Saying goodbye to our new favorite

14th to 19th March 2018 - Costa Rica

Cahuita National Park

After our sojourn in Panama we returned to Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica. Having been to the coffee plantation and the animal rescue centre it was time to hike some of the nature the area provided. Our first trip was by public bus out to the Cahuita National Park. You pay by donation to get access to an 8km long trek along the beach on one side and dense forest on the other. The wildlife was plentiful and we came across several sleeping sloths, a bunch of white faced Capuchin monkeys, and a sleepy Coatimundi resting on a branch with legs hanging on either side and looking up occasionally. Later on while eating lunch we came across a very cheeky Coatimundi that would not give up trying to sneak up and beg for our food. Obviously fed by too many tourists. We had brought a gluten free carrot cake and Elizabeth had to move away from him to finish her half.

A lovely hike

Full of amazing creatures

A cheeki Coatimundi 

The next day was supposed to be spent at the Bribri waterfalls, but the bus driver forgot to let us off at the correct stop and ended up at the town of Bribri. We tried to walk back to find the waterfalls but were unsuccessful. It was hot and eventually we gave up and caught a bus back. We never found them.

The next day we walked from our hotel back into town to catch the bus back to San Jose for a few days before catching a plane to Cuba. On the walk we saw an uncharacteristically active sloth, presumably down from the tree on its once a week toilet trip. His efforts attracted quite a crowd as seeing a moving Sloth is very rare.

Some more photos from Cahuita National Park and back in Puerto Viejo

We had a free day in San Jose and started it with a 3 hour walking tour, getting to know the town a little deeper. We then spent the rest of the day exploring on our own, soaking in the culture, enjoying the architecture and finished the day in the early evening at the Festival of Arts & Music in Parque Nacional. Such lucky timing and a lovely day filled with sights, smells, sounds and music to finish our time in the fabulous Costa Rica.

Pictures around town in San Jose

The Festival

Eco Bliss, Welcome to Costa Rica

National Museum

I was needing an environmental recharge with the lack of global action on climate change and the problems with pollution in our air and oceans. So with such good news over its renewable credentials and reputation as an eco tourist spot we decided to test out the hype over Costa Rica. Costa Rica hosts more than 5 percent of the world's biodiversity on its 25% of protected areas and 52% of forest cover. With a mix of hydro, wind, geothermal, biomass and solar power, it generates around 100% of the energy it needs using renewables.

We arrived in the city of San Jose and first impression was that it was clean but still a fairly standard South/Central American capital city. Long way to go yet though and will spend the next month exploring the four corners of this eco powerhouse. We didn't intend to spend a lot of time in cities so after checking out our options we found there was a volcano close enough for an easy day trip.

Pre-Columbian Stone Sphere

Music Festival

The scene when we first arrived

Volcano Irazu was an easy public bus ride that only left twice a day and came back twice a day. We caught the morning bus which took two hours on a fairly miserable wet foggy day. We arrived at the ticket booth in cloudy rainy weather and were given the option of staying there for two hours and save the $15 entrance fee. We were told it would be unlikely we would see anything. That option was very unappealing as the area didn't even have cover and we would be sitting out in the cold for two hours doing nothing, so we paid our money and went in.

Next choice was whether to go to the lookout at the volcano's highest point or have a close up look at the caldera. We decided on the caldera and started walking. Covered in cloud we were unable to make out anything significant but consoled ourselves that at least we were out and stretching our legs after the 36 hours on planes getting here. We continued following the track when over the course of about 15 minutes the fog almost completely lifted, the sun came out and we were delighted to find there was an actual volcano just below us, complete with lake in the caldera. It was an amazing view. We were gobsmacked at our good luck. 

Inside the crater once the fog lifted

The Lookout

We then took the lookout track to the high point at around 3,500m. It was a hard uphill slog, especially as my altitude issues started to kick in. Well worth the headache I had for the rest of the day with wide sweeping views over the volcano and the surrounding countryside. We also made it down and caught the public bus on time to make it back to San Jose. Well done Costa Rica, this is a good start. Well organised cheap public transport, clean air with amazing views, accessible volcano and virtually no rubbish. I am feeling pretty confident about the next month...