Pura Vida! A Trek to Costa Rica

November 29 – December 20, 2023

First you learn the native customs, Soon a word of Spanish or two….

• Steve Goodman

What better cure for the winter blues than a trip to Costa Rica? That was our thinking, and we weren’t disappointed. Costa Rica is a diverse country – research will describe the country in a broad range of biomes, climate zones, ecosystems, ecological zones, and ecoregions. What do all these terms even mean to a layman? To keep it simple, Mother Nature has a lot going on!

After taking a high-level look, we decided to break our trip up into sections to get a better flavor for the country. Our final agenda started with a visit to the Tortuguero National Park in the northeast. From there we headed to the Caribbean influenced southeast Atlantic Coast for a stay in the tiny beach town of Punta Uva, just a few miles from the Panama border. We headed to the center of the country after that, with stays at La Fortuna near the Arenal Volcano and Santa Elena in the Cloud Forest region. Our last stop was at the mostly deserted northwest Pacific coast beach of Playa Junquillal (say hoon-kee-yal).

Before going into the details of our trip, here is a little bit about the country:

• The name Costa Rica (meaning “rich coast”) allegedly was bestowed by Christopher Columbus in 1502. Of course, this designation was in reference to perceived precious metals, not the biodiversity wonderland.
• Typical of other areas, the decades following Spanish conquest reduced the indigenous population from ~120,000 to 10,000. Only 2% of the population is indigenous today.
• The country has about 5.2 million people (124^th). Measured by purchasing power, the per capita GDP is about ~$25,000 (66^th). The largest city is the capital, San Jose, with about 334,000 people.
• The country has been fully sovereign since 1838. The military was abolished following a civil war ending in 1948. Since then, the country has held 17 peaceful presidential elections. The former military budget is now directed to healthcare, education, and environmental protection.
• Surprising (to me), the leading export is medical instruments, followed by bananas and tropical fruits. The US is the leading export destination.
• The country lies 9° north of the equator. Temperatures can be quite warm but not extreme, rarely exceeding the low 90s. Rain is abundant, over 10 feet per year in much of the country. Temperatures can drop below freezing on the summit of the high point, Mount Chirripo at 12,536 feet.
• Costa Rica is 19,730 square miles, about the size of West Virginia. The similarities end there.
• Costa Rica has 100% renewable electricity production – 79% hydro, 12% wind, 8% geothermal, 1% solar.
• 27% of Costa Rica is protected through over 100 National Parks, preserves, refuges, and protected lands, more than any other country. 
• Costa Rica is the one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, with a whopping 500,000 species of wildlife. This is almost 6% of the world’s biodiversity despite covering only 0.03% of the surface area of the earth.
• Costa Ricans are known casually as Ticos.
• The currency is the colon, named after Christopher Columbus. Exchange rate at the time of travel was $1 = 529 colón. US dollars were widely accepted.

Travelling to Costa Rica from the US is a simple matter. With a current passport, US citizens can be in Costa Rica in a few hours and not much time zone difference (-1 hour for us from Eastern Standard Time). You can get by with English but expect to be dealing with Spanish only speaking waiters, cab drivers and the like on occasion. While investigating rental cars, our daughter suggested just getting a driver. I did due diligence on that idea, and that’s what we settled on. After queries to three different vendors, we settled on Costa Rica Driver (https://costaricadriver.com/#). A rental car may have been a little cheaper, and we would have had increased mobility. In exchange, we would have to do our own navigating on often poorly marked, occasionally horrendous quality roads, risk vandalism or fender benders, purchase fuel, and contend with the stress of driving in a different country. Our driver, Danny Jimenez, was a pleasure, filling us in on all sorts of Costa Rica details and stopping at our request. To each his own – we were happy with our decision. We flew into and out of San Jose but didn’t take in much of the city. On to the trip!    

Tortuguero National Park

Tortuguero National Park occupies 120 square miles in the northeast of the country. This is also one of the wettest spots in the country – 20 feet of rain per year! The lush, canal laced park is a mecca for wildlife, including one of the highest densities for jaguars anywhere in the world. Only 1% of the park is available for tourists – the remaining 99% is for absolute protection of resources. According to the Sea Turtle Conservancy, beaches here are the most important green turtle nesting sites in the Western Hemisphere. Literature said to expect heat, humidity, and rain as our travelling companion, but we were lucky throughout for weather. The only rain we had was at night, and the heat and humidity were tolerable. Our lodging, cute individual cabins, had no air conditioning, still, nighttime temperatures in the mid-70s with ceiling fans seemed okay. Bugs were around but not oppressive.

