The Caribbean Coast

From Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui we headed for Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on the Caribbean Coast. We were told the best way to get there was to take a bus into San Jose and then bus straight out but we wanted to avoid messing around in there if we could which somehow ended up with us and a local family getting a private bus for most of the way.

Unexpectedly we ended up spending 6 nights here. If you're going to bunker down somewhere in Costa Rica here is as good a place as any. There's prime beaches, loads of sloths and a strong Rastafarian culture. It was like what I imagine being in Jamaica would be like. On our first night the owner of the Cabanas we were in showed us how to properly hand wash our clothes (she couldn't stand watching us doing it so badly). She was sure to include the importance of shaking your backside all around for not only exercise but to attract the opposite sex. 

High on our list of things to do was to visit the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica made famous by a documentary and series on animal planet. In Australia if we wanted to pick ourselves up after a rough day we would watch a video from that sanctuary so it was pretty crazy to actually be able to visit. Getting to see Buttercup, Queen Sloth, was like meeting a celebrity.  

Meeting Buttercup - the very first sloth of the sanctuary 

Buttercup reaching for Alex

So many adorable sloths!

As part of the tour we got a boat ride around a weird canal they had out the back. 

The best part of the boat ride was getting to see this guy doing his exercises

Just visiting the sloth sanctuary wasn't enough. The next day we got up early and walked to the Jaguar Rescue Center to see what they had going on. Turns out they don't have any jaguars but they had a variety of other animals. All the animals had been found by locals and brought to the rescue center, where they stay until they are well enough to be released. Some of them will never be suitable for a full release but they have their own part of some primary forest where they can let their animals run free. I can't remember the reason for all of the animals being there but I think the best story was a caiman that was found in a hotel shower when it was a baby and brought to the center. 

I never realised how adorable anteaters are. They're related to sloths. 

Still has his baby feathers

More Sloths!

Baby Sloth!

This is Toucy - the Toucan. Apparently he's pretty mischievous. He likes to run around the center biting people's ankles. He likes the attention. 

After our awesome tour at the Jaguar Research Center we decided to head towards Manzanillo, a small town on the coast about 12km from Puerto Viejo. There's regular buses between those towns so we figured we'd just catch one when it went past. We ended up accidentally walking all the way to Manzanillo! By the time a bus finally went by it didn't even stop for us. At times I was pretty grumpy about this - when I was tired of walking and when we waited in the bus shelter for an hour to go back to where we had come from, but I guess it was worth it because we found an amazing beach and look out and got to spot some sloths in the wild.

The Caribbean

The Road to Manzanillo

Wild three toed sloth 

After the day of walking we spent some days just chilling out. Mostly on our balcony because it rained all day. 

Our next port of call was San Jose, via white water rafting in the Pacuare River. We got picked up early in the morning and driven 2 hours to the meeting and breakfast spot. After breakfast we head out to the river. In the van we are informed that due to all the rain the Pacuare River is actually too high and dangerous to raft so we are going to be rafting another river for a shorter amount of time. The good news is you get $30 off your price.

Although we were pretty disappointed at the start we had an awesome time. The craziest part of the whole experience was pretty close to the start where we headed right into what looked like a crazy vortex of water. We went so vertical when we hit it that I was thrown into the middle of the boat (from the front). We are both pretty keen to give it another go.

The footage is a bit rough but I pulled some stills from the crazy vortex to give you a bit of an idea. 

This is what we were up against

That's me - sitting where I shouldn't be

After a hearty lunch we are dropped off in San Jose where we spend a few un-noteworthy days. 

Pura Vida

Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui

We weren't totally sure what we were going to do next but on the advice of Natu (Alex's Costa Rican friend) we ended up in the other Puerto Viejo - Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui. There isn't really much to the town here but there was some awesome wildlife spotting to be done in the area. 

We had one full day in Puerto Viejo and we filled it full of animals. First we visited Frogs Heaven, a bit outside the town. It's quite a sweet place in local biologist Jose's backyard. We ended up getting a private tour of the garden which included flora (tropical fruits and medicinal plants) and fauna (so many adorable frogs and heaps of birds). We turned up the same time as a group of mostly American photographers. After our private tour we got to hang out with the photographers and watch all the birds. It was pretty interesting watching them work, they'd set up little photo shoots of the different frogs and most of the time I had no idea what they were on about. They had some of the biggest lenses I'd seen, our guide estimated the value of everyone's kit put together to be about $250 000. Our guide even showed us a macro function on Alex's camera we hadn't realised was there, so we can thank him for the awesome frog photos!

Blue Jeans Dart Frog - I'd really been wanting to see one of these

Green and Black Dart Frog

Gaudy Leaf Frog

Glass Frog

Masked Smilisca

Fake Toucans (Collared Aracari) - They are Toucans, we just started calling them fake toucans because they aren't "The Toucan" 

Humming Bird - sitting still!

Black-cheeked Wookpecker - the first woodpecker I've ever seen!

After lunch we went on a cruise down the Sarapiqui River to try and find some more animals. We went with an awesome local guide, Rodrigo who had helped us get to Frogs Heaven (he even talked to the bus driver for us to make sure we got off at the right stop). We saw heaps of stuff on this trip - sloths, monkeys, iguanas, caiman, vultures, horses, and a few Jesuschrist lizards! At one point we even had local kids shouting "Gringos!" at us from the banks. 

