Costa Rica 2022
Just before this whole Covid thing started we had this idea of ‘experiences not things’ as our Xmas gifts for our Niece and Nephew, we took Nathan and Heather to Mazatlan, Mexico for a week as their 2019 Xmas experience, and got home just in time for Covid.
Fast Forward to 2022, and we started thinking about what we wanted to do for them this Xmas. I had some Covid related flight credits from cancelled trips that had to be used before the end of the year, and after talking to Nathan and his lovely girlfriend Annika, we decided to do a shared new experience, somewhere Norine and I hadn’t been before, Costa Rica.
Heather decided not to come with us, so we booked four flights, and I set them to work researching, and thinking about what they really wanted to see. We ended up choosing three distinct areas; the Pacific Ocean side near Manuel Antonio National Park, the Arenal Volcano region, and finally the Caribbean side near Puerto Viejo.
We knew it was getting closer once we got our Costa Rican Colones... some of the most
beautiful money I have ever seen.
1000 Colones is just over 2 CDN dollars
Nov 26
Nathan and Annika came to our place the night before and on the morning of November 26th, we all got up early, and headed to YVR. Our Air Canada flight left late, but we still made our connection in Toronto
We arrived at a good time in Costa Rica, but mechanical problem with the gate meant we had to stay on the plane longer and Avis was closed by the time we got our luggage and cleared customs and Immigration.
San Jose, Costa Rica
We were too late to get our rental car, but I was expecting that and had booked a hotel close to the airport.
We took a taxi to Hotel Berlor near the airport. It's a small, unique, but nice hotel, complete with a pool. It's supposed to have modern technology, but the bathroom light turns off after 5 seconds unless you are continuously moving. There is an Alexa device in the room to control the lights and such, but as soon as you issue a command, it starts squawking at us in Spanish. Apparently it's not hooked up to the WiFi correctly. While Nathan and Annika are having beers in the pool, we're crashing, getting ready for the big adventure.
Nov 27
After our free rice and beans, scrambled eggs and fresh fruit breakfast, we headed back to the airport.
Avis doesn't have a desk, but there are staff in Avis shirts standing in front of the airport. They load up our luggage and shuttle us to their nearby office. A little paperwork, and a request for GPS, and they hand me a Huawei phone installed with the Waze app, and show me how to WiFi Hotspot, so we are online almost the entire trip. We loaded up our Nissan Qashqai and headed Southwest.
As we are making our way closer to the coast we come across a lot of traffic congestion, a bunch of shops and a bridge teeming with people looking over the sides into the river below. This is the famous Tarcoles River crocodile bridge. The American crocodiles gather in this end of the river, near to where it exits into the Pacific Ocean. They can reach up to 20 feet (6.1 meters) long and weigh up to 2,000 lbs.We parked the car at the far end of the bridge and walked back across.
As we are observing some of the big predators, a truck stops right in the middle of the 2 lane bridge and a park ranger jumps out yelling. Apparently some kid has brought a plastic bag with a whole raw chicken to feed to the Crocs below. The ranger takes the bag away from him as the kid videotapes the whole sequence for Tik-Tok or something.
The area around the river is full of Iguanas and Lizards of varying sizes.
After Nathan and Annika each bought themselves a Crocodile tooth necklace from one of the local hawkers, we jumped back in the car and headed South along the Pacific coast.
Along the way we stopped at the Playa Pita Beach area.
We also had our first true Costa Rican meal at La Fiesta del Marisco restaurant right on the beach, good food, good drinks, and even live entertainment from a one man bongo player with his own reptilian audience.
There's nothing quite like being on a beach and wild Macaw parrots are flying around you and nesting in the trees.
The first place we are staying is in the hillsides above Paritta. After a grocery stop in town, it's a long gravel road drive in heavy rain up to Hacienda Mil Bellezas and our quaint rainforest lodge. The gravel road was a little messy in a few spots from the heavy rain, and we got stopped a few times for crossing cattle.
