Dream Trip Day 118-131: Wildlife in Costa Rica

Posted On 24/07/2014

Leaving the so-called CA4 area means end of passport problems. Hurray! The only problem is you have to show proof of leaving the country by any means. My travelmate have just bought her ticket back home in USA. So the rest is easy, you know how. If you don't, there's a bunch of bus companies selling tickets back to Nicaragua. Borrow one from the travellers heading north. Or buy one, show and get your chop, then sell it to travellers heading north. Or buy the cheapest one (around US$10) and throw it away.

Our CS host in scenic La Fortuna has a dramatic life story. A former wealthy CEO whose company went bankrupt, and at the same time got diagnosed with terminal illness with no more than 2 years left. He chose here as his final destination but end up staying for 7 years with no more sickness plus a sweet girlfriend. When we arrived at night time, we crashed into their CS party of 4 other CS guests! What an amazing hospitality!

Animal watching tour W strongly recommend us to go on a tour with his naturalist friend J. Knowing we're on budget, he said we only need to pay 30% of the normal price for a private tour, which half price of what we need to pay in a National Park with guided tour. And it turned out that J was a super good guide. I guess he'd got some high-tech animal spotting X-ray installed in his eyes (haha). With him, in less than 3 hours we spotted tonnes of animals. Sloths, howler monkeys, poisonous frogs, loads of eagles, birds, other frogs I can't remember the name, lizards.....

He also brought us to his own private natural reserve which is still under construction after 10 years. He wanted to make it accessible for physically disabled persons, including those on wheelchair and the the blind and deaf. This is not an easy task and therefore he spent all of his income onto this little piece of land.

Monteverde is famous for the cloud forest. But to be honest, I've never heard of 'Cloud' Forest before. I thought there's only something called rain forest. Someone told me the difference is: Rain forests always rain, while cloud forests always cloudy. I thought they made fun of me but later realised it was true! Without a professional naturalist. We have to find animals by looking for professional photographers or tourists and ask them for hints.

There is also a humming bird farm with lots of colourful humming birds.

There's a super loving cat in our host's home. It comes to you and brush around you all the time. Even when it sees you through the window, it tries to brush its head on the window!!! It's overwhelming love almost make me want to kidnap it. haha.

Planned to surf in Jaco but the weather and water condition was no good. So we went to the hills to look for toucans. Everyone says toucans are every in Costa Rica. But I'm so unlucky that despite many days of deliberate search, I've only seen one baby toucan. This time, we found eagles and cute birds, but no toucan. But the reward was a beautiful sunset. While I was taking photo and exclaiming at the beautiful scene. My travelmate J, who often goes hiking in US, was puzzled by my excitement: "This is so common! I see something similar whenever I hike!" Errrr... because I'm a city girl who worked too much and was too lazy to move when I'm free...

Carara National Park is a small NP near Jaco. It also have some nicely paved walkways for the disabled. This time we came too early. Without a guide or the help from other tourist, we only heard lots of animals, birds but didn't see much. 2km away from the NP, there is a place with lots of crocodiles / alligators (I could never distinguish the two in a million years). Right beneath the road, there's a river with up to a hundred of them. So amazing!

Travelmate J will fly home after Jaco. Then she suddenly realised the bottles of Rum she bought for souvenirs can't be brought on flight as AA charge an exorbitant fare for even the first check-in bag. So we drank them all on the last two nights. Bought a bottle of coke and a lime from the grocery and made our own Cuba Libre!

When I woke up the next day, J was gone (sorry I didn't said goodbye). And I gotta face a rat in the bathroom. I switch on the lights for 2 hours hoping that it'll go away, but only to find out that it'd died! I guess it'd been poisoned sometime earlier. I finally took my shower after sweeping the dead mouse away and cleaning the bathroom floor....

How much luck is needed to have found CS Host throughout the whole trip in Costa Rica? Thanks to the superb hospitality of the lovely Costa Ricans. Stayed with a hotel manager who works near Manuel Antonio National Park and got treated with free daily breakfast and use of swimming pool! Felt sooooo thankful and spoiled.

As for the NP, it's too crowed so I couldn't see much animals even I paid extra for a guided tour. And no toucan!!! Sigh*

This beach have no tourist at all but only a few locals because of its remote location. If E didn't drove in with his 4x4, the only way to come is to walk an hour from the middle of a highway. Having lived in big cities. E decided to live near the nature. Choosing a house on top of a mountain, an hour drive away from the nearest town and his workplace. When he has time, he comes here to watch the sunset alone. He said, living far away means the boss / subordinates won't find him to help for trivial things when he's off. (Make me think of Hong Kong, how pathetic.)

It's a cloudy day but I enjoyed so much watching the waves. And the perfect B/W reflection of the grey sky on the wave washed beach.

I came to Uvita to see the Whale tale beach but was soooo stupid to forget that walking onto the beach itself is NOT the way... The only thing I found interesting was a super detailed shell, or coral thing on the sand. I've never seen such complicated patterns on a shell! I later learnt that it's called a Sand Dollar which I've seen it once more in San Blas, Panama. It was a living one covered with short and hard 'fur'. In fact, it was a type of Sea Urchin with little short spikes (the fur).

Tried to surf at the Manuel Antonio Beach but failed. There's too much undercurrents. Even swimming was difficult. (Or more possibly because my skills are toooooo bad.) Better sit back, relax, and see the other surfers struggle. Haha.