A gecko on the window at sunset.
Hello,
As promised here are a few images from our trip to Costa Rica. If you would like to see a slideshow click on the headline, Costa Rica Adventures.
We started out on a cold Denver day deicing the plane. Melanie, Geri's sister met up with us in Dallas for our flight to San Jose where we spent our first night before leaving at 6AM for a two day white water rafting trip on the Pacuare River. It was one of the best rafting trips I've ever taken including several in Colorado. Plus the Pacuare Lodge where we stayed in the jungle along the river was amazing.
Kevin & Heather Michaelsen of Colorado Springs on their honeymoon in the hot springs at Tabacon.
Fast forward a couple of days to La Fortuna with Arenal Volcano, Tabacon Hot Springs and a water fall hike and swim.Getting from La Fortuna to Monteverde took about six hours including, a taxi, boat, horseback, and four wheel drive taxi.
The boat ride across Arenal lake was cool with the volcano burping gas and spitting out rocks.
Then came the horseback ride with our guide, Nixon, for 3 1/2 hours. I love riding horses and this was a blast as I think I had the fastest horse in the bunch. I had to slow him down so I wouldn't pass Nixon when we would run at a full gallop.
At the end of the ride we stopped in a restaurant and met Nixon's friends and family.
The 4-wheel drive ride to Monteverde was a beautiful rough ride.
Gregg of Steamboat Springs, Colorado on a zipline canopy tour.
Nicole of Steamboat Springs, Colorado on a zipline canopy tour.
In Monteverde we did another zipline canopy tour, a coffee plantation tour and visited the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.
Miriam of Los Angeles picks coffee beans.
The cloud forest is the highlight of this area eventhough we had a rare blue sky day rather than the usual clouds and rain. We saw a pair of rare and beautiful birds, Resplendent Quetzal. This reserve is one of the most outstanding wildlife sanctuaries in the Americas and includes eight distinct ecological zones. It protects more than 400 species of birds and over 100 spices of mammals.
Boarding pass for one of the coolest flights ever!
The next leg of the jouney took us to Drake Bay on the Osa Pennisula. The flight in at 5,000 feet elevation made for some fun pictures. I love shooting pictures from planes and other moving forms of transportation. We landed on a dirt runway where we quickly unloaded and packed into a 4-wheel drive for a ride to the beach for a boat ride to La Paloma Lodge and our sunset rancho bungalow.
The view from my seat.
La Paloma Lodge is a nature oriented eco-lodge with an amazing natural environment full of birds, mammals, and bugs. We saw several Scarlet Macaws. The lodge is spead out over 24 acres of natural flora and fauna with great views of the ocean and the beach is only a 6-minute walk.
Sunset rancho at La Paloma Lodge.
We quickly made friends with other quests several were on our flight. One couple from the United Kingdom arrived by boat and had some pictures of large crocodiles right next to their boat. Another couple were actors from New York. Two other couples were engineers both husbands and wife's! One couple from Los Angeles and the other from Calgary Canada. We formed friendships and I hope to do another story and share pictures from everyone in a few weeks.
The first night we did a night hike with "The bug Lady" after dinner and cocktails. We saw all kinds of strange creatures crawling around. One of the coolest was the Trapdoor spider. I even managed to get a picture of one! In the middle of the hike it started to rain. We took cover under a shelter by the pool while our guides continued to hunt for snakes, frogs and toads. The rain and thunder didn't stop until about 5AM.
Our wake up knock came at 6AM with a pot of Costa Rican coffee. After breakfast we took a boat ride over to Cano Island Biological Reserve where we went snorkeling along the coraline reefs with manta rays, barracudas, reef sharks and hundreds of reef fish.
The next day we split into two groups visiting different parts of Corovado National Park which in known as the Amazon of Costa Rica and spans over 40, 00 hectares of virgin and secondary rain forest. Our group went to the northern entrance of Corcovado at the San Pedrillo ranger station. Before lunch we hiked through the rainforest looking for birds, snakes, bugs, monkeys etc. and back along the beaches.
Our travel nome gets a kiss from a parrot.
After lunch we hiked up to a series of waterfalls where we could swim. Melanie became know as Crocodile Mel after spotting a 10 foot long croc in the river. Luckily the croc's don't go up the river where we swam.
The last morning before we flew back to San Jose and back to the USA, we did a fun series of portraits of each person in the group and a couple of the gal's from La Paloma.
(Me) Kent repelling down from a zipline canopy tour.
Leaving Drake Bay for San Jose and Denver, I couldn't believe it was time to go home.
I hope you've enjoyed this brief travel story. If you would like to see a slideshow from our trip click on the headline Costa Rica Adventure.
Cheers, Kent
Labels: Travel
