"Close Up with Nature" a Costa Rica Travel Page by ramblingrose

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A pre-Columbia replica? on the Pacific coast

How to Travel Around?

After reading a guidebook and volumes of information on VT I decided that renting a car during the rainy season on my first visit to Costa Rica was not a good idea. A decision reinforced by the fact that it would just be me and my mom traveling together and she doesn't drive or attempt to navigate outside the US. I've always shyed away from large tour companies and once again not having a male presence or first hand knowledge of the country or its customs I ruled out trying to contact a private driver. Fortunately, I hit upon Costa Rica Expeditions (crexpeditions.com). They offer small tour groups and customized itineraries. None of the pre-packaged tours fit our travel times or plans so with just a few emails I arranged a custom tour. From the pick-up to drop-off at the airport, they were great!

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large Jesus Christ lizard

Where to Visit?

With only 9 days, and 2 of those devoted to getting to and from Costa Rica, I decided on visiting just 3 areas. We visited Torteguero, La Fortuna, and Playa Tamarindo. Torteguero was amazing. I'm not sure if I could list all the wildlife we saw and hearing howler monkeys for the first time in the middle of the jungle was outstanding. We even saw a small Jesus Christ lizard walk on water (twice). The hot springs at La Fortuna were nice, we really enjoyed a zip line tour, and we even heard Arenal volcano erupt twice while there but the mountain top was covered in fog the whole time. All in all I would most likely skip La Fortuna next time. Playa Tamrindo was just the right blend of touristy and laid back to end our trip. The snorkeling was fun, the surf lesson challenging and the sunsets beautiful.

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banana loving iguana

The Locals

Overall, I felt very welcomed everywhere we went. Our transporation was always on time and the staff at all the hotels very effecient. Every now a then we would run into someone that you could tell was not looking forward to catering to one more person from the US, but that was rare and can be found anywhere (especially in the US!). It really made me wish I could speak fluent Spanish (or I suppose it would be Costa Rican) so I could not only be more polite but so that I could really get to know a few of the people that had already made my trip special.