Two Sisters and a Mother in Costa Rica Day 4

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Today’s main attraction was a guided trip in the jungle. Oscar from Jacaranda Tours picked us up at the Manoa Resort at 7:45am for the Hanging Bridges Tour. It is always better to go early to see wildlife and birds and also to avoid the crowds, so although my girls might have wanted a slower pace, they did agreed on the early morning tours, even if they had to wolf down breakfast.

We were whisked to the nearby park to begin our hike with Oscar. As we walked up and down the paved paths that carved out the various habitats he explained all the indigenous flora and fauna of this part of Costa Rica. We observed the parts of the native heliconias that feed the butterflies, a parade of leaf cutter ants, monkey ladder vines and with the help of Oscar's keen eye and his powerful scope we saw a tiny non-stinging bees nest, miniature hanging bats and a teensy Eyelash Viper. We would never have seen these without his keen eyes and his scope!

We were excited to pass through a family of very active White Faced Capuchin Monkeys as they were swinging through the trees. Capturing a few videos of these fun guys to bring home to our families was not easy in the dark leafy jungle, not to mention focusing on their fast moving bodies. I was lucky to get a few fuzzy photos with my telephoto lens but because they do move fast the photos were not great. Even when they are sitting still, which is rare, without a tripod in the dark jungle, it was a challenge to get a good shot, but we have great memories!

The six hanging bridges are accessed via the paved paths throughout the jungle park. Note: it is important to wear good sneakers or sturdy shoes since in many places the paths consist of concrete with open uneven holes that would be easy to twist an ankle on. Most bridges sway when you walk on them but they are perfectly safe. Guides will only let one or two people on a long span at a time to prevent more movement on the bridge. I will say they do keep you moving along because there are so many people in the park that lines form to get on the bridges, forcing you to not take too many photos. I found waiting for a still bridge to be almost impossible. Our own group was small making our tour more maneuverable than the huge tours that choked the paths and bridges. It pays to hire small group tours and go early to beat the crowds! There are paths one can take off the main route to the waterfalls (visible from the bridges). Throughout our morning jungle trek there are exit signs that lead back to the park entrance for the faint of heart or those wanting a quick exit.

I did enjoy the views from the bridges. Arenal volcano was mostly elusive in the clouds, the waterfalls below almost hidden in the jungle but the beautiful and very poisonous Broccoli Tree with its lovely lacy lime green canopy stood majestic and tall above the other darker green trees, (thank you Oscar for pointing that out!). Little details along the path like pink and white native begonias, buttresses, and ferns helped to remind me that I was in a wild Central American habitat, not a botanical garden. And although we came equipped with bug spray, there were no bugs or mosquitoes, and it wasn’t even a windy day. I would bring repellant anyway, but don't expect it to be overly buggy, at least in February.

Once again we were returned to the Manoa Resort to say goodbye to Oscar and grab our car as we headed into La Fortuna for lunch. And again we drove around looking for a restaurant but this time it was threatening to rain so we needed to find something close enough to a parking space. We settled on Nanku. Located on the main street in La Fortuna, Nanku was easy to find and very accessible. We parked on the street right in front of the restaurant.

This is not a "Soda" so it is a bit more Americanized but the food is really good. I think I had the best and most memorable dish, a large whole avocado cut in half and placed on a bed of lettuce with hearts of palm and dressed with a delicious dark (not spicy) sauce with small shrimps. And it was around $7 or 4,800 Colones!!! Not Soda prices but still pretty amazing. My daughters had more typical meals, chips and salsa and sandwich with fried yucca. I will say they liked the food at the Sodas better. There were large tour groups eating here, unlike what you would find in a typical Soda, so the service was not as fast, but they were very friendly, like everyone we met here. As in most eateries, this is an open air restaurant but it did give us shelter from the pouring down rain that came while we ate. In the entrance to the restaurant there is a "tourist stand" where they sell tours as well as food. I know nothing about their tours but I suggest you ask for a tourist map of La Fortuna. That map helped us get our bearings when looking for places around the area. I wished we’d found it sooner.

Our afternoon stroll through La Fortuna was cut short with a brief shower so we headed back to the resort where we found sunshine and a relatively empty pool to soak in while gazing at the beautiful volcano.

That evening the girls had planned to take me out to dinner at Nene’s in La Fortuna. We were told this was the "fine dining" place to go to in La Fortuna for a celebration dinner. This is an indoor restaurant with table cloths and loads of wine in their open cases so we were hopeful. Since we were not sure about the food we thought we would start off with appetizers to see what we wanted to eat. We chose a seafood soup, a ceviche and a seafood rice and a pork rice. Sadly they were all the worst meal of the trip and we left without ordering the very expensive main courses such as their steaks. I guess that was good since we saved a lot of money and waited until later in the trip to have a delicious celebratory meal elsewhere.

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