Costa Rica February 2005

Three weeks adventure with KEA. Ascent of Chirripo, white water rafting on the Pecuare river, Rio Verde and Tamarind for flowers and birds including the Quetzl, Tortuguero for sun and surf, and lots more.

Jet lagged and and more than a little weary after 24 hours on the go, we shuffled into the arrivals hall of San Jose's international airport, dragging our KE bags to join the confusing mass of travelers who appeared to be in much the same state. Slightly dazed we joined a queue, unsure of its purpose or direction when order unexpectedly immerged from the chaos.

Clicking on any image will take you to the gallery.

No sooner had we emerged from the arrivals hall when we were hailed by a colourful character waiting by the door, our names were checked from a long list on a white board, rubbed off and we were each awarded a Camino Travel sticker. Within minutes we were being led out in the warm tropical air of Costa Rica and into a waiting minibus where we met the rest of our group Andy and Alison, Steve and Kerry, Clare and our guide for the next two weeks - Chema. This was Costa Rica.

Chema turned out to be an excellent guide as well as an endless source of knowledge of Costa Rica and its environment and we were regularly regaled with information about almost every subject imaginable. We also learned that he along with his wife Marga ran a variety of environmental and alternative lifestyle courses from their home, Casa Tordesillas.

Chirropo. Days 2 - 5 ascent of Chirripo.

Our Costa Rica Adventure started here. Although Costa Rica is dotted with numerous volcanos, the highest point is actually a non volcanic range of uplift mountains in the Chirripo National Park. Cerro Chirripo is the highest top at 3820m. After a pleasant overnight stop in San Jose and a short walk to stretch our legs, the minibus took us all to San Gerado de Rivas to stay at the Cabinas El Descanso, a chalet style building set in superb tropical surroundings below the peak. Suzy and I got the honeymoon suite, i.e. a separate hut with just enough room to swing a coati. The Cabins were at 1400m, our overnight stop at Crestones Lodge on the way to the summit of Chirripo was at 3400m, an ascent of 6560ft in real money. Much of the 2000m of ascent to Crestones was through gloomy cloud forest which lived up to its name (picture 1), and where we saw White Fronted Capucin monkeys and lots of exotic birds though they were generally rather shy. Eventually the cloud forest thinned out to paramo, a sort of cross between British uplands and Spanish maquis. Right, Andy and Alison on the upper edge of the cloud forest with another 500m of ascent to go.

Seven hours walking brought us to Crestones Lodge, a simple and clean mountain hut with occupancy limited to 30 to minimise environmental impact on the park. To our relief our porters had also made it and delivered our sleeping bags plus food for the next two days. At dinner that evening Chema, ever enthusiastic talked us into an early start so that we could climb the nearby Cerro Terbi (3760m) and watch the sun rise over the Caribbean. Five AM saw up shuffling up the track by the light of our head torches wondering why we weren't still in our cozy sleeping bags.

The sunrise was quite spectacular though it lasted for little over a minute, more mysterious was the view to the southeast of rolling tropical hills and pink clouds leading the eye to the distant Caribbean, see (2). Chema pointed out the distant Coastal Range where his house was situated.

The air temperature was below zero, and in the orange morning sunshine we pressed on along a rough ridge then down a gully that dropped us into a wide basin little higher than the Lodge that we had started from that morning. Soon we began to climb again, steadily at first then with increasing steepness to a small col where we could see the final pyramid of Chirripo. Picture 3 shows Suzy on the final section. The last few meters of the peak required hands and feet for progress though some hero in the past had carried up enough concrete to produce rough steps in places.

Suddenly there was a flag, a board announcing Cerro Cherripo and the obligatory summit book.

Left to right are Suzy, Andy, Alison, Me, Kerry, Steve and Clare. Copyright Andy and Alison.

Day 6. Rafting on the Pacuare river.

Day 6 found us making an early start for the drive from San Jose to Tres Equis on the banks of the Pacuare River for white water rafting. The river starts somewhere in the foothills of Chirripo and our section of it consisted of 25km of grade 2 to 4 rapids down to the town of Siquirres, scheduled to take 2-3 hours with a lunch break on the bank at a quiet section, weather permitting. This morning the normally clear waters of the Pacuare river were stained brown and we were informed that because of the rain in the hills the river was quite fast at the moment. Somewhat nervously we donned our life jackets and crash hats and listened attentively to a safety briefing about what to do if (when) one ends up in the river, which way to point and what to do if you surface underneath a raft and how to rescue and be rescued. After that we got in and along with 6 or 8 other rafts drifted into a quite spot where we were instructed how to paddle.

"Welcome aboard, I am Mauricio your captain, all mutineers will be cast overboard." Unnecessary as it turned out. "OK we practice"

There were 5 of us in our raft, Suzy and I, Andy and Alison and Mauricio at the stern. The first few rapids were fine, and after we got used to a thorough drenching we soon began to enjoy ourselves. Even Suzy who had been dreading the trip for the past two months was shouting with excitement. Bouncing down the grade II and III rapids with Mauricio screaming instruction became all very enjoyable. The scenery was breathtaking with dense rain forest and steep cliffs with waterfalls on each side of the river. On the occasional quiet sections we even had time to spot exotic birds and monkeys in the trees.

