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Costa Rica or Bust! Manuel Antonio/Quepos: Rainmaker Conservation Park

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Maybe some people think, “Seen one rainforest, seen em’ all.”
Not me.

Even after traipsing around the forests of Costa Rica for the last two weeks, I continue to marvel at every unfurling fern, each denuded leaf and tell-tale trail of leafcutter ants, all the tenacious vines twisting and looping to reach the coveted sunlight, and any living creature, from millipedes to sloths. Today was no different. Tony and I drove to Rainmaker, a conservation park not far from Manuel Antonio. The trails and signage were less polished than the national park we toured yesterday, but we had the place almost to ourselves. We only saw one other couple while we were hiking.

The park has an interesting history, told succinctly on the travel blog Two Weeks in Costa Rica:

Sometime around 1990, a farmer named Don Victor Fallas needed some cash so was looking to sell a portion of his land near Parrita. A Costa Rican named Mauricio Gutierrez entered the picture and agreed to purchase 200 hectares (500 acres) on behalf of the company the Body Shop, which wanted the farmland to grow products for use in their cosmetics. Don Victor also owned a large amount of primary rainforest on a nearby mountain. Though he needed to sell it because of his debt, he wanted to find someone who would keep it preserved. Mauricio shared a similar vision and agreed to buy 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of the forest in his own name, thinking the pristine land could be valuable in a future tourism business.
Just as the paperwork was being finalized, Mauricio died tragically in an accident when he fell into a waterfall on the property while trying to save a child. With no buyer, the deal was about to fall through when Mauricio’s wife, Ann Gutierrez from the US, stepped in. She didn’t have the cash upfront but somehow got Don Victor to agree to a five-year mortgage. The only problem was that Don Victor wanted $100,000 as a down payment—and he wanted it in a week. The story then goes back to the Body Shop. Ann contacted Gordon Roddick, co-founder of the cosmetics giant, who agreed to lend her $100,000 for the down payment, and the deal went through.
Today the land is completely paid off and preserved. If it hadn’t been for Ann and her children Alessandra and Mick stepping in, the land probably would have been turned into a lumberyard. Apparently the bank that owned the property was in talks with a Japanese wood company that was set to buy the land if Don Victor defaulted on his loan. After visiting the property and seeing for ourselves how special it is, we can really appreciate Ann, Alessandra, and Mick’s efforts to keep Mauricio’s vision of conservation alive.

The ironically named Rio Seco (Dry River) rushes through the park, forming gorgeous pools and waterfalls. At the entrance, we were told the water level was dangerously high for swimming except at one spot: Pool 7. Fortunately, maps were posted throughout the park, so we knew when we got to the right place.

A lovely little waterfall fed the pool, which was set back a bit from the main path. We changed into swimsuits and stepped into cool, fresh water up to my neck at the deepest point. A little yellow bird sang as she built a nest in an overhanging tree. Butterflies swooped overhead. Beauty surrounded us.

I set my phone on timer and crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t fall into the pool!

When we emerged from the forest, we enjoyed a casado lunch and a craft beer called Perrovida (Dog’s life), which is brewed down the road. I loved their promotional poster. I tried the beer in the middle.

Back in Quepos, we strolled along the waterfront and got some ice cream before heading to our B&B for the afternoon. I sat on our balcony writing for awhile, but my attention was quickly diverted by a party of squirrel monkeys. Unfortunately, they were moving so quickly through the canopy that I couldn’t get a clear photo or video. They were so funny to watch as they leapt from branch to branch, swinging their long tails, and grabbing on for dear life. Twice, I saw monkeys lie on their bellies on a branch with all four legs dangling, as if they were just plain tuckered out.

While focusing on the monkeys, I noticed something in the distance that looked like a huge bird sitting on a limb. Tony and I tried for probably 30 minutes to figure out what it was. We zoomed in with our phones, used our lame little binoculars, and googled like mad. I ran down to ask Carlos for better binoculars, but all he had was a telescope, which was too big for me to haul up all the steps. I thought it might be an owl, but it had a striped tail, and we couldn’t find any Costa Rican owls online with striped tails. Finally, somehow, Tony nailed it: a laughing falcon, known in Costa Rica as a “guaco” because it makes the sound “wah-coh!”