Lodging in the park is limited, but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer. We chose Aninga Lodge (https://www.aningalodgetortuguero.com/ ). This was part of a three day – two-night package we selected that included round trip transportation from San Jose. The trip included a one-hour canal boat ride to reach our destination. It’s possible to arrange this on your own, but that’s not where we wanted to focus our planning efforts on this trip. We aren’t big tour group advocates, but sometimes they have their place, and this was one of those times.

Our first afternoon was spent on a short boat ride to the small town of Tortuguero. With a population of about 1200, the beaches of the town see about ten times more nesting green turtles than there are inhabitants. The village was founded in 1930, four decades before the National Park. Deforestation began soon after and continued until the park was formed on September 24, 1970. Ecotourism drives the local economy now, with logging equipment rusting in place as reminders of a more destructive past. We visited the beach, but there is no swimming here – crocodile warnings were abundant. Our contribution to the town’s economy was limited to the purchase of a Coco Loco, a coconut milk/rum beverage made as you wait. This was made from and served in a fresh local coconut while we waited.

The highlight of the park for us was the early morning wildlife canal tour. We were up at sunrise to head off into the canals with our local guide. Over the next couple of hours, we worked our way deeper and deeper into the canals, seeing all sorts of birds, lizards, monkeys, caiman, iguana, etc. along the way. The weather was good – mostly clear skies, comfortable temperatures, few bugs, good wildlife. This vacation was off to a good start.

For the remainder of our time, we took an afternoon wildlife tour through the forest, and I took an additional short hike up Tortuguero Hill, a 390 foot climb up an inactive volcano for a scenic view of the area. I enjoyed seeing a green tree snake, a yellow viper, a small red frog, and big spiders as much as the hike itself. We recovered from all this “stress” with an afternoon by the sea turtle shaped swimming pool, watching monkeys swing through the trees and iguanas crawling through the limbs, occasionally crashing to the ground when they misjudged their weight. We returned to San Jose the next morning.

Punta Uva

Our driver Danny picked us up right on time in San Jose for our trip to Punta Uva in the far southeast of the country. The drive through San Jose was sufficient for me to decide hiring a driver was a good call. Danny stopped at the first of a few ‘sodas’ we enjoyed with him, small mom and pop restaurants selling only traditional Costa Rican fare, often prepared on a wood fire. The most common menu item is Casado, comprised of black beans, rice, and a protein, along with vegetables, plantain, and a salad that varied from place to place.

Our lodging in Punta Uva, Casa Viva (https://casavivalodge.com/), was equipped with a kitchen. Danny was happy to stop at a local grocery store to allow us to load up for the week. Being early December makes no difference for fresh fruit in Costa Rica. I had already loaded up on rambutan at a roadside stand on the way, I added passion fruit, bananas, papaya, and oranges along with other provisions. We were set for the week to eat breakfast and lunch in our cabin and dine out for dinner. Over the course of our stay, we noted Costa Rican food is flavorful but not overly spicy.

Our suite was constructed of beautiful dark hardwood with a tiled shower in addition to the full kitchen and a comfortable porch with hammocks. There was no air conditioning, and if it had been a little warmer this may have been uncomfortable. The weather was in the upper 80s during our stay, with 85% humidity and only dropping to around 80 at night. With a room fan and a mosquito net around the bed we were fine. The windows had no screens and a wooden lattice with about 6-inch openings. We would listen to the wildlife at night, occasionally wondering if we had visitors inside the cabin. All this just added a certain charm, we loved our cabin and the access to our private shaded beach was wonderful. As a rule, we had the beach to ourselves for a quarter mile in either direction. Unlike Tortuguero, the swimming was wonderful, and we had walkable dining options for dinner.

