Five Days in Costa Rica

January 27th, 2004 Pura Vida!

Kim and I just got back from a five day trip to Costa Rica to visit my friends, Ray and Tanya. They are the missionaries in Mexico that are spending six months in CR for language school. We had quite an adventure, saw lots of wildlife and were treated to the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen.

We got up at four a.m. on Thursday (my birthday) with the temperature at 22 degrees and drove to Atlanta for a 10:30 ET flight. We got into San Jose, Costa Rica around 1:30 CT. It was in the mid-80s and very humid. Bright and sunny, this part of the tropical country is currently in its dry season. The dry season only last about two months, the other 10 it rains about 14 hours out of every single day.

Ray met us at the airport in a rickety old Land Rover that hardly had any breaks, and flat out didn't have any air conditioner, suspension or seat belts. Tanya was waiting for us at the house and after we napped, we all visited and headed into town for dinner at an Oriental place (Ray says the Costa Rican food is so bad that there's no point in trying it, the "foreign food" is much better). After bumping around in the Land Rover and a couple of near-misses downtown thanks to the lack of reliable breaks, I insisted that we would be renting a quality vehicle for our weekend excursion.

Friday morning, we rented a small SUV and headed to the pacific coast resort town Manuel Antonio for a two night stay at the luxurious four-star La Mariposa hotel. On our way we drove through mountains (and were treated to breathtaking views of the lush landscape), rain forests, banana farms and palm tree farms. We get to the Mariposa and it is amazing, it sits on the crest of a hill in the rainforest and the area around the pool overlooks a huge bay. I've never seen the ocean and mountains in the same view before. It was amazing, by far the nicest place I've ever stayed in. One of the mornings there, we found an iguana warming itself on the balcony.
I should mention that because of it's proximity to the equator, Costa Rica has twelve hours of daylight almost every single day of the year, with a maximum variation of about 15 minutes. The sun rises at 5:30am and sets at 5:30pm, all year long. It's weird to wake up with the sun high in the sky and think you have overslept, only to discover that it's just 7 o'clock in the morning!

We had a steak and seafood dinner Friday night there at the hotel following our viewing of the sunset over the pacific from our perch at the swimming pool.

Saturday morning, we decided we would take a tour of the nearby national park that is located on the tip of a crescent-shaped peninsula. On our way there, we knew we were passing through an area inhabited by howler monkeys and we saw some people stopped on the side of the road staring into the trees with cameras. We decided to stop because we thought we'd see some howlers. Well, they weren't howlers, but they were monkeys! Wild monkeys! These were White-faced Capuchins (think RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK). There were at least eight of them and we watched them climb all over the place and jump from tree to tree. It was so cool! Next thing we know a coconut falls to the ground from behind us. Most of the monkeys were putting on a show to distract us while another snuck around behind us to a coconut tree, where he launched his surprise attack! The monkeys had tricked us!! Then came another coconut! We were under attack by wild monkeys!! How cool is that?!? After snapping several pictures, we were finally on our way... but not before I picked up some actual monkey fur from off the ground.

We finally made it to the park where we hired a local guide who had a telescope with him. We would walk along the trail and we'd be talking with him and suddenly he'd stop and set up the scope and we'd see this huge lizard 20 feet off the trail that was perfectly camouflaged and perfectly still. The guide pulled tricks like this the whole time. We saw a couple of tyranno lizards, a Jesus Christ lizard (named for it's ability to run across water on its two hind legs), an iguana, a yellow-crowned heron, a pack of squirrel monkeys, a sloth and lots of other birds, spiders, etc. Again, it's very cool to see a pack of monkeys hanging around in trees, totally wild. And I loved the sloth, he was very cool. He didn't do a whole bunch, though.