It was too far away for a clear shot, but here’s a photo of a laughing falcon from the Carnivora website. Pretty cool. We read that they often stay in the same spot for hours, eyes peeled for small reptiles.

Macagua rieur. Famille des Falconidés. Ordre : Falconiformes

We wandered up the hill to Barba Roja for happy hour and a nice sunset view before dinner.

Another day in paradise!

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Costa Rica or Bust! Manuel Antonio National Park and more

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Today, we woke up to the sound of lashing rain. We had planned to be the first ones at Manuel Antonio National Park when it opened at 7 a.m., but the rain was a bit of a deterrent.

Finally, we agreed: It’s just rain! We won’t melt! And off we went. The only change we made in our plans was to leave our swimsuits behind. The park includes several private beaches where we had hoped to frolic for awhile, but we decided to make this a hiking day instead.

Following Carlos’s advice, we parked in a lot near the entrance to the park and ignored all the touts trying to lure us with more expensive parking options, tours, and crap for sale. We may not have been THE first in the park, but we were darn close. As Carlos predicted, the rain ceased within minutes.

Most trails were paved, and hills generally had easy-to-maneuver stairs or ramps. Bathrooms popped up periodically. As jungle hikes go, it was a fairly chill place to visit. We saw one sloth, a couple agoutis (those giant hamsters), a few cool birds and colorful crabs, and the blue morpho butterflies, which freak you out with their flashes of iridescence. I appreciated both the high-level coastline and rainforest views, as well as the ground-level access to the beaches and forest floor. As we were leaving around noon, mobs of people were going in. Tony and I smugly high-fived over having the park mostly to ourselves.

We tackled every trail and even paused at each beach to enjoy the scenery, only slightly bummed that we hadn’t brought our swimsuits.

Tony, wearing his Tevas, ventured into the surf a bit more than I did, laced as I was into my hiking shoes. At one point, he wandered up the beach while I rested on this fallen tree, soaking up the sounds and smells of the ocean. I sat here for more than five minutes before I realized my seat mate was a ginormous iguana. How did I miss him?

FYI, the combination of 100 percent humidity, gravity, and the action of moving our bodies to trek up and down hills actually results in clothes stretching several sizes, and my awesome hiking pants were easily three inches longer by the end of this day. Our clothes were drenched with sweat, and my fingers shriveled like raisins from the weird combination of dehydration and perspiration.

After almost five hours, we headed back to our room for a shower. We were ridiculously smelly and dirty. Once clean, we went to El Avion for lunch. We went for the cheesy airplane, but the food, sangria, and view were nothing to sneeze at.

This kitschy restaurant boasts a plane leftover from the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Here’s the info from the El Avion website:

Our Fairchild C-123 was a part of one of the biggest scandals in the 1980’s. The Reagan Administration set up a bizarre network of arms sales to Iran designed to win release of US hostages held in Lebanon and raise money to fund the Nicaraguan, counter-revolutionary guerilla fighters, commonly referred to as the “Contras”. By artificially inflating the prices of arms, “National Security Council” NSC official Oliver North, was able to reap profits that could be diverted to fund the counter-revolutionaries of the Cuban allied Sandinista government.
Of the $16 million raised, only $3.8 million actually funded the Contras. With the CIA’s help, they purchased several items, including two C-123 cargo planes, two C-7 planes, a Maule aircraft, spare parts, and munitions. They also built a secret airstrip on an American-owned, 30,000 acre ranch in northwest Costa Rica.
On October 5,1986, a US cargo plane, the twin sister, of El Avion’s own Fairchild C-123, was shot down over Nicaragua. A crew member Eugene Hasenfus, pilot hired by a private company to fly airlift and resupply missions. parachuted to safety and was captured by the Sandinista army.
Led out of the jungle at gun point, Hasenfus’s existence set in motion an incredible chain of cover-ups and lies that would mushroom into one of the biggest scandals in American political history known as the Iran-Contra Affair. As a result of this successful Sandinista strike on our Fairchild’s sister plane, the cargo operation was suspended and one of the C-123s was abandoned at the International Airport in San José.
In August 2000, we purchased the abandoned Fairchild and shipped the pieces of the Iran-Contra relic to Quepos. The fuselage was shipped via ocean ferry because it was 10 inches too wide for the antiquated Chiquita Banana railroad bridges! After hauling seven sections up the Manuel Antonio hill, the C-123 finally found its current cliff-side resting-place.
Now, our C-123 has been retired to less risqué endeavors as a restaurant, bar and an enduring Cold War relic. Join us for food under its wings, drinks in the fuselage pub or climb into the cockpit!

