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Alan's
and Sheila's Homepage
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Costa Rica
Vacation... |
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- In the first week of June we traveled to Costa Rica for summer
vacation. The Costa Rican rainy season begins at the end of May
and we did have concerns about traveling during this time, but
as you can see rain was not really a factor during our trip.
The few days that it did rain it only rained for an hour or so
in the late afternoon or at night.
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- A friend in the adventure travel industry with Natural
Habitat strongly suggested that we hire a driver/guide to
enhance our trip. While initially skeptical of the added expense,
we can unequivocally say that having a guide made a huge difference
in the quality of our experience. Without a guide we would have
missed nearly all of the wildlife that we encountered and we
would have missed out on learning an endless amount about the
culture, politics, and history of Costa Rica. Through our guide
we also met lots of local colorful characters in the various
towns that we visited - not too mention that we always ate at
the best local places.
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- Don't miss the Zip Lining Video!
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- Also see the condensed Costa Rica Vacation Highlights
photos: Activity
Highlights and Wildlife
Highlights...
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- Day 1 - Arrival and Ecocentro Danaus Preserve - We
took a midnight flight from Denver and landed in San Jose, Costa
Rica around 5:00 am. But there was no time to rest as we met
our guide, Eric, and immediately departed to the Arenal Volcano
area. After getting some ice cream at a road side market, our
first excursion was to visit the Ecocentro
Danaus Rreserve near La Fortuna. Ecocentro Danaus is a small
preserve with a series of nature trails and a butterfly garden.
There we saw a Sloth
and a number of species of birds, insects and frogs - including
the famed Red-eyed
Treefrog. Unfortunately the Red-eyed Treefrog is nocturnal
and he was not inclined to move much and thus did not expose
his brilliantly colored underside.
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- San Jose, Costa Rica
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- Three toed Sloth
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- Blue Jean Poison
Dart Frog
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- Boat Billed Heron
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- Red-eyed Treefrog
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- Brendan with our
guide Eric
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- Cayman Alligator
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- Agoutit
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- Day 1 - Arenal Observatory Lodge - After Ecocentro
Danaus we traveled to our first night accomadations at the Arenal
Observatory Lodge. The Obvervatory Lodge is the only property
located on the Arenal Volcano National Park grounds. In fact
it is located on a hill directly across the volcano offering
amazing Volcano views. The Arenal
Volcano is among the ten most active volcano in the world
and on a daily basis offers excitement in the way of grumblings,
explosions, ash columns and potential nightly lava displays (if
its clear enough to see). In 1968 the Arenal Volcano awoke from
a 400 year dormant period with a major pyroclastic erruption
that buried three small villiages including the town of Tabacon
and killed 87 people. The surving village on the other side of
the mountain was renamed "La Fortuna" for its good
fortune.
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- All the rooms at the Observatory Lodge are situated such
that they offer a full on view of the volcano from large sliding
glass doors. There is no airconditioning in the rooms and so
you will sleep with the windows open giving you a wonderful soundtrack
of nature to sleep to. Of course on this night, the Volcano exploded
with such force that the windows shook and it was a scary way
to be awoken in the middle of the night. The next day we discovered
that the explosion was large enough that it even gave locals
reason to pause.
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- In the evening of our first day at the Observatory Lodge
we took a small nature hike and with our guide's help we were
able to track and intercept a group of Spider
Monkeys making their way across the canopy. We watched as
a whole troup went by in their amazing acrobatic fashion. Spider
monkeys are the most acrobatic of the Central American new world
monkeys.
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- Arenal Observatory
Lodge
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- Leaf Insect
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- Room with a Volcano
View
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- Howler Monkey
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- Spider Monkey
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- Lake Arenal
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- Tiny Hummingbird
Nest
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- Day 2 - Arenal Observatory Lodge - We awoke to rain
in the morning, but it quickly gave way for the most part and
we decided to do a horseback ride through the expansive grounds
of the Observatory Lodge and the Arenal Volcano National Park.
