Costa Rica: Manuel Antonio, Hotel Costa Verde

Thu Aug 15^th. We woke up and wrapped up the packing and got ready for a long 5 hour ride to Manuel Antonio from Monteverde. Los Pinos did not have a restaurant, so I decided to get some coffee and cake from the bakery across the road, went there and ordered the items. When I pulled my wallet to pay for it, I found it EMPTY! The credit cards were there, but all monies, both USD and CRC were gone. It was most bizarre. A crime worthy of Sherlock Holmes’ time? I trotted back to the room and traced back the event from the previous evening – around 7 pm, I had done a sanity check of our funds and placed $120 in the wallet for expenses the following day. The wallet was left by a window and we were in the room all the time before I noticed the money missing. We were pretty bummed out – the fact that someone could open the window, pick the money and leave the wallet back seemed too creepy. I walked up the reception to complain and after listening to me, the girl mentioned that this hasn’t happened in Los Pinos, but is not unusual in the area. The most amazing thing was that she pulled out 60,000 CRC from her office money box and gave it to me! I experienced the worst and best of CR within an hour on Thursday. Why should the hotel make me whole? Simply based on my statement, she gave me the money that I said I had lost? While the possibility exists that this couldn’t have happened without some inside knowledge/job, I choose to believe that Costa Rica is fundamentally nice and the girl behind the counter was genuine in sympathizing with me and giving me the money that was robbed from me! 

Until we were well out of Monteverde, we were traveling in dirt roads, roughing us up with jolts and bumps. If you are ever visiting Monteverde, do brace yourselves for a rough ride all the time you are there. The roads became better after a while and our ride took us via the port town of Puntarenas on our way to Manuel Antonio. We stopped at another bridge, this time famous for crocodiles. The river and its banks had several crocodiles basking. After a James Bond style switch from one vehicle to another, we pulled into Manuel Antonio around 1 pm. Being a coastal town, it was hot and muggy here, as opposed to cool in Monteverde. Lunch at Raphael’s Terraza, a restaurant that had a great view of the pacific coast was great – Jana claimed that the burrito she had was the best she’s ever had. Food was very good, but extremely slow in coming. I guess you have to wait for all good things in life. Or not be behind a very large gathering of family in a restaurant :) 

We wanted to swing by the beach, but it started raining and we decided to sit it out. By the time it stopped raining, it was getting dark, we were just able to take some distant shots of the ocean. The extreme late lunch meant we weren’t hungry enough for dinner. We also had an early start the following day, a guided hike in Manuel Antonio National Park, so we retired early that evening. 

Friday was our last full day in CR. After breakfast, we were picked up by Wilbur, our guide for the morning hike. It was raining and kept raining for more than 2 hours. CR activities are good, “rain or shine”. We were walking in the rain, with our rain gear, but that made spotting animals hard and taking photographs even harder. That said, we did get to see our fair share of flora and fauna even on this rainy day. Did you realize a male spider is 1/10^th the size of a female? And the webs they weave are super strong? We got to see a very colorful crab called Halloween crab, the bright yellow and venomous eyelash viper, hermit crabs, more iguanas and lizards, raccoons, agouti, the laughing falcon, two toed and three toed sloths. The rain finally let up as we reached the beautiful beach nestled inside the national park. The water looked great and azure blue. Several folks decided to swim, we stayed put on the shores. We met a very nice American family from Orange country, CA and another backpacker from San Francisco. It is amazing how when you start a tour with different people, you are circumspect in the beginning but end up being very comfortable with each other by the time the tour ends. 

We went back to Raphael’s Terraza for lunch again – our only repeat restaurant “by choice”. Until now, all the sloths we saw were way up in the tree – and they appeared as blobs most of the time. We started calling them “sloth blobs”. Interestingly, in the trees by the restaurant were two three toed sloths that was putting on the best sloth show for us. Following the lunch, we walked back to the beach. And just as we reached there, it started raining again. We tried waiting it out, but the rain wasn’t letting up. We took a local bus back to the hotel avoiding the 30 minute walk back uphill in rain. It was nearly 4 pm and it didn’t stop raining that day at all. It just lightened around 7 when I dashed out to get pizza back to our room. Interestingly, when they made the pizza, each slice had just one topping each. All the onions were on one slice; all the bell peppers were on another; all the tomatoes on one… you get the idea. Jaya and I spent bulk of the evening drying up the clothes, shoes and packing up while the girls were lounging in style :)

Saturday, 17^th we left at 5:30 am to SJO airport. It was only a 2 ½ hour ride, but the planners insisted on giving 3 ½ hours to be safe. That was good in a way – we got to enjoy the traditional rice & bean for breakfast on our way to the airport. After dishing out a hefty $29 per person in departure tax, we were ready to head home.