The restaurant was crowded, but nobody was in the plane bar when we were there at lunch. I climbed up into the cockpit and played pilot for a minute.

Later, I practiced a little yoga at a small covered space next to our treehouse while rain pounded the metal roof.

And then we braved the downpour to eat some comidas typicas at this fun place. I just can’t get enough of the casado. Black beans, rice, a green salad, some fried plantains, a piece of fish. So simple, but so delicious. Yum!

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Costa Rica or Bust! Stop 4: Manuel Antonio/Quepos

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Wednesday morning, we checked out of our dreamy treehouse and drove to Manuel Antonio. We checked in to My Casa’s B&B. Maybe it’s not as fancy as our Hidden Canopy Treehouses, but we like it. Owner Carlos is chipper and enthusiastic about his home and this region. He has lots of tips for where to go and when and how to park, etc.

Our room is up umpty-jillion steps in another type of treehouse with privacy and tranquility … that is, until the monkeys have a party on the roof at about 6 a.m. each morning. I don’t really mind. We’re morning people.

The main house, where Carlos lives with his wife and two kids.

When we first arrived, we realized our B&B is located mid-way between Quepos, a small town down the hill, and Manuel Antonio, the nature reserve up and over the hill. Missing our tea time at Hidden Canopy, we popped into a Quepos restaurant for beers and snacks around 5 p.m. Not quite the same.

After breakfast yesterday, Carlos recommended that we walk up the hill and follow a trail along the creek to a waterfall, so that’s what we did. It wasn’t so much of a “trail” as a “bunch of tree roots and/or rocks that line the banks of the creek.” So, since we didn’t have machetes to hack our way through the jungle, we had to cross the creek several times to find the easiest path.

During one attempt to cross the creek, I slipped on a moss-covered rock and fell flat on my bootie, crushing my iPhone, which was in my back pocket. The screen cracked, and I jammed a finger. Otherwise, no major casualties.

The walk was particularly fantastic because you couldn’t think of anything except where to put your next footstep, so it was like a really long meditation.

When we finally reached the waterfall, it was about 30 feet to the pool below. Carlos had encouraged us to jump in, but we knew before leaving the B&B that we wouldn’t be doing that. A rope tied to a tree tempted us to rappel down, but the tree looked a little gaunt. Instead, we sat at the top, enjoyed the sound of water plunging to the pond below, and reminded ourselves that we were sitting at a waterfall in Costa Rica. How cool is that?

By the time we returned to our room, we were dripping with sweat. Just outside our door, we spotted this little guy, a black and green poison dart frog. I like to call him Mr. Mint Chocolate Chip.

After a quick shower, we drove to lunch at La Lambretta, a pizza place overlooking the coast. Perfecto.

After lunch, it started to rain like nobody’s business. We hunkered down in our room, watched a bunch of Netflix (presently obsessed with “Glow”), ate peanutbutter sandwiches on our terrace, and finally crashed. Not a bad first day in this neck of the woods.

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Costa Rica or Bust! Monteverde – Original Canopy Tour

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Tony and I took a bird’s-eye tour of the Monteverde cloud forest earlier this week with The Original Canopy Tour. We ziplined through old growth and secondary growth forest with a small group and two guides, Tuca and Pedro. The course criss-crossed the private reserve of the Cloud Forest Lodge, and the ziplines offered incredible views of the treetops and the ocean off in the distance.

