Costa Rica

November/December 2019

In last week of November and into December 2019 I spent 12 days in Costa Rica following a Habitat for Humanity Build in Guatemala. My wife and I met up in San Jose where we spent a couple of nights before starting our tour of Costa Rica.

San José is the capital of Costa Rica and is in a large valley that includes three other major cities and approximately two-thirds of the county’s population. We spent time walking through the central part of the San José and visited the National Theatre of Costa Rica, the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, Metropolitan Cathedral of San José, some parks and markets. The Central Avenue is mostly closed to traffic making it a pedestrian boulevard. This makes getting around on foot very easy. Photos of San José

We left San Jose on a tour bus and headed east across the continental divide, through the rainforests of the Braulio Carrillo National Park and into the lowlands of the Caribbean coast and to the town of Tortuguero which is accessible only by water or air so the last part of the trip was in a boat through the canals and rivers.

We stayed at Aninga Lodge which is a 5 minute boat ride from Tortuguero town. The accommodations are 33 individual cabins in the rain forest connected by raised walkways to the main restaurant, swimming pool and other common areas.

We did a boat trip into the Tortuguero National Park and were very impressed by the richness of its flora and fauna.

I also took a boat to a small volcanic hill called Tortuguero Mountain. There is a 1,000 meter trail (El Poponjoche Trail) up the hill to a view point overlooking the town of Tortuguero, the Caribbean Sea and the river and canal that flows into the sea. Photos of Tortuguero

It rained a lot while we were in Tortuguero, especially during the nights. We left the same way we entered, by boat. Because of the heavy rains the Suerte River had risen a lot since the trip in and was flooding in some areas. The current was very fast and lots of debris was floating down with the high water. An exciting trip, especially when the boat engine started having problems. Fortunately that was fixed very quickly.

We then drove to the town of La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano. This volcano is touted as one of the world’s most spectacular volcanoes. Unfortunately there was low cloud the entire time we were there so there was nothing to see. The area was interesting and it is a very popular tourist destination because of the many activities available. Photos of Arenal

We stayed at Hotel Arenal Manoa which is a very large (100+ rooms) but nice resort a short drive from La Fortuna. It consists of two room bungalows spread over a large hillside area so that each room has a view of the Arenal volcano (when it’s not covered in cloud). Very nicely landscaped and very nice pool, restaurant and other facilities.

I did a walk through a private nature reserve called Natura Eco Park and a hike (in the rain) in the Arenal Volcano National Park along a trail leading to the base of the volcano cone formed by a 1968 eruption which destroyed several villages and killed 87 people. We also visited one of the many local hot springs.

We left Arenal and took a short boat ride across Lake Arenal to Rio Chiquito Pier and met up with a minivan that took us to Monteverde. This was quite a ride through the mountains over some very rough roads. In Monteverde we stayed at Trapp Family Lodge which has about 30 rooms with friendly and helpful staff. It has an OK restaurant and bar but is more than walking distance from town if you are interested in shopping and eating options.

Monteverde means “Green Mountain” and was founded in 1951 by a group of North American Quakers who started farming the area then realized the importance of the local environment and with the help of other likeminded organizations worked to create a biological preserve which is now the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve which is one of the richest ecological systems and one of the most important virgin cloud forests in Costa Rica. We did the “Trapiche Tour” which is a family owned plantation that produces coffee and gives demonstration on sugar cane and cacao processing. Photos of Monteverde.

After a couple of nights in Monteverde we drove to Tamarindo Beach on the Pacific coast. The drive out of Monteverde was as rough as or rougher than the drive in because some of the roads were under construction. There was not much difference between the construction areas and the finished parts. Both very rough, twisting and narrow roads through the mountains. More than one of the drivers we had called it the “Costa Rica minivan massage”.

In Tamarindo we stayed at the Tamarindo Diria Beach Resort which is very large and spread out with multiple buildings, restaurants, swimming pools, casino and other facilities. We stayed in the beachfront portion of the resort which gave us a great view of the beach and the evening sunsets.

The weather in Tamarindo was great – no rain – and low 30s Celsius. While there I went scuba diving at the Catalina Islands, offshore from Playa Flamingo (North of Tamarindo). The diving was OK but not terrific. There were lots of fish in some areas and a few large sharks. The dive operator was Pacific Coast Dive Center and the staff was friendly, helpful and safety conscious.

We also did a day tour to the Cipanci National Wildlife Refuge and did a boat tour on the Tempisque River. The Refuge is very near to Palo Verde National Park and we saw lots of birds, iguana and other wildlife. Photos of Tamarindo and area.

Costa Rica has an abundance of wildlife and especially a lot of birds. Here are some of the birds we saw.