We booked our thanksgiving trip 2015 to Costa Rica. Planning this was a lot of fun especially since we were looking for all activities that would allow both our 5 and 8 year olds!
anywherecostarica.com was a wonderful website for reference and tripadvisor reviews helped pick hotels and guides.
We had 5 days and 4 nights...so picked Arenal (Los Lagos Spa and Resort) and Monteverde (Monteverde Lodge and Gardens) with focus on rainforests and volcanos. This would mean that like many other places we said we would visit, we would visit Costa Rica again for Gunacaste or Manual Antonio or Tamarindo, featuring beaches and turtle viewing...some other day!
We had a flight from Newark at 7am in the morning. We decided to spend the night at Viviktesh's (my cousin) new apartment. We left after Arya's first Bharatanatyam recital and soaked in views of Manhattan and NYC, enroute and from his apartment terrace, before retiring for the night!
Day 1: Nov 23 2015...NJ, USA to Los Lagos Spa and Resort, Arenal, Costa Rica
Left Viviktesh's apartment early next morning close to 5am and had an uneventful flight watching Inside Out followed by San Andreas! Per our original plan we had pickup at 12:30pm from airport and transport to hotel in Arenal- Los Lagos hot springs resort!
Anywhere Costa Rica greeters were there for us, as expected. Long sleeved shirts we were wearing suddenly felt like a lot of clothing and needless to say, jackets were tucked away promptly! Costa Rica reminded us of India...We were greeted by our courteous driver Marcos:) Before we left for CR, I was hoping to do something this day instead of a ride to hotel only- conversations with Anywhere Costa Rica had proved futile! Marcos suggested that for $80 additional amount, we could take a trip to Poas Volcano. We were delighted! A quick purchase of ice creams were made, and Marcos said that we would stop for lunch enroute instead of eating at the airport.After sitting in a traffic jam for 20 minutes, we were second guessing our decision...we did see City Mall -the largest in South America. Kids meanwhile, enjoyed their icecreams sans carseats!
Our driver was Marcos...a sweet guy who had 3 kids and stayed near San Ramone! We requested a stop for lunch...Marcos took us to this awesome place called El Mirador- literally means The View! We had a fantastic view as we lunched - San Jose, Alajuela and Heredia. Lunch consisted of soup, rice and beans and veggie noodles. After a scrumptious lunch, we started our journey toward that volcano, wondering if the clouds would clear for us or not! Just as we mentioned to Marcos that a roadside coconut water would be great, we spotted a vendor. We enjoyed this drink with views of coffee plantation and fresh breeze!
Volan Poas disappointed us but we decided to make the best of our detour decision by stopping at small villages and shops along the way....the best bean empanda I have enjoyed was served at a small local restaurant aka "soda" by the name of Donya Ali...here we also had our first cup of Costa Rican coffee and homemade nachos! As we quickly realized, Costa Rican food was very different from Mexican food...flavorful and not spicy at all and with plentiful vegetarian options :)
We stopped at La Paz waterfall and enjoyed a strange fruit hand peeled by the vendor...After eating a lot of those fruits, hand peeled by the street vendor, I silently prayed that this does not cause anybody to fall sick- afterall this was our first day and purchased a souvenir for our home instead! This poor guy had set-up his small portable shack and lugged all these knick-knacks...he did not speak a word of English and we barely managed to pronounce "No hablo español" accurately, yet with hand gestures we communicated and settled for 9000 Colones or $18...Arya said "Mommy next time we visit, maybe we think about some basic Spanish lessons before the trip"! Note to self- start listening to those Spanish language lessons:)
Rest of the ride we stopped to take pictures and learned a lot from Marcos about the life of Costa Ricans. He gave us a few pointers for our road trip back to SJO airport and those did come in handy on Day 5. Thanks to Marcos we had our first wildlife sighting...Howler Monkey on a tree along the road...we enjoyed this stop a lot and also kids got an opportunity to use our binoculars and master the art of quickly spotting the object of interest, in this case, it was a monkey! This skill was put to use over the next 4 days...a lot!