Geared up and rarin’ to go!

While we waited at one platform, Tuca pointed to a sloth in a nearby tree, right next to the zipline. He showed us how to stop at the tree to get a good look at the sloth before zipping the rest of the way. He even took our phones and snapped a few sloth pics for us.

The longest zipline was 800 meters, or nearly half a mile! Tuca stacked our phones and filmed the journey as he zipped to the other end ahead of us. I was so nervous he would drop our phones, but he must have done this a million times. Look how long it took to get to the other side!

On one line, several of us (including Tony and me) braked too early and didn’t quite make it to the end. We had to turn around, reach overhead, and pull ourselves to the platform hand over hand, like a monkey.

One scary but exhilarating highlight of the day was a 150-foot rappel down from a platform to the base of a massive ficus tree. Turns out the tree was hollow with rope steps constructed inside, so we scrambled up to the top of the tree and then out onto a rope ladder to crawl back to the top platform.

Me rappelling down.

Tony climbing back up.

Another even scarier feature of the tour was the Tarzan swing. We climbed some very high rickety steps, clipped onto a rope, and then jumped off. How insane is that? I swear, the videos don’t capture how high up we were. Tuka said, “Jump on 3, OK?” Then he counted to two and pushed me. Yes, I screamed liked a lunatic, but it was actually fun after the first terrifying drop.

Proof that we really did it!

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Costa Rica or Bust! Monteverde – Selvatura Hummingbird Garden

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On our last full day in the Monteverde area, I was ready to dial back the adventure. Instead, I wanted to hang out with hummingbirds. When we first checked in to Hidden Canopy Treehouses, Jenn had mentioned a few nearby attractions. She told us the birds at the Selvatura Hummingbird Garden would actually land on your hands while they sipped from the feeders. I obsessed about that for three days, and finally we went.

Selvatura Park is a conservation area with about 850 acres of protected land used as an eco adventure theme park. One attraction is the Hummingbird Garden with more than 14 species of hummingbirds that zip around to the various feeders and flowering bushes.

Sure enough, when I stood still next to a feeder, the hummingbirds would land on me. One perched on my hand for two minutes! I could feel his tiny heart racing, and I imagined him thinking, “Aw yeah, that’s the ticket. I can rest my weary wings and enjoy a drink for once.” After perusing this sign that was posted at the garden, I think my little friend was a green-crowned brilliant. In the meantime, other hummingbirds whizzed by my face and landed near my hand, creating a high-pitched whirring sound and a blur of wings.

Me playing with hummingbirds.

I love all the sounds.

Tony was less enthusiastic.

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Costa Rica or Bust! Monteverde – El Cafetal coffee tour

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Between nature walks with Koky, Tony and I took off to learn about the local coffee production process. We were picked up at Stella’s Bakery in town (after a delicious lunch), and taken to a family coffee farm in the San Luis Valley, right on the Continental Divide.

The San Luis Valley.

The El Cafetal Coffee Tour took us to the farm of Victor Ramírez, a local man who has worked in the Costa Rican coffee business for many years. In 2008, his family launched the coffee tour to give visitors a glimpse of their process, from planting to brewing.

Our tour guide, Gabby, walked us through the property and explained some of the eco-conscious practices aimed at sustainability. For example, all of the coffee plants are grown organically with a variety of fruit trees interspersed to provide shade, attract pollinators, and drop organic material that acts as mulch. She said Victor is constantly looking for innovative ways to reduce the impact of coffee production on the environment. He is presently working on new techniques to reduce the amount of water used in the process of washing the beans.

Baby coffee plants in the plastic bags.

A typical basket used for picking coffee cherries.

Gabby explained that a virus called roya is wreaking havoc on coffee plants in the region. Many of the plants on the farm have been affected and generate far fewer berries, so Ramírez is experimenting with different varieties of coffee plants in hopes of finding ones that resist the virus while also producing quality beans. Unfortunately, it takes several years for new plants to produce coffee, so there’s no way to rush to a solution.

