17 Reasons Why We Love Costa Rica

Sat, 2/5/11 - We got up very early Saturday morning to catch our 7:40 AM flight. We all had a really nice time and all want to go back again. We have many memories we will cherish for a lifetime.

What we liked about Costa Rica was...
1. Beautiful scenery
2. Lots of wild life
3. The weather was much more moderate than we expected. For the most part not too hot and not too muggy and not much rain. Going January-May and avoiding the rainy months around October is important.
4. Active volcanoes... though not so active when we were there. :(
5. Super friendly and helpful people
6. Clean food and water. Except for a couple of places on the Caribbean coast, you can eat the food and drink the water without worry. None of the four of us had any problems over a two week period.
7. Clean bathrooms... at restaurants, gas stations, & tourist spots... cleaner than in the USA, no kidding.
8. No visa required, just pick up and go.
9. They drive on the right hand side of the road
10. The drivers are sane... slow, but sane
11 We didn't see graffiti (though we didn't enter San Jose, the capitol) and the roads were mostly litter free
12. Inexpensive food... meals for four with drinks, tax, tip about $50
13. Delicious food... "Best steak ever" at the Sabor in Monteverde
14. Inexpensive lodging... maybe a fifth to half what you would pay in the states for equivalent accommodations
15. You can get dollars (yes, US greenbacks!) from some ATMs and spend dollars anywhere, and the conversion rate was a handy 500 to 1 so a $20 bill is the same as a 10,000 colone note and is accepted just about everywhere.
16. They speak Spanish (and a little English)... yes, Spanish is not English but at least some of us took it in high school, and between Spanish and English we got along fine.
17. Virtually no mosquitoes. We had been led to believe that we would be eaten alive the second we stepped out of the airport but other than walking through the meadow in the late afternoon, they really were not an issue.




Okay, there are a few things not so great...

1. They don't believe in street signs so its easy to get lost. A GPS or friendly native will set you straight though.
2. The main roads are good but the back roads can be very bad. You need a 4x4.
3. We heard, but did not experience, that your car may be broken into if you leave it unguarded full of luggage/goodies in plain sight in a parking lot. This was not a problem for us since most restaurants have an open, no walls design so we could keep an eye on the car.
4. We also heard that if you go at the wrong time of year (Octoberish) and/or the wrong part of the country (Caribbean side) you can run into bad weather, mosquitoes and weird tropical diseases. We didn't run into any of these problems ourselves.

"Lost" Passport

Fri, 2/4/11 - Joel got up really early and went back to Uvita to take another run at the waterfalls. This time equipped with the proper dinero. It was a nice little falls.


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Meanwhile Neil went on more of a bushwhacking expedition but the goal was a different waterfall.


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After the hiking it was time to pack up and head back to San Jose and the Bella Rita. There was road construction as we approached San Jose so traffic was pretty thick at times and it was slow going.

Joel: Rita had found an old duffel bag for me and it fit the statue beautifully. We stuffed the statue in it and padded it with all our dirty clothes and some shoes and the statue made it home without a scratch. I think I'll bring the duffel with me on our next excursion just in case!

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Joel: We decided to walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Although the Bella Rita seemed like a very safe place, I didn't want to leave my passport in plain view so I tucked it under the blankets of the bed. A couple hours later as we were packing to leave early in the morning I had completely forgotten about this and my passport was "lost". There ensued frantic phone calls to the car rental guys and the Tiki Villas with no luck. I pretty well resigned myself to staying over a couple of days (missing the Superbowl!) to visit the US Embassy Monday morning. Then one last pass checking our room and I found it. What a relief! Getting old can be such a pain.

Not Much More Ambition

Thu, 2/4/11 - Joel got up early again and drove into the little town of Uvita and went for a walk. We had heard about some waterfalls so he went looking for it. There was a small charge to go in but he didn't have change so skipped it. Instead he went walking down this beautiful country road. There was another rickety passenger bridge and stands of some kind of huge bamboo.