We were dropped off at the hotel around 8pm or so and dinner naturally consisted of something we had on hand- homemade theplas. Kids enjoyed the spacious hotel room and played with a sock that was eventually lost in the room...many giggles and laugh at the expense of that one lost sock!
Day 2: Nov 24 2015...3 in 1 tour (Float trip, Volcano Hike and La Fortuna Waterfall, including lunch at a local Costa Rican family) + Hot Springs
We woke up to a great sunrise view from our backyard...we sat there enjoying our morning cup of coffees and just being thankful for this wonderful day!
Our pick up was from Los Lagos at 7:40am. We changed into our swim wear and headed to the hotel buffet breakfast. A quick note on why I picked this hotel- The tour price for a 4 in 1 tour including Hot springs and dinner was approx. $400 more and I figured why not then book a hotel that has Hot springs for the difference...turned out to be a great idea!
We enjoyed our awesome breakfast, took a few pictures and met our guide William and our driver Pinacio. This was one of the two tours we booked that was not private- and we do not regret that one bit! William told us that we had with us Poonam Bora and family...interesting coincidence we thought...what was the chance that another Indian family would book the trip the same day!
Poonam, Jayush and little Eva joined us and they did a great job of getting there on time with a little one! Harshal and I secretly talked about a few occasions in Australia when we were rushed all the time on trips because kids that age have a mind of their own! Our kids, now 5 and 8 seems like adults compared to little 2 year old Eva:)
En route to the float trip we stopped at a tree with 3 toed sloth on it....I was curious how he knew exactly what tree to stop at. Willam mentioned that once sloths pick a tree they stay on that tree and this being his neck of the woods, he knew the location of that sloth!
A few interesting facts about William- He was one of the few surviors of 1968 eruption that destroyed the entire village....and he had climbed Arenal illegally 5 times. He was featured in Lonely Planet 2011 edition and this guy was an amazing living and breathing knowledge book!
We saw the living fences- stick a branch of this tree in ground and run a barbed wire around it....what a great idea! Here is an article that describes details of this http://www.ticotimes.net/2008/07/25/living-hedges-fences-give-pura-vida-look-to-costa-rican-gardens
Along way we saw Tapioca plants, Plaintain (that we were told takes 1 year to grow) and Pineapple (that grows 1 fruit in yr 1, 2 in yr 2 and 3 in yr 3...before the size of the fruit becomes too small) and finally Sycropia tree that we became experts at spoting by the end of our trip! (White barked Sycropia- Food for sloths and toucans and locals drink this to become skinny...note to self- read up on this...maybe this is the key to getting off those last 10 lbs:)!
There was a short few minutes break to apply sunscreen and get ready for the float trip. Harshal and I pulled out our giant trusted Ziplock bag only to be recognized by Poonam as "expert at this"...before kids our three whitewater rafting trips had made us pretty good at planning to pack the most important thing on a raft trip- a giant ziplock bag that holds your entire backpack. This was a level 1 trip, so thankfully there was no water splashing around but enough in the raft to not regret having that bag:)
This was Atharva's and Arya's first rafting experience and boy, it was a good one! We had a ton of wildlife to spot along the way.
On a rubber tree aka Chikimate tree, we spotted a few howler monkeys...monkeying around! Soon after, William asked us to look across the river on a tree to spot bats! This was an awesome sight...those long nose bats sleeping on the tree were a sight to behold...Atharva enjoyed counting them...turned out they were 11 afterall!
We spotted some OreoPendole (Yellow tailed birds) and learned about Ficus fig trees- a killing tree! Later on we spotted a two fingered sloth on a tree...as we discussed "Parle G" biscuits and educated William on the fact that they go well dunked in coffee...he said he would have thought so too!
Among other animals we spotted, a turtle and an alligator were interesting and sleeping...this was toward the end of our trip and we were starving then!