After about 40 minutes Mauricio began grinning, detecting a certain smugness amongst us, "OK, Now the big ones". The river suddenly developed a low growl and disturbing lumpiness which rapidly increased as we shot down a long drop between huge boulders, the raft was completely submerged at times as we hung in there, barely able to hear Mauricio screaming instructions. Just as it seemed that it couldn't get any more exciting the raft spun backwards and flipped onto its side throwing three of us into the river. Somehow Andy managed to hang on and Mauricio seemed to be glued into his seat. I went in face down, surfaced under the raft, rolled over and clawed my way to the surface only to be run over by a following raft. It was almost impossible to catch my breath in the rapids and just as I was certain I was about to drown an arm grabbed me and dragged me aboard. Suzy suffered a similar experience but was dragged back in by Andy who spotted an arm sticking out of the water. Alison was rescued by a line thrown out to her. Quite a few other rafts also capsized, behind us Clare was thrown out and trapped between the raft and a boulder sustaining some colourful bruises.

Top right so far so good, next the first of the grade IV, 3rd picture things are getting decidedly exciting and 4th, only Mauricio and Andy left. Alison is just visible in the water, Suzy and I are presumably submerged somewhere.

All exciting stuff, Suzy was a bit shaken however and didn't really recover until next day. An excellent lunch was set up for us on the river bank using upturned rafts as tables. Lots of fresh fruit, salads and strange vegetables. The rest of the rapids seemed like plain sailing.

Day 7-8 Tortuguero National Park

Next day we left our overnight stop the Hotel Rio Palmas in Guapiles in the pouring rain. From time to time the rain would veer from pouring to torrential though Chema assured us that it was mere drizzle compared with that of the rainy season. Our bus headed north, at first on surfaced roads then unsurfaced ones as we entered the flat banana region where the man from Del Monte he say yes, and on to the little port of Freeman/Matina. Here we boarded a boat on a 90 minute trip through low lying rain forest for a two night stay at the Laguna Lodge. A strange place, very pleasant though slightly quirky with chalets and bungalows scattered amongst the tropical foliage and a large open sided restaurant overhanging the river. The hotel was situated on an enormous sand bar some 100km long stretching all the way from the Nicaraguan border to the town of Limon, with the rolling waves of the Caribbean on one side and the broad placid Canal de Torteguero on the other. The main channel was natural but many of the other lateral channels were man made for logging and had names rather like our streets.

It was very warm and humid, we lounged round the pool, did some short walks in the rain forest and some boat trips to look at the wildlife. These long flat bottomed boats powered by large outboard motors were able to potter along shallow channels or belt down the main waterways at anything up to 80kph. The forest was quite dark and I found it nearly impossible to get decent wildlife shots with my long lens and slow film. We saw Caiman alligators, iguanas, small turtles, several varieties of egret, a sloth (toes?), large kingfishers and several types of monkey. There were also numerous brightly coloured humming birds darting in and out of the undergrowth, sipping at the flowers.

This was a beautiful if popular place to chill out after the exertions of the holiday so far.

Day 9-10 Arenal region

After a rainy drive we arrived at the small town of La Fortuna to stay at Hotel San Bosco. Unfortunately it rained for most of our stay and active volcano Arenal was permanently obscured by cloud but we did visit some excellent eating spots. One of the memorable meals was at hot springs where we soaked ourselves for an hour or so whilst sipping iced beers, before changing and devouring a superb buffet meal laid on for us. There were plenty of activity sports available in the town such as mountain biking but in the pouring rain no one felt particularly motivated. Right, almost monochrome, a view across the rainy Lake Arenal.

Day 11-12 Monteverde.

It almost stopped raining but Arenal was still not showing itself. Making an early start we boarded our minibus and headed out along the north side of Lake Arenal. It was quite a long lake, some 30km and it was necessary to drive around it and over the Cordillera Tilaran before turning back south towards the Monteverde National Park. The roads to the park were potholes dirt tracks, intentionally kept so to reduce the pressure of people on the environment and deter day trippers from the coast. We stayed just outside of Santa Elena at the Hotel el Bosque, delightful place consisting of low rise apartment blocks set amongst tropical vegetation. By the road, a large fig tree seemed to be a favourite feeding spot for toucans, toucanets an a host of other brightly coloured birds.

Next morning we signed up for the Sky Trek, a ride on a series of high level zip lines up to 400 ft above the forest floor. Once kitted up with harness, pulley and crash helmet we were given a quick instruction course and off we went. The first ride started from the top of a pylon and was fairly gentle down to a forest landing, later rides (11 in all) were either longer - up to 780m or a lot faster. Chickens slowing their rate of descent by rotating the pulley housing left and right could end up stopping in no-man's land and having to be rescued. This was excellent sport and after initial nerves we all enjoyed the experience.  Thirteen, Kerry having just been launched down one of the cables.  Outside the Sky Trek centre was a bird feeding station with feeders of sugared water, surrounded by several brilliantly coloured humming birds. So intent were the birds on sipping this that it was possible to get within a few feet of them.

Day 13-14 Tamarindo Beach.

Time to relax on an almost endless stretch of sand, backed by palm trees and lapped by a luke warm blue sea. Tamarindo beach was a popular holiday spot, particularly with surfers but there was so much beach that it was not a problem. At sea, Pelicans, Terns and Ospreys dived for fish amongst the swimmers, we swam and dived amongst the breakers and lay in the shade of strange tropical trees while still managing to get sunburned. On our last day Suzy and I walked along the beach at daybreak, the temperature was still around 32C and the sea, like beaten silver in the morning light was dotted with herons and other wading birds. Further out the first surfers were making there way to the breakers and in the estuary behind us the fishing boats were setting sail for the day's catch.

A superb Costa Rica Adventure, Thank's KE, Don Antonio for all the driving and Chema for looking after us so well.

It's a birdy place, below is a list of birds identified by Andy who is a keen bird watcher. He and Alison stayed on at Drake's Bay on the Orsa peninsula for some diving after we left for home, see asterisks.

chris.jackson@zen.co.uk