To be honest, I had expected to feel differently reaching Costa Rica. I think that because we had named the country as our most likely ending point, I was expecting to feel a sense of accomplishment, or of achievement, for having made it to the border. Maybe since we’ve been looking forward to Costa Rica for its reputation as being incredibly beautiful, friendly, and safe, I was anticipating feeling relieved or “at home”.
But that’s not how it felt. In fact, going into the country took nearly 3 hours of waiting in the heat of the day for an uncomplicated, just slow, process of importing the vehicle and buying mandatory insurance. Plus, as we hadn’t anticipated the length of the crossing, we hadn’t packed enough food to sustain us so we were hot, hungry, and annoyed. Once we were through and driving, we took a moment to appreciate that we’d just entered our 9th country, one that we’d been looking forward to seeing. We stopped at the first open restaurant we could see, refuelled, and continued to our destination.
The first thing we learned about Costa Rica was: don’t expect to get anywhere quickly. Although there are main roads (highways) in the country, they have a single lane, are very windy, and quickly switch between 80km/hr to 60 to 40 for school zones and back to 60. Our drive took us longer than expected. We followed google maps which led us astray so we ended up on a 35-minute detour. By the time we reached our rental place, it was bedtime. Sigh.
All feelings of disappointment dissipated with a good night’s sleep and a morning coffee looking out at the forest around the property and hearing the parakeets squabble about life. Our rental house was beautiful. It had a small infinity pool and was also part of a community development with a larger, amazing pool with epic views. We spread ourselves out, luxuriated in the air conditioning, and flip-flopped between pools and the close-by beach. We also saw three species of monkeys during our stay. Spider monkeys were in the trees near the property. Howler monkeys were often heard, but rarely seen until near the end of our stay when we spotted a family relaxing close to our road. At the beach, capuchin monkeys hang out by a restaurant and are not very shy around people. We got some great photos of these playful animals while they waited to see if we would feed them. We didn’t.
Our next house was situated just outside the town of La Fortuna, a very popular tourist town. It is popular for good reason; two volcanoes are close by, lovely waterfalls are plentiful, natural hot springs are everywhere, and a number of rivers have great rafting conditions. There is no shortage of things to see or do in La Fortuna.
We rented a place with enough beds for 9 of us because we were hosting some of our best friends from Canada who were flying in for a 10-day visit. The property had a number of pools including one that was filled with river water from the neighbouring river in which we could sit and cool off from the humid, sunny days. The grounds were full of beautiful tropical plants and trees and we often saw dart frogs and large toads as well as hummingbirds and butterflies.
The Sheppards were our first guests of our whole trip! We made sure to line up a bunch of activities so that they could get the most out of their time. First up, sloths!!
The Bogarin Trail in La Fortuna is a privately owned nature trail that stretches a number of kilometres through the rainforest. We paid to have a guide take us walking and are glad we did. He had a scope and was able to spot a number of sloths that we would have most certainly missed. We saw a mama and baby, two solo females, and a male. We also saw a toucan, a viper, and many “blue jean” poisonous frogs. When we spotted a line of leaf-cutter ants walking across the path, the kids all jumped into an explanation of their behaviours having learned about them in Mexico. It was heartening to hear. At the end of our walk, we were served fresh, cold pineapple, the freshest we’d had, and were offered one more treat. Outside the park grounds where the maintenance staff store some equipment, our guide spotted a red-eyed tree frog. This was the only quintessential tropical animal that we hadn’t yet seen up close. When he mentioned that he knew where to find one, I was so excited! Sure enough, he was curled up asleep on the underside of a large, green leaf. Our guide had him climb onto a stick so that we could all see his beautiful colours. Amazing!
Next up, a finca (farm) tour. Two doors down from our rental house was an organic farm that offered tours and a farm-to-table lunch. Our family had already taken a number of farm tours so we were not as excited about this tour, but it ended up being our favourite. The tour guide was very engaging and used the kids for almost every demonstration. He played guessing games, threw in sarcasm and puns (even though English wasn’t his first language), and made our tour a highlight of our stay. We learned about medicinal plants, local species of fruits, and saw many of our favourite fruits growing (like pineapple, mango, avocado, papaya, and bananas) on their respective plants. He had us squeeze the juices from a large sugar cane branch and offered the adults some sugar cane moonshine. Our lunch was spectacular. For just our group of 9, they made over a dozen different items to offer with the crops from the farm. We wanted to eat there every day.
Our last big outing in La Fortuna was epic. We all rode 12 long and fast zipline cables through the jungle canopy. Certain runs required the kids to ride with a guide but they were also able to ride a few solo. We really moved fast! One run started in the trees then broke out into a wide-open valley with a large waterfall. I almost forgot to brake as I was too busy staring at the falls and taking in the scenery. The icing on the cake was our horseback ride at the end. We rode about a kilometre back to the main building on very chill horses. Even the youngest of our group got to ride solo. What an experience! We packed up our stuff, squeezed into Chuck, and headed out of the rainforest and onto the beach.
The town of Jaco isn’t very large, but it is very developed. This is certainly a tourist destination with many hotels, hostels, and vacation condos. There are more restaurants and souvenir shops than one can visit in a week. Nearby are a number of adventure experiences, fincas (farms), and lovely, swimmable beaches. Having had our fill of (expensive) experiences, we choose Jaco for the beach!
The warm Pacific Ocean proved to be hard to resist. The kids (and the adult kids) couldn’t get enough of the fun waves and soft sands. We rented both surfboards and belly boards to try our hand at surfing. Some took to it very quickly, even riding waves to the shore on foot, while others just had fun trying to catch a wave at all. Molly found pleasure in meeting the many dogs that were out playing in the sand. The kids pasted the black mud-like sand on their bodies and proclaimed that it had healing properties and made their skin smooth. The “sandgineers” got busy building fortresses and aqueducts but found their efforts futile in this muddier and sloppier sand. We explored tide pools on the nearby rock cliffs and marvelled at the number of “salmon pink” seashells scattered on the beach. The sun was strong and the waves were fun and our time in Jaco disappeared quickly.
We did also manage to take a quick hike up to a lookout that was once a building of grandeur. It’s present form is solid but crumbled with many graffiti murals decorating the standing walls. We saw nature taking over the site including blue-jean frogs and some bats living in the space. The view of the coastline was lovely and we got a great vantage point over the town.
We didn’t know it at the time, but we ended up coming back to Jaco for a few nights before ending our Central American tour. The weather wasn’t as conducive to spending our days on the beach, but we made sure to get some final splashes in the warm ocean.
For Claire’s 11th birthday, we looked to see if we could find a pet store or a breeder with Pomeranian puppies, not because we were looking to buy a dog, but because Claire LOVES Pomeranians and keeps asking for one. As an early gift, we thought she’d love to spend a few hours with some puppies getting fluffy snuggles and wet kisses. With a bit of luck, we found a breeder in San Jose and so she was able to have two hours of Pomeranian bliss.
From Jaco, we drove south along the coast to the town of Quepos where we had found a large home with lots of bunk beds and a pool. We met up with another travelling family, one we’d met in Guatemala, and shared the cost of the place. We had three great days of playing together, swimming, BBQing, and checking out the nearby Manuel Antonio National Park. We saw some more wildlife, got chased by a large lizard, swam in the ocean, built some sand structures, and enjoyed a light lunch with a great view. The restaurant featured an old transport plane converted into a bar and restaurant. The balcony views were stunning and the food was pretty good too.
Our time with our friends passed by too quickly and we were, again, saying farewell and moving onward. Next stop: Panama!