After getting out of that float, we walked to an area where we were served some fresh pinapple slices and pinapple juice...it was like nectar! Arya and Atharva tried getting a shut eye in a hammock and William once again introduced us to a new fruit of the country called Achiote ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixa_orellana) Thankfully I remembered to take this out right before checking our bags in! The deep red color of the seeds would have made a fabulous "alta" alternative Arya observed...and she was right about that, since this color is used for body painting by indigenous people! It was really great to have Poonam, Jayush and Eva with us on the trip!
After this break, we were to pick up another person who would join us for the rest of the tour and we wondered who it would be- Amar Jolly joined the troop! A true photographer at heart... was it merely a coincidence to have four other Indians on the trip. In any case, we really enjoyed the company!
We trekked to La Fortuna Waterfall- all 500 steps down, a dip in the frigid waters were refreshing and trek back up not as bad as we thought it would be but starving we were for sure! After changing into dry clothes, and after a quick ride to the local family home in Los Angeles, we sat down to eat one of the best meals I have had in Costa Rica - a Casada consisting of Picadillo de Chayote (https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1596879), rice and beans and heavenly fried plantains! I was a big fan of those instantaneously- apparently they make you smart! Hmm...wondering if this is secret of all smart Keralites I have had the pleasure to meet till date:)
Lastly, after that wonderful lunch, we enjoyed Costa Rican coffee with cake and fresh coconut juice while enjoying the view of colorful birds that came to peck at a fresh plantain kept out near our tables!
Finally, as we were ready for a nice nap, a bumpy car ride later, we reached a trail that led to 1992 lava flow of Arenal volcano. We started our trek through tall sugarcane/bamboo like plants called Canya Brava, after a longish trek, reached the lava flow point for some pictures and taking in views of Lake Arenal and partial views of Arenal mountain!
After saying farewell to our amazing guide and tour mates, we dropped our stuff to our room and changed back into our swimwear to check out the hot springs (http://www.hotelloslagos.com/) Our resort was amazing but this was the first time we were really checking out the namesake amenity! A swim in hot springs after a long day felt really good! All of us enjoyed the waterslide and swim up bar- A virgin Pina Coloada served in a giant pineapple was amusing to kids! Always wanted to check out the swim up bar...hot spings made it even special!
An awesome dinner in the hotel restaurant after showers meant that Atharva was sleeping at the dinner table...literally! This was one adventurous day!
Day 3: Nov 25 2015...Ziplining, Taxi-Boat-Taxi transfer to Monteverde and a Night Hike in Santa Maria's reserve
For our hanging bridges Naturalist guided tour we had the pleasure to have Ektor (Spanish for Hector) be our trusted guide...we had seen Ektor the previous night at the night hike with another group and he was able to build on to information we had collected the day before! He set our expectation on the fact that our focus would be flora and fauna and not animals! Loved this approach ...setting expectations is important:)
We started by observing Costa Rican Palm Carotene...its orange color stem attracts birds followed by Monkey ladder (Favacia) that is pollinated by bats. The job of pollination falls on the shoulders of birds and bats in addition to abundant insects! As was evident after a hummingbird actually collided with Harshal's bright orange shirt, they do have a weak sense of smell and rely on their sight for finding colorful flowers like Akatacia. Of 57 species of hummingbirds, 32 are found in Monteverde area! Could not wait to see these little birds!
Next we talked about the differences of rainforest vs cloudforest (Monteverde namesake) Ektor explained the five differences that sets these two apart-
a) Elevation - more than 1000M is cloud forest!
b) Temprature is needless to say cooler as a result in a cloud forest
c) It rains almost everyday...glad we had those ponchos in our backpacks on all the hikes!
d) Almost 80% of plants are Epiphyes (Biology lesson recap- it means plants that live on other plants without harming the host..i.e not parasites)
e) Concentration of insects!
An interesting fact to note was that since 2-3% days are sunny and 80% of the plants are epiphytes, the 20% that actually grow on the land have huge leaves to absorb as much light as they can and the tall trees have tiny leaves to allow these plants to get sunlight! A problem for tall trees as a result arise because of the weight of epiphytes, roots are shallow and its windy...result- trees live only up to 150-200 years of age!
