Costa Rica Visit

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We went to Costa Rica in January, 2005, to attend a wedding (see Events for pictures of that). But, in all, we spent 3 weeks in the country. We started in the capital, San José. We then drove south almost to the Panama border. We met a couple from Vancouver Island with whom we were very compatible and who had a similar itinerary. Thus, we traveled with them on the trip south. We traveled through beautiful mountains, then descended to the low Pacific jungle. We stayed in the town of Gulfito and spent time browsing around the countryside there. There were a wealth of birds and animals. We saw our first monkey (spider monkeys) there. There were also beautiful beaches. We returned to San José via the coastal route - which was treacherous at time. Some bridges were little more than logs over streams. However it was a lot of fun and full of adventure.

We returned to San José to pick up our luggage, change rental cars and drive north and west to Playa Grande for the wedding. That was a grand event and we spent a week there on the beach basking in the warm sun and enjoying the surf. We did some body surfing. The young people in the wedding party were all surfers and they really enjoyed the waves.

We then hired a driver to take us to the rain forest and Mount Arenal, an active volcano. . While in the region we saw several species of birds, gorgeous exotic flowers, visited a large park with a beautiful waterfall (we had to walk down about 1000 treacherous steps). We also visited a farm and used internet cafés. Clouds covered the volcano the whole time we were in the region, so we never saw more than the base. It rained then until we left the rain forest and returned to San José. The return took a full day, which we enjoyed. We stopped in small villages and saw carts and other Costa Rican artifacts being made. We saw coffee trees and enjoyed ourselves immensely. We spent the last day in San José before returning to the US. These are just a few of the many pictures taken on our trip. The first two are in the mountains. The next 4 are road scenes near Gulfito. The Island is off the coast in the southern part of the country. The flowers were seen all over, and the toucans were spotted in the rain forest while we were driving around.

The eastern side of the country had been deluged with rain both before and during our visit. The roads were closed, so we weren't able to drive or visit there.