You may have been wondering what we’ve been up to. Well, we have had a very busy couple of weeks. We spent a few days in Costa Rica and I know that we have to go back. So, much to see, so little time. We had a 5 day package deal, which was clearly too short a time for us. We stayed at a resort along the Pacific coast about 30 minutes from the airport in Liberia. Picked up our little Suzuki Jimmy 4×4 and off we went. Found our resort fairly easily and got checked into our “villa”, at least that’s how the resort referred to our room. Our room wasn’t anything to write home about, but did have everything we needed. We enjoyed the pool bar with our all-inclusive package. Headed off to the included buffet dinner, our waiter Ernesto was great. He made sure to keep our wine glasses full. Gorgeous view from our dinner table with this beautiful sunset.
The resort turned out also to actually be a great way to see the wildlife of Costa Rica. I had my sausage stolen twice by a white-throated magpie-jay bird that was staking out my plate. Guess I was an easy target and he really seemed to enjoy sausage. The coati was another expert food stealer. This guy came hopped up on a table and took a sugar packet. He knows where to come to satisfy his sweet tooth.
We then went and checked out the local beach of Playa Hermosa. It’s considered a black sand beach as its sand came from volcanic rock. We were also told to be careful with our cell phones and room keys as the sand has magnetic properties. The water was a great temperature, but was very cloudy and not good for snorkeling. Then drove to the very tourist area of Playa Coco. The beach looked nice, but the area around was far too touristy for my liking. The town even comes complete with a Hard Rock Café and numerous small eateries and shops. So, it’s a good place for the party crowd.
That night was are “special” dinner at the resort restaurant instead of the usual dinner buffet. The food was good. Will’s BBQ was really tasty. Even had some additional dinner guests, a couple of cats and a raccoon.
The next day was our day trip to Nicaragua. More coming up about that in a separate post.
After Nicaragua, we spent the day hitting a couple of the national parks. Costa Rica may be small in area, but they boast 27 national parks and many more wildlife refuges and protected areas. The entrance fee to the parks for foreigners is much higher than for residents. We paid $12/person for each of the two parks that we went to. Fees are per person per park per day. So, these entrance fees can really add up. Starting to really appreciate just paying the $80 a year for all the national parks in the US. Seems like a basement bargain deal for sure when comparing to Costa Rica.
Our first national park was Tenorio Volcano National Park. Finally we were venturing into a Costa Rican rainforest. And yes, it was raining in the rain forest. This is home to the Rio Celeste waterfall that is famous for being a beautiful light blue color. We had already been informed by the ranger that we would not be viewing the blue color. They’ve recently been experiencing quite a bit of rain and since it was raining there was little sunlight, but we wanted to get in a little hiking anyway. The trail started out really nice as it was a concrete path. The path then turned into a gravel path which gradually degraded into just a regular hiking trail and us watching out for the puddles of mud. The waterfall was still impressive at 295 feet high. We chose to go on past the waterfall and continue on our hike to get some views of the rainforest canopy. It had stopped raining, but we were still tramping through a muddy mess. I think we were one of the few foreigners that went on past the waterfall as almost everyone we passed seemed to be Costa Rican.
After that we wanted to hit another park and found one that was relatively close and was still supposed to be open when we got there. We found a number of the parks close fairly early at 4pm. So, we headed off to the Palo Verde national park. We had this one almost entirely to ourselves there were only 3 other visitors. This park also closes at 4, but the ranger told us we just had to leave before he closes the park gate at 6. This park does get more popular during the wet season as it is a wetland area popular for migrating birds. The ranger had told us about a nice hike called La Roca (the Rock). Once reaching the actual rock there was a staircase to the top. The treads on the stairs were very narrow and the staircase was a little shaky. Needless to say, Will did not want to check out the view at the top, but naturally I did. Drove through the rest of the park and saw some of the White Ibis birds and the grazing cattle, plus a couple of deer.
The next morning we were out early as we had to drive down to San Jose to catch our flight out.