Hacienda Mil Bellezas
Hacienda Mil Bellezas is a 100-acre tropical nature preserve and lodge with horses, chickens, dogs, and cats. They are located in the jungle northeast of Quepos. 20 years ago the farm was used for cattle and many trees were cut, since then the forest was allowed to regrow. We truly are in the jungle and a tropical rainforest with it's own micro-climate.
As we drive up into the property we are greeted by 3 Dogs - Ellie, Camilla, and Cacao.
Romeo the Horse is wandering around our guesthouse.
We didn't waste any time, and even though it was raining, we all jumped into the lovely Pool. When we come back from the pool, Romeo is by our front porch, and Camilla has broken in through a window screen and is asleep on our couch.
After a refreshing swim and getting settled in to our guesthouse, we drove in to Quepos through a torrential rain storm. I wasn't sure where the road ended and the river began... oh, you say there isn't a river here? After passing a few places that didn't look open, we ended up at Marisquería y Pescadería for dinner.
I'm pretty sure you can't get fresher seafood, and we were also introduced to the Costa Rican patacones, which are made from mashed fried green plantains fried crispy golden brown into a round shape and then sprinkled with sea salt.
After getting back to our guesthouse in the rain, we spent the evening watching the rain on our little patio. Lots of little critters about.
Nov 28th
When we woke up and had breakfast, we had apparently adopted two of the dogs. Ellie and Camilla are waiting for us on our front porch. Cacao would wander around and check in on us once in a while.
Ellie
CamillaCacao
The jungle and garden area around the guesthouse is stunning, even if it rains here a lot, or maybe because it rains here a lot.
Bellies full we headed a little further South to Manuel Antonio National Park.
Manuel Antonio National Park
With the establishment of Manuel Antonio National Park in 1972, the people of Costa Rica decided to preserve, for future generations, one of the most beautiful and bio-diverse areas in the world. Although it is the country’s smallest national park, the stunning beauty and diversity of wildlife in its 683 hectares is unequaled. Manuel Antonio contains a charming combination of the rain forest, beaches, and coral reefs. These beaches are the most beautiful in the country, lined with lush forest, and the snorkeling is excellent, too. The forest is home to sloths, iguanas, the rare squirrel monkeys, white-faced monkeys, and millions of colorful little crabs.
We drive up and a guy just steps into the road with hands out, apparently he works for the park, and pulls us to the side. Because our internet access is really bad at our guesthouse we couldn't order tickets in advance, so they sell us tickets and arrange a guide. We follow a Pathfinder further into town and they park us behind a restaurant right near the main gate.
We meet Mop our guide, and he walks us through security where they check all our backpacks for food, cigarettes and alcohol… cause apparently the monkeys will come and try to steal them. Norine completely forgot she had a pack of Werthers candies in her bag, and now we no longer have Werthers candies.
Within minutes Mop has spotted giant beetles, cute little bats, and a massive grasshopper, he was a few feet from our heads and we didn't even see him.
Just after seeing these Toucans, Mop spots a blonde fuzzy mass up in a tree, it's our first sighting of a sloth in Costa Rica, a little further down the trail and we get an even better look at another sloth.
When we were walking in to the park, Mop asked what we wanted to see, Nathan says 'Sloth', Annika says 'Toucan', I said 'everything'. Within 15-20 minutes we had seen 2 sloths and several toucans, Mop says “ok, for you two, I’m done!”
Just moments after seeing a sloth, we are watching this cute little white faced monkey (aka Cappucin, aka white faced mafia, aka white faced bandido). All kinds of stories about these guys working as a group to steal things from tourists.
A little further along and Mop spots a howler monkey, he was a little shy.
Along the trails you can see little holes of varying sizes, these are homes of the Sally Lightfoot crabs, or as Mop calls them... crabs.
Green Iguana Black Iguana
Just as we start to think Iguanas are going to be all we will see, Mop points out another Howler monkey lounging on a branch.
