Month: October 2015

Well, we got nicely settled into The Volcano Lodge and pretty much chilled for the rest of the day. Bright and early the next morning we were picked up for our 3 in 1 tour of Arenal through a company called RainForest Explorers. The driver’s name was Edgar and the guide’s name was William. He is pictured above. Both spoke excellent English. Since we would be together all day, we had plenty of time to talk. On one of our longer drives, William told us his story.

His full name is William Bogarin-Solano, but to everyone he is William. (We didn’t learn his full name till we Googled him when we got back.) William calls himself an Indian and his family is part of the indigenous people who are still found throughout Costa Rica, mostly in the Guanacoste region in the northwest. As a child he lived in a small village at the base of Arenal. When he was growing up, few people even realized that Arenal was a volcano. It had been dormant for 500 years, so everyone thought it was just a mountain. All that changed on July 29, 1968. For a day or so before that day, the ground around his village began to shake violently. There was a stream on his family farm where the cattle would go for a cool drink. Now suddenly the water was too hot for the cattle to get anything. On the morning of the 29th the mountain exploded. A huge cloud of dust and gas darkened the sky and boulders the size of cars flew as many as seven miles away, exploding where they landed. William and his family ran for their lives. Because their village was on a hill top, they escaped the hot gases volcanoes produce. His friends in a nearby valley were not so lucky and more the 80 people were killed that morning by the hot gas. That village is now at the bottom of Lake Arenal.

For years he would not go near the volcano, but in time he began to overcome his fear. Eventually he climbed the volcano and has now been to the top (strictly illegal in this day and age) eight times. Following the big eruption the volcano remained active, with regular lava flows, then it became quiet for a time. But in 2000, it erupted again, without warning. While this was a much smaller eruption, William’s best friend was hiking with a couple of tourists near the mountain. They were all killed by the hot gas. A few days later someone chartered a plane to fly up and see what it looked like up there. The plane crashed and 10 people were killed. William was part of the team who hiked up to recover the bodies. A few years later he climbed to the top and spread a blanket as a memorial to those who lost their lives.

William now keeps a laminated photo album of these events, which he shared with us on our drive. This is the eruption of 2000:

This is the site of the plane crash:

This is the memorial blanket he left at the top:

On a lighter note, the actor/rapper Will Smith filmed part of the movie After Earth in Costa Rica, where they spent six weeks in a $1,000+ per night hotel nearby. William guided Will’s family through the forest. Here is Will, Jada Pinkett-Smith and their son.

More about William later.

The 3 in 1 tour starts with a float trip down the Penas Blanca river, then a hike down to the La Fortuna waterfall, and, finally, a hike part way up the volcano. Now that’s a lot of hiking for us geezers, but William was unfazed. Along the way we stopped to pick up another couple, and that was it, just the six of us. We drove through the village of La Fortuna (more about that later) and then we were out in the countryside. Here is some of what we saw:

Those skinny little trees are tapioca, which is grown commercially in the area. The tapioca you eat comes from the root. Then there were these:

The is a field of pineapples, which are grown in many places in Costa Rica. It is, by far, the tenderest and sweetest we have ever had. And, every place we stayed served it fresh every morning for breakfast.

In time, we pulled into a staging area and William and Edgar filled the boats with air.

We were pleased to learn that the guy in the blue shirt, part of the other couple with us, had just retired from the Coast Guard. Always nice to have backup!

Soon William had us ready to go:

Before long we were cruising down the Penas Blancas! Dianne and I were with William and the other couple was in a boat with Edgar.

Those of you who grew up near the Killbuck Creek will remember that it often had a certain aroma, which was, shall we say, organic in nature. Well, the Penas Blancas could have been its twin. Still, it was quite pleasant cruising down the stream.

Soon William would call out a bird here, a tree of a certain type there, or a flower over here. It was one thing after another and, for some reason, I had a hard time picking out what he was seeing. But he was gracious enough slow down or row over for a closer look. In time I started to get the hang of it. Here are a few of the many, many things we saw along the way:

Bamboo:

Wild bananas, which William pointed out, are much sweeter and smaller than the ones we buy. But they can’t be grown commercially because they ripen too quickly.  Notice the red flower? The bananas are above it in the leaves.

