Costa Rica

This is the story of our trip to Costa Rica. Directly below is a time line. Below that is a list of photo albums on the site. Finally, the text begins (with pictures) and has links to continuation pages.

06May05 (Friday) Arrive Santo Tomas Hotel in San Jose
07May05 (Saturday) Highlights Tour
08May05 (Sunday) Self Tour around San Jose
09May05 (Monday) Arrive Hotel Martino Spa in Alajuela
10May05 (Tuesday) Arrive Montebello in Tamarindo
11May05 (Wednesday)
12May05 (Thursday)
13May05 (Friday)
14May05 (Saturday)
15May05 (Sunday)
16May05 (Monday) Arrive Coconut Grove in Dominical
17May05 (Tuesday)
18May05 (Wednesday)
19May05 (Thursday) Arrive Santo Tomas Hotel in San Jose
20May05 (Friday) Depart San Jose

Our trip to Costa Rica was wonderful. It has been hard (and time consuming) to put together a website for it. To make matters worse, after surfing over rocks and reef for two weeks and getting nothing but one little scrape, I come home and manage to get driven into a sandbar, breaking a $600 Surftech Epoxy board and severely spraining my knee. So keep checking in and the site will slowly fill in with our trip.

Our first day started a little haphazard. Our plane arrived very late so we arrived in Costa Rica nearly an hour late. After going through customs and immigration, we made our way to the front of the airport. Our hotel had a taxi meet us at the airport. If you have ever been to a developing country's airport, you know that they usually have dozens of taxi drivers at the door trying to get a fare. So I made eye contact with our driver (he had a sign that said, "Hotel Santo Tomas - O'Neal") and made our way outside. Drivers kept asking me if I needed a taxi, and I said I have one. They asked me what company and I said I don't know the hotel arranged it. They said what hotel and I said Santo Tomas. By that time I was kind of annoyed. Then two of the drivers said, "Come on, we'll help you find him," and began circulating around calling out, "O'Neal, Santo Tomas!" I felt bad, because I was frustrated with them, thinking they were trying to hustle me, and they were trying to help. We found our driver, a wonderful guy who spoke nearly no English. We packing our bags in the car, and the surfboard on the car's luggage rack. We then began our drive to the hotel. We drove onto the highway like Bill Elliot leaving the pits, and began aggressively weaving around other cars to get ahead. On thing I didn't notice about the luggage racks though. They were loose. As we drove, the front rack worked its way back and the surfboards began to loosen up and flip up like a giant dorsal fin. We pulled over and secured the boards once again, and our pale white driver began to finish our drive a little slower and more cautious. Which was fine for Carmita, who had her eyes closed since we left the airport. We arrived at our hotel, unpacked and got to the restaurant just in time to have a light dinner before bed.

Our second day started early, as we got up to meet our tour operators at the front desk. We were greeted by our tour operator, who informed us that we would be making two more stops to pick up three more tourists. All three were Germans, one of whom lived in Mexico. All three of them spoke perfect English and Spanish (as well as German). The tour guide (Alberto) spoke English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. The driver (Benito) and us were the dumb ones who only spoke one language well and a little of another. (At least we spoke a bit more Spanish than he spoke English). We all had a great time though. Our first stop was at the Doka Estate coffee plantation. Here we had a wonderful breakfast and coffee that brought tears of joy to our eyes. (If you've never eaten in Costa Rica, a "typical" breakfast consists of some or all of the following: eggs, gallo pinto (beans and rice), and fresh fruit.) Our next stop was the Arena Volcano. The walk to the rim was beautiful, but clouds obscured the view of the crater. Next we stopped off at the La Paz waterfall. The waterfall is one of several that are part of the La Paz Waterfall Gardens, and the only one you can see from the road.

On the way to "the Hummingbird Lady," we learned that Costa Rica - not Hawaii - is the world's leading pineapple producer. The "Hummingbird Lady" is the name given to an older lady who owns a soda (a soda is a Costa Rican term for a small restaurant that serves local food) in the mountains with several hummingbird feeders on the porch overlooking the valley and a view of a waterfall. We got to see several species of hummingbirds, a giant bettle, and sample cas. Cas is the name of both a fruit and its juice, which was wonderful.

Our next stop was the Selva Verde Lodge along the bank of the Sarapiqui River. We had a short walk along the jungle trails and spotted some interesting creatures. The first was the Jesus Lizard. You may have seen them on T.V. running across the top of the water. Ours seemed to prefer laying on a warm rock to running across the river. The next creatures were two varieties of poison dart frogs. One of which, the blue jeans frog, is only found in Costa Rica. We also found a trail on leaf cutter ants. We ate our lunch buffet over looking the river on the second floor deck of the lodge. We had chicken, rice and beans, green beans, tomatoes, and mango juice. For dessert they brought out coconut flan.

Our last real stop was to board a river boat and cruise up a river. Along the river we saw a big croc basking in the sun, a troop of howler monkeys, bats, and various birds. Our favorites were the bats. Hanging inline on a tree, when you get too close and they feel threatened, they begin to sway back and forth like leaves blowing in the breeze. Our trip returned uneventfully and we went to bed early to prepare for our next day.

Sunday we had a relaxing, slow day. We walked to a nearby butterfly park downtown. They had a large number of butterflies, as well as hummingbird feeders out front that had many visitors while we were there. We then had trouble finding a place to eat - most of the small places were closed and the hotels are expensive and not interesting. Our hotel recommended a place downtown that they liked and off we went. This place was very good, I wish I could remember the name, and it served hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. We went to the Museo de Oro - the Gold Museum. It was interesting but not nearly as breath taking as I had hoped. Still, well worth the trip. You cannot take pictures inside, so below is a link to a website with pictures.