Tony holds a leaf from a plant with the virus.

Unripe coffee cherries. Ripe ones turn bright red.

Machinery used for processing the coffee cherries.

Drying beans.

In an old house on the farm, Gabby showed us the way previous generations would have made coffee. We smashed beans with a pílon to remove the outer shells. Then we roasted them in a pan over a wood fire before pulverizing them with a hand cranked grinder.

This is the final product: Café San Luis. We sampled a cup at the end of the tour. Delicious!

Seeing this time-consuming, labor-intensive process – planting the seedlings, caring for the vulnerable plants, selectively hand-picking the ripe coffee cherries, and methodically getting the beans ready for roasting – reminds me of an exercise in my recent mindfulness training. We practiced taking “mindful mouthfuls” because we often eat mindlessly, not even noticing the taste or texture, much less honoring the work that went into getting that food or beverage to our mouths. After this tour, I can’t imagine I will ever drink coffee the same way again.

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Costa Rica or Bust! The Monteverde Cloud Forest – a guide hog meets her fantasy guide

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I’ve already waxed schmaltzy about our accommodations here in Monteverde: the magical Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel. What I haven’t mentioned is the resident guide, Koky Porras. We were strongly encouraged to book a tour with Koky, and you know I’m not one to walk away from a guided tour. That said, we had just finished two nature walks with guides in La Fortuna, so it was hard to imagine what could be so special about this guy.

Now I know.
He. Is. Brilliant.

Not just at finding and naming animals in the forest (which he does with an almost eery sixth sense). He also loves his job and takes pride in continuing to learn. He shared his stories of growing up here and evolving from a youngster charging through the forest with a slingshot to a deeply knowledgable naturalist who relishes an opportunity to teach others about the interconnectedness of living things. It was an honor to spend time with someone with such a gentle reverance for this ecosystem.

Koky hangs out with the guests during tea time at the hotel to chat about the area, wildlife, and his own personal experiences. While I was meeting other tourists and sipping red wine on our first evening, Koky borrowed my phone and shot this video through his telescope of a violet sabrewing hummingbird hovering at one of the garden feeders.

He also showed us how a scorpion (found by Jenn on the property) glows under an ultraviolet light.

I asked Koky how a rainforest differs from a cloud forest. He said it’s all about microclimates. A change of just 500 meters elevation has a big impact on the temperature and rainfall of a region, which ultimately determines which plants and animals can survive there. Monteverde is located in a high-elevation cloud forest, which tends to be cooler than the lowland forests. Most of the moisture comes from mist and clouds.

One of my favorite Koky anecdotes centered on the concept that trees in the forest play host to so many other plants. He told of some researchers who spent time in Monteverde studying just one tree. They ultimately counted and identified more than 120 plants living on that tree. Koky said he likes to use that story to pose powerful questions to the children he teaches, including his own. “I like to ask them, who pollinates each of those 120 plants? Is it bees or birds or bats? And who eats the fruit from those plants? And who eats the animals who eat those fruits? And what happens when those animals die and decompose? Who eats them then? You can see that cutting down just that one tree impacts the whole ecosystem.”

I consider myself fairly eco-conscious, but that story was a wake-up call. It’s so easy in our busy lives to forget that our actions can have major repercussions and that humans leave big footprints.

On our first full day here, we took two tours with Koky. We were joined by sisters, Lauren and Emily, for the morning hike to the Curi-Cancha Reserve. Koky carried his scope, binoculars, and several guidebooks for our reference. While we were still driving in town, he noticed a two-toed sloth in a tree, so we stopped for a quick look.
“All you can see is a furball,” Koky laughed.

At the reserve, Koky demonstrated his wicked iPhone photography skills by taking a vertical pano of Tony and me in front of this massive ficus tree. (Who knew you could take vertical panoramas?)

Koky listened astutely and mimicked the sounds of birds, frogs, and insects to track them.