Costa Rica Pics (Nearly 150 photos in all uploaded by now) 

It was a memorable trip – Costa Rica is a beautiful and colorful country, though predominantly green :), with friendly folks (except the one person who stole my money), with rich bio-diversity, very aware ecologically and eco-friendly, with their people in general, being happy with life. 

Costa Ricans call their way of living Pura Vida – Pure Life.

Pura Vida, Costa Rica! Thank you for a memorable week!

Costa Rica: Monteverde, Cabanas Los Pinos

Aug 13^th – my 50^th birthday adventure started out by an interesting transfer to Monteverde. A jeep took us from our hotel to the shores of Lake Arenal. Notice I mention the shores, not a dock. We trekked down some 50 feet to the spot where the boats were, loaded our luggage and cruised across the lake. Arenal Volcano was receding from our vision, presenting yet another unique face to us as we bid it good bye. All along, from San Jose – La Fortuna – Cano Negro, we had excellent roads. I had commented on this to Carlos, who said I should reserve my comments until I reached Monteverde. Our boat pulled onto the shore on Monteverde side and we hopped into another jeep. It was dirt roads that greeted us and I was hoping that somewhere along the way, it would become blacktop roads – not to be. The next 1 ½ hours was on absolutely rough dirt roads where the top speed was no more than 40 kmph. Until we reached the town of Santa Elena, couple of kilometers from our hotel, the roads were rough. This travel was by far the longest stretch of travel in dirt road that I’ve done in all 50 years! 

A family cabin with 3 bedrooms and fully furnished kitchen nestled in the cloud forests awaited us in Los Pinos hotel. The girls just loved the fact that they got their own rooms! We had carried some Haldiram fast food items, especially for this leg of the trip. We made a lunch meal out of chole & tortilla before heading out to Santa Elena town. It was a quaint little town with lots of ups and downs, exercising our calf muscles well. Monteverde region is in the cloud forests – true to its name, the clouds descended upon us and it rained for a while before we headed out into the town. The girls weren’t taking to the location until we reached the town and saw some activity; and they got to pick their favorite dinner that night. Sushi for Kavya and Panini for Jana. And Jaya had a wonderful coffee on the way back. We picked up a small banana cake that I cut later that evening celebrating my 50^th! 

The next day we headed out to the Selvatura park for a canopy tour. This was in two parts – zip line over the canopy and an hour long hike with 8 suspension bridges providing breathtaking views of the cloud forests. The zip line was awesome – it almost felt like having a single seater aircraft with no cover around you – especially in the longer sections. We had a section that was 650 meters long and another 1 km long. For those that were willing to brave it, there was a tarzan swing – jumping off a platform some 20m high and slowly swinging to a stop. Jana, Kavya and I didn’t miss this opportunity. I am now ready to do bungee jump! When she realized that zip lining involves letting your feet go off your ground, Jaya decided to spend the time on the ground – and went on a tour of the butterfly garden by herself while we were monkeying around the canopy of the Monteverde cloud forests. 

Lunch was rice and palak paneer in our cabin. We walked to Monteverde town center where there was a cheese factory. The last tour had left for the day by the time we reached, so we just ended up eating some delicious ice cream from that place before heading back. Around the same time, a little dog had decided that Monteverde was too boring and wanted to go to Santa Elena. It walked all the way with us – my feeble attempts to issue doggie instructions in Spanish didn’t work. When I told the dog ALTO firmly, he just looked at me and continued to walk along, sometimes ahead of us and sometimes behind us. We all were concerned that the little fella made it to his destination without any mishaps!

Costa Rica Pics (77 photos uploaded)

Costa Rica: SJO, La Fortuna, Arenal Volcano Inn

As the United flight circled the San Jose airport before landing, it was quite apparent that Costa Rica is green… very, very green. We went through a long but reasonably efficient immigration line, picked our bags and headed out to be greeted by Bairon, our driver from SJO international to Arenal Volcano Inn in La Fortuna. As soon as we were in the outskirts of San Jose / Alajuela area, the city atmosphere gave way to nice greenery along the way. Soon thereafter, we felt like we were driving through a very lush green park all the way… for miles and miles! Part of our drive was in the Pan American Highway that links Panama – Costa Rica – Nicaragua. Actually this highway links countries in South, Central and North America, including the three Central American countries I mentioned.

