The howler monkeys woke me at 5am on the first morning. I had been warned about this. I had not been warned about how loud they actually are — a sound somewhere between a lion's roar and a very large, very unhappy dog. I lay in my bed in the eco-lodge, listening to the jungle announce itself, and felt something I had not felt in months: completely present.
I had booked this trip on impulse, which is not how I usually operate. I was coming off a particularly relentless stretch — a book deadline, a family health scare, the general accumulation of midlife demands that had left me feeling like I was running on fumes and cortisol. A friend mentioned she'd been to Costa Rica and come back transformed. I booked flights the same afternoon.
Pura vida. It means pure life, and Costa Ricans say it constantly — as a greeting, a farewell, a response to "how are you," a philosophy. By day three, I understood it not as a phrase but as an instruction.
The Zip Lines (And What Happened After)
I did the zip lines in Monteverde on day two. Twelve cables through the cloud forest canopy, the longest one stretching nearly a kilometer. I screamed on the first one. By the fourth I was laughing. By the last I was silent, watching the forest pass below me in a green blur, feeling something that I can only describe as joy — uncomplicated, physical, immediate joy.
But the zip lines were not the thing. The thing happened afterward, on the walk back through the cloud forest. Our guide, a man named Rodrigo who had grown up in Monteverde, stopped us in front of a strangler fig — a tree that begins as a vine, wraps itself around a host tree over decades, and eventually becomes its own enormous, independent structure. The host tree dies and disappears. The strangler fig remains, hollow at its center, shaped by what it once held.
I stood there for a long time. I thought about midlife. I thought about the things we outgrow and the shapes they leave behind. I thought about how the hollow center is not a wound — it is just the evidence of a transformation.
Rodrigo was patient. He had probably watched a hundred tourists have their moment with the strangler fig.
The Silence
I am a person who is rarely quiet. I talk for a living. I have a podcast. I have opinions and I share them. The jungle, it turns out, is an excellent corrective for this.
The eco-lodge I stayed at in the Osa Peninsula had no WiFi in the rooms. No television. The electricity ran on solar and went off at 10pm. The first night I lay in the dark listening to the sounds of the rainforest — insects, frogs, the occasional rustle of something larger — and felt the particular anxiety of someone who has forgotten how to be without stimulation.
By the third night, I was asleep by nine and waking at dawn feeling more rested than I had in years. By the fifth night, I was sitting on my porch in the dark, listening, and not needing anything else.
We talk a lot about digital detox as a wellness practice. What I experienced in Costa Rica was something more fundamental — a recalibration of what counts as enough. The jungle is full. It does not need you to add anything to it.
What I Ate (Because You Know I'm Going to Tell You)
Costa Rican food is not flashy. It is honest. Gallo pinto — rice and black beans cooked together with onion and cilantro — appears at every meal and is somehow never boring. Fresh tropical fruit at breakfast: papaya, pineapple, mango, starfruit. Ceviche made with corvina and lime so fresh it tastes like the ocean. Casado, the traditional lunch plate, with rice, beans, plantains, salad, and whatever protein the cook felt like making.
I ate simply and well. I felt good in my body in a way that had nothing to do with restriction or optimization — just clean food, a lot of walking, early sleep, and the absence of the thousand small stressors that accumulate at home without you noticing.
I brought home a bag of Costa Rican coffee and a recipe for gallo pinto that I have made every Sunday morning since.
What the Jungle Actually Teaches You
I have been on a lot of trips. I have had beautiful experiences in beautiful places. But Costa Rica did something different — it slowed me down enough to hear myself think, and what I heard surprised me.
I heard that I had been running from something rather than toward something. I heard that I was tired in a way that sleep alone could not fix. I heard that I needed to make some changes — not dramatic ones, but real ones. The kind you can only identify when you get quiet enough to listen.
The jungle does not give you answers. It gives you the conditions in which you can find your own. That is, I think, what the best travel does.
Practical Notes
Fly into San Jose or Liberia
San Jose for the Osa Peninsula and the south. Liberia for Guanacaste and the northwest. Know where you're going before you book.
Rent a 4WD
The roads to the best places are unpaved and sometimes flooded. A regular car will leave you stranded. Pay the extra for the 4WD.
Dry season is December to April
The green season (May to November) is lush and beautiful and much cheaper, but some roads become impassable and some lodges close. Both seasons are worth experiencing.
Stay at least a week
Costa Rica rewards slow travel. The first few days you are still decompressing. The real experience starts around day four.
Hire local guides
The wildlife is invisible to untrained eyes. A good guide will show you things you would walk past a hundred times without seeing. It is worth every dollar.
Pura vida. Go find yours.
Mareya Ibrahim
Mareya is the founder of The Real Dish, a certified nutrition coach, and wellness advocate known as The Fit Foodie. She is the host of The Real Dish podcast and the author of Eat Like You Give a Fork.
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