The gambes help- fat tree legs!
There are over 100 species of avocado here -a favorite of the resplendent questzal!
Next stop was interesting one where Ektor picked up a curled up Miliapoda- yup, you guessed it...Millipeded and went on to explaining the difference between millipedes (4 legs per segment) and centipedes (2 legs per segment) and we knew the curled up one in our hands was a boy- how? because the fourth segment had only two legs and the sex organ:) Aha!
We talked about Sycropia again and how the leaf serves as an umberella for baby monkeys!
Amapola aka Hibiscus was sleeping here. These flowers remain closed at this elevation again because they serve the hummingbird that need that tubular shape to reach the nectar and also because open flowers will be destroyed by the windy conditions here! We saw some tiny avocados and inedible figs!
We saw poor mans's umbrella that is known by many other names...good to know that if Costa Rica has an umbrella for a monkey, humans are served naturally too!
A black Guan posed merrily in a tree for us...we passed it as we were busy watching something
anywherecostarica.com was a wonderful website for reference and tripadvisor reviews helped pick hotels and guides.
We had 5 days and 4 nights...so picked Arenal (Los Lagos Spa and Resort) and Monteverde (Monteverde Lodge and Gardens) with focus on rainforests and volcanos. This would mean that like many other places we said we would visit, we would visit Costa Rica again for Gunacaste or Manual Antonio or Tamarindo, featuring beaches and turtle viewing...some other day!
We had a flight from Newark at 7am in the morning. We decided to spend the night at Viviktesh's (my cousin) new apartment. We left after Arya's first Bharatanatyam recital and soaked in views of Manhattan and NYC, enroute and from his apartment terrace, before retiring for the night!
Day 1: Nov 23 2015...NJ, USA to Los Lagos Spa and Resort, Arenal, Costa Rica
Left Viviktesh's apartment early next morning close to 5am and had an uneventful flight watching Inside Out followed by San Andreas! Per our original plan we had pickup at 12:30pm from airport and transport to hotel in Arenal- Los Lagos hot springs resort!
Anywhere Costa Rica greeters were there for us, as expected. Long sleeved shirts we were wearing suddenly felt like a lot of clothing and needless to say, jackets were tucked away promptly! Costa Rica reminded us of India...We were greeted by our courteous driver Marcos:) Before we left for CR, I was hoping to do something this day instead of a ride to hotel only- conversations with Anywhere Costa Rica had proved futile! Marcos suggested that for $80 additional amount, we could take a trip to Poas Volcano. We were delighted! A quick purchase of ice creams were made, and Marcos said that we would stop for lunch enroute instead of eating at the airport.After sitting in a traffic jam for 20 minutes, we were second guessing our decision...we did see City Mall -the largest in South America. Kids meanwhile, enjoyed their icecreams sans carseats!
Our driver was Marcos...a sweet guy who had 3 kids and stayed near San Ramone! We requested a stop for lunch...Marcos took us to this awesome place called El Mirador- literally means The View! We had a fantastic view as we lunched - San Jose, Alajuela and Heredia. Lunch consisted of soup, rice and beans and veggie noodles. After a scrumptious lunch, we started our journey toward that volcano, wondering if the clouds would clear for us or not! Just as we mentioned to Marcos that a roadside coconut water would be great, we spotted a vendor. We enjoyed this drink with views of coffee plantation and fresh breeze!
