Costa Rica 2022

 Costa Rica - A Dream of Biodiversity and Volcanoes

  This year, I came closer to my dream of travelling to all continents in my life. Since I had to cancel my trip to Namibia and South Africa in 2020, I wanted to find a way to travel far away again for the first time since 2019. So I came up with the idea to accompany my girlfriend to Costa Rica, who is spending half a year there for her master thesis. Travelling to Central America was a special adventure for me, having previously only travelled in Europe and Asia. After a 14-hour odyssey via Newark in the USA and some turbulences on the flight to Costa Rica, we reached San José at night. 

 The next morning, we woke up well rested after a long sleep. To take it easy and to acclimatize to the humidity, we just walked around the city a little bit and made a stop at the beautiful Spirogyra Butterfly Garden. For me, it was directly the best spot in the whole city of San José. It's a small, but wonderful garden with magical butterflies of all shapes and colors. Moreover, there was a path outside the aviary, leading to the city river Rio Torres. It was a real adventure and we felt like we were in the jungle in a beautiful, lively nature, even though we were actually in the city. Another highlight was a cute, small butterfly that flew onto my finger and didn't want to leave anymore, so that I took a tour through the garden with the butterfly on my finger, but I wasn't allowed to take the butterfly with me, when we wanted to leave the garden.  

  During the trip, I often heard from other tourists, that they didn't even spend a day in San José, because they thought, it's not worth to stay there. I would disagree. It may not be the most exciting city, but San José has more to offer than just the Butterfly Garden. The city surprised me with many green areas or parks like Plaza Simón Bolívar, but also some interesting buildings like the National Theatre of Costa Rica, which opened to the public on 21st October 1897 with a performance of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, and the really impressive street art which could be found in the whole city.  

  The sad thing was, that my girlfriend got a positive covid-19 test - I surprisingly didn't test positive, although I was also slightly sick for the first two days. So after spending two days together, exploring San José, I had to continue the holidays for one week and a half on my own.

  Another great place in San José was the Mercado Central, the largest market of the city, established in 1880. I tried to discover all the shops and cheap restaurants called sodas by walking around the narrow alleys of the market. A huge range of different fruits, vegetables, coffees, fish and meat, but also souvenirs and local handcrafts can be found. But the highlight were the different exotic fruits like passion fruits, mangosteens, rambutans, pink dragon fruits and the best and sweetest pineapples, I ever had in my life. I also bought fruits, I've never tried before like soursops, jocotes, mulberries and a peach palm fruit. It also helped both of us to get vitamins to get healthy again. For me, it helped quite a lot and after two days of being ill, I felt much better again. 

  At the Mercado Central, I also tried the traditional breakfast - the Gallo Pinto - for the first time. It's a warm dish consisting of rice and beans as a base, combined with cooked plantains, cheese, bell peppers, coriander and garlic. I was sceptical at first, if it's a breakfast, I would like, but I quickly understood, that it was a good basis for long days of adventures.

  When I still felt a bit sick, I decided to cancel the trip to the Irazú volcano. Instead of the trip, I wanted to use the time to learn more about the history of Costa Rica by having a more relaxed and calm day. One of the museums, which is worth to visit, is the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum and the National Coin Museum, on the ground level of the same building. It was quite interesting to see many Pre-Columbian artefacts, ceramic pieces, gold, stone and glass objects from 300 to 400 BC to 1550 AD. I was also quite impressed by the animal figurines and amulets, the huge gold necklaces or a detailed scale model of a Pre-Columbian village. 

  The second important museum, I visited, was the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, the national museum of the country. The museum gave an insight into the history of the country also thematising the Pre-Columbian period, mixed with a butterfly garden, showing the beautiful biodiversity and animal life. It also provides informations about the geology, archaeology, religious, colonial and modern history of Costa Rica. But it's not just the many exciting finds and the exhibited art, which made the museum worth seeing. The building itself - a kind of yellow castle built in 1917 for military purposes - makes a visit a must while staying in San José.