It was the boy's first time riding solo on a horse and it was
quite fun. Brendan kept us amused with his high pitch squeals
every time his horse decided to pick up the pace. Afterwards
we went for a small hike to a waterfall on the property. We also
saw two varieties of Eyelash
Pit Vipers a small, but very venomous snake very common in
Central America and so named because of scales protruding over
the eye and resembling "eyelashes".
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- Colorful Eucalyptus
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- Yellow Eyelash Pit
Viper
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- Green Eyelash Pit
Viper
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- Day 2 - La Fortuna Waterfall and Tabacon - Later that
day we traveled to La Fortuna and visited the La
Fortuna Waterfall, a 210+ foot waterfall and adjecent swimming
holes surrounded by lush rain forest. Getting to the waterfall
required a pretty good hike down a long series of rocky steps.
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- After the waterfall, we checked into the Tabacon
Springs Thermal Resort and the kids spent the evening playing
at Tabacon's natural hot spring water pool.
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- Day 3 - Arenal SkyTrek and Hanging Bridges -
Our third day in Costa Rica featured a memorable Zip Lining adventure.
Zip Lining has become extremely popular here and there a quite
a number of zip line operations around the small country. We
opted go with Sky
Trek in Arenal which is puportedly the best. The Sky Trek
facilities looked very well engineered and features 11 cable
runs that offer specatular views of the canopy and of lake Arenal.
The longest run was about 1/2 mile and about 600 feet above the
canopy top! It is fast too as you reach speeds of nearly 60 mph
on some runs. (By the way, you can zip
line in Colorado too.) Don't
miss the video!
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- After an exciting morning of zip lining we headed off to
the Arenal Hanging Bridges
which is a series of suspension bridges that connect with trails
that wind their way through the rain forest. The bridges are
a great way to capture the full scope and majesty of the rain
forest and its massive trees and thick vegatation. Thanks to
our guide, Eric, we identified many species of insects birds
and reptiles, including lots of Leaf Cutter ants and another
Green Eyelash Pit Viper. The highly venomous snake was sunning
itself on a large leaf hanging over the trail - we passed right
under it the first time (as did all the other visitors) without
seeing it.
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- In the late afternoon, we finally saw the top of the Arenal
Volcano.
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- See the Video!
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- Leaf Cutter Ants
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- Eyelash Pit Viper
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- Russet Crowned Motmot
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- Top of Arenal Volcano
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- Day 3 - Tabacon Thermal Springs - After a day of adventure,
we relaxed all night at Tabacon's
thermal hot springs. The hot springs are a series of pools
and meandering waterfalls. We ate dinner at the swim-up bar and
spent the evening trying out the different secluded thermal pools
and falls.
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- Day 4 - La Fortuna School - As Central American countries
go Costa Rica is very well off and there is a very healthy and
modern middle class that lives in the larger cities such as San
Jose. However, there are still areas of relative poverty. Our
guide, Eric Gomez, allowed us to visit a school in a poorer community
in La Fortuna. This particular school we were told has a high
number of orphans and a large number of children from Nicaraqua,
the much poorer country to the north which has not enjoyed the
political stability that Costa Rica has. Eric works with the
school and helps to coordinate fund raising and volunteer efforts
to help them out.
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- It was intersesting to watch Ethan and Brendan react to the
excitement of the Costa Rican kids. It was good for them to get
some perspective and it was interesting to see how enthusiastic
the younger children were in the classroom about learning English.
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- Day 4 - Journey to Monteverde - After the school visit
we began the 4 hour drive to Monteverde which is a small town
that straddles Costa Rica's continental divide. The drive was
very scenic, not that the boys would know as they reclined their
seats and devoured a number of books. Along the way we got our
best view of a pair of Chestnut-Billed Toucans and spotted a
group of Howler
Monkeys including a small juvenille. The ride was also very
rough as the last 2 hours or so of the drive was on unpaved road.