Koky pointed out the clay-colored thrush and said, “That’s our national bird. We’re always a little embarrassed that we have all these beautiful colorful birds, but that’s our national bird.” I didn’t get a photo, but this one is from the website CostaRica.com.

The sisters were dying to see snakes, and sure enough, Koky found a side-striped palm pit viper curled up inside some twisted tree roots. He said he often sees the same snake in the same spot for many days. That’s because tree mice scurry about at night to collect food and they mark their trails with urine to find their way back to their nests. The snake uses its tongue to “smell” the urine trail and then hangs out to wait for a delicious snack. Koky recalled seeing one snake on a stakeout for 18 days until finally he saw the snake nearby with a mouse-shaped belly.

At one point, we saw weird clumps hanging from a vine. Of course, I started to move in to touch them, but Koky stopped me. He said they were called mokuna urens, a seed pod with spiny hairs (worse than a cactus, he said). According to Koky, the plant is pollinated by bats. When the bats probe for nectar, the flower blasts pollen into their faces, which they carry to other flowers.

As the morning went on, we saw more interesting plants and animals, heard more wonderful stories, and grew more entranced by the Costa Rican cloud forest. Here are some pics and videos from our day.

We looked up inside this hollow 300-year-old ficus tree. It’s hollow because the tree that had been inside served as host for the ficus, which grew on its branches, sending down roots to the earth. Over time, those roots grew thick and intertwined, taking on the shape of the tree within. Koky said researchers used to think the ficus killed its host (hence the ficus’s nickname, “strangler fig”), but now it’s commonly believed those old trees would have died anyway.

An agouti, which looks like a giant guinea pig, about the size of a miniature schnauzer. Tony and I kept saying, “R.O.U.S.es? I don’t think they exist!” (50 points if you can name the movie.)

An orange-bellied trogon.

A three-wattled bell bird, which makes the most bizarre electronic “bonk” sound. Watch till the end to hear him.

A bare-necked umbrella bird, which Koky said was unusual to see here. We understood its significance when several other tourists came flying down the path to see it.

A rainbow-billed toucan. Tony saw it through binoculars, and Koky took this shot for me.

A sleeping baby porcupine. (A bit hard to see … His little hand is grabbing the branch, and his head is tucked to his chest. He has a long prehensile tail hanging down the tree.)

A blue morpho butterfly. With its wings closed, it looks like a drab moth. But then it takes off, spreading its vibrant blue wings.

The resplendent quetzal! This is the rare gem of the cloud forest, which every birder seems intent to find. He and his friends were gnoshing at an avocado tree, and he kept hiding behind foliage. We were ready to give up when finally Koky set up his scope and got a clear shot.

What a day! And we were just getting started.

Tony and I spent the afternoon at a coffee plantation (which I’ll write about later). After tea time, we met up with Koky again and a fun couple from San Antonio, Tim and Anna, for a night walk.

Hiking in the forest at night is something I would ordinarily NEVER do. Just the thought of it makes my stomach turn over with fear. However, with Koky in tow, I felt totally safe and never once worried about getting lost or eaten.

As we entered the the wildlife refuge, he immediately stopped at a patch of plants to point out about a gajillion little life forms. A massive walking stick insect. A pygmy rain frog. A bunch of katydids and grasshoppers.

Koky found a scorpion on a tree, some cartoonish yellow mushrooms growing on a fallen tree, a rhinoceros katydid, a leaf katydid, and a glass-winged butterfly.

We encountered several groups of leafcutter ants, working their tiny butts off. Some worked in expanding the tunnels, carrying balls of dirt out to the edge of the hole and dumping it. Others carried bits of leaves down into the nest. Koky explained that other ants had the jobs of cleaning the leaves and then coating them with bodily fluids. Eventually, the leaves would develop a fungi that feeds the whole colony, which can number up to 5 million. I could have watched these guys all night.


He stumbled upon this weird creature and admitted he didn’t know what it was. Chatting with a family at the hotel the next morning, we discovered their college-bound son was a budding entomologist. When I showed him the photo, he said, “That’s a velvet worm.” Sure enough, Koky did some research and said it’s been around since prehistoric times.