We only had two agenda items this week. The first was the Chocorart Cacao Farm, an organic cacao farm about a quarter of a mile down the road from Casa Viva. As we walked up the hill to the farm, our guide Simon popped out of the woods to join us. Lynn and I were the only people on this tour besides Simon – and what an absolute delight the tour was! Simon is a native, and for the next hour we walked through the woods, with him cutting down a variety of local fruits for us to enjoy. We sauntered on through old and new groves of cacao trees, with red banana trees mixed in. We visited the fermentation and drying platforms before ending the tour at the roasting area. The dried beans were fire roasted, then cracked by rolling a big rock, separated using a simple fan, ground to a paste, then sweetened with pure cane sugar caramelized over the same wood fire. This was poured over fresh bananas for the climax of a wonderful experience. We purchased several of their products as souvenirs.

Our second agenda item was a visit to Ara Manzanillo, a Great Green Macaw reintroduction project opened in 2010. These beautiful birds are critically endangered, with no more than 1000 estimated left in the wild. This 120-acre preserve is now dedicated to providing nesting sites and food for wild birds, adding about 80 birds to the free flying population.

An unplanned bonus event happened mid-week when a local animal rescue center, Jaguar Rescue Center, chose our little patch of beach to release a sloth they had nursed back to health. The young female paid us no attention as she ambled out of her transfer cage and found a spot high in the trees for her new home.

We spent five days at Punta Uva. One afternoon a hang glider flew overhead. A single boat cruised by another afternoon, and a few days we could see surfers off in the distance. Otherwise, we had our shaded beach spot mostly to ourselves. That doesn’t appeal to everyone. I thought it was perfect.

La Fortuna

Our next spot was La Fortuna, site of Arenal Volcano and Hot Springs. Several sites list this as the top-rated tourist destination in Costa Rica. It certainly had more tourist activities than our other destinations. Paradise Hot Springs (https://paradisehotsprings.net/) was the closest to a traditional hotel that we stayed in – except for multiple hot spring fed pools of various sizes and temperatures. We were poised at the base of the Arenal Volcano for spectacular views, but we only saw the lower half during our four-day stay due to a persistent cloud cover. This is not uncommon. Danny (our driver) said the volcano likes to sleep with a blanket.

The agenda for the first day was a trip to La Fortuna Waterfall. This is about a 250 foot vertical drop waterfall to a bright blue pool, feeding additional fish-filled swimming holes downstream. The 500-step descent was described as challenging, but the trail is in good shape with handrails and was no problem. It’s not very likely you’ll go swimming here by yourself, but the crowd wasn’t too bad, and we had a refreshing swim while we admired the waterfall. We topped off the day with a fun Costa Rican cooking class followed up by a beginner’s salsa dancing class. It was fun and we didn’t care if we embarrassed our fellow dancers.

The next day we took a trip to Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges Park for the Natural History Guided Tour. This was approximately a two-hour, two-mile hike through the rainforest with 15 bridges, 6 of them hanging. A local naturalist pointed out the rainforest flora and fauna. We saw more toucans here than anywhere else.

We made sure to allow plenty of relaxing time at all our spots, and it was no different here. We spent many hours lounging around the hot spring pools (drained nightly and filled fresh) and spent a few hours at the shops in La Fortuna.

Santa Elena and the Cloud Forest

This was our highest elevation stop for the trip, about 5000 feet. We stayed at Rainbow Valley Lodge (https://www.rainbowvalleylodgemonteverde.com/). I assumed the name to just be the typically campy name for a hotel – we soon learned this was well-earned. Positioned at the top of a valley with a constant strong wind, coupled with moisture rolling down from the higher elevation cloud forest created conditions for a constant (almost) rainbow. What a treat! So what is a cloud forest anyway? I wasn’t familiar with the term. This region of Costa Rica sits along the continental divide. Moisture laden air from either the Pacific or Atlantic condenses with the rising elevation, creating a persistent dense fog at the canopy level. This results in lush vegetation growth, rich in ferns and mosses. Only about 1% of global woodlands fall into this category.

Monteverde is the most popular Cloud Forest experience – so we didn’t go there because of the crowds that go with that. We went instead to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Preserve. This plot of about 760 acres opened in 1992, and all the profits from this community managed conservation project are used in managing the preserve. We saw every shade of green in the spectrum as we hiked about 5 miles of the several trails. One of the trails is designated as the Shinrin-Yoku walk, a term that emerged in Japan in the 1980s as a physiological and psychological exercise of “forest bathing”. Think Mary Oliver walking in a rainforest.

Dinner at Santa Elena was the nearby “Taco Station” an unassuming nearby home that had no indication of being a public establishment. The staff was so friendly and the food was excellent. We were lucky to  chance upon this diner.

