A Family Adventure in Costa Rica

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Ann, Riley and I had a wonderful trip to Costa Rica in December 2015. We flew via Colarado with Riley on our laps as he is still under 2 years old. We arrived in San Jose and picked up our rental car from Economy. While it seemed like the most dodgy place and we had heard horror stories, everything worked out for us. And the roads were nowhere near as bad as people made out. The worst roads we talk were to the Rio Celeste and south of Montezuma. We skipped San Jose city and stayed in Alajuela before going to see the Poas Volcano (completely covered in cloud), La Paz Waterfall park (which was an awesome display of animals and natural waterfalls but a bit of a walk with Riley), and we ended up in El Castillo near La Fortuna. We stayed at a fantastic hotel with amazing views of the countryside, volcano and lake. Over the next couple days we saw sloths in broad daylight, climbed down to the La Fortuna waterfall, visited the free hot springs river, hiked at the Arenal Volcano Observatory, then headed on unpaved roads to Santa Elena and Monteverde.

We visited multiple nature reserves and sanctuaries including the famous Monteverde Cloud Forest, and I even did a night guided tour. We saw coati, sloths, agouti, numerous colourful birds including toucans and quetzal, a tarantula, green snake, possum, hummingbirds, white faced (Capuchin) monkeys, but not an ocelot. WE had am early guided walk at the Monteverde Cloud Forest and still had enough time to climb up and see the continental divide before the clouds rolled in. Due to impending thunderstorms in southern Costa Rica, we switched up our itinerary and headed to the northern beaches. On the way, we visited the gloriously blue Rio Celeste Waterfall between the Volcano Miravalles and the Volcano Tenorio. The road was very bumpy but we really enjoyed the walk to the waterfall. We also stopped in Filladelphia and were impressed at the huge iguanas living right in the central town square. We arrived at the west coast in time for sunset at the Brasilitto Beach and had dinner at the hotel.

Over the next couple days we beach hopped from Playa Danka and the deserted Playa Dantika, to Play Potrero, Playa Flamingo, Playa Panama, Playa Hermosa Playa Del Coco, Playa Grande, and the busy Tamarindo. I climbed the outcrop at Playa Grande and found turtle hatchling tracks in the more remote areas. At most beaches we had to pay a ‘security guard’ to watch the car but it was so little that we felt good contributing to the local people. A couple highlight were the puffer fish we saw at Play Danka, sunset dinners at the beach, Riley playing with the kids on the beach and the Monkey Park Refuge Foundation that rescues injured wildlife and nurses them back to health for rerelease.

We had a long driving day to reach Montezuma near the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. We had heard of this infamous surfing town from multiple sources and were pleased to find it still in a rural state with a couple extra bars (and one ice cream shop). We stayed in my favourite hotel here which encroached on the jungle and an abundance of wildlife showed up each morning, squirrels, followed by monkeys, followed by birds, iguanas, and agouti. Ann would have been more fond of this location if they had air conditioning. I woke up before sunrise most days to see the sun rise over the ocean and watch the wildlife wake up. The monkeys had a habit of jumping on the metal roofs as a wake-up call. WE had a drive over to Mal Pais (another surfing town) but found the town’s semi-paved road horrendous so didn’t stay long. Our best stop was at the Refugio Nacional Curu where we had a great walk through the jungle, beach, mangroves and river seeing recovering spider monkeys, and spotting coati, racoons, hermit crabs, deer, a slew of white faced monkeys and a large crocodile. Riley and I took a photo on the most rickety bridge I’d ever seen.

We took a ferry from Paquera back to the mainland (Puntarenas) and headed south stopping at the Rio Tarcoles Crocodile Bridge and Carara Parque National where we got caught in a deluge; well, it is a rainforest! We were a bit more careful to watch the skies for the rest of our southern portion of the trip. Riley played at the playground in Jaco and we stayed at a deserted resort in a tiny village of Esterillios Ouest. There was one grocery store and one pub but it did have a great beach. We stayed here because the hotels near Quepos were in the range of $250 to $300 US Dollars. Crazy! Actually most of our hotels were in the $60 to $100 range so there was no real savings over North American prices. It was only a one hour drive to get to Manuel Antonio National Park the next morning. We had been warned to avoid the ‘official’ parking lots and stayed in the free parking near the park entrance. We wer some of the first to enter the park so got to see a sloth, butterflies, agouti, a family of racoons (one even stole Ann’s loaf of bread while I was hiking), bats, birds and iguanas. We had lunch right on the beach and although tired, I talked Ann into one more trial before heading back. And this was the best trail – howler monkeys and babies swung right over our heads and impressed Riley and me. He has been talking about the monkeys in Costa Rica ever since. We had another meal in the El Avion Restaurant built around an old US bomber.

The last couple days saw us drive back to San Jose and visit the inner city. We were lucky to find secure parking quite close to the centre and saw police on every other corner. Tons of people out on the pedestrian streets shopping or eating in tiny markets or avoiding the pigeons that Riley and the other kids loved to chase. We had a day trip out to the Orosi. It was a picturesque drive through pastoral villages. We visited the ruins of a church, crossed a long suspension bridge, drove through Turrialba and took the mountainous route on the side of Volcano Irazu back to Alajuela. We flew home via New York City where we had two bonus days. Unfortunately we had to carry all our bags because they shut down the baggage service a Newark Airport last month. We visited a lot of old haunts with Riley; Times Square, Brooklyn Street Bridge, Chinatown, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, the High Line, Hell’s Kitchen (where we went to the flea market), Central Park and Rockefeller Centre (where we fought through huge crowds at the Christmas lights).

Over 2015, I didn’t really keep up with my travel blogs. I had a couple trips including Whistler, Montreal, and Chicago. Carl invited us up to his lodge in February for a long weekend of skiing and après ski merriment. Riley really enjoyed playing in the snow. I had a conference in Montreal in April where I caught up with my friend Adam, saw ‘The Greeks - Agamemnon to Alexander the Great’ at the Archeological Museum, climbed Mont Royal in the snow, and ate poutine in the historic quarter. Another conference near Chicago led to a whirlwind day with Francisco walking around the city, visiting the City History Museum and the Lincoln Zoo then seeing a JFK Assassination theatre.



All the best for 2016 from Richard, Ann and Riley!



P.S. For those that are interested in reading about our past travels, I finally caught up on our last entries for our Australia and New Zealand trip in 2014 and quietly posted them. You can find them in my recent blog entries. Cheers.

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Comments

[Leanne]

Fun
I was pleasantly surprised to see this post in my email! It sounds like your 2015 was full of adventure!! Beautiful puctures!

[Jen]

Travels continue - IMPRESSED
travels look like fun .. pls keep them up ... and come visit in HK .. and we do hope to visit u guys one day !!! hugs Jen xx