  After having another negative test result, I decided to join the booked tour to the Poás Volcano. The guide picked me up in San José and we drove via Alajuela to a cute small place for having a Gallo Pinto and coffee breakfast. Usually, the next plan would have been a visit of the coffee plantation Doka Estate. But luckily the guide and I decided to go to the volcano first. We arrived around 8:30 am at the parking area of the Poás Volcano National Park, where I got a safety instruction, before continuing a short hike to the volcanic crater. The Poás is one of the most active volcanoes in Costa Rica and last erupted in April 2017 and briefly twice in September 2019, wherefore adjacent trails to Lake Botos remained closed. Nevertheless, the 20 minutes on top - it wasn't allowed to stay longer because of the sulfurous gases - where quite amazing. I haven't seen a volcano so close before and now, I had the chance to directly see the crater lake clearly. But it didn't take a long time, until it was getting foggy and the lake disappeared almost completely in the haze, which was still mystical.

  The next destination - after stopping a few times on the road for taking photos - were the La Paz Waterfall Gardens. The gardens consist of three kilometres of paved paths through the lush rainforest and a rescued animal park with in Costa Rica living animals like toucans, macaws, snakes, feral cats (jaguars, pumas, ocelots or margays), sloths, marmosets or spider monkeys. There are also a butterfly garden, a frog pond with small poison dart frogs, a hummingbird garden with feeders for the birds and a beautiful orchid garden in the area. 

  But the highlight were definitely the waterfalls. A long staircase leads to the viewing platforms to have great views of the beautiful waterfalls. There are five waterfalls to see from many perspectives. One of them - the Magia Blanca - has a viewing platform, where it was possible to stand directly under the falls. Another waterfall could be observed from a little kind of beach section. Overall, it was worthwile to see the waterfalls, even if the hike was really exhausting. After the hike, I felt really weak, so I was happy, that there was a bus shuttle transfer, which brought us to the beginning of the park. While waiting for a bus, a cute coati came along, maybe, expecting to get some food. After having a lunch in the restaurant of the park, we directly drove back to San José, so I skipped the coffee plantation to have a bit more time to rest.      

  After almost a week in San José, it was time for me to move on. Since my girlfriend still had to stay in quarantine, I bought her enough food for the next days, before I took the bus to La Fortuna. When I arrived there, it was too cloudy to see the Arenal Volcano, but I really hoped to get some more luck during the stay. Nevertheless, I was super happy, that I decided to stay in the Arenal Xilopalo Hotel, which was a bit outside of the centre, so it was really calm and I had the chance to observe some hummingbirds and luckily, also a sleeping sloth in the little forest around the hotel.

  The next morning, my day already started really early. I booked a combined tour with a zip-lining and rafting adventure. For the rafting, I was picked up at my hotel and I was brought to the starting area of the zip-lining tour in the rainforest of the Arenal Volcano National Park. There, I met a Greek girl and we both were the only ones, who joined the tour, so we didn't had to rush. Since I'm afraid of heights, I wasn't sure, if I could fly over the rainforest lines, but after the first two lines, it felt comfortable and also really amazing. The adrenaline pushed the fear away. After this breathtaking experience, we drove almost one hour to the Rio Balsa, where we started the rafting tour. We shared the boat with an Indian-American family and it was quite funny to paddle through the white water rapids. Since I was sitting in front of the boat, I got extra wet, but it was still a funny trip. About halfway of the rafting tour, there was a short break with refreshments - watermelon and pineapple - before we went on the boat again for another hour. It was a great activity day with spectacular views of the nature and especially with fighting against my fear against the heights, so that I could have been really proud of myself, being brave enough to do the zip-lining.

  One of the highlight of the trip to Costa Rica was the animal wildlife. In La Fortuna, I joined a morning walk through the rain forest to see some sloths. But before we could start the walk, we had to take a shuttle bus to go to the place and even this short trip was full of surprises. From the moving car, the guide was able to spot macaws and toucans in the trees, some of which we didn't even see without binoculars when we were standing right in front of the trees. On the way we also saw another group that just stopped because another tour guide spotted a family of monkeys in the tree. Arriving in the rainforest, it took a while before we spotted the first sloths in the treetops. But fortunately, we were all surprised by some active sloths climbing from branch to branch.  

 After the animal watching, it was time for another hike in the rainforest of La Fortuna. Again, I was picked up at the hotel and brought to the starting point, where also the zip-lining adventure started. But this time, the group and I had to hike through the jungle via a 480-step walkaway until we reached a calm turqouise-colored pool, surrounded by boulders. There, we had our first break of the day and we could use it to swim in the water of the 70 metres high Fortuna Waterfall, with its gently drifting currents and the cascading outflow. It was a good refreshing, before we had to hike back the steps to the starting point. Since it was a steep uphill hike, it was even more exhausting, so I took quite a few breaks to rest, but also to enjoy the whole atmosphere of being in the rainforest landscape. 

