Costa Rica - one last country

When we planned and completed our round the world trip, earlier this year, there were several places that we just had to leave out.  Whether due to wrong time of year, bad itinerary and connections or just too long to be gone, Costa Rica was one that was left out.  

We could have planned a whole separate Central/south America trip, but I wasn’t up for the planning or the expense!  Maybe I’ll start working on that one for a couple of years down the road.

 

Over looking part of San Jose

Tom and I really wanted to get Costa Rica in this year, especially him for the bird counts.  We put it all together with help from AirTreks.com.

So here we are in Costa Rica. We arrived late on Friday night, and by the time we figured out the shuttle service for the car rental place wasn’t going to happen, got a taxi there just before they closed, discovered that our recently switched cell phone plans to cover us while here, absolutely do NOT work, and the GPs system here doesn’t use addresses like we’re used to in other parts of the world, got to our first Airbnb, without too many other issues, it had been a long day! All part of the adventure, right?

We’ve put together a 3-week itinerary of many different places, the highs up near the volcanos and cloud forests, the midrange, and some by the shore to see as many birds as possible. We will be staying in 10 different accommodations –   hostels and Airbnb. We’ve rented a car, and our first stop on Saturday morning was to head to Walmart to pick up a cooler, ice and provisions.  PBJ’s and sandwiches, a box of cereal, and toast for breakfast.  We’ll figure out the rest as we go along.   

We headed north out of town towards the Vulcan Poás. Some cursing at the GPS was involved as we figured out that we really should have been on a different road. We have seen very few highway signs and NO street signs/names, so the GPS is invaluable in that regard. We did our own rerouting and had a nice day, basically driving around the volcano to get to the west side of it to Bajo del Torres and our Airbnb accommodations, up a 4WD road, across two creeks, and ta- da!

  

We spent the day on the way there stopping when we could and admiring the jungles, clouds, waterfalls, and birds.

 

Oh look! Where Starbucks coffee comes from!

Perhaps this is "Juan's" Uncle?

The road to our place was not your average road.  It was suggested that we have 4wd to make the trip. We did make it up there without any issues. Rock by rock and creek by creek!

On our full day here, we wandered around the property and wandered back down the road.  Tom has found over 25, or more new birds and I’m finding critters and flowers.  The weather, while very rainy for most of the morning, cleared off nicely allowing us to wander.

A blue moth

A cool blue, and very quickly moving beetle, 

another blue and yellow winged insect,

and a fuzzy caterpillar.

The clouds cleared off enough for us to see some little bits of blue sky, but also the west side of Vulcan Poás.

These were taken about 10 minutes apart.

That's ash on the left, part of the volcano.

and then the clouds settle right back in.

The roads that we've been on so far are good, for the most part. There have  been a couple of places that the roads were terrific, and in really remote areas.  Some of them are 'sport car' roads!!! They don’t have a lot of pot holes, but the ones they do have are pretty impressive!  No shoulders, so again there’s a certain frustration level on not being able to stop and pull over.  And since it's the rainy season, the wet grass shoulder is usually 6-inch deep muck! However, this is a Latin country – so, if you need to stop, one does.

  

Distances between our stops and overnights has been planned to be not many more than 2 hour runs, but because we like to stop and look we figure they will be 4-5 hours.  We have discovered that the twisty, windy roads tend to slow you down just a bit.  But, Costa Rica is a small country, and we’ve done a lot of driving this year, so we should be fine. Stay tuned for more of our Costa Rica adventure.

I think we’ve got Wi-Fi in most of our stops, so I’ll be attempting a blog or two along the way. Be sure to check back to see how the trip is going!

Sales Pitch: For all of our trips this year, we’ve used AirTreks.com as our go -to source for flights and other travel needs.  If you’re planning a trip ANYWHERE, international or local, give them a call or check out the easy to use website.   You do as much planning and research as you want, then set up a short appointment with one of the reps.  They will answer any questions regarding connections, timing and even suggestions on how to coordinate or perhaps even add a stop along the way that you hadn’t thought about.  (That’s how we ended up in Doha visiting our friends!) Once you’ve done that, you can schedule a longer ‘finalizing’ appointment, if you need it, or purchase your tickets after the first one.  You’ll get helpful email reminders and great follow through.  The customer service with this company is fantastic.  Be sure and mention that Tom and Jeanne sent you!