 that the tap water here is drinkable, and this will of course help us save some money. 

Even though Manuel Antonio is an animal lovers paradise, it is surprising that there is no vegetarian restaurant around here (yes okey it's a small place but still. I don't understand how people can come here to enjoy the wildlife and get amazed by all the animals, to then go and eat an animal..). So to save a bit more money, we've cooked the occasional pasta and beans ourselves a few times as the restaurants that do ecxist are mostly over our budget. 

But since feeling lazy, we have also found some loopholes. 

Gallo Pinto is a Costa Rican breakfast that is basically a mix of rice and beans. It is delicious, it is usually cheap in most places and it is usually vegan (just have to make sure it doesn't come with meat or eggs on the side). We found this little restaurants tucked in on the side of the main beach, where the gallo pinto was amazing and came with fried plantain (fried banana) and we ordered fries and avocado on the side which made this into the perfect brekky for me.

Our favourite place though, is of course the Falafel Bar. The food is cheap for Manuel Antonio, it's so filling and the place is vegan friendly.

We went back here several times because we simply couldn't resist it (so beware, it is addictive! It is the best falafel I've had in a very, very long time.). The falafel with pita bread comes with chips in it and costs about $7. We realised that it was totally unnecessary to order extra fries as the pita filled us up alone. They also make the best smoothies and since they are vegan aswell I just had to have the banana and date one and it was LUSH. 

Id go back to Manuel Antonio in a heartbeat just because of this love I have for the falafel at the falafel bar.

Oh, and how could I almost forget to mention?! One of the top 3 coffee places in Manuel Antonio serves soy- and almond milk! I did a little happy dance when I found out and ordered myself a big glass of vegan mocha frappucino. It was about 2000 colones and SO worth it. And yes, the coffee itself was absolutely amazing. Don't know what beats fighting the humidity; this or going for a swim!

The cafe is called El Patio de Cafe Milagro and has a really nice interior, but really grumpy staff unfortunately. I don't blame them for being grumpy when they have to work in this sweaty heat though.. I don't really care when they have coffee like this and give our free mangoes aswell!

Quito - The most in the middle you can get

The bus journey from Latacunga to Quito was great as we had the best view over the active volcano Cotopaxi for about half of the way, which made us feel like we didn't really have to spend $40+ to go on a tour or go there ourselves to get a closer look at it. 

The journey to the capital of Ecuador only took about less than 2 hours and was cheap, but the taxi from the terminal was not. It took us an hour to get to our hostel in the new town. Yes, Quito has an old town, new town and our favourite area which we discovered the first night (Mariscal) is in the middle and we spent our 3 days in Quito in each of these areas.

La Mariscal

We just happen to find out about the cool-ness and chilled out atmosphere of the hip area La Mariscal, when we were looking for somewhere to eat. We realised that the majority of all veggie restaurants in Quito, were all here and had to explore it straight away when we arrived to Quito. The area has lots of art and creativity is just flowing. It also seems to be a big nightlife here.

Because it was a long walk from where we stayed, we quickly discovered how easy the bus system in this city is. There are 3 or 4 different lines that runs through the whole city, with plenty of buses all the time so you never have to wait around. The best part? It's only 25 cents to go as far as you want. The worst part is how every bus is ridiculously crowded and apparently pickpocket-ing is very common so everyone wears their backpacks on the front. 

We made it through the madness of the bus anyway and went in to one of the many bars to watch a football game, before hunting up the location for one of the vegetarian restaurants; El Maple. 

The menu was jaw-dropping, and so were the prices for some of the meals unfortunately. A main meal was between $4-$10 (even more if you wanted to veganize some things, like changing to vegan cheese and also if you wanted fries instead of salad to your burger) and the portions weren't huge. But still, you gotta give it to them. It's not often you find somewhere where they offer vegan cheese to your burger, or soy mayo.. 

We went crazy after not having to had anything to eat that day and spent our daily budget on trying many different things on the menu, like the soy hot dog with guacamole, the double vegan cheese burger, the oriental sandwich (with tofu pattie!!) and as a dessert; the vegan cheesecake.

Yep, food coma was a fact after this and it was hard to find the energy to stand up and catch a bus back to the hostel.

Mitad del Mundo and New town

The next day we felt that it was time to finally go to the middle of the earth; the equator. There are tours you can pay a lot for to go on, or you can do it the budget way like us, and simply find it yourself. 