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Later Lizz and Neil went out exploring while Joel and Shawne just rested. In fact, Shawne didn't stir once from the Tiki Villas from the time we arrived until we had to leave to go home. She would still be there if it could have been arranged.

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Later in the afternoon the gardener let us know about a troop of howler monkeys just a little way down the drive. There they were.

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We also saw a toucan high in a tree overlooking the pool patio area.

No Ambition

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Wed, 2/2/11 – Joel got up early and went for a walk on the beach. There were Tico families camping but not a lot of them. Lot’s of driftwood and a bit too much trash washed up from somewhere else. Still overall, quite pleasant and semi-private.

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Shawne: There are lots of butterflies here. Many birds as well although I haven’t seen that many but you can here the different calls. The forest sounds are very loud, especially at night. So many nature noises its hard to distinguish them but we did here the frogs that make the kissing sound. We heard howler monkeys this morning. No coaties though. Joel left a banana out last night but it was still there this morning.

Our host started this place 5 years ago. I’m amazed at how much people can get done in such a short the time. There is a lot of development along the beaches and while I’m sure it produces a lot of jobs I suspect it is challenging the sustainability of the environment.

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There is a giant termite nest in a tree nearby. At first we were told it was a beehive but fortunately that was just an error in translation.

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This place saps all ambition. None of us are much inspired to go anywhere or do anything much more than laze by the pool reading. Joel was going to wait until we got back to post the Costa Rica blogs but it is such a pleasant place to sit and relax that we will have much of it out before heading back.

Lizz bought us dinner brought up from a local restaurant. Very nice pizza and pasta. All so relaxing.

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Tiki Villas

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Tue, 2/1/11 – We got up early for the drive to the beach which turned out to be quicker and easier than anticipated. Along the way we stopped at a bridge over looking a river full of crocodiles (Los cocodrilos). We counted 25 from one vantage point. They are huge!! Much bigger than we expected. There were also iguanas under the bridge. Maybe the crocs eat them and that’s why there are so many under the bridge.

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We arrived at Tiki Villas early afternoon. Our car had a hard time getting up the hill. Very low umph car and a very steep hill. Three of us got out part way up while Neil drove our bags on ahead. Next time we’ll take a running start. There was a mix up on our reservation so we had only one room with AC instead of two. The rooms without AC have better views and all of the rooms are huge and beautiful so Lizz and Neil were very happy where they were. Temperatures drop at nice into the 60's so sleeping is not a problem.

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We can see and hear the ocean from here. Beautiful infinity pool can look like it is part of the ocean from some points of view. The villas are very open with deep, wide patios. It is a lovely, enchanting, honeymooning kind of place. There are only five units but service and surroundings are wonderful. It rained very hard after dinner but the porches stayed dry. Neil and Lizz went for a dip in the pool in the rain. We love how the houses here have these deep overhangs and porches. Its much warmer and humid here and the openness allows us to catch every breeze.


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We had a big bug of some kind in our bathroom in the evening. Small see through wings – green body and big buggy eyes. Maybe a moth but the wings didn’t seem sufficient to carry the body.

Shawne got bored with the books she had so she checked out a bunch of new ones from the San Jose (California!) library and downloaded them to her Nook. She really likes the Nook with the ability to carry around so may books in such a small package and even “go” to her local library while in Costa Rica!

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Ziplining & Coatis

Mon, 1/31/11 - Joel, Lizz and Neil went zip-lining in the morning at Selvatura Park. They hook you up in this harness contraption, attach you to a steel cable by a pulley wheel and off you go, zooming through the rain forest. It’s more fun than thrilling.

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There were thirteen cables in all and mostly you would land on a platform, disconnect from one cable and zip off on another. There were a few treks up steep forest paths in a couple of places but thankfully not too many. The total length is about 1.9 miles and the longest cable is about 0.4 miles long.


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That last long cable you go in pairs.