We stopped at La Paz waterfall and enjoyed a strange fruit hand peeled by the vendor...After eating a lot of those fruits, hand peeled by the street vendor, I silently prayed that this does not cause anybody to fall sick- afterall this was our first day and purchased a souvenir for our home instead! This poor guy had set-up his small portable shack and lugged all these knick-knacks...he did not speak a word of English and we barely managed to pronounce "No hablo español" accurately, yet with hand gestures we communicated and settled for 9000 Colones or $18...Arya said "Mommy next time we visit, maybe we think about some basic Spanish lessons before the trip"! Note to self- start listening to those Spanish language lessons:)
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| Arya breaking into her dance...or something! |
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| Roadside vendor |
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| A delicious cookie we enjoyed...coconut based! |
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| La Paz Waterfall |
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| Yummy stops along the way! |
Rest of the ride we stopped to take pictures and learned a lot from Marcos about the life of Costa Ricans. He gave us a few pointers for our road trip back to SJO airport and those did come in handy on Day 5. Thanks to Marcos we had our first wildlife sighting...Howler Monkey on a tree along the road...we enjoyed this stop a lot and also kids got an opportunity to use our binoculars and master the art of quickly spotting the object of interest, in this case, it was a monkey! This skill was put to use over the next 4 days...a lot!
We were dropped off at the hotel around 8pm or so and dinner naturally consisted of something we had on hand- homemade theplas. Kids enjoyed the spacious hotel room and played with a sock that was eventually lost in the room...many giggles and laugh at the expense of that one lost sock!
Day 2: Nov 24 2015...3 in 1 tour (Float trip, Volcano Hike and La Fortuna Waterfall, including lunch at a local Costa Rican family) + Hot Springs
We woke up to a great sunrise view from our backyard...we sat there enjoying our morning cup of coffees and just being thankful for this wonderful day!
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View from our patio! |
Our pick up was from Los Lagos at 7:40am. We changed into our swim wear and headed to the hotel buffet breakfast. A quick note on why I picked this hotel- The tour price for a 4 in 1 tour including Hot springs and dinner was approx. $400 more and I figured why not then book a hotel that has Hot springs for the difference...turned out to be a great idea!
We enjoyed our awesome breakfast, took a few pictures and met our guide William and our driver Pinacio. This was one of the two tours we booked that was not private- and we do not regret that one bit! William told us that we had with us Poonam Bora and family...interesting coincidence we thought...what was the chance that another Indian family would book the trip the same day!
Poonam, Jayush and little Eva joined us and they did a great job of getting there on time with a little one! Harshal and I secretly talked about a few occasions in Australia when we were rushed all the time on trips because kids that age have a mind of their own! Our kids, now 5 and 8 seems like adults compared to little 2 year old Eva:)
En route to the float trip we stopped at a tree with 3 toed sloth on it....I was curious how he knew exactly what tree to stop at. Willam mentioned that once sloths pick a tree they stay on that tree and this being his neck of the woods, he knew the location of that sloth!
A few interesting facts about William- He was one of the few surviors of 1968 eruption that destroyed the entire village....and he had climbed Arenal illegally 5 times. He was featured in Lonely Planet 2011 edition and this guy was an amazing living and breathing knowledge book!
We saw the living fences- stick a branch of this tree in ground and run a barbed wire around it....what a great idea! Here is an article that describes details of this http://www.ticotimes.net/2008/07/25/living-hedges-fences-give-pura-vida-look-to-costa-rican-gardens
Along way we saw Tapioca plants, Plaintain (that we were told takes 1 year to grow) and Pineapple (that grows 1 fruit in yr 1, 2 in yr 2 and 3 in yr 3...before the size of the fruit becomes too small) and finally Sycropia tree that we became experts at spoting by the end of our trip! (White barked Sycropia- Food for sloths and toucans and locals drink this to become skinny...note to self- read up on this...maybe this is the key to getting off those last 10 lbs:)!
There was a short few minutes break to apply sunscreen and get ready for the float trip. Harshal and I pulled out our giant trusted Ziplock bag only to be recognized by Poonam as "expert at this"...before kids our three whitewater rafting trips had made us pretty good at planning to pack the most important thing on a raft trip- a giant ziplock bag that holds your entire backpack. This was a level 1 trip, so thankfully there was no water splashing around but enough in the raft to not regret having that bag:)
This was Atharva's and Arya's first rafting experience and boy, it was a good one! We had a ton of wildlife to spot along the way.