We made our first stop at a roadside restaurant, ala our Dhabhas, called Mi Rancho. All of us were hungry and we were pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get vegetarian food there. After about a 30 minute break, we were on our way and had the first glimpse of Arenal Volcano. We drove by La Fortuna town before reaching Arenal Volcano Inn as the light was fading on Saturday, Aug 10^th. 

We were going to Cano Negro on Sunday, our first fullday in CR. But before that came breakfast in the hotel – and it was such a pleasant surprise – rice & beans, with potato curry and hash browns on the side, in addition to the classic continental spread. It became clear to us that food was not going to be a problem for us in CR. Cano Negro wildlife reserve is situated at the Costa Rica / Nicaragua border. We were advised to carry our passport, just in case, as we were going to spend time in the last Costa Rican town by the border, Los Chiles. The drive was 1 ½ hours long.  Midway, we stopped in a town by the San Carlos River. The place was called Los Iguanas, and with a reason. The trees by the bridge on the river were teeming with iguanas. Hundreds of them - big ones, small ones, huge ones. And these herbivorous reptiles weren’t shy posing for the tourists either. 

We reached Cano Negro and hopped onto the boat. While this was supposed to be a tour with others, it so happened that we were the only group that day. Our guide, Carlos, was cool, was constantly providing us with plentiful info. We were traveling up stream, away from Nicaraguan border. We saw several birds and monkeys in the couple of hours we were there: green heron (the smallest in the heron family), emerald basilisk (a bright green lizard that can walk on water), howler monkeys (so called because of the noise they make), spider monkeys, white faced capuchin monkeys; the birds we saw included anhinga, kingfisher, amazon kingfisher, toucan, egret, few varieties of ducks and passerini’s tanager; we also came by a tree that was filled with caterpillars, and another with long nosed bats. 

This trip included lunch and our guide had called ahead to let the restaurant know that we were vegetarians. We reached the lunch spot at noon and waiting for us was delicious, home style traditional Costa Rican fare – rice, beans, yucca chips, salad, avocado, iced tea and corn tortillas. The food was delicious. The hot sauce they gave had significant punch – well done, Costa Ricans! Just as we started eating, we experienced the first of the Costa Rican rain forest thunder showers – it rained for about an hour and boy, did it rain! The lightning and thunder accompanying the rain was breathtaking. 

On Monday, Aug 12^th, we went on the Arenal Volcano hike. Arenal Volcano was dormant since 1550s before erupting again in 1968. Since then, the volcano has been active. Right now, it is just smoking without any lava activity. Our guided hike took us through the area where the 1968 eruption has since been replaced by lush vegetation. This was also a walk through the rain forest, so we did end up seeing quite a lot of animals – crested guan, agouti, silver nosed coati, Montezuma oropendola, song wren, long nosed bats, white faced capuchin monkeys and a tarantula inside a bromilia plant. Our guide this time, Huberth, had specialized in eco-tourism and was giving us lot of interesting info. The last leg of the hike involved climbing over lava rocks from the 1968 eruption to a viewing area. Just as we reached the viewing area, it started raining – nowhere as heavy as yesterday, but hard enough to encourage us to use the rain gear we carried from home. Arenal Volcano never looked the same to me – it always had different levels of cloud cover around it and each time I looked at it, it had a different face. These changes would occur in as few as 5 minutes! There was just one day I had a clear shot of the volcano from our hotel. 

That afternoon, we loitered in La Fortuna town. We lunched at another traditional Costa Rican restaurant where the waitress wore traditional CR dress. CR is another country that has taken to red-white-blue in their flag and national colors. La Fortuna is a small town with tons of souvenir shops. By my reckoning, the girls must’ve stepped into every single shop they saw J That evening was our last night in Arenal Volcano Inn. We dined in the hotel restaurant, Que Rico. And during our dinner, we were also treated to our 2^nd experience of the rainforest thundershower. The fact that this was happening in night made the lightning all the more beautiful to look at.

Costa Rica Pics