Costa Rica
Exploring The Natural Wonders of Costa Rica was the title of the Elder Hostel 12 day program my wife and I participated in during March, 2007. We began in San Jose, the capital, a city of some 600,000 in a country of only slightly more than 4,000,000. Our first stop was the Café Britt coffee roasting tour (Costa Rican coffee is superb!), then the Inbioparque, designed to perpetuate many species of flora and fauna. The following day we visited the Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfall Gardens, on the way to Selva Verde Lodge on the Sarapiqui River, our first tropical rainforest experience. I had the opportunity to take two wildlife boat tours on the river primarily for birds, but including caimans, iguanas, basilisks, sloths and others.
Most mornings we went for 6am birding walks, but occasionally would spot mantled howler monkeys high in the trees. With low light levels and forest foliage to penetrate, decent photographs were problematic, but not impossible. We then headed north, not far from the Nicaraguan border, to Cano Negro Natural Lodge and more boat trips. Our next stop was Arenal Volcano, Costa Rica’s most active volcano, but any possibility of seeing lava flows down the mountain were obscured by clouds and rain. Set amidst another rain forest, we hiked a trail over a series of hanging bridges into the canopy, for intimate views of the forest. Any birds or animals must have been sheltering from the rain, so we had to be content with the forest itself.
The next day we stopped at the Tarcoles River for another boat rides, in an environment populated by many American crocodiles. From there, we headed for Manuel Antonio National Park, one of Costa Rica’s smallest, on the Pacific coast, and its forests and beaches, and most importantly, bright sunshine. In the forest we viewed both two and three toed sloths, White-throated capuchin monkeys and many birds, and those who wished a beach experience grabbed a quick 90 minutes. Our final boating trip was into the mangroves lining the Tarcoles’ banks as we reached the outlet to the Pacific.
As our trip ran all too fast towards its inevitable conclusion, our bus climbed high into the mountains as we crossed a pass more than 9,000 up before descending into the San Gerado de Dota valley at 7,500 and the Savegre River still carving its way through the valley. On the way in we made our only sightings of Scarlet Macaws, but anxiously anticipated spotting Resplendent Quetzals, in the territory of some 80 mating pair of this rare species. As cavity nesters, Quetzals are most often spotted in dense foliage, but we spotted, and spooked a pair out in the open before any photographs were possible. That evening and the following early morning, under extremely difficult light conditions requiring ISO settings at 800 and 1,600, we managed to see two pair. It was a fitting end to an Elder Hostel that also included a number of lectures on wildlife and natural features, and whet our desires for a return trip for more of Costa Rica’s natural wonders.