Soon William spotted this guy lounging in a tree. Sloths, by the way, have few natural predators. The reason is, they are so inactive they have very little muscle mass. So, there’s not much there to eat.

William took a picture of a couple of tourists enjoying the cruise:

Then all of a sudden, he starts paddling toward the left bank. He had spotted some howler monkeys!:

And, even better, monkey babies:

We watched them for a while then William went over to shore a picked a fern leaf. He laid it against my sleeve and slapped it gently. Then he took the fern away. This is called a Tattoo Fern and the powder it leaves is made of spores.

A little farther downstream William stopped again. He left us, climbed a bank and went into some big-leafed plants a short distance away. When he came back he was carrying this guy:

This is the famous Blue-Jeans Frog. It is poisonous, but William assured us that as long as he washed his hands soon he would survive. He did a nice job of staging the frog to make it look like we’d found him in the wild.

In time, William announced it was time to stop for a snack. There is a farm nearby and they were expecting us. On the path to the farm we met this Iguana:

He was uninterested in us.

We also passed a star-fruit tree. You see these at Meijers sometimes. The fruit, not the tree.

Well, it was finally time to say goodbye to Monteverde and head for Arenal We had been promised an even rougher road and Costa Rica did not disappoint!

Not exactly what one hopes for in a main highway. But, at least we were in a vehicle better able to handle it:

This time we had almost a full size bus, with lots of people heading our way, most of them youngsters.

But even a bus has its challenges:

So, map fans, here is where we were going:

At least this is where Google Maps thought we were going. In reality, we were told as soon as we got on board that we would be crossing the lake by ferry and would be met on the other side by people who would take us to our final destination, in our case the Volcano Lodge.  And, in spite of the bumps, there was some beautiful scenery along the way.

After a couple hours of sightseeing we stopped at this restaurant for snacks:

Bamboo was definitely the theme for this place. Some other buses pulled up as well so we had time to chat with a few Americans. We had long been in the minority. Most visitors are from Europe or Australia. We even met a couple with whom we had hiked the cloud forest. They were headed somewhere else. Small world!

Then is was back on the road. In a while we came upon a wind farm.

Then we came to a small village. And here is a scene we saw repeated time and time again regardless of where we were in Costa Rica, a parent (usually the mother) walking a child to school. VERY nice to see.

Here is the school.

So anyway, we are driving for another hour or so and all of a sudden we see a big lake. In a few minutes the driver pulls his bus beside a metal shack and announces that this is as far as the bus goes. We would be boarding a ferry.  At the top of the picture is where our bus was. At the bottom is our boat. The cement slabs are the extent of capital improvements in the area. It is a dirt trail down the hill. Fortunately these young boys volunteered to help us with our bags, which we greatly appreciated. We gave them each 1,000 colonies (about $2) and they were pleased as well.

We had no trouble finding our bags later:

Actually it was a pretty nice boat:

And a very fun and scenic ride it was! By the way, whenever we travel we generally try to represent the US in a positive way. Glad to see that this spirit has found its way to the younger generation as well. For example here is one of the guys who crossed with us.

Soon Volcan Arenal  hove into view

As we got closer the clouds almost came off:

Before long, we started to head for our dock, which, as it turned out, was a bunch of rocks in the water leading to another dirt path. Our vehicles were above waiting for us as promised:

 Soon we were speeding away to the Volcano Lodge on nicely paved highways. We would not ride another gravel road the rest of our time in Costa Rica.

The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is largely the creation of George Powell, an American doctoral student who came to Costa Rica to study many species of birds found here. Once he arrived, it didn’t take long to realize that the forests were being decimated by various elements. Not only did he have substantial personal wealth, but he was also very persuasive and was able to get a mining company to agree to create the preserve on its land while he purchased neighboring parcels. The preserve was founded in 1972 and now contains 26,000 acres. A cloud forest, by the way, is a forest that is often or sometimes covered by clouds to a point where mosses and other moisture-loving plants can thrive.

