By means of a pleasant fast boat and van combo ride, we entered Costa Rica from Nicaragua, arriving in the town of La Fortuna. We had all decided that based on the guidebooks and other travellers’ recommendations we should stop in La Fortuna to see the Volcan Arenal and take a dip in the neighbouring hotsprings.
Well, the volcano is a serious exercise in false advertising and the racket around the hotsprings would make Walt Disney proud. All of the promotions for the volcano show the top spewing hot lava; although we were aware it was not currently active we figured there still must be something to see…not so much. The top is actually permanently covered in cloud and it is illegal to climb it. After the dozen or so volcanoes we saw in Guatemala and Nicaragua, this was a paltry excuse for a tourist attraction. But we walked in the nearby forest anyways, which turned out to be more exciting than anticipated. At the start of the walk, our young guide narrowly missed stepping on a poisonous viper, scaring himself shitless. Looking like something off of America’s Funniest Home Videos, he then proceeded to jump nervously from foot to foot telling us to remain calm and leave the snake in peace while he poked at it with a stick, provoking it to strike out at him more than once. Then, we were detoured because Will Smith & son were shooting a movie in the woods. As a bonus, during the walk John got to try out his Tarzan call while swinging from vines.
The hotsprings that are a result of the volcano are another story. There are a plethora of hotels and resorts that sell day passes to their facilities; we went with the most over-the-top-Vegas option (not the one touted as “what Eden would look like” for twice the price). It was exactly as advertised – numerous pools of different temperatures, waterslides, swim-up bars and buffet. All of which costs you $60/person. Which is excessive, but we had reconciled ourselves with this cost until we arrived and were each charged another $6 for a 1’x1’ locker. Seriously. Needless to say we felt justified in taking the lock with us as a memento. It was all worthwhile for a lovely afternoon and evening moving between warm-hot-&-hotter pools, and to see Doug and Sheila go down their first waterslide in decades!
La Fortuna, however, ended up as a perfect spot for a ‘descanso’ – a rest. After all the adventure and rustic accommodations on the Rio in Nicaragua, no one (except perhaps the hotel owner) was surprised when John did a happy dance and yelled out ‘woo-hoo’ when we got to our rooms and saw all the space, a balcony, fridge, air conditioning and hot running water (it had been over a month since we had actual hot water).
From La Fortuna, we headed to the (technically) nearby town of Monteverde. On a map, they look like neighbours. In reality, you drive for an hour, take a boat across a man-made lake for another hour (or more, if you’re on the German/French birding tour boat like we were), and then bump along possibly some of the worst roads we’ve been on for another 2.5 hours. Nevermind, it’s all part of the adventure and the road is kept in bad condition to limit development– at least that’s what they tell you. The trip across the lake gives a vista of some beautiful countryside, mainly ranchland and small plantations. The lake was actually dammed in the 1970s in order to provide both hydro power and irrigation to the area. Note: Costa Rica is a major power exporter in Central America based on its hydro, but at the same time charges local residences highly inflated prices – ahh monopolies!
Monteverde is truly the reason to visit Costa Rica (besides the beaches, but that’s another post). This is where all the postcard pictures are taken. This is where you can see a lot of the wildlife for which Costa Rica is famous, walk from a cloud forest to a temperate rain forest in less than 15 minutes, feel the cloud forests in action, see trees and plants that were surely the inspiration for Dr. Seuss, and participate in pretty much any kind of adventure tourism you choose. It was like walking through an episode of Planet Earth, unfortunately without David Attenborough narration. Being there with Doug and John, we split our time between searching for animals and hiking through forests. We visited every type of forest at every time of the day. We were extremely fortunate to see most of the animals and birds it is possible to see in the area, as many tourists visit more than once without seeing half of what we did.