Howler Monkey

Caiman - snapped this photo right before he slid down the bank back into the water

I think we saw like 20 different iguanas. They were everywhere.

Pura Vida

La Fortuna, Arenal

 The next stop on the Costa Rica tour was La Fortuna, the small town at the base of the famous Arenal Volcano. Arenal Volcano was spewing up lava on a regular basis until about 5 years ago which is why La Fortuna is such a big tourist attraction. People still hike up and around it though, but we opted out of this - we've been up a few volcanoes now and it was kinda raining most of the time we were there. Instead we were happy we got this one brief glimpse of the very top of the volcano. Apparently it doesn't happen very often. One of the staff members at our hostel went running around asking everyone if they'd seen the top of the volcano yet, so everyone piled out into the street to see the top for a fleeting moment.

Our first full day here we visited the Ecocentro Danus, a little wildlife reserve where we could add a few extra critters to our "Seen That" list. We walked about 3km in some light rain to make it there. This was easier than trying to figure out some transport.

There were flowers that I'd never seen before

I enjoyed the butterfly garden way more than I thought I was going to. We actually got to see some butterflies coming out of their cocoons! This was fascinating and terrifying. I don't know why but a lot of them seemed to be sick, they were just dropping out of their cocoons into puddles of their own liquid, jerking around until they died. I hope to one day see a healthy butterfly emerge from a cocoon.

This guy was struggling, a guide too him from the cupboard of cocoon (where they are all stored until they "hatch") and into the garden. When we came back to check on him he was gone, hopefully this means he eventually got his wings pumped up. 

Some of them got nice and personal

It was like watching a horror movie

Feeding time!

We enjoyed meeting some new birds

Even though I've seen heaps of squirrels now I still find them exciting.

On our second day we opted for a nice relaxing day after the big walk the day before. There are heaps of hot springs around La Fortuna thanks to Arenal Volcano. They range from ridiculously pricey resorts to free swimming holes. We took a middle option - $12 for an all day pass to a park with hot springs, cold pools and water slides. We ended up spending about 5 hours there, surprising ourselves.

On the way back from the hot springs we shared a taxi with a lady who had had 3 different tours cancelled on her due to the weather. This confirmed that we had made the right decision to sit in hot water all day. 

This sign was all over the park as a friendly reminder to not get carried away

Pura Vida

Monteverde

Our first port of call in Costa Rica was Monteverde. Only minutes after being in the town of Santa Elena we felt the totally different vibe that would be through out the country compared to the previous Central American countries we had visited. Costa Rica can be pretty damn expensive compared to it's neighbouring countries which can be pretty tough on the backpacking circuit and seems to take a lot of people by surprise. But you know, I think we should all stop complaining about it as comparatively Costa Rica also has a generally higher standard of living, so lets stop wishing people were poorer so we could have cheaper holidays. There's also perks like a lot nicer public buses (none of those Chicken Buses down here) and you can drink the water. YOU CAN DRINK THE WATER!

View from the Bus

The day we got to Monteverde we signed up for a guided night tour to check out some of the local wildlife. Since we got to Mexico we were expecting to see animals everywhere, but the image in our heads didn't quite match what we were seeing. You go on a three day hike you think you're going to see more than some birds and a cow! Costa Rica is making up for that, the wildlife here really is amazing, just how everyone pictures it.

On our slightly intense night tour (guide was constantly telling us to run to keep up with him) we saw our very first sloth! He was sleeping (of course) and literally swinging in the breeze. We also saw a few kinkajous (like a cross between a cat and a monkey), a green eyed frog, two types of toucans, a green viper and an orange kneed tarantula.

Two Toed Sloth (I like to call them Piggy Sloths)

Emerald Toucanet asleep

Green Viper - this is the snakes attack position our guide tells us and he leads us closer to take some photos

Orange Kneed Tarantula 

Day 2 was the Extremo Canopy tour. I've done some zip-lining before but I think this might be the best. The views were awesome and there was some unexpected adrenaline rushes.

This guy was hanging out outside the Canopy Tour office

Some of the awesome views during the ziplines

This canopy tour included more than just some zip-lining, there was also repelling, the superman (where you're attached to the line so you can fly through the air like superman) and the Tarzan Swing. The Tarzan Swing may be one of the scariest things I've ever done and hearing everyone's screams while you're lining up for your turn definitely didn't help! I'll let this video explain what it is. 

Day 3 we headed to the Monteverde Cloud Forest to see if we could spot some more animals. Much to our disappointment we spent about 4 hours trudging around and didn't see much at all. But what can you expect when there's hundreds of visitors all walking around the same paths? About 2 minutes after we got into the park we saw a Coati (or nose bears as we've been calling them) running across the paved area in front of the restaurant. When we later came back to that area for a break we saw two of them running around. I have a theory they're trained to hang around the front to get you excited before 4 hours of seeing nothing. 

But on the bright side the forest itself was pretty awesome, although I can't say much for the views - being in a cloud and all. If you ever make it here I wish you good luck with your animal spotting, some people do get lucky. 

The Coati who greeted us at the gate

What it looks like to be in a Cloud! This is actually the look out!

The hostel that we stayed at advertised having their own sloth that visits regularly so every day we would walk a little down the street to search the trees where we were told he hung out. Eventually on our last day we spotted him (only because I saw a huge group of tourists taking photos of something from our room).

The Local Sloth

We left Monteverde looking forward to the many more animal encounters we would be having around the country. 

Pura Vida