We arrived at the border to enter Costa Rica at about 7pm. Evidently that is not a popular time to leave Nicaragua or enter Costa Rica because we were the only travelers in both immigration offices. Because of the timing we couldn’t make it all the way to Liberia as hoped, so we took a taxi to and stayed in La Cruz, a small town 20km from the border.
I found Ticos (Costa Ricans) to be extremely friendly during my last trip here and that was reinforced almost immediately this time as well. We chose our accommodation, a homestay, in the taxi ride from the border but after getting dropped off with our full complement of backpacks in a small quiet neighborhood, we found the property, except for 2 very large and seemingly unfriendly dogs, to be completely quiet. A neighbor that was sitting on his front stoop saw this and after trying to assist us there, walked us a couple blocks to the closest open hotel.
The next day we took a couple buses and arrived in Tamarindo. The objective here, after three days of hectic, uncomfortable travel was to see me get sunburn on the beach during the day, and see baby turtles hatching on the beach at night. We got neither. During the days I used a little too much sun screen (how am I supposed to get tan) and at night it was only turtles coming up on the beach to lay their eggs. Not a bad consolation prize. A tour/guide was required for the turtles and we spent about 1.5 hours on the beach and saw a few turtles come up onto the beach, lay their eggs, cover them up, and escape back into the ocean. No baby turtles however as it evidently was too early in the season for the baby hatchlings in Tamarindo.
Tamarindo is a beach town on the northern Pacific coast. It is very much a tourist town with a significant amount of real estate owned by foreigners, especially Americans. Signs are in English just as much as Spanish and there is absolutely no need to speak Spanish. For this reason I thought I would hate it. I didn’t. It was your typical tourist dominated beach town you’ll find in any foreign country but it was the beach town we needed at the time, to recharge.
Our next stop was also a beach town that seemed like a mini Tamarindo named Samara. A little further south along the Pacific coast, Samara wants to be Tamarindo but just doesn’t have the infrastructure yet. Only some of the signs were in English and speaking Spanish definitely helped (clarification: I still can’t speak Spanish worth a damn but Sonja has learned enough to get by). The draw here was to see me get sunburn on the beach by day, and baby turtles hatchlings by night. We got both, kinda. I got slightly pink which eventually turned enough color that I can proudly say I am no longer pasty white, and we saw about a dozen baby turtles after they hatched as they crawled and found their way to the ocean. As a bonus we saw another mother lay her eggs and make her way back to the sea.
Having seen our turtles, the next morning we started our 12 hour, 5 bus journey inland to La Fortuna, the only place in Costa Rica we planned to go that I had visited previously. My last La Fortuna trip was cursed with rain and clouds, so much so that I barely saw Volcano Arenal, the large volcano that looms over the town. So, on our first day we hiked near the base of the volcano and when we arrived at the viewpoint, clouds, mist and rain meant,…we couldn’t see thirty feet, let alone the volcano that supposedly was out there, somewhere. Those clouds and rain stuck around for the rest of our time in La Fortuna so unfortunately now, after my second visit to La Fortuna, nothing has changed, I can’t say I’ve seen volcano Arenal.
Although we struck out with sunshine (not uncommon this trip unfortunately) La Fortuna did provide us the ability to accomplish our Costa Rican wildlife viewing goals. On our third day we visited Rio Celeste, a river that because of pH levels looks turquoise when it’s not raining (see where this is going?). Yes, after hiking to a few spots within the national park the usually turquoise water well, wasn’t. Actually when we got to the beautiful waterfall all we could really see was the pouring rain that was bombarding us for a good 30 minutes. But, after the hike and the rain cleared, when our tour van was driving to lunch, we spotted a baby sloth in a nearby tree and watched him actively climb around. Also once at our lunch spot, I saw my first wild toucans as they ate the fruit from a papaya tree (something I really wanted to see during my first trip here but did not).
The next day we did a twilight tour in a forest to spot wildlife and saw a couple sloths, a very unique and co!orful bird, a bright green lizard, and some extremely colorful frogs; bright blue and green with orange feet and red eyes, and bright orange with purple legs. These small creatures were definitely the big highlight of La Fortuna.
From La Fortuna we headed down to San Jose and then on to the Caribbean coast, to a town named Cahuita. It’s a small town maybe 6 blocks long and three blocks wide and seemingly is there only because it borders the entrance to a national park. Just like the hostel we stayed in, Hakuna Matata, it had a chilled relaxed vibe. We spent two full days walking the path and beach of the park and thoroughly enjoyed it. The path winds through tropical jungle and onto the parallel beach that was never more than 20 feet away, where waves crashed up onto the sand. In the jungle we saw lots of monkees, a snake, a long nosed animal called a coati, and when we decided it was time to queue the toucan and sloth, we saw them as well.
Cahuita was a great place to end our Costa Rica visit. It provided tropical jungle, beach, and wildlife, everything you want from Costa Rica. After, we headed back to San Jose to catch our flight to…Colombia and Sud America.
Life is good! Pura Vida