From new town, we took a bus from the line that goes up Avenue America to the last stop (Ofelia), where we changed bus to one that said "Mitad del Mundo" and was hard to miss really. In all it took about an hour or more the get to the little village of Mitad del Mundo. 

What we knew before coming here is that there is this huge monument that was built in the 1970s to mark where the equator is and where the latitude is 0. We also knew that (and it's kind of funny) a few years after building this monument they discovered that it hadn't been put at the right place! The "real" latitude 0.0.0, is actually 240 meters away from where the monument still is. 

What we didn't know was that there are two different owners for these two different places. So if you want to see both the fake and real one, you have to pay to entrance fees.

So because we thought that both equators were gonna be in the same area, we headed straight towards the big monument, as we could spot it immidately when we got off the bus. We paid $3,50 to get in to realise that the real equator was in the park next door where we had to pay $4 to get in.

I would tell people not to go into see the monument close by as you can see it properly from the outside and just go to the hidden real deal close, pay the $4 which even includes a guide. It was even less people here. 

Back in new town, especially close to or hostel, we found it hard to find any vegetarian restaurants nearby. So we were stoked when we ran into a vegetarian Chinese lunch restaurant which was open when we were starving. 

Ming Yuen had a set menu option for only $3,25 which included soy milk or juice, soup and your choice of 5 different items for main. It was soy soy soy good. They had plenty to choose between and we were full for hours after that meal.

Other that I don't have much to say about new town. There are a few nice parks where we probably would've gone for a bike ride if we would've had the time as there seems to be loads of bike roads throughout the city.

Old Town

On our last day in Quito (and Ecuador) I finally discovered a way of getting a (almost) flat white in the morning. I found these cans of soy milk with different flavours in a supermarket and added that to the morning coffee. It was so lush with coconut flavoured coffee! Such a brilliant start of the day.

We took a bus all the way to the other side of the city; Old Town, where all the cool old buildings are, but where it is very common for tourists to lose their valuables..

We decided to walk up the about 850+ steps to the viewpoint El Panecillo as soon as we got to old town. A good decision, since the weather changed faster than my mood swings.

This is the deal with Quito and being so close to the equator; the weather changes before you know it. It is said that you get all the four seasons in one day, which we really witnessed here in old town. We walked up all the stairs sweating under the heating sun and walked down in the worst hail storm I've ever experienced. Thunder, lightning and heavy rain and the hail actually hurt on the skin.

But before we knew it, the thunder had passed and so we went straight to the Govindas restaurant (Hare Krishna restaurants that you'll find almost everywhere) that we'd heard great things about. We arrived a few minutes before their lunch started (they serve lunch for $3 between 12-3pm) and accidentally ran into the vegan food table from heaven, in the Oki Eco Market, a tiny store which is located within the Govindas cultural complex. 

We just couldn't resist this. Especially after being told by the really friendly woman who was working there (and who never seemed to get annoyed even though I asked about a million questions), that more than half of the food on the table was vegan, including some desserts and cakes! We only took a glance at all the different foods and the decision to ditch the lunch next door was given. The food here changes daily, but there were stuff like veggie burger (for just like over $1), seitan kebabs, tofu wraps, empanadas, falafel, soy meat patties and much much much more.

 So we simply got a plate and were able to fill it up with whatever we wanted from this table and then take as much as we wanted from the salad bar (and holy moly did I take advantage of that and loaded up my plate with mainly lettuce and sauce. Just three words: soy mayonnaise dressing!!!! and plenty of other sauces apart from the veggies to choose between, like garlic sauce and pesto)

These two big piles of food came up to only $8 and if I could I would go back and eat here again without hesitation. Knowing that we couldn't made me sad, so I felt as if I just had to by some food for later on to take away. In the meantime I will keep on dreaming about that too-good-to-ever-forget table of delicious food.

Although we had a very serious food coma for hours after visiting the Eco Market store, I couldn't resist to go into the chocolate shop Republica del Cacao, with plenty of different vegan dark chocolates. I only have to take one step into the store to realise that I won't afford a single item here, so cheekily enough we took advantage of all of the free tastings. And it was LUSH.

I could've easily spent more time in Quito, just because of all the amazing vegan food choices. You definitely need alot of time (and appetite) to eat your way through the city. But for now, I am preeeeetty excited to leave Ecuador and see how they're doing in Costa Rica. Pura Vida!