Some of the animals we saw:
Mammals (coati, armadillo, agouti, two-toed sloth, howler monkey, spider monkey, white-faced capuchin monkey, bats, raccoons, variegated squirrel…birders, Germans)
Snakes & reptiles (yellow eyelash pit viper, anoles, geckos, lizards, iguanas, river turtles, hog-nosed pit viper, garter snake, frogs, mombacho salamander, galliwasp lizard…shower frogs)
Insects (tarantula, millipede, leaf bug, stick bug, bullet ant, leaf cutter ants, katydid, giant crickets, rhinoceros spear bearer bug, silk moth, fireflies, red army ants, termites, blue morpho butterfly, monarch butterfly, postman butterfly, yellow barrel crescent butterfly….cockroaches)
Birds (quetzals, mot-mots, flycatcher, toucan, toucanet, doves, many different kinds of hummingbirds, wood stork, osprey, jays, cormorants, anhingas, parakeets, white-throated magpie jay, oropendula, egrets, blue heron, grey heron, parrots, macaw, woodpecker, kingfishers, turkey vultures, white ibis, spotted sandpipers, honeycreepers, tanagers, warblers, pavo negro)
(Admittedly, we did see some of these in Nicaragua first, and at closer range, but we forgot to tell you about that). One of the reasons we saw as much as we did was thanks to our guide, Danilo. A professional naturalist, he had eagle eyes during both the day and night and the most amazing hearing – he could pick things out of the forest that no one else could, such as a mother hummingbird sleeping in her nest, and leaf insects that were so camouflaged I still couldn’t see them when they were literally in front of my face. He was also a ninja with his scope, and a wealth of knowledge. He taught us where to look for particular critters, how to recognize sounds, and what different vegetation was good for. Thanks to his instructions, John and Doug found a tarantula sleeping in her hole the very next morning!
We were very lucky to see the resplendent quetzal, the national symbol of Costa Rica and a bird formerly give god-like status by the ancient Maya. They are serene, slight goofy and very colourful. In fact, the colour of their feathers change depending on what light they are in – from brown to blue to green. We saw a pair from a distance on our excursion with Danilo, which was amazing. This was the only point on any of our guided tours that a guide had us run. It was funny to see the motley crew of amateur birders in their Tilly hats and 3 foot camera lenses and backpackers who barely spoke English running up to an makeshift observation point. Danilo and the other guides in the area were thrilled to see the pair, and were reluctant to leave before the birds flew away. Then, the next morning outside of a park entrance, four more quetzals came to feed on a tree right in front of us. This was spectacular enough for even the locals – including the delivery truck drivers – to stop and watch. When we got back to the hostel that day, we spoke with a couple who had been coming to Monteverde for several years in hopes of seeing just one of these beautiful birds.
We found out during our nature excursions in Monteverde that John is a hummingbird magnet. It could be that they are attracted to his red hat, or it could be his natural sweetness. Whichever it is, they regularly buzz in to say hi. John describes them as mini F1race cars or Tinkerbells humming by his head. He now wears his sunglasses when they’re around, in case they mistake his eyes for flowers.
We participated in two ‘adventure tourism’ activities while in Monteverde – one intentional and the other not. On our first day in Monteverde, our lovely Texan Quaker host at the hostel gave us a whole list of things to do around the area – from bungee jumping to free hikes. We decided to get up the next morning and go on one of the free hikes to a waterfall.
We were driven out to the beginning of the trail in a taxi in the morning. It was a picturesque walk in the forest, although it alternated between misty and rainy, and the waterfall was indeed beautiful. The vegetation was lush, the trees were immense, and the air plants ubiquitous. A couple of hours later we came back out and had a sandwich. Doug was excited to see what looked like a ‘mandarina’ (orange) tree at the end of the walk. He climbed a barbed wire fence and knocked a few into the woods. After rummaging around the ground to find them, he triumphantly presented them to the group for welcome refreshment…except they were actually Central American limes, so sour that they were impossible to eat.
John and Doug had decided earlier that we needed to get some exercise, so we opted to walk back to town. This was a 3-hour, 13 km trek, mostly uphill (sometimes at a 45 degree angle) in alternating rain and wind. When we got back to the hostel our host looked at us and said, ‘you actually walked back? No one does that. I just suggest it in case people are a little crazy.’
John and I also opted to go on some ziplines (or as they call it ‘canopy tour’) over Santa Elena reserve. Although it was not a huge adrenaline rush, and we didn’t hang upside down or anything, it was super fun! The view from 100 feet above the ground, but only a couple of feet above the treetops was incredible. A couple of the lines were a full kilometer across, which actually allowed us to observe the landscape from this perspective. In some parts, we really did zip right in between the tops of cloud forest canopy, with branches within reach of our fingertips.
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