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Joel was paired up with Alex, a guide, and they got stuck about two thirds of the way across. Poor Alex had to drag Joel’s dead weight the rest of the way pulling hand over hand along the cable. Sometimes it is really nice to be the tourist.

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After the zip lining, Neil tried the "Tarzan Swing".
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Shawne: The coatis are really pleased with us and are coming around in greater numbers since we keep buying more and more bananas for them.The original male and an injured male are being kicked out by a family of about six females and younger ones – one quite a bit younger than the others. The littlest guy is pretty smart though – managed to carry off the mango seeds I put outside while the others ate the peels. The females gang up and chase the males away when they are around.

Rolf says the injured one probably got in a fight with another coati as they usually win in fights with dogs. The coati seem quite tame. They come right up to us, stand on their hind legs and gently put their long clawed paws on us without injury. I could only feel the padded paw not nails which look pretty fierce. Another animal we have seen quite a bit of is Rolf’s kitten, Bobtail. She is very friendly and loves to be cuddled. She is also a bit of a nuisance because she is always crying to get in the rooms.

Rolf has a nice cabin next door to us that we would like to use if we come back. It has a full kitchen, a bedroom, a Murphy bed in the living area and a single bed off the living area. It also has a large patio. If anyone wanted to come with us they could sleep in the living area or rent one of the duplex rooms.

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In the evening we had dinner at a "tree house" restaurant in Santa Elena. It was not really built in a tree but was built around one.

The Monteverde Cloud Forest

Sun, 1/30/11 – Lizz and Neil woke up to a scorpion in their sink this morning. I guess we will be checking our shoes from now on before we put them on.


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We were all up before 6 am to go to the Monteverde “cloud forest” first thing this morning. Perfect weather – clear skies – no mist – a bit brisk.



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There is an amazing variety and overlay of plants. Everything interdependent. Trees and vines climbing on other trees.


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One of our favorites were the strangler figs that grow on other trees eventually killing them leaving a hollow place inside.


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We also saw a hummingbird nest and the mother flew in and entered it.


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We saw both spider and howler monkeys. The guides work together, letting each other know when there is something special to see.

The penultimate sight eluded us – no quetzel but there was so much else to see it didn’t matter to us.


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Deep in the forest there was a beautiful little waterfall.

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This leaf is chewed by insects when it is curled up tight so when it opens the holes are in a grid.

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Our guide Rafael was excellent. He was extremely knowledgeable and had great English.


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At the end of the tour we went to a hummingbird “refuge” which was a place outside a restaurant/souvenir shop which had about 6 hummingbird feeders and dozens of humming birds. The largest is about 6 inches the smallest about 3. The large one was a beautiful violet saberwing and the littlest was white tailed at 3 inches. They were mesmerizing to watch. There were some other little birds (bananaquits) who had pretty long beaks who were pretending to be hummingbirds and got chased away by some of the hummers. Quite a bit of territorialism between the hummers dive bombing each other at the feeders and chasing each other around. We could get quite close to them and they pretty much ignored people. Sometimes you could feel them brush by you with their wings.

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We had an interesting (but relatively expensive) lunch at a Tapas place. After lunch we went to a frog zoo. They had teeny-tiny frogs up to large frogs that can get to be about 2 lbs in the wild. Frogs are one of the motifs in tourist souvenirs which works well for us since we collect froggy collectibles where ever we go.

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We went out to dinner at a highly recommended restaurant, Sabor Espanol. It was a two mile trek on a very bumpy, holey dirt road but it was well worth the drive. Lizz said her steak was the best she ever had and both she and Neil said their avocado/tuna dish was the best avocado they ever had. All of us loved it. The cook made a mistake on Joel’s order and came out to apologize to him but the fish/rice dish that eventually came was well worth the wait. Shawne had a great fruit/veggie salad with some of the mildest onions she had ever had. Neil had these very interesting chicken kabobs that had bacon stuffed with bananas interspersed with the chicken. It was all dee-licious!

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