The other lizard we see is called a Basilisk, also known as the Jesus Christ lizard because of their ability to stand on their hind legs and walk/run over the water.
There was no discussion of the green or black iguanas walking on water.
The king of camouflage is locally called the stick bird, but properly known as a Potoo, here disguised as a stump.
Just as we are heading to wards the beach area, this little white faced bandido is watching us, probably has his eyes on our backpacks.
The two main beaches inside the park, Espadilla Sur Beach and Manuel Antonio Beach are close to each other. Playa Manuel Antonio is best known for its spectacular views, but according to Mop, if you're looking to beat the crowds, venture a bit further down the main trail to Playa Espadilla Sur. So we did.
Mop left us at an amazing beach where we spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the waves.
There may not be many people on this beach, but their certainly is lots of Iguanas.
A lone howler monkey sits in a tree as we are leaving, and a coati (also known as Coatimundi or the local term, Pizote) is digging through the underbrush right below the trail.
The local raccoons in Costa Rica are the same scrounges as our Canadian ones
We did a little shopping and the shop guy Hugo was amazing and funny. He's hitting on Annika, but says, "Don't worry about me, I'm gay". Norine asks him where we should go eat, and he took her hand and walked us all over to El Chante del Parque restaurant. Such a good meal with great drinks… the bill for all four of us came to $40.
After an amazing day at Manuel Antonio, we head back to our place, and WiFi actually worked, time to think about tomorrow.
Another night hanging on the patio with the creatures of the night, the geckos, the bats, and all the other sounds of the jungle. This Praying Mantis, a giant moth and even Ellie hung out with us. The Thermacell mosquito repellent was working overtime.
Nov 29
We spent the morning sleeping in, eating breakfast, and hanging around the guesthouse grounds.
Crested Caracara (B&W Falcon)
Bare throated Tiger Heron
As we are driving to our next adventure, we spot several large birds and even a bunch of white face monkeys in the roadside trees, I sure hope we see some on our tour that I scheduled.
Today I arranged a Mangrove boat tour, it will take us around Las Damas island and the mangrove forest just outside Paritta.
Mangrove Tour
We have a short wait as they are waiting for someone else to arrive for the tour, so they take us on a wander around the grounds of Nacarcosta, an ecotourism farm.
We meet our captain, Walter, and our guide Jorge, and we push off with about 8 other passengers. Our first stop is under a bridge where a family of bats are hanging out.
It's not long before we start noticing white faced monkeys playing along the banks.
These are the mangroves that the tour is named after.
Amazon Kingfisher
Common Basilisk
Suddenly we find ourselves in a large family of white faced monkeys, they are running
all over, playing in the water, chasing each other, and getting busy, if you know what I
mean. 
Nathan took a video, perv.
We did see a sloth, but weren't able to get good pictures of him/her, enjoy my lousy pictures.
When you see a flock of vultures in flight, you're witnessing a kettle of vultures. When you see vultures at rest in a tree or on a fence post, that's a committee of vultures. And since vultures feed mainly on dead animals, when you see a group feeding, you're in the presence of a wake of vultures. So I think I'll call this group a wake committee. (there's 6 more around)
A little farther down the river and we run into another troop of white face monkeys, and these ones are much more curious about our boat. It didn't take long before one jumped on to the bow of the boat.
A group of women had a mango in their bag, and apparently the captain had a banana in his back pocket, because all of a sudden we had monkeys sitting on our shoulders and our heads.
This guy hanging over the top of the boat roof to check us out is hilarious!
The monkey that sits on Norine brings her baby with her, she is bouncing back and forth between Norine's shoulder and my lap.
We all had a blast immersing ourselves in this playful little troop of monkeys, and ensuring we all still had our valuables, we pushed off and headed back down the mangrove forest.
I think it's safe to say everyone enjoyed our mangrove boat tour.
