Costa Rica Trip Diary, continued

Added 8 April 2007. Pictures and stories from our trip to Costa Rica, February 4–13. Page 1 | 2

Day 5: Wildlife refuge, Fortuna, hot springs

Quite a busy day ahead, that starts with some nice clear views of the volcano in the day. Then we're back on the bus for a ride to the Caño Negro wildlife refuge—on the way viewing sugar cane plantations and enormous numbers of large iguanas lolling around a bridge near a restaurant named after them. (Apparently, they are very tasty, but aren't currently available on many menus.)

Arenal volcano by day, and two of the many iguanas lounging near a bridge

In contrast to the Tortuguerro boat tours, this time we're on a bigger boat, and our guide is young woman. We see many of the same types of animals—Jesus Christ lizards (named so because they walk on water), a type of fish that's been around since the fossil age, howler monkeys (which our guide could provoke to howl), caymans, turtles, bats, various birds—but find out different things about them. The highlight of this tour is "the golden monkey", a howler monkey with a very unusual coat colour. She's the only known one in the world. Though it took some time, she did finally emerge long enough for us to get a reasonably good look at her. And a photo.

Extremely rare blonde monkey; welcome to Nicaragua!

We also happen to boat right up to the border of Nicaragua, as indicated by a sign. Several people buy T-shirts here (but we don't). (I later read that Nicaragua isn't such a bad place to visit these days...)

After a pretty decent lunch at a small restaurant, we're bused into the town of Fortuna for some free time. We're taken by some of the art shops once again. After some debate—not our most dramatics—we agree on a large, brightly coloured painting by a local artist. The trick for the rest of the trip is to not forget our tube anymore; that would be a (relatively) expensive loss. We also pick up a few crafted wood items; we find that these are very attractive.

Our next stop is the Hot Springs resort. This is a large commercial complex built around naturally occurring warm spring water of varying temperatures. We're warned not to attempt the very hotest, which can result in serious burns! It's quite the place. Some springs are built around a swim-up bar; some feature "cool pools" you can dip into for a rest from the heat. There are also little trails and things. It's not a bad two hours.

I haven't said too much about the food so far, because there hasn't been that much to say. It's generally been buffet stuff, usually not so bad (at this point in the trip), but obviously nothing gourmet. But at this point Jean and I just tired of lining up with trays. So back at our resort, we decided to order off the menu instead! It's a good decision; we quite enjoy our meal of sea bass (we each try it a different style), Chilean chardonnay (too hot for red! And Chilean wines are good), and banana foster dessert.

Day 6: Cloud forest, Pacific ocean

In the morning, we have to "pay the piper"; that is, pay for our supper the night before. In doing so, we are informed that our MasterCard is "no good"! Hmm. We pay by Visa, but figure we should probably figure out what's up with MasterCard. That involves figuring out the Costa Rican phones, which isn't as easy as you'd think. Eventually, we do get through to MasterCard. Indeed, they had noticed "unusual activity" on our card, in the form of buying a painting in Fortuna. And so had frozen the card. We assure them that was us, and the card is released for use.

When we're home later, we discover that the call (maybe 5 minutes long?) cost us $65! A real lesson in a) informing your credit card company of travel plans and b) brining a phone card with you.

Anyway. It's mostly a travel day today, but as usual, there are tours on the way. This one is to a Cloud Forest, which aptly describes the climate there: not rainy as a rainforest can be (though we had little rain there when we visited), but definitely a lot of cloud cover. It's also cooler.

We're divided into two groups for a guided walk. (Just to be walking around at all is nice at this point.) The focus is more on vegetation and smaller animals. Impatiens, which we pay to plant, and mostly considered a weed here. We see the work of leaf cutter ants, and of the ficus (not sure of that name), which wrap themselves around other trees to grow, but ultimately kill their host. We can walk through one dead example. We also note the dramatic growth rate of an area that three years earlier had been a development.

The neatest part is viewing a toucan up close. This bird had lost its mate, so park officials could afford to feed it without risk of interfering with the bird's reproductive cycle—these birds do not choose another mate after theirs dies. This meant it stuck around for tourist photos, though you still couldn't go right up to it.

After our buffet-style lunch, we're on the road to the beach area of Jaco. On the way, we stop by a bridge that has many crocodiles lying around it. Jean finds these critters quite fascinating.

Upon arrival at our Jaco resort, we're greeted with tasty cocktails and given our room assignments. The rooms seem a little grubby, and an attempt to shower is a challenge, as the water seems to veer between icy cold and scalding hot. Fun.

The beach the hotel faces is quite lovely, but unfortunately, not really recommended for swimming, since it has a very strong undertow. It's more of a surfing beach. Still, we venture in a little bit, to play in the waves in the shallow part. The sand here is a dark colour, which looks interesting, but is kind of gross all over your feet.

Beach by our hotel

The buffet dinner that night is terrible; definitely the worst of the vacation.

Day 7: Manuel Antonio National Park

After a mediocre buffet breakfast, we're off to the popular Manuel Antonio National Park. It's a hot, sunny day—ends up being the hotest of the vacation.

