Days 30 – 37
Costa Rica was a chance to relax by the beach, see some exotic wildlife and see what this “Pura Vida” catch cry was all about. It was our first taste of Central America.
A quick seven days around Costa Rica’s Pacific side: San José to Monteverde to Manual Antonio and back to San Jose
Our view from Hotel Belmar, Monteverde…
Pura Vida = translates from Spanish as a pure life but for Costa Rica it represents a way of life that welcomes a simple lifestyle, celebrates good fortune, and encourages you to take things in your stride.
Our mission to see a sloth the wild was also successfully fulfilled.
We also did some unexpectedly risky things.
Day 30: Things to do in San Jose: not a lot!
Feb 24, 2025
We had had the transit day from hell before arriving in San Jose; a flight from Manaus at 3.30am to Panama City then a very tight connection running from one terminal to another in twenty minutes. Turned out there was also a time zone change so we landed mid morning and couldn’t check in to our hotel for about 4 hours. So we got to know the city pretty quickly and soon found out there isn’t much to it. A beautiful theatre built in the late 19th Century, a long pedestrian mall selling all manner of tacky crap and a much more interesting Central Market which we enjoyed wandering for a while. After a much needed afternoon nap at Hotel Presidente, we walked in the completely wrong direction in search of a restaurant and bar district called Barrio Escalante; map reading is not my strong suit but more on that another time! The district was worth walking double the amount of time actually required and we enjoyed a meal and a couple of drinks at Jardin de Lolita.
Days 31 – 32: Monteverde
Feb 27 – 28, 2025
After 24 hours in a noisy, grotty, bustling city (we had a persistent vendor playing a recorder intermittently outside our window whom we came to loathe) we were really looking forward to the tranquility of Monteverde. This is a unique cloud forest renowned for its diverse ecology and microclimates. It was a very long drive despite not actually being many kilometres from San Jose – their roads and traffic are terrible so everything seems to take twice as long as it actually should. As we pulled into the Hotel Belmar high up in this mountain village it provided exactly the solace we were after.
Our first discovery was these adorable small capybara-like creatures called agouti which were fossicking through the gardens. They were very cute so I may have spent an inordinate amount of time looking for them and watching them eat which was even more adorable as they held little nuts in their paws and gnawed loudly.
Monteverde Cloud Forest
The next morning we were picked up and driven to the private Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve – I was surprised to learn it is a privately owned reserve rather than a national park and was founded by a group of Quakers who had fled America in the 1950s to escape being drafted during the Korean War. As soon as we arrived there was a frantic energy and many guides running towards something in the trees by the entrance. Turned out they were all looking at a very rare Quetzal bird which is endangered in Costa Rica. It was pretty hard to see but I did get one brief shot of it and it’s pretty glorious to look at with beautiful turquoise blue and red feathers and a very long tail. Look closely below!
Our guide was so enthusiastic so he had us following along in awe as he spotted the tiniest and most obscure things which we would never have seen if we had walked through the forest by ourselves. He also had a very cool and powerful spotting scope to look at everything. The best thing which he pointed out was a tiny fungus which had paralysed an insect on a tree – go figure! He also showed us a tiny but amazing lizard on a leaf, hummingbird nests, three different types of monkeys (a white faced capuchin, a spider monkey and a howler) and an ‘upside down tree” which was actually a tree that takes over a host tree from above and then completely destroys the internal tree so essentially its roots are in the air and its canopy on the ground. It was a very enjoyable morning and our guide Oscar’s passion was contagious.
The afternoon was spent doing something I really didn’t think I would have the nerve to do – zip lining! Glenn convinced me it was a “once in a lifetime” experience for us to zip line through the cloud forest on cables up to 328 feet tall. I felt very, very nervous to say the least. The first “practice” run was terrifying enough and I almost talked myself out of doing anymore after that. Terror is an interesting thing! I did a lot of self talk to stop myself screaming at full throttle as I sailed across the canopy at incredible speeds and tried to rationalise the sheer drops and the buffeting winds. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience as I won’t be doing it again but was pretty proud I lasted the full 7 ziplines in one piece. The guides were really kind and reassuring; the equipment and especially their specialised braking system did make it feel relatively safe after a few goes.
Day 33 – 36: Manuel Antonio
March 1 – 4, 2025
We spent a very long day driving from Monteverde to Manuel Antonio, situated on Costa Rica’s southwest Pacific Coast. I still couldn’t get over how long everywhere had taken to drive – what looked like a 3 hour trip on Google Maps actually took close to 6 hours as roadworks on their one lane coastal roads seems to clog up everything. The pictures online made this look like an absolute beach paradise but being the very biased Australians we are, the beach was lovely but certainly not the most beautiful beach ever seen as some of the reviews made out. The beaches were a bonus because what we were really here for were…SLOTHS! Our research had said the Manuel Antonio National Park was one of the best places to see both kinds of sloths in the wild. Now that was going to be something I’d never seen before.
I was a little disappointed at first that our hotel, The Falls was not facing the beach but soon became charmed that it was actually built into the edge of a jungle so we had lots of lush tall palm trees, birds and lizards (one iguana scared the bejesus out of me en route to our small hillside cottage!). The hotel also had some resident agouti which have become one of my new favourite creatures. It also had a lovely pool and a cheap happy hour! The only downside proved to be that it was at the top of a very, very steep hill down to the beach – we did the walk once and decided pretty quickly that the next trip was going to be via the local bus which at 350 Corones was a bargain!
A tour through Manuel Antonio National Park
We had an early start for our visit to the National Park which almost got waylaid by a terrible accident with a motorcyclist that had happened on the treacherous hill down to the beach. The road was closed and our guide came to tell us that we wouldn’t be able go but then came back 20 minutes later to say the road had re-opened and the tour was back on!
The Manuel Antonio National Park is very, very popular and there were hundreds of people already lining up at the entrance ready to go in. It’s not quite the tranquil natural experience you expect for such a place and at times the crowds were a bit much. Again, we had a very enthusiastic naturalist as our guide who did his best to make me interested in tiny insects, bats, lizards and birds but today was all about the sloth so he was barking up the wrong tree (literally!) trying to build my excitement over all a crab – see below.
Eventually my sloth sighting came to fruition three times – we saw a three toed sloth twice and a two toed sloth once. The three toed version is what is most recognisable with its adorable little smile and the two toed one is like a giant mop/Chewbacca so a little harder to make out high up in the tree but hopefully you can see below.
The protagonist of this story is this guy though – he was wedged between a branch very high above us but had his best face turned our way so it made my day! He may not do very much but they are such intriguing animals and to see one in the wild was a special treat.