Mar a Lago? Boy did we make a wrong turn
After the tour we headed into Parrita and Playa Pala Seco, where we could drive right up on the beach, and basically had the beach to ourselves until some surfers came down a little later. As Nathan and Annika were getting out a little deeper playing in the waves, one of the surfers came out and warned us about the rip tides at this beach. Just wanted to make sure we stayed waist deep.
After another fun day of both wildlife and quality beach time, we ended the day with a delicious Costa Rican dinner at Soda el Tucan.
Nov 30
Our place made us breakfast by the pool, we had planned to go horseback riding, but they were already booked.
Then I discovered that the car tire was flat. Good thing we were planning to stick around the local jungle area today. I contacted Avis and in 120 minutes someone was coming to fix the tire.
We decided to go hiking up in the hills around our place while we waited for the Avis guy to show up. Our host Martin gave us some basic directions before riding off on his horse.
The horses from the farm are let loose to wander the property and feed during the day, and they all return to the barn for the night.
Green and black poison dart frogs, they are everywhere
These little ferns curl up when you touch them.
Little bats hanging out under a bridge, this seems to be their daytime deal
Leaf cutter ants carrying their cut leafs
We got back just as an Avis repair guy showed up on a motorcycle. The flat tire looks like it has a nail or hard wire right through the tire, the Avis guy put on our spare and told us we would have to go to Llantera in town to get it fixed.
Norine: "After waiting for 120 minutes for the repair guy to come from Avis, all he did was put on the spare, as he arrived on a motorcycle, and was unable with the tools at his disposal, to repair our flat. I got called outside in the rain, as Dave and Mr. Repair were having some troubles understanding each other. Mr. Repair didn't speak english! Attempting to do my best, I firstly explained, in spanish, that I didn't know a lot of the words for car parts, but he was kind enough to help me out there. He said we'd have to complete the repair in town, and gave us the name of the repair shop. Then he said we'd get "something" via email, again not quite understanding what he was getting at, I asked him if it was going to be questions about him, and he confirmed that yes, a survey regarding his service. We would have given him a good rating, however that survey never did show up."
Now that the tire is changed, we spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool
We headed into Quepos to get the tire fixed, we drive up and the guys wave us right in. Within 5 minutes they have the tire off and find a sharp stone that has punctured right through, have the tire cleaned, roughed, patched and back on the car.
"That will be 3000 colones", works out to about $7 CDN. I gave them $5000 Colone, the manager takes the $3000 and gives our tire guy the other $2000.
We grabbed a few supplies for the next part of our journey. Then had dinner at Restaurant Balu… He was all set up for the next mornings Costa Rica - Germany World Cup game, but gave us a reserved table assuming we would be gone by the next morning. We all had Mahi-Mahi tacos and a bunch of drinking experiments. It was a very good night with authentic Costa Rican pub food.
Dec 1
We had to pack up and leave our jungle guesthouse this morning, we have a long drive to the Arenal Volcano today.
As we are passing through Paritta, traffic comes to a standstill, cars and trucks are going down the wrong lanes, it's complete mayhem. We can see the smoke and flames from blocks away, there is a fire on the side of the road.
The GPS shows an alternate route so we make a left turn out of the traffic and drive down a series of side roads. The GPS detour would have been great, if it only didn't expect us to drive across a river. So we backtracked a bit, and got back on the main road right near a Gator 4WD ATV that is in the smoldering phase after the fire department has soaked down everything. Nearby fences have melted and even the telephone pole was completely scorched, it looks like everyone got out ok, thank goodness.
We made a pit stop at Esterillos town center, got some supplies and Nathan bought some home-made Whiskey and Chocolate cigars.
Still can't get over wild Macaws flying around
A little while later we stopped in Jaco for some scenic pics, and we each bought a cup of fresh cut fruit from a guy beside the sign.
Of course we had to stop at the Crocodile bridge again.
As we are driving North in 29° weather, I am hearing about a massive snow storm in Vancouver that has basically shut down all traffic in the city. Just need to stop here and get some flavoured shave ice, it's a little warm here.
