Costa Rica (1 Viewer)

Nohatch said:

Lol, I've flown a lot with the likes of TACA and LAN and they're just the same as any airline back home
Definitely drive, it's a wasted opportunity if you don't, and nothing to worry about if you're used to UK rush hour.
Also the boat ride into Tortuguero is a great traveling experience: https://www.twoweeksincostarica.com/getting-to-tortuguero/

Cheers,
Joost

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Once outside San Jose, driving is very, very easy, get a satnav and it's very straight forward, really, easy. Even in San Jose, the satnav will guide you through all the small, busy roads, accurately and easily.

The only realy bad traffic we hit, was on the road that heads to Limon when we did Braullio Carillio but this is a major, arterial road to the ports so the road had a great many, huge, trucks on it plus there were some kind of road works going on, we didn't have issues anywhere else.



A

West End Birder said:

Next year I am 60 so as a treat we are looking at possibly going to Costa Rica and including a bit of nature stuff.

I would very much like to see a Resplendent Quetzal and a Jaguar, plus Scarlet Macaw and Sloth.

Any advice would be great thanks, particularly 'cloud hotels' and any other wildlife worth seeing (presumably lots).

Thanks

Rob

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I'm sure you've got more than enough info on your plate already, Rob. But just to add: I was in CR for six weeks in Mar/April 2001 and saw some of the best migration spectacles in my life (and that's coming from someone who spent nine years in Cape May!). If you have time and are there in spring, check out Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on the Caribbean Coast. Had thousands of Turkey Vultures and Swainson's Hawks and an estimated quarter-million Barn Swallows one day. Plus good variety of American Wood Warblers on passage in the more forested areas.

Don't know if anyone's mentioned Cerro de la Muerte two-three hours south of San Jose? Very cheap accommodation, Hummingbird feeders, Quetzal flew across the road while I was stepping off the bus, again nice variety North American migrants/winter visitors.

I fell in love with Costa Rica two years ago and have been back twice. Spent 2 weeks in Monteverde last year, and 2 days this year on an organized tour. There are 3 reserves: Monteverde (the NP), Curi-Cancha (privately-owned but open to the public), and Santa Elena (preserved by the people of the little townlet of Santa Elena). All of them have local guides available, and I have never been disappointed by them. Santa Elena has the best vegetation, but dense and harder to locate critters. I did see a mama sloth and 3-week old baby there. Curi-Cancha seems to have the most sightings. 6 or 7 Quetzals there last year feeding, behind the hummingbird feeders. I stayed with a local host family last year, so don't know much about the hotels, but there are many. You might want to avoid downtown Santa Elena, seemed to be a lot of hippies there this year. There are two semi-private bus companies that go up there and provide transportation between hotels (in different parts of the country): Interbus (which likes advance notice) and Quality Transportation. Scarlet Macaws are fairly common from Quepos to Tarcoles, should certainly be able to find them in the Carara NP. Just stayed at Villa Las Lapas near Tarcoles which is an excellent hotel and had a very active garden early in the morning. Taxis seem to be readily available all over the country, and are reasonable if you aren't going extremely long distances. I've also heard that Uber is cheaper, but only used them once, so far.

Once again thanks to the recent posters, sounds a great place, might get my mojo back!