On the way, Rosita warns us about the white-faced monkeys of the park. Rather smart little guys, they sometimes steal cameras. It's not that they're interested in the cameras themselves; it's just stealing cameras is a good distraction from their real goal: stealing food. While people are busy trying to get their camera back, their lunch disappears.

Not long after arriving, we see a similar play. First, one monkey takes an empty plastic bag and waves it around. As everyone's attention is drawn to that, another goes for the sandwiches. Next thing you know, several monkeys are happily chowing one someone's lunch.

Jean and I decide to start the visit with a hike up to a viewpoint. It's not as steep as we'd feared it might be, but we're still sweating like crazy. It's just really hot.

Viewpoint we climed to at Manuel Antonio National Park

After that, it's time for a swim. The water is amazing—so warm. Not used to that with salt water! Swimming around, we talk to Juan and his wife about Cuba—they're originally from there, but now live in Florida. The sand here is soft and white. We could spend more time here than the tour allows, but...

Having gone in the water, we could see why this beach is so popular

On the way, out, we spot some other beach thieves, in the form of raccoons. It's a mama trying to get some food for her babies (pictured below). Outside the beach are a lot of interesting little vendors as well.

Baby raccoons await to see what mom will come up with

The afternoon is free time at our "lovely" hotel. Woo-hoo. We and other guests have discovered that it's not only temperature that is a plumbing problem; the water pressure is also terrible, to the point where you sometimes can't get water at all. The hotel has two pools, but one is down for maintenance (full of green slime) and the other is crowded and has no shade. So it's an odd choice to have a lot of free time at. We manage to kill some time watching Suzie, one of the women on the tour, test out her surfing skills. She gets in a few good rides. But ultimately, we can't face another dinner and extra time here. So we arrange with another couple to go into the nearby beach town of Jaco. Our plan is to stay and have dinner (our Fodor's book has three places to recommend); they plan to just shop a little and head back.

Jaco is not a very attractive city. Jean comments how Caravan is good at not taking us to towns like it during the visit. It has a real run-down beach city feel; tacky souvenirs (where we'd found others quite attractive), smelly garbage... We don't feel unsafe, but we also aren't inspired to linger all that long. Dinner isn't served before 6:00, though, so we end up killing some time at an Internet Cafe first.

Dinner, fortunately, is quite good, although the service seems super-fast. No sooner are you done one course than the next arrives. Guess that's not such a bad thing. Anyway. Somehow word of us going into town for dinner gets around to the other guests, and we get a lot of questions about it. ("How was your romantic dinner?" "Well, not that romantic, but definitely fresh and tasty!") But it seems most aren't willing to pay for an extra dinner when they're on an all-exclusive trip, despite also not being thrilled with this "resort"'s food.

Day 8: Sarchi, coffee plantation, San José

The morning is devoted to "shopping", which doesn't impress some of the guests. Our first stop is described as the smaller shopping area, but it actually has some nice stuff—jewelry, T-shirts, wood items. We make good time here, so we have time to walk around in the little town some.

The buffet lunch seems particularly good today; maybe it really is, maybe it's a contrast with our last hotel. Either way it's a good thing.

Then we're off the bigger shopping area which, in my opinion, isn't actually quite as good as the smaller one. Oh well. We do get a little colourful T-shirt for Jackson and some inexpensive earrings for me.

Our next stop is the coffee plantation. We're promised a tour, but first we have a lot of time to buy coffee and related products. I do get four bags (one a gift) and also try their cool mocha coffee, which is very good.

The tour is a lot of fun. It's done a bit like a play, with various actors pretending to be plantation workers of various types. The whole thing is done in both English and Spanish, which seemed a bit pointless at first, but I guess it's policy and you got used to it. I also did learn a lot about how coffee is grown (apparently I knew almost nothing about that before), different types of coffee, how it's roasted, and that Costa Rica really does have good environmental policies—all coffee waste products here get reused in some way.

Then, we're back to the Holiday Inn in San José. We have a ridiculously hard time confirming our flight the next day (Continental is the only airline that won't let Rosita do that for us), but we finally manage it. To find there's been no change. I guess this all makes you appreciate the ease of the Canadian phone system...

Our final dinner is a sit-down dinner in the top-level restaurant of the hotel. Even though it's not primo food, it's really nice to have this kind of meal. Good idea. We sit with Charlene and Wally, the couple who went into Jaco with us and the young Norwegian couple that we'd talked to several times during the week—they were quite fun once you got past the initial shyness. So, good company there as well.

Get back to where you once belonged

Policy is to have us at the airport three hours before our flight, which means another rather early departure. Everyone else is waiting in the bus for us, which is a little embarrassing, but we all have lots of time.

There wasn't too much drama on the way home. We had to line up to pay a special airport fee before checking in, and we found that breakfast options were incredibly limited—I actually ate Burger King, of all gross breakfasts. The flight was slightly delayed out of Costa Rica, but it didn't really threaten our connection. We even had time to have lunch at the much greater options in New Jersey. And the flight back seemed and actually was shorter than the flight there.

Back in Toronto, it was very cold. We found we'd missed a lot of cold, so I guess our timing was good. We jumped into a cab and got back home. Work for me the next day, but Jean had the rest of the week off.