For our tour, Anywhere Costa Rica hooked us up with Marcos Mendez Sibaja, who is a dual US and Costa Rica citizen. He has established a tour service named Pasion Costa Rica and is available for much more extensive hiking than just the morning trips that we were on. Marcos was the first of several truly excellent guides we met during the trip. His knowledge of the area is outstanding. He is very personable and works hard to make sure you see as much as possible, understand what you are seeing, and all your questions are answered. Plus, his English is easily understood. That’s Marcos pointing at the tree.

Here is the trail. Very nice.

There were only six of us on the tour and we were only minutes into it when we spotted our first monkeys and sloths. Then, the word got out among the guides going up and down the trail, that someone had spotted a Resplendent Quetzal. Well, you would have thought that gold had been discovered in a nearby creek. Considering that a half-hour ago we never even heard of this bird, we were all now desperate to find one. Here is why:

Well, I wish I could tell you that I’d taken that picture. Or, that we’d even seen one. Sadly, no. We did not find a male, but we did find a female:

Still a pretty rare find, we were told. By the way, if you go back up to that picture of Marcos you will see that he is carrying a field telescope. What he and several other guides did for us is, they will train the telescope on the subject, and then take your cell phone camera and take a shot through the lens. That’s how we got this one. Unfortunately, a little lens cleaning was needed, so the colors are not so bright.

Along with the quetzal, we also found a Red-bellied Trogan, another rare find apparently. However the picture was too bad to post. OK So, shooting through a telescope doesn’t always work.

In Costa Rica there are over 1,400 types of orchids alone, not to mention the thousands of other flowers that are literally everywhere. Here are a few:

Along the trail we also met a cute little guy, called an agouti. You will see his face below the red ears. They are kind of like big prairie dogs, about the size of a cat. They don’t care to be seen, especially by humans. Interestingly, we later learned that they are considered to be a delicacy by the various boa constrictors that roam the area.

Then we came upon a hole in the wall. Who lives there?

This young lady:

As you might have guessed, tarantulas are common here in the cloud forest and at lower altitudes as well.

One of the most common trees in the forest, both up in the mountains and along the coast is this one, the ficus tree:

This is also called the Strangler Tree. The reason is, that sooner or later, an airborne seed from a nearby tree will land on its trunk somewhere. From that seed a vine will grow up and attach itself to the tree. the vine will also grow down and plant itself in the earth. Over time, the vines will circle the tree and slowly strangle it to death. Then it becomes a new tree. You can see the vines already at work on this one. Ah Nature!

Here is a young tourist daring the tree to strangle her.

Fortunately she escaped and found her way to this waterfall.

Our morning hike ended a place set up at the park to attract humming birds. These birds are everywhere in Costa Rica. Here is a VERY small sample:

What a GREAT way to spend the morning. If you’re ever up that way, Pasion Costa Rica, highly recommended.

Later that evening we arrived at a place called Hidden Valley for the night tour. Hidden Valley is a roughly 40 acre preserve owned by a young man from Boston who came to Costa Rica as a preschool teacher in San Jose. He found this place in run down condition, attracted some investors, and set off to create an eco-friendly place for tourists. Much of the lodging is still under construction, but some rentals are available.

He told us that the locals, when they found out what he was trying to do, were very friendly and helpful. For example, he found that he needed permits to build some of the structures, like observation platforms, that visitors would want so they could see the wildlife. He found that the permits would be expensive, but even worse, there is always a backlog, so that it might take a year or more to get approval. His friends advised him to go ahead and build what he wanted anyway. If he got caught, he would still have everything done and it would be cheaper to pay the fine. There is no substitute for local information!

So, anyway, there were only four of us on the trip, including the guide. By the time we got into the forest, it was totally dark. We were each given flashlights and off we went. Well, there is nothing quite like being in one of these forests at night. For one thing, the noise of the crickets is overpowering. And these aren’t the crickets we are used to in Ohio. These crickets look like this:

And, there is no shortage of them. So, we are looking under leaves and into bushes, trying to find some wildlife. It didn’t take long to find this:

Although this snake has the markings of its more poisonous relatives, this one is harmless to humans and actually is beneficial. It is called a cat-eyed snake and he enjoys strangling frogs.

We also came across this roughly ten foot high mound of dirt with a nylon pipe running over it. Turns out the pipe is temporary and the mound is an anthill of leaf-cutter ants. The ants were still quite active and we were told they never sleep. They just work till they die. More about them later.

