Costa Rica 1998
Pura Vida
by Lindsay Berger
Pura Vida is an expression that is used throughout Costa Rica. Translated literally, it means “pure life”. More accurately, it means “good life” or “life is good”. This is a state of mind that is easy to acquire in Costa Rica. Most people who have run into me since the end of February know that I took a trip there. Many of those people also know that I took a lot of pictures. This is a little taste of what I did and what I saw.
It all started about 1-1/2 years ago, when I met some long-lost cousins from Costa Rica who were visiting my Mom’s aunt. They really piqued my interest about Costa Rica, and they invited me to come and visit. I don’t know about you, but when I go visiting, I don’t like to spend a lot of time in one place. Rather than spending an entire trip to Costa Rica in one city, I wanted to tour around and see some more of the country. So I did some research, and Joe at The Great Canadian Travel Company found me an interesting tour with GAP Adventures, out of Toronto.
I started my travels with a long weekend in Houston, visiting a friend. We saw the Space Centre, Brazzo’s Bend State Park, and the really fabulous museum. The museum’s butterfly centre gave me a good preview of the butterflies I was to see in Costa Rica.
From Houston, I flew to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. I spent four days there visiting with my cousins. While there, I saw the Gold Museum (pre-Columbian gold artifacts), the central market, the bird zoo, and the nearby Irazu volcano, which last erupted in 1963. Life is interesting in San Jose. There are about a million people there and in the surrounding suburbs and there are a lot of really nice houses.
It’s a small world after all. . .
After the visit with my family, I met up with my tour group. The group consisted of 8 people, including me. There was a married couple from Gloucestershire, England in their mid-fifties, he a radiologist and she a geriatric care nurse. There were two friends from Nottingham, one a retired schoolteacher (60) and the other a psychotherapist (50). There was also a 20 year old Dutchman from Utrecht who had just spent three months student teaching on Cura�ao. He was very tan, and he was my room-mate for the trip. Our tour leader was an expatriate American from New Mexico, who has travelled all around the world, but has lived in Costa for over 10 years. The last person was also from Winnipeg, and I found out she lives only a few blocks away from me.
The next morning, we caught the public bus to the town of Manuel Antonio, on the Pacific Coast. There, I went for my first dip in the warm, blue Pacific Ocean. The town of Manuel Antonio is very close to Manuel Antonio National Park. The park serves as a sort of wildlife “island”. It is right on the coast, but it is surrounded by cultivated land. In a short time, we saw iguanas, capuchin monkeys, and sloths. This is in addition to the many spectacular vistas provided by the rocky coast, blue water, and surrounding forest.
After an overnight stop in San Jose, we took the bus to a small town. There we were outfitted with rubber boots and loaded onto a flatbed trailer for a trip to the Rara Avis Research Station. We had a long tractor ride to El Plastico (former penal camp), then a 1-1/2 hour trek through the rain forest to get to the lodge. We met interesting people there. The place is so remote that it doesn’t attract the mainstream tourists.
Encounter with the Medicine Man
Near Rara Avis, there is a spectacular double waterfall (i.e. two pools, one upstream from the other). There is also a tree house there, above the forest canopy, where Dr. Donald Perry did some of his work. His research on the plants and animals living in the rain forest canopy inspired the movie “Medicine Man”, with Sean Connery. Adventurous people can use special gear provided by a guide to climb the ropes up to the tree house, and even spend the night there, if they want. Rara Avis boasts the highest recorded rain fall in the world, at 10.5 metres. The three days we were there coincided with the peak of the dry season, so we hardly had any rain. It was still very muddy, though. We saw a lot of wildlife at Rara Avis. Assorted lizards, aricari toucans, keel billed toucans (like on the Froot Loops box), huge morpho and other butterflies, hummingbirds, anteaters, coatimundis (similar to raccoons) bats, spiders, parrots and vultures. All of this is surrounded by lush, humid rain forest, with exotic bird calls and insect sounds in the background. It was glorious.
Lindsay Berger behind an elephant ear leaf, near Rara Avis
After Rara Avis, we made our way to Fortuna. The skyline of that good sized town is dominated by the spectacular and very active Arenal volcano, the top of which was unfortunately in the clouds the whole time we were there. Nearby, there is a beautiful waterfall which made a nice half-day trip. There is also a resort at the base of the volcano built around the hot springs. The lush plants that surround the natural hot streams and pools, combined with the looming volcano, make it a truly remarkable place. Some of the streams are like natural jacuzzis, and are very relaxing. There is also a very good restaurant there, and several of the hot spring pools have swim-up bars.
From Fortuna, we also took a day trip to Los Chiles (3km from Nicaraguan border) for a boat tour of the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge. The ride was great. We saw sloths, iguanas, kingfishers, cormorants, a parrot snake, Jesus Christ lizards (the ones that run on the water), capuchin monkeys, howler monkeys, sleeping bats, and lots of fish jumping.
To leave Fortuna, we took a boat across Lake Arenal where we were met by a four wheel drive truck. This took us to Monteverde. One of the attractions of Monteverde is the skywalk park. This is a series of paths, and bridges between peaks and valleys. These bridges take you over the forest canopy of the valleys below, which is much easier than climbing trees.
We also went to the Monteverde cloud forest reserve. Cloud forests are at higher elevations and are often in the clouds, or shrouded in mist. The temperature is cooler than in rain forest or in dry forest. You will find slightly different plant life, birds and animals in the different types of forests. We saw lots of birds at Monteverde, and a few capuchin monkeys.
A butterfly silhouetted on a leaf in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve
An interesting plant in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve
Great truckloads of fish!
We left Monteverde by bus, and went to Tamarindo, our final destination. We took the ferry across the gulf of Nicoya and got there just after another spectacular sunset. Tamarindo is very popular with surfers, and I also noticed a few signs advertising deep sea fishing charters.
I love fishing so much, that I decided that I could not leave without going fishing. We waded out to a dinghy which took us out to the boat at anchor in the bay. It was glorious. I caught about 20 skipjack, a yellowfin tuna, a bonito, a needlefish, and the highlight was a dorado (mahi-mahi) The captain was more excited than us! It weighed about 30 pounds, and he said it was big enough to feed 15 people! It is a bizarre looking fish. It jumped out of the water several times. It is gold in colour, with green and blue flecks. We took it to one of the restaurants, and they prepared it for dinner for our entire tour group. It was delicious, and I felt very pleased with myself for providing dinner for our great group.
The next day, we took a 12 seat plane back to San Jose. I had one last dinner with my cousins there, and flew home the next morning.
It was a truly excellent trip, and I have to give most of the credit to GAP adventures. They created an interesting tour which gave a good overview of the country, and a wide variety of activities. There was enough to do to keep everyone active and interested, but there was still enough flexibility to do your own thing. I think that the transportation and accomodations that they provided were much better than I could have found on my own, and priced very reasonably. I would heartily recommend their tours. Costa Rica is just becoming a major tourist destination. It is not overcrowded. The people are very friendly to tourists, and there is a good tourism infrastructure in place. It is easy to find clean, inexpensive accomodations.
Costa Rica Facts:
- Costa Rica is in Central America, between Nicaragua and Panama
- The official language of the approximately 3 million inhabitants is Spanish.
- The national dish is rice & beans (gallo pinto)
- The weather is between 25 and 30 degrees all year round. There is no real summer or winter, just wet and dry season.
- The government is a democracy very similar to Canada. The entire government is replaced every four years. The country is very stable, and has no army.