On a rubber tree aka Chikimate tree, we spotted a few howler monkeys...monkeying around! Soon after, William asked us to look across the river on a tree to spot bats! This was an awesome sight...those long nose bats sleeping on the tree were a sight to behold...Atharva enjoyed counting them...turned out they were 11 afterall!
We spotted some OreoPendole (Yellow tailed birds) and learned about Ficus fig trees- a killing tree! Later on we spotted a two fingered sloth on a tree...as we discussed "Parle G" biscuits and educated William on the fact that they go well dunked in coffee...he said he would have thought so too!
Among other animals we spotted, a turtle and an alligator were interesting and sleeping...this was toward the end of our trip and we were starving then!
After getting out of that float, we walked to an area where we were served some fresh pinapple slices and pinapple juice...it was like nectar! Arya and Atharva tried getting a shut eye in a hammock and William once again introduced us to a new fruit of the country called Achiote ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixa_orellana) Thankfully I remembered to take this out right before checking our bags in! The deep red color of the seeds would have made a fabulous "alta" alternative Arya observed...and she was right about that, since this color is used for body painting by indigenous people! It was really great to have Poonam, Jayush and Eva with us on the trip!
After this break, we were to pick up another person who would join us for the rest of the tour and we wondered who it would be- Amar Jolly joined the troop! A true photographer at heart... was it merely a coincidence to have four other Indians on the trip. In any case, we really enjoyed the company!
We trekked to La Fortuna Waterfall- all 500 steps down, a dip in the frigid waters were refreshing and trek back up not as bad as we thought it would be but starving we were for sure! After changing into dry clothes, and after a quick ride to the local family home in Los Angeles, we sat down to eat one of the best meals I have had in Costa Rica - a Casada consisting of Picadillo de Chayote (https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1596879), rice and beans and heavenly fried plantains! I was a big fan of those instantaneously- apparently they make you smart! Hmm...wondering if this is secret of all smart Keralites I have had the pleasure to meet till date:)
Lastly, after that wonderful lunch, we enjoyed Costa Rican coffee with cake and fresh coconut juice while enjoying the view of colorful birds that came to peck at a fresh plantain kept out near our tables!
Finally, as we were ready for a nice nap, a bumpy car ride later, we reached a trail that led to 1992 lava flow of Arenal volcano. We started our trek through tall sugarcane/bamboo like plants called Canya Brava, after a longish trek, reached the lava flow point for some pictures and taking in views of Lake Arenal and partial views of Arenal mountain!
After saying farewell to our amazing guide and tour mates, we dropped our stuff to our room and changed back into our swimwear to check out the hot springs (http://www.hotelloslagos.com/) Our resort was amazing but this was the first time we were really checking out the namesake amenity! A swim in hot springs after a long day felt really good! All of us enjoyed the waterslide and swim up bar- A virgin Pina Coloada served in a giant pineapple was amusing to kids! Always wanted to check out the swim up bar...hot spings made it even special!
An awesome dinner in the hotel restaurant after showers meant that Atharva was sleeping at the dinner table...literally! This was one adventurous day!
Day 3: Nov 25 2015...Ziplining, Taxi-Boat-Taxi transfer to Monteverde and a Night Hike in Santa Maria's reserve
So glad that there was no waking up early today...we let the kids sleep in and headed for breakfast around 8am...after a leisurly breakfast, we decided to check out the exhibits of Butterfly, Ants, Crocodiles, Frogs in our resort! Expectations were low but the frog exhibit and Ant exhibit did not disappoint. Atharva fell into the moat around the Ant hill and had to be taken back to the room for a change of clothes! A funny sight for us but not so much for him I guess!
We met up with our gang from the previous day here:) Since we had nothing else planned, and it was still 10am, decided to look into the Kids Ziplining activity around the resort- it was pretty neat actually and was a wonderful introduction for kids! This was Atharava's first ziplining experience! Arya prided herself in having done this at the previous year's summer camp...we told her to get ready for the "real" ziplining experience the next day.