We saw a few other things on this trip, but it was not apparently a night when the critters felt like stepping out. But, believe me, just being out there is experience enough.  To top things off, we came to an opening in the canopy and it was a night when the stars were as bright as they are in western US. Absolutely beautiful.

Well, that was it for Monteverde. Tomorrow we would be off to the volcano at Arenal.

After our morning adventure on the zip lines we asked to be dropped off in Santa Elena to get some local currency. We were greeted by the first of many tropical downpours, a regular afternoon event. I was able to get only about $100 worth of Colones (or, co LON ees, as they are called) at a time from the ATM. As it turned out, that was enough to hold us for a number of days. The exchange rate is about 560 colonies to one dollar US. Not as bad as Argentina, but still enough to require mental math. The US dollar is more than welcome in most stores. In fact, one of the guides told us that their government holds a large number of US dollars in reserve and that reserve is the foundation for their currency, sort of like a twisted version of the gold standard. So here we are in the US printing dollars as fast as the presses can run and with who-knows-what behind them, and these guys are using those dollars to shore up their economy! What a tangled web we weave.

So, anyhow, Santa Elena is a very charming little town with a number of good restaurants. The locals suggested we try this one:

Don’t know why, but the place looked kinda familiar. Anyway, the food was excellent and the price was very good.

We were also pleased to see this:

It was too early in the trip to  go to this place. Later we would wish they had a branch on the coast.

Here is one of the best surprises: Dianne had inadvertently left a bag in Columbus which contained her meds. She went to this pharmacy to try to find some suitable substitute and was told that the actual meds she had lost were available in Costa Rica without prescription. The only thing they would not sell is the usual street drugs, which, of course, were not on her list. This solved a HUGE problem.

Pretty soon it was time for the coffee tour:

The Don Juan Coffee and Cocoa Tour is a tourist standard. I’m only showing the coffee part, because we later went on another cocoa tour that had more info.

I learned later that the ox and cart are a national symbol. These poor guys had to stand out in the pouring rain, just for the photo op. During the tour they weren’t even mentioned. But, the driver led them to shelter as soon as the tour started.

So, other than the old commercial that showed Juan Valdez and his donkey bringing in coffee, I really knew very little about actual coffee making going in. Coffee is more of a bush than a tree and it favors the mountains. It is, of course grown in much of Central and some of South America. It likes the tropics. Here is what young bushes looks like:

Here is a single mature plant:

The red berries, called “cherries” by the locals, are ready to be picked. The picking is still done by hand by people who carry bushel baskets through the rows. They guide said they might get one to maybe three dollars for a picked basket.

So here are the steps in making your hot cup of Joe:

I don’t see Juan’s donkey in that second picture

After the cherries are collected they are taken to a processing plant where the red cover is removed. Here is a machine that does that job:

As it turns out, this machine is made in Ohio!

The CS Bell Company has been making grinders and processors since the 1800’s and are still operating today in Hillsboro, east of Cincinnati. Who knew?

Here is what the inside of the cherry looks like:

After the beans are removed they are spread out for drying.

It’s a little know fact that coffee tastes better after a bunch of tourists walk all over it. Yummy!

After the beans have dried they have kind of a tough skin. This is taken off like chaff is taken off wheat, Then the green coffee is put in bags and shipped all over the world. When it arrives at its destination it is roasted to bring out the desired flavor

Based on the chart we were shown, here is the outcome of some of the roasting process: This guy took the info very seriously!

As I said earlier, we’ll save the cocoa part for later, but there is one other cool thing they showed us. Sugar cane also grows abundantly in Costa Rica and our guide happened to have a few stalks handy. With a machine much like an old ringer washer he invited us to run a stalk through.

The machine collected the juice, to which he added fresh squeezed lemon juice and  then distributed to the group in small cups. Oh my!

Well, that was the end of our first full day! Tomorrow we will take a morning walk through the cloud forest and then a night walk as well.

Apparently, when I filled out the form with Anywhere Costa Rica about things we wanted to do, I must have checked the box that said Extreme Sports, because what, to our wondering eyes did appear on the itinerary? A zip line, that’s what. Not just any zip line either. This was EIGHT lines all sort of connected. Although we had seen zip lines before (and heard lots of screams, we presumed from delight) we had never actually done this ourselves.