Koky took us to a hole in the mud wall, which was once the nest of a motmot bird. He shone his flashlight into the hole and illuminated an orange-kneed tarantula. Waving a thin stick in the hole to create vibrations, he lured the arachnid out to the edge, where we could see her clearly. Koky explained that tarantulas tend to stay hidden to avoid the tarantula wasp. The wasp paralyzes the tarantula and then lays its eggs in the spider’s abdomen. When they hatch the wasp larvae eat the live tarantula from the inside out. Ugh.

And for the grand finale of our night walk, we saw another side-striped palm pit viper, just hanging out and ready to strike, waiting for some little mice to return from foraging.

On our way out of the nature reserve, Koky found a sloth in a tree, but it was really too far away to photograph. Still, not a bad night, eh?

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Costa Rica or Bust! Stop 3: Monteverde – Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel

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Sometimes a place is so special, you can’t capture it with words or images. As I sit on my balcony at the Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel – sipping mint tea, listening to the wind whooshing through the leaves and the trickling waterfall and the birds whistling and chattering to each other, watching a coati at eye-level scurry across the limbs of the cloudforest canopy – I struggle to convey this feeling.

New Yorker Jenn King broke ground on this property in 2006 and has since transformed the cleared pastureland into an idyllic, leafy oasis. Her gorgeous lodge welcomes guests into a spacious area with stone floors, tasteful wood paneling and huge windows that look out at a hummingbird garden, lush forests, distant mountains, and the Gulf of Nicoya. Jenn and her “better half,” Gary, live upstairs. Her sweet boxer, Gazoo, greets visitors at the door, and her coy cat, Bear, occasionally allows us to scratch his head.

Breakfast is a glorious treat with traditional gallo pinto (rice, beans, fried plantains), eggs, fruit, homemade bread and cakes, and a tasty surprise each morning (banana pancakes, savory potatoes, French toast …), as well as locally grown coffee.

Tea time at 5 p.m. brings guests to the dining room, greeted by friendly attentive staff, twinkly lights, delicious snacks, drinks, and a gourmet dessert. So far, we haven’t felt the need to go out to dinner afterwards.

It’s easy to stay busy here. Guided hikes (day or night), canopy bridges, ziplines, rafting tours, art galleries, coffee plantations, chocolate producers, sugarcane tours, and attractions for lovers of bats, hummingbirds, butterflies, reptiles, monkeys, and well, everything related to Costa Rica.

However, it’s also easy to let it all go and sit on this balcony.

More shots from this magical place.

Jenn and Bear.

The main lodge.

Gazoo.

The coati who raids the hummingbird feeders in the garden and who is likely the same visitor who cruised through the trees by my balcony earlier.

The reception area, open kitchen, and sitting room.

The dining room at tea time.

Evening view from the dining room.

Johanna, my favorite staff member, and a gorgeous sunset on our last night here.

Our treehouse, called Rising Sun.

A lovely little waterfall runs down the hill through the property, forming several ponds.

On the trail behind the lodge.

I wish I could live here forever!

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Costa Rica or Bust! Stop 3: Monteverde

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Another sweaty but happy yoga practice on Saturday morning. Another delicious breakfast. And then we were off. Although it was only about 18 miles to our destination as the crow flies, we’re no crows. That meant we had to drive 65 miles around Lake Arenal, the largest lake in Costa Rica. Tony drove for the whole twisty, turny, steep hilly, muddy, potholey, narrow bridge-y, rather scary but beautiful three-hour journey. He was pretty tense when we finally arrived.

Fortunately, when we pulled into the parking lot at Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel in the early afternoon, Jenn, the owner, welcomed Tony and me with a diet Coke and a beer. She gave us the run-down and showed us to our treehouse. We returned to the lodge for tea time, but then we were too pooped to head out to dinner, so we crashed early, ready for a full day of cloud forest exploration tomorrow.

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Costa Rica or Bust! Arenal Volcano and Tabacon Hot Springs

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Our Friday tour didn’t start till after lunch, so Tony and I looked forward to sleeping in and relaxing for a while. Except that we suck at that.

