We arrived in Costa Rica on the 14th of June from Bocas Del Toro, Panama to San Jose, Costa Rica. The flight was fun because we took a tiny 12 seater plane which flew low and had great views. After staying one night in San Jose we took a public bus four hours to the countryside of La Fortuna.

Getting around in Costa Rica is difficult due to the poor road conditions. You either have to:

1. hire a 4×4 and drive yourself (scary since we haven’t driven for five months and expensive)

2. take the public buses which take waaaay longer than they should for the distance (uncomfortable, stressful but cheap) or

3. take a private shuttle van (comfy, safe but ridiculously expensive).

The bus ride to La Fortuna was fine and we made it in one piece. We stayed in a lovely guest house run by an older man who cooked us scrambled eggs, black beans with rice and fried plantains every morning for breakfast, always with a fresh fruit smoothie.

La Fortuna is known for its Arenal Volcano which was active up until 2010, it no longer spews lava and smoke but we wouldn’t know anyway because it was covered in cloud during our three night stay.

A real highlight was visiting the house of a local family which we found through air BnB to meet some sloths. The family have a big property with wild sloths as well as the sweet Bodoque who we got to watch eat dinner. She was rescued from a family who kept her as a pet in a cage and is now free. The family pick her favourite leaves and hang them in the tree that she lives in so we could have the opportunity to see her moving. We saw other wild sloths very well camouflaged, minding their own business also.

Spot the sloth

Garden

The following day we hired a car to visit the Rio Celeste waterfalls and river. This was much better value at $43USD for the day compared to $95USD !EACH! to visit the park through a tour company. The water has an amazing blue colour due to different mineral deposits creating light reflections. Tapir’s also live there but unfortunately we did not see one, mainly because they are very shy and nocturnal haha. On our way back we visited some natural thermal springs. We avoided the overpriced western style resort ones and went to the local springs. It was so nice and quiet and a sixth of the price of some of the others. We returned the car later that evening and booked a shuttle to take us to Monteverde the following day.

We stayed in Monteverde for two days where we visited the Cloud Forest. There are many ‘cloud forests’ around Costa Rica. I personally think it’s a clever way of marketing a bush walk that never has any views because of low cloud ☁️. This one was actually pretty nice and we spent three hours wandering the trails and hoping to spot a Jaguar, from a distance. We didn’t.

We also visited this cool tree which you can climb up to 20 metres inside it. We saw an agouti and a bird with a bright red face.

Us crossing bridges in ponchos

Cute dogs everywhere!

The next day we caught a four hour shuttle (better than a nine hour bus) to the beach area of Manuel Antonio in search of toucans and monkeys at the national park. We are here for five days before making our way back to San Jose to fly to Belize 🇧🇿.