Bree: Our nighttime walk was in fact fairly benign, although the prospect of walking around any forest with such a diverse and unknown lineup of animals in the dark was enough to make me uncomfortable. As we perused the beach in the dark, our headlamps glowing red, my eyes darted back and forth, worried we […]
Some tips for visiting Santa Rosa National Park: Do: Drive down to the beach even though the route in no way resembles a road. Drive a 4×4. No exceptions. This was easily the worst road we have ever encountered anywhere in the world and we visited during dry season. Hold your breath every time you […]
Only a few days remained in our trip and we were interested to spend at least a few days at the beach, so with our stomachs inadequately filled, our clothes wet and muddy, and the roads only getting worse, we set off down the mountain, past the “real” entrance to Rio Celeste, and on toward […]
Bree: We woke early, our tent folded into the hovering cloud sitting low on the mountain. We wanted to get an early start in order to be the first ones on the trail, but the ranger station wasn’t open on schedule. After some deliberation, we gave up and started hiking anyway. No one was around […]
With extreme motivation to see a caiman during our stay in Costa Rica, Bree and I decided to head north toward the Nicaraguan border in order to visit Cano Negro, a river which runs through one of the world’s most important wetlands as far as migratory birds are concerned. Attempting to route from our location […]
Though we’d been hiking for nearly five hours, it was still only lunchtime, so we headed south around the volcano for another typical lunch and a visit to the butterfly conservatory. There, we visited dozens of kinds of butterflies and finally saw a few of the glass winged variety still enough to capture them on […]
Early this morning, we piled out of bed and ate at the hostel, served by the kindest, non-English speaking host. Then, we darted out toward the volcano, hoping to get an early start on our hike. As we hoped, we were the first people to arrive in the park. We took the trail that […]
Finally feeling rested, we got a leisurely start on the road to La Fortuna. With slightly better directions in hand, we actually found ourselves on an established, albeit rough road. The going was quick by Costa Rican standards, and before long we found ourselves at the overlook, peering over Lago Arenal at the stately volcano. […]
Ben: We slept beautifully in our small, now cat-free territory. It seemed that Bree had made her statement against our crazy white friend. The same could not be said for Bree, however. The night brought a pretty stiff wind which gusted all night, flexing the timid frame of our tent and rattling the fly with a […]
Though I was exhausted, we hit the road as soon as I scraped myself out of bed, headed for the cloud forest in Monteverde. At first, the going was busy and sometimes a bit bumpy, but quick. We drove through dry pastures and forests, with many of the trees having lost their leaves due to […]
Our flights into Costa Rica were without event, and in fact, so mostly empty that we had space to stretch out as we traveled. The Hertz guy was waiting to pick us up as planned, and after a pretty good hour of trying to provide proof of our CDW coverage with our credit card, we […]
To celebrate the shortest day of the year and mostly to welcome in the now growing daylight hours, my family all humored us by coming over for a backyard bonfire. It too me a half hour just to shovel a walkway through the pile of snow out to our fireplace and another hour to get […]