  The next step was a short ride on the tractor to the Maleku Village. The Maleku are an indigenous people of Costa Rica located in the Guatuso Indigenous Reserve, approximately an hour in the North of La Fortuna, but they still have a small village in the Arenal Volcano National Park too. In total, there are supposed to be around 800 aboriginal Maleku people in Costa Rica, making this the smallest tribe in the country. The Maleku have their own language - also called Maleku - and they were welcoming us with the words "Capi Capi!", the Maleku version of "Pura Vida!", knocking on our shoulders with their right hand. We were also offered a traditional drink, an alcoholic drink made from fermented pineapples. The Maleku chieftain explained us a lot about their culture, which was translated from our tour guide. The tribe of the Maleku are smallholders and can obtain their food self-sufficiently by growing traditional crops such as plantains, yuka or corn and they are fishing in the local rivers. The Maleku economy mainly consists of their selfmade art and artistic woodwork like carvings, paintings or musical instruments and traditional masks. The mythical relationship the Maleku have with Mother Earth is sacred. She is the source of life, and her preservation and respect is also respect for the ancestors and spirits for the Maleku communities. It was super interesting to learn so much about the Maleku.

  We took another cup of the traditional drink before we had to leave the village to continue with a short lunch break, followed by the next hike - the Lava 1968 Trail - to an observation point of the Arenal Volcano. The volcano was dormant for hundreds of years and exhibited two craters at its summit, with minor fumaroles activity, covered by a beautiful and dense vegetation. Unexpectedly, the Arenal erupted in 1968 and destroyed the small town of Tabacón, while La Fortuna was spared. Arenal's eruption from 1968 to 2010 is the tenth longest duration of volcanic eruption on Earth since 1750. But since 2010, the one still existing crater has been dormant. Through a dense forest and a rocky pathway, we hiked around 1,5 hours to reach the observation point, where we had the most spectacular panoramic view. We were extremely lucky, even if it was still a bit cloudy, we could almost see the peak of the volcano. It was definitely the best view, I had during the days, staying in La Fortuna. After hiking back, we were able to relax in the natural hot springs at the end of the long and tiring, but also perfect day.

  Even though I was a bit sad to leave La Fortuna, I was also really looking forward to the trip to Monteverde, because I finally could see my girlfriend again and we could spend the rest of our vacation together. I was picked up for a four hours Jeep-Boat-Jeep tour, while the Jeep was more a minivan. Nevertheless, it was amazing to see the wildlife around the Arenal Volcano National Park again on the trip to the Arenal Lake, where we had to change to continue on a boat to cross the largest lake in Costa Rica. Interestingly, the lake was artificially dammed in the 1970s and the energy generated by the dam covers almost 60% of the country's electrical energy needs. After a relaxing boat ride with seeing another perspective of the volcano, hidden by the cloud ceiling, it was time for the last part of the trip to Monteverde. On the route, I could see incredible views of the mountains and villages, which increased my anticipation of the cloud forest.

  Luckily, we arrived on a Tuesday - it was Marshmallow Night in the Selina Hostel of Monteverde. It was a great opportunity to get together with other travellers on a cozy fire, eating S'mores. We talked a long time with a Dutch couple and it turned out later that they were our roommates. It was a wonderful first night in Monteverde.

  The next morning, we started our first tour in the Cloud Forest. We were picked up at the hostel and brought to the entrance of the Selvatura Adventure Park, where we walked through the beautiful rain forest and crossed the hanging bridges. We enjoyed breathtaking views at eye level with the canopy of the forest. The further we went, the more foggy it got, which gave the adventure a mystical atmosphere. With the humid climate, the habitat has developed a unique and impressive flora and fauna. Almost ten percent of the species that lives there are endemic. Unfortunately, we didn't see one of the famous colorful feathered quetzals, but we were able to see beautiful orchids, ferns and moss-covered lianas, which are always surrounded by wafts of fog. Because of its large variety of flora and fauna and the continous water supply, the cloud forests are one of the most important ecosystems on earth.

  After the Dutch guys told us about the amazing Monteverde Extremo Park, we booked the tour for the next day. The Extremo Ziplining Tour was a fantastic opportunity to get another adrenaline rush with its 4,330 metres including 16 lines. The most epic lines were, too be honest, the longest zip-line of Costa Rica and Central America with a flight over the cloud forest for almost 1,6 kilometres and the one kilometre long zip-line in a Superman mode. I was always asking myself, why the hell I'm doing that. But after 10 seconds of getting used to it, I could start enjoying the beautiful landscape also in a Superman position. At the end, there was also a possibility to do a Tarzan swing, a special kind of bungee jump, but that was actually too much for both of us and we decided to skip it.    

