Costa Rica has been a bucket list destination for a while now. We finally booked a 10-day tour to visit places that highlighted the lush landscape and diverse animals found in this tropical paradise. We flew into the capital of San Jose, then traveled to the Tortuguero National Park on the Caribbean coast. Next we visited Arenal Volcano and Monteverde Cloud Forest – both located in the central highlands. Finally, we visited Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific coast. Here’s a photo diary of what we saw during our travels.
Day 1: San Jose
Sights from San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital city. Our hotel was in El Centro and we walked to the central market, an indoor maze of food, spices, herbs, groceries, and of course tourist gifts. It was very colorful and we stopped for a delicious snack of guava and pineapple drinks, as well as the house special ice cream at La Sorbetera de Lolo Mora…family run there since 1901. On our walk back to the hotel, we passed by the National Theater which opened in 1897. We decided to buy tickets for the performance that evening: Rumos Ensemble (a trio of musicians) from Portugal playing Tocando Portugal. The music included traditional folk songs from different areas of the country with an interactive video playing behind the musicians. It was beautiful.
Days 2-3: Tortuguero National Park
The next morning we headed to Tortuguero National Park via bus and then boat.
On the way to Tortuguero: banana plantations
While traveling by road from breakfast in Guapiles toward the Caribbean coast, we passed by huge commercial banana fields owned by Del Monte and Chiquita. Bananas are one of the two major exports from Costa Rica (the other is coffee). The banana fields go on as far as the eye can see. The bunches are covered in blue bags to keep out banana predators (birds, bats, small animals) who love to eat them before harvesting…as well as helping them all of the bananas in the bunch ripen at once instead of one tier at a time. There is conveyor equipment throughout the fields to help workers take equipment and themselves into the rows of plants, as well as haul the bunches back for processing. In fact, our bus had to wait at several banana “draw bridges” crossings as the bananas were coming from the fields across the road and equipment was going into the fields. Del Monte even has its own small planes and runway near one of its main operation locations. Our tour guide said virtually everyone who lives in the area are employed by the banana companies.
On the way to Tortuguero: river cruise
Once we arrived at the river port, we transferred from the bus to a boat, as Tortuguero National Park is not accessible by roads or cars. Established in 1975, the park itself is a protected wildlife area and there are very few people living along the rivers. The few who live there mainly focus on eco-tourism, but we saw various fishermen and tradesmen along our ride.
Tortuguero village
Inside the park is the village of Tortuguero, which has about 1,200 people living there. With no cars, the village is on a rainforest-covered sandbar between the Caribbean Ocean and the river. Tortuguero’s beaches are a major nesting site for green turtles, which was one of the major reasons it became a wildlife refuge protected by the government in 1970. While we didn’t see any green turtles (wrong season for it), we saw plenty of other cool sights and animals.
Tortuguero wildlife
While in Tortuguero, we saw an amazing amount of wildlife. Around our eco-lodge and on a river tour. The Spider monkeys and Howler monkeys entertained us with their antics. Crabs dug holes everywhere in the rain-soaked dirt. Insects made a constant hum amid the rain forest. Birds were plentiful but not usually easy to spot. Here’s highlights of the many animals we saw while we there.
Days 4-5: Arenal Volcano and Fortuna
After leaving the beautiful Caribbean coast and Tortuguero behind, we headed to Arenal Volcano in the country’s highlands where we stayed in the town called Fortuna. Here we toured a rain forest jungle at the foot of the volcano (dormant since the 1950s), visited some relaxing hot springs heated by the volcano, had fun flying through the jungle canopy on ziplines, and visited Sloth Park in search of sloths who had remained elusive to us until this point. We also took a night walk to see frogs and other nocturnal animals.
On the road to the highlands
A few sights while on the road to Arenal Volcano. You’ll never have a lack of fruit in this lush country! Road side fruit stands abound.
Fortuna / Arenal Volcano
After arriving in Fortuna, we enjoyed a dip in one of many hot springs heated by the dormant volcano. The next morning, we went on a volcano hike, but due to a heavy downpour that kept us from seeing the volcano, we opted for a hike through the jungle mid-way up the volcano. There we spotted monkeys swinging from the branches. Afterward, Paxton and Maria had lots of fun gliding on zip lines through the jungle canopy. We ended the day with a visit to Sloth Park to see…sloths, of course! We went on a twilight tour so that we could see sloths as well as nocturnal animals like frogs and snakes. Amazingly, we found a 3-toed sloth who had come down to the ground to take his weekly poop, and quickly (as quick as a sloth can) headed back up the trees when he saw us approach. We also saw lots of colorful frogs, a toucan, several snakes and birds.
That’s it for this post. Next one will cover Monteverde Cloud Forest and Manuel Antonio National Park.