Our trip to Costa Rica exceeded our expectations! We went with a company called Caravan and truly don’t know how they can offer so much at the rate they charge. Our group of 44, which consisted of 4 Canadians and the rest from throughout the US, was a congenial bunch of people mostly our age and older.
When we arrived in Costa Rica on Tuesday, Feb 8, we were picked up at the airport and driven to our San Jose hotel for dinner and an orientation meeting. I was especially excited to meet up with my sister Sandy who had flown in earlier from Pennsylvania. Our tour guide, an enthusiastic, fun-loving and knowledgeable guy named Jesus Toledo (can you say Holy Toledo – get it?) immediately set the positive tone for the trip. Jesus introduced us to the Costa Rican slogan pura vida which means pure life, or maybe a better translation would be life is good --- this became the rallying cry of our group. Several times a day we’d show our pleasure or approval by calling out “Pura Vida!” often accompanied by high fives and always with smiles.
On Wed, we awoke to an impressive view of San Jose.
After breakfast, we all climbed onto the bus for the 90-minute trip up to the Poas Volcano. We were very fortunate to have clear weather conditions which allowed us to see inside the steaming crater, one of the largest in the world.
From the rim, we took a 2-mile hike along the Escalonia Cloud Forest Trail. We were told that cloud forests are like rainforests, but with less rain and more humidity. This seemed to be the case because although it wasn’t raining, the branches were literally dripping with moisture.
Here are Sandy and I along an open part of the trail, with a tranquil volcanic lagoon in the background.
After lunch we visited a coffee plantation where we learned about the growing and harvesting process. There was plenty of coffee to taste. Bill and I loved it and decided to have some shipped home.
We spent a second night at our San Jose hotel, then left on Thurs morning to head over the Continental Divide toward the Caribbean coast. We stopped at a butterfly garden where Bill picked up a hitchhiker on his shoulder!
As we were getting ready to board the bus, someone spotted a 3-toed sloth high in the trees. We were excited to see our first exotic animal out in the wild.
Our next stop was at a processing plant on a banana plantation. A few interesting facts we learned: Bananas that are too large (top bananas) to meet the size guidelines are used to make baby food. The ones that are too small are fed to the cattle. To reduce the chance of damage to the bananas, they make their way through the plant by floating in large pools of water rather than along conveyer belts.
Before we left the banana plantation, we saw our first exotic insect: a rhino beetle. This thing was huge, as beetles go. One of the men in our group wasn’t afraid to hold it.
Our final destination for the day was Tortuguero National Park. There are no roads leading into the park; access is by boat or small plane. We enjoyed our 90-minute boat ride to the lodge where we were greeted with refreshing pineapple juice.
We would be spending the next 2 nights at this remote, charming location in the heart of the rainforest. Pura vida!
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