Instead of sleeping in, I got up and went to yoga at 6:30 a.m., which was dreamy. See yesterday’s post about it here.

After breakfast, we chilled in our room, looking out at the intermittent pouring rain. We read our books, wasted some time on Twitter and Facebook, and finally succumbed to the lure of Netflix to watch “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Finally, it was time to meet our tour, so we eagerly donned our raincoats and headed out.

Today’s itinerary included a guided walk at the Arenal Volcano and an evening of soaking in hot springs.

We met our guide, Carlos, and had barely left our hotel when we drove by a group looking up at a tree. Sure enough, it was a sloth. Our driver, Minor, parked the van, and Carlos quickly set up his scope. The sloth was curled in a ball, breathing rhythmically. Based on some lighter-colored fur poking out from the ball, Carlos said it was likely she was wrapped around a baby. No matter how much I pleaded, mama would not let me see the baby (much less play with it). Suddenly, Carlos got really excited about activity near the sloth tree. A fruit-laden bush had attracted about a gazillion birds. This one, a crimson-collared tanager is a rare sight, Carlos said.

Before reaching the trail, Carlos spotted another three-toed sloth sitting in a tree above the road. This one was also curled up with its head tucked. After setting up his scope, Carlos used a piece of torn plastic to make a loud whistling sound. The sloth raised its head, and Carlos snapped a few photos. Eventually, the sloth must have realized we posed no real danger, so it tucked its head back down for a snooze.

At the El Silencio Reserve, we headed up the Lava Trail of 1968. Hiking to the volcano crater is illegal, so the trails are at the base of the 5,300-foot (1,633-meter) volcano, weaving through rainforest and more desolate old lava flow. Carlos pointed out Arenal is a stratovolcano, which is a conical volcano created by layers erupted materials.

Here’s more information about the Arenal Volcano, from the Arenal Observatory Lodge website.

For centuries, the Arenal Volcano was a nearly perfect cone-shaped, rainforest blanketed volcanic mountain considered by many to be extinct. However, at roughly 7:30 a.m. on Monday, July 29, 1968, the dormant Arenal Volcano suddenly and violently erupted with a tremendous explosion. Extreme eruptions continued unabated for several days, burying over 15 square kilometers with rocks, lava and ash. When it was finally over, the eruptions had killed 87 people and destroyed three small villages – Tabacón, Pueblo Nuevo and San Luís – affecting more than 232 square kilometers of land. It was a difficult time for the people of Arenal. Crops, property and forest were damaged, and livestock died.
At the height of the eruption, Arenal Volcano was spewing out massive amounts of lava and ash and tossing giant rocks for distances of up to a kilometer at speeds of some 600 meters per second.
For 42 years, Arenal Volcano was Costa Rica’s most active volcano with flowing lava and pyroclastic surges that blasted huge rocks and cauliflower-shaped ash clouds into the air. Explosions were often accompanied by loud rumblings, which would wake tourists up at night.
The last big explosions occurred on August 25, 2001; March 2007; September 18, 2008; March 2, 2009; and May 24, 2010. None, however, compared to that of 1968. Since 2010, Arenal Volcano has been in a resting phase with very little activity, a process that is natural for active volcanoes. In 2012, Arenal Volcano revived a little, spewing columns of water vapor and gases into the air from the summit. These emissions can still occasionally be seen.

Unfortunately, the volcano refused to emerge from its cloud cover during our visit.

Fortunately, we had a glimpse of it when we arrived to town the other day.

Tony and I spent the evening at Tabacon Hot Springs. The volcanic thermal waters flow over elegant stone waterfalls, cascading into warm pools that are surrounded by lush tropical gardens. That said, it was a little anticlimactic, considering we didn’t really need to leave our own resort to get to some hot springs, and it was also hard to find a private spot in the pools without loud talkers or splashy children. Still, we had fun, especially sitting on the stone bench behind this powerful wall of water.

Adventures in Teaching and Travel