After ziplining, we still had about an hour before checkout and realized that some batteries needed recharging...it takes a lot of battery power to click about 500 pics a day across all your devices and SLR!
So we decided to check out the Observatory/Mirador point in our resort and the entrance of which was right behind out room 204! As it turns out kids and mommy took a stroll and Harshal made it to the top for a photo opp! We left our luggage at the baggage storage and thanks to first hand review of Anchio's by Poonam, we made our way to the restaurant...it was pouring by now and the timing was perfect! One of the best veggie Pizzas was served piping hot and with some hot sauce and garlic sauce...a Costa Rican Pizza condiments of sorts! We ordered Maracuja smoothie (Passion Fruit) and kids ordered some strawberry/banana smoothie...went well with that Pizza topped by hot sauce! As suggested by Poonam and Jayush, we also ordered brownie with vanilla icecream! Harshal and kids checked out the German bakery next door and ordered an Oreo cheesecake...again, possibly the best cheesecake I have had! We then relocated ourselves for the next hour or so to the hammock seating of the German bakery. Here food marathon continued with latte, an interesting twist on hot chocolate (dipping a stick of chocolate into hot milk) and chocolates! Also, sandwiches for dinner were ordered! Our taxi driver who dropped us off at noon came back to see us at the same spot at 2:30pm...in under 5 minutes we were back at the hotel and into a new bus that served as the first "taxi". After half hour or so, we boarded a boat! This was a picturesque boat ride! Beautiful rainforests surrounded this Lake Arenal and splendid views...crazy family selfies were taken!
The next leg was a taxi i.e. another mini bus ride...this time on bumpy road for an hour. Everybody took a nap on this ride. Finally we reached Monteverde Lodge and Gardens at around 5:30pm. Esteban was to pick us up at 6pm for the night hike. The hotel lobby was beautiful and the welcome drink they served was refreshing!
Esteban was prompt and took us in his SUV to Santa Maria's Reserve- a private cloud forest reserve! Our first critter sighiting was a giant Trantula and next was a phenomenon we love- Bioluminescence in the forest! After all flashligts were shut, our eyes adjusted to the dark and saw the glowing branches and strangler fig bark! Beautiful!
We then spoted a beetle, a brown jay sleeping all puffed up, an ear wig insect that was used by indegeneous people as earrings, a 6 legged and 2 antennae insect that pretends to be daddy longlegs, queen of the night poisonous flowers, funnel web spider and finally another sloth. This was followed by a few more sleeping birds- Orange belly tortugan, Blue Crowned Mot Mot or Bobo the dumb bird and last but not least side striped palm pit viper!
Lastly, we saw one of the biggest ant hills and learned why those ants carry leaves back to the hill- to feed the juice to the fungus that they eat!
While on the way back, we mentioned to Esteban that we wanted to do Selvatura the next day, he told us about their free transportation the next day provided they know your party is visiting. He offered to stop in town at Selvatura office to make a booking- what in Selvatura was going to be decided the next day!
Those sandwiches we had packed in Arenal came in handy- albeight cold, dinner was done in the room and we did not realize when we fell asleep! Pickup next day was 7:55am:)
Day 4: Nov 26 2015...Selvatura Park and Don Juan Coffee tours, Monteverde
The a la carte breakfast at Monteverde lodge was out of this world- Homemade pineapple and papaya marmalade possibly was the primary culprit for a few pounds gained post trip! Arya wanted to stick with Casado as did mommy- beans and rice for breakfast. Although after tasting Atharva's French toast, Arya decided she will order those the next day!
A couple of cups of pressed coffee later, we were on our way in the bus to Selvatura picking up a few more people along the way!
