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Friday, February 6, 2009

Costa Rica 2009

From Tucson I flew through Dallas / Miami to San Jose, Costa Rica and stayed the first night with some friends in Ciudad Colon.
The next day I took the public bus from San Jose to Santa Elena where I stayed at the Pension Santa Elena with the most wonderful staff you can imagine! They help you organize and book whatever tour you want to take and when you leave they tell you to call them if you have any questions or need any help anywhere in Costa Rica!
I visited a coffee farm and hiked the cloud forest and made my photographer do a canopy tour!
Then I went by jeep-boat-jeep to La Fortuna Arenal where I did not see the volcano as it was in clouds all the time but I got drenched by rain and had to warm up in the Hot Springs of Tabacon. I did find a wonderful little Austrian bakery in La Fortuna itself, Cafe Vienna, at the end of the street towards the volcano, "Kuchen frisch aus dem Ofen"!
Next stop was Tortuguero. On the way I visited a banana plantation and saw lots of wildlife. I stayed at the Evergreen Lodge and the next day took a boat trip through the canals of Tortuguero National Park.
Then I was off to the south Caribbean coast. I stayed at a beautiful house on the beach, managed by the most wonderful people of Banana Azul, most probably the best place down there! Their travel company, Gecko Trail Adventures (it shows up under Puerto Viejo Satellite), had organized most of my trip and done the most awesome job of it! I can just highly recommend them!
Puerto Viejo itself was a bit disappointing, a tourist dump, but the beach in front of my house was nice. And the rain forest in the Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildflife Refuge was wonderful - but I got drenched again! The last two days it was just raining and raining....
And then it was back to San Jose and Tucson.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

From a friend who went on vacation to Costa Rica I heard it was beautiful, but SO BEAUTIFUL!!! So colorful, such a great nature... and the bungalow you were staying with the garden... a PARADISE!!
I loved all the photos, thank you for sharing Dicky!!

Anonymous said...

I was watching the photos with the typist and saw the black 'n white tomcat on your bed, but I still think he is not as big and muscled as me... :-)

Your Karl