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- It was raining as we arrived in Monteverde and pulled up
to the Hotel Fonda Vela
where we stayed for two nights. The town of Monteverde sits at
a high altitude of about 4600 feet above sea level and in this
region this gives Monteverde a spring like climate all year long.
Because its Monteverde, the pool was covered so despite the showers
we could still enjoy the evening pool side.
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- Chestnut Billed Toucan
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- Young Howler Monkey
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- Day 5 - Monteverde Cloud Forest - In the morning we
ventured to Selvatura
Park and the Selvatura Treetop Walkways. These are interconnected
suspension bridges that meander through the Cloud Forest. A Cloud Forest
is characterized by frequent cloud cover and the vegatation in
a cloud forest has adapted to removing moisture from the air
(although it still rains frequently). The Monteverde Cloud Forest
contains an impressive amount of organic material with massive
200 foot tall trees. There is so much organic material continually
falling from the canopy that plants grow on the trees themselves.
Some trees have as many as 150 species of other plants growing
on them -- making each tree their own entire eco-systems. At
the entrance of the walkways there was a hummingbird garden with
feeders featuring 14 different species of hummingbirds. They
were buzzing all around like insects and they are incredibly
fast and fascinating to watch.
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- In the late afternoon, we went the Monteverde
Cloud Forest Reserve where Sheila was adept at spotting the
famous and elusive Resplendent
Quetzel. This bird is the most sought after sight in Costa
Rica and if were not for our guide's knowledge of where to look
we would have joined those legions of tourists who failed to
see one. We actually saw two together - male and female. We also
got really close to a group of Howler Monkeys for some decent
pictures.
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- Howler Monkeys
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- Transparent Winged
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- Male and Female Quetzals
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- The Resplendent Quetzal
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- Day 6 - To Tamarindo - On day 6 we left Monteverde
and drove to Tamarindo Beach, a small beach side surfer town
on Costa Rica's Guanacaste coast. Guanacaste is generally drier
than the more southern Pacific Beach coastal areas. Thus we chose
Guanacaste over Manual Antonio for our beach portion of the trip.
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- The drive down from Monteverde featured some specatular views,
but stopping on the narrow busy unpaved roads to take pictures
proved difficult.
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- We arrived around noon in Tamarindo and said goodbye to Eric
our guide and companion for the past 5 days. Our accomadtions
were at the Hotel
Capitan Suizo located at the south end of Tamarindo and directly
on a nice quiet section of beach. It is a whimsical place that
may not be for everybody and there are resident families of Howler
Monkeys and Racoons on the grounds. At any moment a racoon or
monkey may causually stroll across the lobby. We did fight quite
a battle with ants that were getting into our room, a not uncommon
problem with all the insects in this region.
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- A View from Monteverde
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- Resident Poolside
Iquana
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- Resident Howler Monkey
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- Day 7 - Tamarindo - This was our first full beach
day at Tamarindo. The kids enjoyed boogie boarding and alternating
between the beach and pool. At night we caught a beautiful sunset
before the mosquitos chased us off the beach.
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- Day 8 and Day 9 - Tamarindo and Back to San Jose -
Our last full day at Tamarindo was surf day. We rented a couple
of boards and the kids did their best to try to surf on the very
small waves. Ethan got pretty good at it and got up regularly
and Brendan managed to get up once or twice as well. We pretty
much surfed all day minus a lunch break into town.
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- The next day we returned to beach and to the surf boards
until noon when we took a shuttle back to San Jose arriving in
a rain storm late in the afternoon. We stayed at the Hotel
Bougainvillea which was a bit far from the airport considering
were not going to spend much time there. But it was a very nice
hotel with extensive grounds and gardens.
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- In Town at Tamarindo
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- Bougainvillea Grounds
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