Well, when we saw it scheduled we kicked around whether to cancel or go for it. I kinda wanted to do it, Dianne kinda didn’t. As we looked into it further we found that they give you a short trial run. After that you could decide whether to go the rest of the way or not. AND there are other activities as well, including a nature hike and a tram ride. After much discussion we decided to give it a try. Here is the layout:

Our driver arrived right on time at the Trapp Family Lodge to take us to the Sky Park. Fortunately, the first order of business was the nature walk, the area in green on the map. The heavy lines you see on said map represent these:

A series of seven suspension bridges helped us over the deep ravines. Of course, the guide wasn’t happy until we looked down at the deepest spot, which, to us was merely a black hole:

Our guide was quite good. Not only could he explain many of the exotic plants that grow down there, he also was excellent at spotting wild life.

This was our first ever two-toed sloth:

Followed very soon by our first-ever howler monkeys:

And, our first-ever centipede!

He was also very good about taking pictures for us:

But, all good things come to an end. It was now time to tackle the zip lines. If you go back to the map above, you will see that the zip line course outlined in red. Essentially, you zig-zag down the mountain, in a series of 7 lines. The first line is the trial line where you declare yourself to be in or out. If you are in, you are in for the entire run. You can’t just do a line or two and say, “I’m done now.”

So you go up to the shack and a couple of guides meet you. Ours were named Bernie and Elvis. There were only four people in our group, Dianne, me and a couple from Amsterdam. The guides fitted us all with harnesses and helmets. For me, they provided a helmet with a bracket for a GoPro which was a big help. I had brought a clamp, but it would not have worked.

After we were secured in our harnesses, the guides gave detailed instructions on how to hang from the line, how to put your feet out before they apply the brake, and so on. Then it was show time. The couple from Amsterdam went first. Dianne, understandably, had serious doubts. To her credit, she gave it a try:

After her trial run, and gauging the impact on her newly replaced shoulder, she decided to settle for the tram ride up the mountain and then to call it a day.She did get a damn fine glamour shot though:

As it turned out, this was a good call. On some of those lines you go lickety-split and the stops are very sudden indeed. Much like a jet landing on an aircraft carrier. When that hook grabs you, WHOA NELLIE! Not something you want to try with a bionic shoulder.

So, that left three of us. We all rode the tram up the mountain (the orange lines on the map), said our farewells to Dianne and proceeded to climb this big tower to our first line. The climb pert near killed us.

Then it was time to go! The couple from Amsterdam did a fine job of cheering me on, a much-needed service. Elvis and Bernie were VERY professional. There was no funny business with these guys. They were all safety first. That’s what sold the deal. That and the fact that I could almost see my destination at the end of the first line. Quite helpful. Then it was WOOSH and I’m hanging over some ravine at a fairly high rate of speed. The boys told me that the worst thing would be to not go fast enough and get stuck out there somewhere. In which case you have to turn yourself, while suspended, and pull yourself hand over hand to the end point. In other words, they are not coming out to get you. (Although, I suppose they would if there were no alternative. They can’t just leave you hanging. Probably)

Well, it was immediately clear that lack of speed was not going to be a problem. What was a problem was that my head was up too high and the GoPro was scraping on the zip line. I had a hard time keeping far enough down to prevent that. So, not only did I grind off a fair amount of the case, but the video has a lot of buzz on the sound track from the cable hitting. That is why you are getting a video of the second line (Line 3 on the map) instead. They were able to adjust my harness and lower me down a bit. That mostly solved the problem. Here is the second line:

The way the brakes work is, they have a long cord hooked to a tubular pad. They run that pad out a hundred feed or so and when you hit it they pull on the cord. It is the cord that absorbs the impact, and the guide pulling it that slows you down. It is all fairly abrupt, however, and it gives you a pretty good jolt. It is actually as much fun as the ride itself.

