Costa Rica - Not just beaches

Both Ron and I like beaches, or at least the sound of the waves. (Sand is overrated in my humble and unpopular opinion.) Is that why we came to CR? No, we came for the hiking and wildlife. The whole transit cop things put us off driving overly much, but we girded ourselves up and headed out to Parque Nacional Barra Honda, which boasts lots of bird life, monkeys and caverns that can be visited. What could be more interesting than hiking through the "dry" rain forest - so called because it only gets rain for half the year - and scrambling down slippery ladders to investigate the world underground?

View from the bottom of the ladder

Further in, a look back at the entrance

The Elephant trunk, baseball bat
and shark tooth

The Abyss, not a place to lose your footing

Moving further into the darkness

"The Cathedral"

"The Trees" formation

One piece of advice, if planning on touring around Costa Rica in a vehicle: get a 4 wheel drive. You can hope for an upgrade (we got one because we took out the very expensive full coverage), but some of the roads to these spectacular places really require a vehicle with high clearance and independent traction. We haven't even been on a road that "requires" doble traccion yet and we've been grateful to have it.

As Barra Honda is a national park, there is an entrance fee of 6,500 Colones each ($29USD) to access the caves or 6,800 Colones ($12USD) just to hike around. The extra money gets you a guide and spelunking equipment.

Perfect camouflage

Mama and baby Potoos making like logs

Roadside Hawk

White-throated Magpie Jay

The best part of having a guide is that they can show you unexpected things. We managed to catch a few different bird species on camera, because of our guide's diligence and we also got to see Howler monkeys in their natural environment. Their calls through the jungle are quite haunting, and I can imagine terrifying, if you didn't know what was making all the racket.

Another early start sent us off to Tenorio National Park (same entrance fee as for hiking through Barra Honda) to see the much lauded Blue Lagoon. (No not the movie from the 70s, but a lagoon so blue that it defies imagination. The water turns blue when volcanic minerals coming from thermal springs merge with the river water.) As we're here in the rainy season (May to October) there was a chance that the lagoon wouldn't be blue at all, but we decided to risk it. It's a three hour drive from our accommodation, so we wanted to leave by around 7am. There are restrictions on how many people are let into the park, both at one time and per day. The best reference site for information is the Costa Rican Parks site, but it's all in Spanish. Nothing a translate button can't handle, I'm sure.

Pretty spider

Stunning bloom!

Taking in the amazing colour

River changing colour

We managed to time it perfectly, as we missed most of the rain and several tour busses full of school students who were entering just as we were leaving. We did have to drive through a torrential downpour reminiscent of some drives out to Maple Ridge for family gatherings. Considering that this is a tropical country, we thought we'd come across more of that, but so far, we've been lucky. (It's currently raining as I type this, though.)

A little blue butterfly

The money shot...quite amazing!

My green flying bug - he has orange wings!

Yellow bamboo amongst the greenery

As we drove out of the park, we were graced by the appearance of a band of coatis (white nosed coatis, to be specific), around 15 or so, crossing the road with all their babies, kit and kin. All I have is a bit of blurry video (darn you cell phone!), but it was such a lovely surprise. The video is just the tail end of their mad dash to safety.

They actually look like this (there were more babies, though):

Source: http://www.mightymac.org/costarica/08costarica03.htm

So, I think it's safe to say that Costa Rica has a little something for everyone.

Next up, beaches and other adventures!