For the Love of Costa Rica

Traversing beauty, wonder and climates in Costa Rica

As we are instructed to turn off our flash lights, the darkness becomes deeper and blacker than ever before. Sound becomes our primary sense; suddenly hyper tuned to each and every droplet making it through the rainforest canopy.

Seconds pass, feeling like days, as every cricket or thrumming echoes louder between trunks. The damp breeze tickles the hairs on my neck. Leaf rustling stirs my attention into another area of darkness - how far I have twisted to see doesn’t matter - I could be lying down for my peripheral visual awareness is non-existent.

The rain forest is alive, and I am taking it all in.

Leaving the faux Spring of Toronto and landing to evening heat in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, is enough to keep the nervous system ticking on after the working week (and part-weekend).

It is only for one night that San Jose is home, with a short morning’s worth of exploration enough to try and acclimatise to tropical climate and enjoy the sense of freedom travel should afford.

With little time to truly take stock of San Jose, there’s enough time to get an appetiser for the combination of vibrance and nature the safest country in central America has to offer.

It also gave plenty of opportunities for capturing sexy-looking trees.

If internal transfers are your thing, I think you should give this a go.

After a couple of hours winding through mountain passes in the pouring rain, separated by squeaky windshield wipers, the single lane roads twist and turn through lower agricultural land stretching banana plantations out all the way to east coast.

With the body starting to feel the effects of the tone down dial being twisted towards ‘off’, a trip over a sleeping policeman at speed did the job in keeping me awake. But it was the next part of the transfer that left me gawping in every which direction.

The mud bank boat launch with suitcase was the gateway to a wild boat connection that banked and swayed downstream to Tortugeuro.

An hour propelled by single outboard half a foot off the surface of the water was not what ‘ferry connection’ registered as in my head. But, potential misrepresentation aside, arrival at the lodge on Tortugeuro confirmed one thing; humidity.

Despite losing a couple of kilos unpacking my suitcase, one thing came as a big fat sweet bonus to the humid environs.

Be it on water or land, you are among the wildness of the Caribbean coastline. Eight feet rollers crash in on the beach and Cayman lie submerged in the canal, just a couple hundred meters away. Howler monkeys call at 3AM and Vultures soar above the treetops.

You can drift down the canopied canal system spotting Jesus Christ lizards and venomous spiders, quietly to avoid waking a Count Dracula Heron from its slumber. You can also just pop for a beer in the town of Tortugeuro.

With the only way in and out via boat, the trip back upstream takes one of patience and skill - something the young captain manages whilst simultaneously scrolling through Instagram. Thankfully there was no ‘doom’ involved.

Another bus inland and slightly higher than sea level to join up with the Saripiqui River. The humidity sticks, the heat lessens and the rainforest becomes even more intimidating.

It’s guided nature hikes in private reserves that bring the natural world up close and personal. Everywhere there is something to see, you are among it, part of it.

Just sitting and watching - sometimes with a cocktail - becomes a very easy way to pass the hours. A far cry from the booms, grey and frantic pace of the city.

Swinging away from the dense forest further inland to the city of La Fortuna. After the tranquility of Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui a small city like La Fortuna (by North American standards anyway) livened the senses in a very different way.

Meeting with the spine of Costa Rica brought the journey closer to volcanoes and the wider mountain range.

None compose more delightfully than Volcano Arenal.

If you’re fortunate enough to see the top, make sure you capture it. A blanket of cloud can often be perched atop Arenal.

But while it is tempting to spend the time looking up, it’s worth heading down to cool off in one of Costa Rica’s many waterfalls. Just make sure you can make it back up again!

With jelly legs and a light head, another bus - boat - bus transit to shortcut the route across Lake Arenal along unsurfaced, single track roads across rivers, bridges with no barriers and overlooking sheer cliffs.

The journey is necessary to reach Monteverde and the cloud rainforest.

Views span across and down towards the Pacific coastline. Green becomes increasingly brown. White trees start to appear more frequently.

The heat and haze is very much in the distance though, the cloud rainforest does what it says on the tin. It’s cloudy and misty, wet with cooler breezes swaying the topmost branches.

Sunsets benefit from the unrestricted sky views and increased cloud cover.

Book-ending a trip to a new country with two coastlines interesting. Doing so with such a variety of climates along the way is fascinating and provides perspective. The shift from heat and humidity, through sweat rainforest to mountains, cooling clouds and back down to the arid heat and dryness.

My binoculars were also a little out of place on the beach resorts of the Pacific coastline…

Thank you for stopping by and reading! Let me know if you have been to Costa Rica…