At Selvatura, there were 6 long lines for tickets/vouchers- Douglas who we had the pleasure to meet that moring at the ticjket counter was one of the most helpful and smart people we met in Costa Rica. We told him that bridges and zipline was what we wanted to do here first and then if we can get the last trip of coffee tour, we will do that else convert the ticket to a Selvatura experience day pass including lunch! He got it and asked us to check in with him after our bridges so that he could make a call to Don Juan when the lines were taken care of! An excellent example of customer delight- even when what the customer is asking is "out of scope"!
A couple of cups of pressed coffee later, we were on our way in the bus to Selvatura picking up a few more people along the way!
At Selvatura, there were 6 long lines for tickets/vouchers- Douglas who we had the pleasure to meet that moring at the ticjket counter was one of the most helpful and smart people we met in Costa Rica. We told him that bridges and zipline was what we wanted to do here first and then if we can get the last trip of coffee tour, we will do that else convert the ticket to a Selvatura experience day pass including lunch! He got it and asked us to check in with him after our bridges so that he could make a call to Don Juan when the lines were taken care of! An excellent example of customer delight- even when what the customer is asking is "out of scope"!
For our hanging bridges Naturalist guided tour we had the pleasure to have Ektor (Spanish for Hector) be our trusted guide...we had seen Ektor the previous night at the night hike with another group and he was able to build on to information we had collected the day before! He set our expectation on the fact that our focus would be flora and fauna and not animals! Loved this approach ...setting expectations is important:)
We started by observing Costa Rican Palm Carotene...its orange color stem attracts birds followed by Monkey ladder (Favacia) that is pollinated by bats. The job of pollination falls on the shoulders of birds and bats in addition to abundant insects! As was evident after a hummingbird actually collided with Harshal's bright orange shirt, they do have a weak sense of smell and rely on their sight for finding colorful flowers like Akatacia. Of 57 species of hummingbirds, 32 are found in Monteverde area! Could not wait to see these little birds!
Next we talked about the differences of rainforest vs cloudforest (Monteverde namesake) Ektor explained the five differences that sets these two apart-
a) Elevation - more than 1000M is cloud forest!
b) Temprature is needless to say cooler as a result in a cloud forest
c) It rains almost everyday...glad we had those ponchos in our backpacks on all the hikes!
d) Almost 80% of plants are Epiphyes (Biology lesson recap- it means plants that live on other plants without harming the host..i.e not parasites)
e) Concentration of insects!
An interesting fact to note was that since 2-3% days are sunny and 80% of the plants are epiphytes, the 20% that actually grow on the land have huge leaves to absorb as much light as they can and the tall trees have tiny leaves to allow these plants to get sunlight! A problem for tall trees as a result arise because of the weight of epiphytes, roots are shallow and its windy...result- trees live only up to 150-200 years of age!
The gambes help- fat tree legs!
There are over 100 species of avocado here -a favorite of the resplendent questzal!
Next stop was interesting one where Ektor picked up a curled up Miliapoda- yup, you guessed it...Millipeded and went on to explaining the difference between millipedes (4 legs per segment) and centipedes (2 legs per segment) and we knew the curled up one in our hands was a boy- how? because the fourth segment had only two legs and the sex organ:) Aha!
We talked about Sycropia again and how the leaf serves as an umberella for baby monkeys!
Amapola aka Hibiscus was sleeping here. These flowers remain closed at this elevation again because they serve the hummingbird that need that tubular shape to reach the nectar and also because open flowers will be destroyed by the windy conditions here! We saw some tiny avocados and inedible figs!
We saw poor mans's umbrella that is known by many other names...good to know that if Costa Rica has an umbrella for a monkey, humans are served naturally too!
A black Guan posed merrily in a tree for us...we passed it as we were busy watching something
a.
canopy
b.
c.
Suspension bridges, canopy etc
dChocolate, coffee and sugarcane trip
Day 5: Our flight is at 10pm in the night so we have half
day here before we need a transport back to SJO
b) Curi Cancha reseve hike by Esteban at 7:30
c)
Private transport or public transport to SJO via Caldera
The total price tag of this vacay turned out to be approx. $5000 including airfare, hotels, tours and private transfers and guides....memories priceless!
