Holiday in Costa Rica

14^th - 25^th February 2016

Itinerary: San José - Arenal - Monteverde - Playa Potrero

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15 February. Arenal. Left the San José hotel before 8 for the ride to Arenal. Good roads at first, then progressively bumpier and windier. Hotel was just outside of the town of Fortuna. The rooms were small villas dotted around the site. The room had huge picture windows, but unfortunately, the view of Arenal volcano was shrouded in mist. It's the first time I've ever had a flowerbed in a bathroom! The walk from the villa to reception went past a small lake in the grounds where one tree was full of white ibises roosting for the night.

16 February. Arenal. Today we went to see the hanging bridges about 17 km from the hotel. This involved a two hour walk through the rainforest over both metal footbridges and six hanging bridges. On the way we saw very little wildlife, but we did see a couple of toucans, three howler monkeys, an anole (a lizard), a hog nosed viper and an owl. It was a damp, sweaty, sometimes rainy experience, but fun. In the evening we went into town for a steak

17 February. Arenal. A trip to Río Frío, Los Chiles, Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge . It was a two hour drive and on the way we passed by a tree full of iguanas. At the river, we went on a boat ride. We saw many animals. In no particular order, we saw caimans, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, white faced monkeys and capuchins. There are two types of sloth there, two-toed and three-toed. We saw both. There were many different birds including anhingas, an owl and owlet, blue herons, wood storks, egrets and many others. We also saw an anhinga eating a tilapia. A good trip

18 February. Arenal. It rained heavily on and off all day. We had booked a zip line tour, close to the hotel. We arrived first and then a large party of elderly Americans joined us. We were driven up to the first line and then zipped down. The trek was split into two parts each of 5 lines. Between them was a Tarzan swing. I did it but Angie didn't. It's the closest thing I'll ever do to a bungee jump. It rained during part of the experience and we got very wet. The penultimate line was almost 500 metres. I wore a GoPro camera on my helmet and the videos are below. As it was wet, there were water droplets on the lens.

19 February. Monteverde. We travelled to Monteverde Cloud Forest, this involved a trip on a ferry across a lake. Boarding the ferry involved negotiating a steep, narrow, concrete path, with the suitcase. On the lake, the bow of the shipped dipped a couple of times and water came over and into the cabin. On the other side we had to climb a muddy bank to the 'road'. Luckily the cases were carried up for us. It was wet and blustery all day, but despite this we went on a night walk in the rain forest. We saw tarantulas in their holes, white thrushes asleep in trees, frogs, an olingo and various insects.

20 February. Monteverde. In the morning was a trip to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. It wasn't cloudy! We saw an agouti and a squirrel like creature almost immediately. During the walk we spotted a paralysed wasp on a leaf. We heard lots of different birds including the elusive quetzal and lots of humming birds. We finally saw a juvenile quetzal high in the canopy. Towards the end of the walk we found a pair of quetzals making a nest hole in a tree. The female was digging out the hole and bits of wood were dropping to the forest floor. The male, which had a long tail, was sat on a branch close by. Near the end of our time watching them, they swapped places. We then went back towards the entrance and on the way we saw some jays and howler monkeys. The afternoon trip was to a coffee plantation, where we saw how cocoa is refined. We had a short ride on a highly decorated ox cart. I ground some cocoa beans and this paste was mixed with sugar. It tasted better after the addition of the sugar! We then went to the Trapiche, which is a sugar mill. There we saw how sugar canes are crushed and the sugar boiled up. We then were given some of this liquid sugar, which we had to stir rapidly with a wooden spatula and it turned into a thick paste, which set into a hard lump. Not surprisingly, it tasted sweet. The final part of the tour was to see how coffee is grown and processed.

21 February. Playa Potrero. Another long and bumpy transfer to our final destination

22 February. Playa Potrero. Our final trip. This time we went to the Palo Verde National Park for another boat ride, this time on the Río Tempisque. We saw lots of iguanas and various egrets. The main reason for a ride on this river is to see crocodiles. The first one we saw was about 4 metres, it was on a bank. We saw another large, but smaller croc swimming in the river. A little later there were three, much smaller ones on a bank. Then we spotted a white throated capuchin on the opposite bank. After that we saw another and another. In all there were about 10 in the troupe including a juvenile.