  After talking with the Dutch couple, who made the animal night tour before, we decided to join the animal adventure at the Kinkajou Night Walk Tour. It was the best way to spot and observe many animals in the cloud forest. At the beginning, I was a bit afraid, if we really could see many animals, because there were many groups of tourists and with the noise, the most of the animals might have hidden amidst the forest. So, we started the hike with the local guide and flashlights, trying to find the beautiful creatures of the night. The guide teached us a lot about the local flora and fauna and it didn't take long, until we found a tarantula lying in wait to hunt for food. Then, we found many enormous insects like bugs, locusts and a green glowing caterpillar, but also shining butterflies. Our guide also spotted a cute sleeping toucan in the leafy forest and we were able to see a bushy-tailed olingo climbing around in the treetops. I was already really happy, but there were still surprises waiting for us. 

  While continuing the path, the guide discovered a scorpion with a UV black light flashlight. The scorpion emitted a visible blue/greenisch-yellow light, because the outer skeleton of the scorpions contains molecules that are excited by high-energy, short-wave light. At a small stream, the next highlight was waiting for us - a red-eyed tree frog with its vibrant green body, yellow vertical stripes along its side and the red colored eyes. Finally, on our way back to the starting point, we could also see a green vine snake in the undergrowth, which was my personal highlight of the whole tour.

  After all the adventures, it was time to relax and unwind for another week in Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean beach. We enjoyed the time on the black volcanic beach, bathed in the sea, which was around 28 °C, drank cocktails at beach bars and watched fantastically beautiful sunsets. It was simply a dream - we understoof, what Pura Vida could mean. It's not just a simple greeting, it's a real way of life! We had an unforgettable time on the Caribbean coast and as an additional treat, we got a very delicious chocolate cake at "Bread and Chocolate" for my birthday. This coffeehouse was also a perfect breakfast place. Moreover - another highlight of the trip - we went to a small shop called "Chocorart" for a Chocolate Tasting. As starter, we got a coffee, followed by a tray of ten different chocolates. The experience was super interesting, since there were special kinds of chocolate, I've never tried before - like chocolate with ginger, Caribbean style chocolate with salt and pepper, Tequila chocolate with lemon and salt, dark chocolate with raisins, vanilla-flavoured dark chocolate or a bitter tasting 100 % cocoa chocolate. At the end, the lady of the house also offered us a chocolate tea, which was a perfect finish for the tasting.

  From Puerto Viejo, we started a 15 kilometres bike tour to Manzanillo to visit the National Park Gandoca-Manzanillo National Mixed  Wildlife Refuge, a protected area created in 1986 and one of only two places in Costa Rica where manatees still occur. Even though we couldn't see manatees, tortoises or monkeys, it was still an exciting trip. After hiking through the tropical forest, we reached the Playa Paulo Mena, where we first enjoyed an incredible view over the beach, sea and rainforest from a panorama viewing point, before we went down to calm down at the beach, while listening to the waves hitting the beautiful rock formations. Since it rained a lot the night before, the path in the tropical forest, which was full of roots and went downhill after a while, was very slippery. So we decided to turn around and relax a bit longer on the beach before starting our way back by bike. On the way back to our accomodation, we made a stop at the "La Nena" restaurant in Cocles to eat very tasty Caribbean style seafood.

 The last activity, we started before heading back to San José after a wonderful week at the Caribbean side with sunshine, cocktails, joy and fun, was a tour through the Cahuita National Park. We took the bus from Puerto Viejo to Cahuita and then walked to the entrance of the National Park. For me it was quite interesting to see, that the nature in Cahuita was way different than in Manzanillo. This time, we were able to see different kinds of animals - a raccoon, a snake, lizards, Atlantic ghost crabs, termites and many hand-sized golden silk orb-weavers. The tropical environment was amazing, also with many beautiful tropical flowers and trees. We were also supposed to see some caimans in a river, crossing the national park, but the guide of another group told us, that they went away from the noise of the tourist groups in front of us. For the beaches, I've to say, that I preferred staying in Manzanillo; they were much more beautiful. Nevertheless, with our hike through the nature, we had the perfect ending of our holidays together, before I had to fly back to Germany.