We made it back to the hotel in what we thought was just in time to take the shuttle down to the bay, but the shuttle had come and gone early. So Kim and I took a taxi and left Ray and Tanya behind. We got to the bay in time to get on the yacht for the sunset cruise we had signed up for. It was about a 120-foot yacht full of American tourists. The captain was a Cuban from Florida and there was a local singing Spanish songs on his guitar. We began sailing around 1:30 in the afternoon and traveled along the coast. Soon we had dolphins racing our boat and playing along side us. That was a treat. Finally, after sailing around the point of the bay, we anchored and broke out the snorkeling gear. I had never been snorkeling before but I can't wait to do it again. I put on the mask, snorkel and flippers, jumped into the Pacific and swam about 100 yards to a coral reef. There, the captain threw out some food and we watched tons and tons of different tropical fish swim all among us. It was awesome.

After about a half hour of that, we all got back on board and the sun was getting a little low. More songs and sailing as the crew prepared dinner below decks. Soon, we could smell fresh fish being fried. They were filleting and frying Mahi Mahi that they had caught that morning. It was delicious. Not long after dinner, it was a little after five and we were ready for the show. We dropped anchor with our port side to the sun and out there on the open water were treated to the best sunset ever. As soon as the sun was down, we came back in and we were back at the hotel within the hour.

The next day, Sunday, it was time to make our way back to San Jose. We determined we couldn't make either Arenal or Poaz that day (each of them being active volcanoes), so we decided to improvise. We were on the road back to San Jose when we came to a pathetic looking hand painted sign that boasted a crocodile tour. It looked very amateurish and we may have dismissed it but Kim wanted to look into it. Across the highway from this entrance was an entrance to a botanical garden and waterfall. Ray had heard it was good. Well, we looked in the croc tour and discovered it didn't start for three hours. So we went and did the garden first. It was fantastic. It featured lots of exotic flowers as well as the most amazing view you will ever see. We could look out over a lush, rainforest valley, to the bay coast way below us. The coast disappeared off to our right into haze, but in the far distance across the water we could make more mountains, they towered over the water and had clouds clung to its peaks. The best part of the garden though was the two parrots and the toucan. The parrots cold talk, but we couldn't understand them because they were speaking Spanish! We all posed with them sitting on our shoulders. Kim loved the parrots. Then there was this toucan hopping around. He was hilarious looking. All nose. I fed him pieces of papaya right out of my hand.

Finally, it was time for the crocodile tour. We got on this little barge that held about 30 people and the captain took us out into the marshy river area that eventually led to the ocean. We saw all sorts of birds like herons and pelicans and other more exotic species. I have the little guide book that I circled as we spotted them. The coolest ones were the osprey, the peregrine falcon, and the yellow-headed caracara hawk. There was the chance of seeing a scarlet macaw but we didn't. And on this croc tour, we saw about seven wild crocodiles at different times near our boat. At one point, our captain grabbed a skinned chicken and got into the water and began slapping the chicken on the surface to imitate a large fish. Next thing you know, here comes this croc creeping up to him, just six feet or so from our boat. The croc keeps approaching, just the top half of head and back visible. We kept expecting it to quickly snap at the chicken in the captain's hand, but instead never changes his pace. When he gets to the chicken, the captain holds it up and forces the croc to come way out of the water, vertically, to grab it. We watch it snap the chicken out of the captain's hands and splash back down and chew it up and within seconds it's gone. Wow. It was impressive and scary. (I thought it was funny that during this time was when the caracara hawk showed up... he must have also thought he heard a big fish)
After the croc tour, the sun was setting and we were several hours from San Jose so we got moving and got in around 10 that night. Monday morning, Ray and Tanya had to go to class. So Kim and I hailed a taxi, gave directions in Spanish thanks to written instructions from Tanya, and headed downtown to buy our souvenirs. Among other things, I got a replica of the Costa Rican national soccer team jersey. We spent an hour or so shopping then took another taxi back to the Casa, where Ray was waiting for us to take us to the airport.

We made it back to Atlanta around 8:30 CT, and after a detour to Waffle House, finally got back home around 11pm or so.

Great trip. Great friends, luxury hotels, sloths, dolphins, toucans, crocodiles, Spanish-speaking parrots, soccer jerseys and coconut-throwing wild monkeys. I recommend it to all.

PURA VIDA!!