Well, in time, we became pretty comfortable with all this and it was really a LOT of fun. In no time at all we had knocked out all the remaining lines except the second to last, the one the You Tube people call, “Big Papa”. The guides did not. To them it was Cable 7. Cable 7 is 2,460 feet long, 196 feet at its highest point, with a maximum speed of 46 mph. This is what it was like:

At the end of this line we had the choice of jumping off the platform we were on using something like a bungee cord, although you don’t bounce back up. You free fall for a while, then it sort of catches you. ( I have video of the Amsterdam couple doing it. If you want to see it, send me a message). This is not what I signed up for, however, and I wanted to do the last zip line. So, Bernie rode over first to catch me, and off I went for the last ride, which was event less.At the end, Bernie was gracious enough to pose with what was probably his ten thousandth tourist.

Well, we had done all this and it wasn’t even time for lunch yet! We had to get back to the lodge so we wouldn’t miss our ride to the afternoon coffee plantation tour!

The flight from Baltimore, Southwest’s hub, is about four and a half hours. And, to make things even better, the flight was only half full! Yay for the rainy season! SJO is a small, but clean and modern airport with, maybe, 13 gates all in a row.

As soon as we walked into the baggage claim area we were met by Anywhere Costa Rica people who told us where our bags would be coming out and where to find our driver. A very warm welcome, indeed! While we were waiting for our bags I tried to use the ATM to get some local currency, but it did not work. The only one working had a long line and we knew better than to get screwed by the World Exchange counter, so we decided to wait till our destination. We had enough USD’s to tide us over and they are usually accepted as readily as the local “colonies”.

We soon had our bags and met up with our driver, as smooth a process as we could have wanted. Our driver was a young guy, mid thirties, who spoke excellent English. He was driving a mini-van. When he found out it was our first time in Costa Rica he proceeded to give us the background about the country and what it is like to live here. Here is where we were going (as you know, you can click on the picture to enlarge it):

All the way out of San Jose we were in fairly heavy traffic. Our driver told us we could stay on the main highway and not see much, or we could take a side road down the Pacific coast for a much better view. Since we would not otherwise see the Pacific side, the choice was easy. Before long we were in the very beautiful countryside.

In about an hour we were on the coast, just south of Puntarenas. There are two deep water ports with container terminals in Costa Rica. One here and one on the Caribbean side at Limon’. Neither are very large. So, the ships just wait in line.

There is a nice beach. Nobody was there.

But here was the best part for us:

Sodas are small restaurants and they are seemingly everywhere. But, what we were interested in was the Frutera. Here is what they had to offer:

The fruit with stems is called Granadilla, related to Breadfruit. The others I don’t know.

Our driver directed our attention to the red, fuzzy fruit in the back. They are Mimon’s although the locals often call them lychees. All you have to do is split the red part and this is what you get:

You just pop the white fruit into your mouth and prepare for major sweetness (and a fairly large seed). They are delicious! I bought a kilo, which proved to be more than enough given our hectic schedule.

While we were at the market we saw this truck. We later learned that much of the food distribution across the entire country is handed by a bunch of Bimbos. Shocking!

Soon we left the coast and began our ascent toward Monteverde. You will notice the nice paved road. It didn’t last long.

Before long we were on route 606. My Holmes County peeps will quickly recognize this type of road. To their credit, the Costa Ricans made theirs wide enough so that if you meet a milk truck you don’t have to back down the hill. Otherwise; it is the bone-jarring, tooth loosening, suspension cracking experience of our youth. Except the rocks on this road are much bigger than our traditional gravel. To top it off, we hit our first rain storm. Here is a little of what it was like.

We were on this road for seventeen miles. The question of renting a car faded well into the background. Our driver, who lives in La Fortuna, which you will see later,  said that he rates the roads up here like we rate white-water rapids. This one he gave a Class 3. Later we told him our next stop would be Arenal. That road, he said, is much worse. Give it a Class 5.

Now we were getting into the cloud forest.

Not too hard to look at.

In time we made it to the charming village of Santa Elena. More pictures of this place later.

Anywhere Costa Rica had selected for us the Trapp Family Lodge, which, as it turned out was another five or so Class 4 miles above Santa Elena near the Monteverde Forest Preserve. Soon we were putting our teeth back in our heads as we arrived at our destination.

The Trapp Family Lodge is a beautiful facility with some of the friendliest staff we have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  Here are a few shots of the place.

Hardwoods throughout the entire building. This is the view of the back. Our room is past the last window.