The only other major agenda item we had in Santa Elena was a trip to Café Monteverde Farm and Roastery. This association of twenty families grows and roasts coffee, but it’s more than that. They grow most of what they need to be completely independent – fruits, vegetables, goats, chickens, etc. They aren’t certified organic but are quite close and working in that direction. We find sometimes that famous local products aren’t that special when you get there, but that’s not the case with Costa Rican coffee.  The western part of the country has the elevation, soil, and climate to produce truly excellent coffee.

Our next and last stop was Playa Junquilla on the Pacific northwest coast, but we weren’t quite ready for that. This part of the country is known for Chorotega pottery, with its origins in a process developed over 4,000 years ago by the Chorotega tribe. While researching, I found a potter nearby and this was added to our trip to the Pacific coast. Marcos Oliveira greeted us at Chorotega Arts & Crafts, a small roadside building containing everything from the raw materials he collects in the mountains to the display cases for finished pottery. This passionate, indigenous trained potter runs a one-man operation that he proudly displayed for us. This visit was a special treat.

Playa Junquilla

Our last stop was at the isolated beach of Playa Junquilla on the Nicoya Peninsula in the Guanacaste Province. There isn’t much to do there, so if you’re looking for excitement, it’s best to look elsewhere. However, if you like peace and solitude on a pristine beach, you should put this on your list to check out. On several of our walks there weren’t more than a handful of folks on this 2 km stretch of beach; even at sunset not more than a few dozen.

We stayed at the funky Mundo Milo Ecolodge (https://www.mundomilo.com/) in a comfortable bungalow. We used the pool there to escape the mid-day sun and enjoy bird watching, a beverage, and some reading. As we had seen elsewhere in the country, environmental awareness was an important element of business. I’ve never stayed anywhere before where I was asked to bring watermelon rinds and banana peels to the reception desk for composting and told just to pitch coffee grounds in the woods.

There is an interesting blue theme to this part of the country. First, the Nicoya Peninsula is one of five “Blue Zones” in the world where people on average have a significantly longer lifespan (for example, more than twice as likely as a North American to reach age 90). A low fat, high fiber diet with virtually no processed or refined food and an active manual lifestyle contribute to this.

Second, Playa Junquilla is a “Blue-Flag” beach, an award given to locations with stringent environmental, educational, safety, and accessibility criteria that must be met and maintained. The absence of trash on any of the beaches we visited in Costa Rica was refreshing.

As usual, we had no transportation, so we were left with what the beach had to offer. Our hostess at Mundo Milo pointed us to tidal pools about 30 minutes up the beach and provided us snorkel masks. We visited there twice. This was certainly the widest variety of sizes, shapes, and colors of fish I have ever seen through a snorkel mask. We even saw an octopus and a sea snake.

The beach at Play Junquilla is also the site of the Verdiazul Turtle Hatchery. Founded in 2005, this organization of two permanent staff and a steady stream of volunteers works to protect four of the world’s seven sea turtles that nest here. We had the good fortune to be in the area during the release of Olive Ridley turtle hatchlings. As we left Playa Junquilla for our return to San Jose, I found it hard to believe we had considered a Margaritaville stay a few miles up the beach at Playa Flamingo for our Pacific coast experience.

Over our three weeks stay in the country, I repeatedly heard and read of the 1970s as the turning point for conservation in Costa Rica. I never determined any single initiating event or person, but there is no doubt the country changed direction. Forest cover in the country dropped from 75% in 1940 to 33% in 1980. Since then, it has recovered to 75%. Sport hunting was banned in the country in 2012. Logging is completely prohibited in national parks. Private property may be logged under specific circumstances. In 1997 the country initiated a program where landowners are paid to leave their wooded properties intact (interestingly, this program is paid for by a fossil fuel tax). Recycling is widely available and promoted. Costa Rica clearly believes their future lies in environmental protection.

Costa Rica still faces challenges. Poaching and illegal logging still occur, and drug trade through Costa Rica from South America causes problems. Without more widespread effort from the rest of the world, environmental changes will negatively impact the country since climate knows no boundaries. A declining birth rate stresses a work force that already relies on many migrant workers. Still, the Costa Rica people have demonstrated themselves to be a progressive, forward-looking people. We had a great visit.  Pura Vida!

P.S. – This is the first post where the blog platform (WordPress) offered AI assistant. I declined.