Trips around Costa Rica
Copey de Dota, Costa Rica
Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.
Our final destination before heading back to the US was a lodge in the highlands surrounding the capital region. Whereas the rest of the country was hot and muggy, the highlands were much drier and more of a northern climate. In fact, they even grow apples and other northern fruits there (though not quite as good as the ones in the US).
We stayed at a very nice, small hotel called the El Toucanet Lodge. Among other things, they offer free bird watching tours every morning as well as coffee tours (which are not free, but not expensive either). Although we did manage to see a family of Quetzals, they weren't too close and hidden in the trees.
The highlands are also a great place for growing coffee and while there we went on a tour of Coope Dota, a local coffee grower cooperative with great coffee. Knowing my family's addiction to coffee, I ended up buying close to 20 pounds of coffee beans. After leaving the highlands, we stayed in Escazu for a few days before flying back home.
Monteverde, Costa Rica
Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.
Our next stop was Monteverde - home of cloud forests. We had wanted to go to two places - the Monteverde Cloud Forest and the Skywalk - a tour along suspended platforms through the canopy levels. On our first day there, we decided to go the cloud forest, but got lost and ended up hiking through the Eternal Children's Forest - a forest that was bought using funds donated by children from around the world. The forest is slighly below cloud forest level, but it was still nice to go through there:
We did stop by the actual cloud forest, but only near the entrance as it was already late in the day. Still, there were several hummingbird feeders there attracting a large number of hummingbirds:
The next day we went on the Skywalk. The Skywalk is part of a larger facility that also offers things like zip lines - essentially an amusement park-like ride where one is suspended on a wire and goes from platform to platform through the top of the forest. You apparently don't get to see much, but I've heard its fun. The Skywalk, on the other hand, is a series of over 10 bridges through different parts of the forest canopy and is actually quite interesting.
One of the reasons many people come to Monteverde is to see the Resplendent Quetzal, an amazingly beautiful bird only found in certain areas. Unfortunately for bird watchers, the quetzal is mostly green and thus not always easy to spot among the leaves. On our trip though, I managed to spot one, talked to the tour guide leading a group just ahead of us, who was extraordinarily thankful when we pointed it out to him and it gave everyone in the group a chance to see the quetzal (though not a great view). The one I had spotted was a female and the tour guide was able to spot the male, who was even more carefully hidden than the female. Unfortunately I couldn't really get any decent photographs of him, though this was remedied somewhat later in the trip.
Big Cats, Hot Springs, and Liberia
Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.
After spending the night in Cañas, we got onto the Pan-Americna Highway (one of the few fairly well maintained roads) for the trip to Liberia. We did make two stops along the way. The first was at the Las Pumas Rescue Shelter - a large facility that houses rescued (mostly injured) wild cats and has jaguars, ocelots, and other big felines. Unfortunately they were all in wire cages so pictures were not easy to take.
Leaving the shelter, we continued north on the highway to the hot springs called Thermomania near Volcano Miravalles. This is a small water amusement park that uses the water from hot springs and is a lot of fun. Its also much cheaper than the super fancy hot springs around Mount Arenal (the fanciest of which is also right along the lava flow path should Mount Arenal ever have a large eruption).
We finally arrived in Liberia and decided to spend the night in a nice air-conditioned motel very similar to ones in the US. The air-conditioned aspect of it proved to be very helpful the next day. Liberia itself seemed like a nice enough city - definitely smaller than San Jose but also much cleaner and friendlier.
Rincón de la Vieja National Park
Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.
Not too far from Liberia is Rincón de la Vieja National Park - one of the more remote parks in Costa Rica. After driving over 20 km of gravel road, one reaches a small parking lot with a ranger station and a trail map, from where you can hike to several different places. One of the nicer areas is supposedly some waterfalls, but unfortunately halfway to the waterfalls it started pouring and the trails flooded very quickly.
However, right at the beginning of the trial we started hearing an increasing number of rustling noises. In a few minutes we watched a whole group of coatis (related to raccoons) cross the trail and field, including several young coatis. Here's some of them:
We finally got back to the car completely soaked, but luckily with nothing damaged.
Mount Arenal and Costa Rican Driving
Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.
One of the problems with Costa Rica was the lack of good ATM availability in small towns. That eventually forced us to leave Puerto Viejo and go back up the Carribean Coast on the way to Arenal. We stopped along the way in Puerto Limon, the major Carribean port which did not seem very safe and did not look very welcoming. It did have easy to find ATMs though. Continuing on we eventually made it to another town called Puerto Viejo - although this one is more commonly referred to as Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui. Stopping in town to eat we got to watch a tope, which was essentially a parade of horses and cowboys showing off (with lots of music the and like). Leaving Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui we eventually made it to La Fortuna where we spent the evening and did a bit of souvenir shopping. That night we drove out to Mount Arenal to take pictures, with the best one being
There's also a park there where you can hike up Mount Arenal, but we decided not to spend any time on it since the views from outside seemed much better. The following morning (after doing laundry and some more souvenir shopping) we set off for the northwest portion of the country, driving around Lake Arenal. Unfortunately, those plans were cut short due to a combination of the very winding road, a crazy dog, and an even crazier motorcyclist.
As I've mentioned, Costa Rican roads are horrible (winding mountain roads) and Costa Rican drivers tend to consider any road a race track. I was driving at a safe speed on this particular road while a motorcyclist behind me was trying to pass (and not doing it very well). This went on for quite some time, until a dog suddenly ran out into the middle of the road, forcing me to hit the brakes and slide off to the side of the road. The motorcyclist did not react fast enough and ended up clipping the car and ending up on his back (luckily with only a slight leg injury). However, we needed to wait for over an hour for the police to arrive, and only made it as far as Cañas tha tday.