 In addition, they have absolutely beautiful grounds!

You want flowers?

And the best part? The total cost of the room: $94 per night. Recently I saw an ad for them at $74 per night, presumably for a little smaller room. We loved this place!

If my memory is correct, which generally it is not, it seems it was back in the ’80s that Costa Rica was “discovered’ as a place where the cost of living, and property, was cheap, the scenery beautiful and the people friendly. So, a flood a retirees and escapees began to head in that direction.

By that time Costa Rica itself was undergoing its own transformation. In 1949, following a civil war common in that part of the world, the new government took the extraordinary step of becoming the first nation in the world to abolish its army. By the eighties the economy had moved from being primarily a coffee and produce exporter to becoming a center for Eco-tourism. Much of the land was protected either by the government or privately and by the nineties tourists became the primary economic engine.

For many years we have come across people who have been there and loved it, and it has long been on our list of places to go. However, it did not become high on that list till it came time to cash in some expiring free Southwest air miles.

We started accumulating those miles with an Air Tran credit card some years ago. Then Southwest bought Air Tran. The miles, although computed differently, did transfer, but the process hit a little turbulence and it wasn’t clear that  those hard-earned miles had arrived at their destination safely until early this year. When they did arrive, they brought their October, 2015 expiration deadline with them. So, we had some planning to do.

At the time the all this was going on the farthest destination Southwest flew was Aruba. And, while we would have been plenty happy going back there again, we are always looking for something new. That’s when Southwest announced they would soon begin service to Costa Rica! Yay! For various reasons, including the arrival of our new granddaughter, we could not travel much before the dreaded miles expiration date. So, I slowly began looking into everything Costa Rica had to offer, which was a LOT!

As is my custom, I started with Tripadvisor. They had all kinds of fabulous beaches and national parks as destinations, mostly on the Pacific coast. So Dianne and I looked over the list and settled on a few places. We decided it would take about two weeks to see all this stuff and avoid a mad rush from place to place. I was able to confirm that our flight would indeed be free. So, we booked October 1-13. Now it was time to fill in the details.

I started looking a You-Tube videos about Costa Rica. To my surprise, one of the first videos was from a couple guys who live down there and who strongly advised against renting a car. WHAT??? How are you supposed to get around? People on TripAdvisor had mixed opinions of the subject, but they all agreed on one thing: it would be pricey. The cost of renting a car down there is a little high, BUT the government requires you to buy insurance, regardless of what your own policy and/or credit card might cover. This       required insurance would be, at least, $55/day. Hmmmm. Not good. Sounded like the kind of racket you run into some times. Still, I had a hard time nailing down an alternative. The whole country is no bigger than West Virginia. Surely it can’t be that hard to get around.

Earlier in the year one of my Facebook friends, Amy Kutschbach, had posted pictures from her trip to Costa Rica. Making no progress on my own, I messaged her about car rentals and getting around generally. She replied with some good advice and sound reasoning which was, a) DO NOT rent a car because roads are awful and signs are few, AND, b) let the locals arrange both your vacation and your transportation. She recommended a site called “Anywhere Costa Rica”.  They give you good suggestions to choose from and the service is free! OK. Now we were getting somewhere!

I got on the Anywhere Costa Rica site and got to work. First the give you a nice checklist of things you want to do down there. Then they ask for your budget and how many days you plan to stay. You send them that info and they assign one of their staff to work with you. Sure enough, almost instantly, I received a reply with suggestions for places to visit and things to do. Following Amy’s pictures, comments from TripAdvisor people and our personal preferences, Dianne and I soon had it narrowed down. We replied back and soon received a phone call from Yuliana, our guide for this experience. She agreed that we had picked some excellent spots, but she pointed out that October is still the rainy season in Costa Rica. For that reason some of the places on the Pacific side actually close and regardless, we might well spend considerable time in the pouring rain. OK. This was good to know. She said we would still be alright in the mountains, but would be much drier on the Caribbean side. She suggested some places to visit there, which sounded just as good. Soon we were narrowing things down again. Before long, we had a plan.

Not only did this plan include the properties, it also included all transportation from the airport, to every destination and back to the airport. And all within budget. Here is the final itinerary: