Costa Rica Travel Forum

Hi, I'm thinking of taking a first trip to CR in 2010, not sure what dates yet - maybe in May. I will most likely be flying into San Jose, and go from there. I'm estimating about 10 days total for the trip, with first and last being travel days.

I'm not sure which towns I want to visit exactly, would appreciate help with planning. I'm not into mountain-climbing, rappelling, diving, etc. Below are some things I definitely would like to do on my trip:

- I love wildlife, so would like to see toucans, parrots, lizards, frogs, monkeys, etc.
- visit a coffee farm.
- visit a butterfly farm and/or animal preserve. The La Paz Waterfall Gardens/butterfly farm looks neat.
- spend a day or so at a beach.
- go on a river ride. for example, the Sarapiqui River, which I see is near Puerto Viejo.

Would Puerto Viejo make a good base, from which I could do some of these things as excursions? Oh and I'd prefer hostals, family-run places instead of resorts. Thanks for any advice, Greg

For starters, May is not the best month to go. It can be pretty rainy.

There are lots of hostals in and around Alajuela (near the airport) and in San Jose itself. Vida Tropical, Pura vida, and Villa Bonita are nice places around Alajuela. Any one of them could help with bus schedules, taxis, tours, etc.

You could base yourself near the city (alajuela or San Jose) for a couple of days and do some great day trips. La Paz waterfall gardens have just reopened after a terrible earthquake. It is a beautiful place. I didn't see monkeys there but the birding, frogs, butterflies, etc that they do have are great. There is a one day tour that actually takes you to Poas volcano, Doka Coffee plantation, La Paz waterfall gardens and boating on the Sarapiqui. There are even one day tours to the Arenal area if you want to see the volcano.

Are you planning on doing tours or driving yourself? La Paz is a big place and takes several hours to see everything. You might want to just plan on a day there and take your time. With the full day tour you have limited time in each area. Doka has its own little B&B called Siempre Verde and isn't too far from the airport.

You could easily see Poas and Doka in the same day. Your best bet to see Poas would be when it opens. There is a bus from Alajuela to Poas. If you just have a couple of hours to kill (or even a little less) you could swing over to Zoo Ave. It is a small zoo but interesting.
The Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui area (not to be confused with the Puerto Viejo de Talamanca area) is really beautiful if you are interested in a real rainforest environment. The Rio Sarapiqui had a huge kill from mud from the above mentioned earthquake but due to the health of the streams and small rivers that feed it it is coming back. By next year it should be great again. The only places I have stayed in the Sarapiqui area are Selva Verde and La Quinta de Sarapiqui. La Quinta is a family owned and operated place but does tend to cater to elder hostels. Lovely grounds there but not a huge area. They actually have a great garden designed to draw the poison dart frogs. Selva Verde is a larger place but nicely done. In no way does it resemble a resort. It is right on the Sarapiqui and has its own beautiful rainforest to hike around in and if you look carefully you will see poison dart frogs on the forest floors near the base of trees. La Selva is nearby. It is owned by the Organization for tropical studies. Reservations for tours are needed and they have built some places for visitors to stay. We have visited it many times but never stayed there. Lots of research going on there. It is adjacent to the Selva Verde property. Tirimbina is also in that area and is much less traveled by tourists. Only downside to the Sarapiqui area is that you really do need a car to get around.

For a beach area and your best chance to see a lot of wildlife, I would head over to the Quepos/Manuel Antonio area. There are a few smaller places to stay. The park is pretty and you can see lots of monkeys, possibly an anteater, lizards and much more. It is closed on Mondays for planning purposes. There are plenty of buses to get you back and forth from Quepos to San Jose. If you have a couple of days you could think about Montezuma. Take a bus to Puntarenas and then the ferry to the Nicoya. From there you can take another bus to Montezuma. More travel time involved but if you have time and just done day trips out of san jose you should be fine. it is a nice funky little town.

My boyfriend and I spent 10 days in Costa Rica this past March (09).

For the first few days we stayed at a small family farm in a very small town called Las Vueltas de Tucurrique which is owned by an ex-pat couple. They rent out their cabina and call it "Planet Costa Rica." http://www.planetcostarica.org/
See their "Area Attractions and Activities" link for a whole list of stuff to do while there.

The owners are extremely friendly and picked us up at the airport for an additional fee (you can take a bus there too). They also made us some of the most fantastic vegetarian meals we have ever had. They have many dogs and even horses and pigs on the property, but mostly their thing is raising organic coffee. The whole experience was a very nice introduction to Costa Rica. While in that town we walked around the area and were able to get a really good feel for what country life in CR is like. We saw no "gringos" in this town other than our gracious hosts (which is rare- most towns are very touristy). We also visited a park called La Marta which was really beautiful and not at all crowded. The best feature of the park is an amazing ruins site of a very, very old coffee mill built entirely out of stone.

After our stay there we headed back to San Jose and took a bus from the Coca Cola Station to Quepos, which is a fishing town on the Pacific coast. We stayed there one night in a crappy motel. Quepos is nice for a quick look around but I would recommend bypassing it if possible and heading straight for the beach town, Manuel Antonio which is about a 15 min drive away.

The town of Manuel Antonio pretty much exists ONLY for tourism. There is a very popular National Park there and one of the most amazing beaches I've ever seen in my life. Despite its touristy nature I enjoyed it very much. We saw 2 different kinds of monkeys there (white faced and squirrel)- not just a few times in the distance- but EVERYWHERE and really close up. The monkeys come right up to people. We also saw lizards, cool birds, sloths, and even a coati in the park. The beaches are great for swimming, sunning, or just a nice walk. We stayed at Cabinas Ramirez which we enjoyed (they also allow you to camp on the property). The accommodations are admittedly very rustic, but the staff is friendly, the property is charming, and you literally walk out the back and you're on the beach.

Lots of people try to get you to pay for a guided tour through the Manuel Antonio (or any) park, my advice would be to not do this. You will see animals either way, and if you happen to see a group of people huddled together and pointing, go over and see what it is. I like to mosey along the trail, take lots of pictures and stop to look at everything. Guided tours make that difficult. They can, on the other hand, be very informative and the guides are unbeatable experts at spotting wildlife.

After 2 days there we went back to Quepos and took a shuttle north to Monteverde. This is a small town high up in the mountains. This is where everybody goes to do the zip line canopy tours. We weren't really interested in doing that, we just wanted to hike in the cloud forest. When we got there we stayed in a very cheap but VERY clean & nice hostel called "Monteverde Info Center and Hostel Montelena." The staff was very helpful and it is easy to make arrangements for any activity available. The butterfly garden in town is amazing, according to some of the other tourists we talked to.

We spent a day walking around in the "Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve." Here we saw howler monkeys, neat insects, birds, and coati. It was very beautiful, we met other tourists who even saw the resplendent Quetzal! We left Monteverde the next day and took a Jeep-Boat-Jeep shuttle to La Fortuna to see Volcan Arenal.

We got set up with a tour to see the volcano, followed by a dip in the Baldi hot springs. This was nice, especially the hot springs, but we were disappointed by the volcano viewing (also, meal was not included). Our guide was knowledgeable and nice, we saw lots of coati, birds, and even a tarantula. Nevertheless, I would say skip the tour, rent a car, drive to the volcano view point yourself and see the lava. There's unfortunately no way to get up close and personal with Arenal. The next day we inquired as to how we could get closer and were told to try a park called "Arenal 1968." This is a privately owned park which has volcano views and and allows you to hike on the lava flows from the destructive 1968 eruption. We took a taxi there and enjoyed it. We were also told that the hot river, which fuels all of the expensive hot spring resorts, is accessible from the road and anyone can pull over for a swim- free of charge. Just ask around if you wanna try it, we didn't have time. There's also a nice waterfall in La Fortuna which we didn't have time to see, but I wish we had.

From there we took a public bus back to San Jose and had to sleep in the airport because we were out of money! We left the following morning.

That's it, hope this gives you some ideas!