The tale resumes with us heading south towards Sierpe. A brief stop at Hacienda Baru gave us chance to explore an area that was recovering from farming. With more open areas it was easier to see birds, and we managed to spy a Toucan or two as we wandered through.

Sierpe is a small town at the end of the road on the Sierpe River. We went there because Jill chatted with a lady at Arenal Observatory Lodge who organises tours from there to Corcovado National Park, and offered her villa accommodation for us – so we booked and went.

The villa was quite spacious, but rain caused cancellation of the first evening’s night tour that we had tentatively organised. So next day we headed down to the dock for the boat trip downriver to Corcovado, which is barely accessible at all by road, and not in the wet season.

What I hadn’t quite registered is that Corcovado is a further hour by boat from the mouth of River Sierpe across open ocean. I didn’t have motion sickness pills with me. Fortunately the skipper was very good at avoiding waves so I managed without incident. It helped that the scenery was very good as we travelled down the coast.

At Corcovado we headed off for the first walk, spotting various interesting birds. Soon after, the skies turned dark gray, and then it started to rain. Torrents. We donned our ponchos and trundled on through ever deepening water on the track/rivulet. Our feet were soon sodden. But, despite the inclement weather, we had the good fortune to find a Northern Tamandua, one of the anteaters, ambling through the fronds of a palm in search of ants.

We completed our circuit back to the ranger station for lunch. A local gecko caught our attention, taking advantage of spilled fruit juice, and a coati wandered across the lawn. The afternoon walk (still raining) was interesting in terms of environment, but unsuccessful in terms of animals. Then we returned, taking an even longer time on the open ocean as the skipper detoured out in search of whales and dolphins (none, alas). Once again I managed without turning green, though I was happy to get back to the river. We enjoyed relatively rain free river travel, and took another side trip, this time to meander through a narrow channel into the mangroves that line the river sides. Very interesting.

Next morning we headed out of Sierpe, stopping at Finca 6, and archaeological museum that includes some pre-Columbian relicts, notably large stone spheres. These are a Costa Rican speciality, though no-one knows how they were made, why they were made, how they were transported from the original quarry sites to their final locations etc. The ones we saw were around 1 m in diameter. The largest one found so far is 2.6 m in diameter and weighs 24 tonnes, so not a trivial exercise to make them.

From there we headed even further south along the coastal plain past mile after mile of palm plantations before looping up into the hills on a steep and twisty road, getting spectacular views from the top over those plains and across the Dulce Gulf.

Our destination was San Vito where we had accommodation for two nights to give us time to explore the Wilson Botanic Gardens that the guide books felt was well worth a visit.

Our accommodation was a spacious round house with a lovely view over the rainforest. It was raining by the time we arrived so we had a relaxed afternoon enjoying the local views. On the property was a spetacular bamboo grove. George, the owner, told us it was 45 years old, and I measured it at over 30 metres tall. Even the baby bamboo shoots were taller than Jill.

Wilson Botanic gardens turned out to be a bit of a let-down. It sprawls over a large area, with formal gardens and some undeveloped rainforest, and a large lookout tower, which gave good views over the valley as well as views into the nearby tree canopy. We enjoyed our morning there, but couldn’t help thinking that much more could have been done to improve the educational value of the gardens, if only a few informational signs about the groups of plants in the various areas of the gardens.

We got to the car as the rains started (a common theme) and headed north. Our plans – a couple of nights at the quetzal forest before our final 2 nights near San Jose airport.

Heading north we drove through mostly agricultural land on route 2 to San Isidro where the road started to climb, and climb, and climb – eventually reaching over 3300 m, about which point we took a left turn and plunged down 6 km of narrow tttwwwiiiiissstyyy road, dropping about 1000 m (that makes it an average 1 in 6 slope) to our accommodation.

We were up at 5 for a 5:30 am quetzal tour. Our guide took us a few hundred metres down the road to a side track on a steep slope (not many slopes that weren’s steep) where there was a native avacado tree that was favoured by quetzals. There were lots of birds in the tree, but even the guide did not see many of them until they flew off. Incredible how such a colourful bird can be so hard to see. Hiding behind leaves also makes them hard to photograph, but we managed a couple of snaps. The birds were at that spot because the native avocado was fruiting and this is the favourite food of quetzals. They swallow the fruit whole (about 3 cm in diameter!) and it takes some time to get them down.

At 7:30 we returned for breakfast, then headed down to the end of the road where there was a track to a waterfall. It was a pleasant walk with some nice views of the small river, but the best of the two waterfalls was closed with signs declaring danger, track in poor condition (in Spanish). Since lots of people were ignoring these signs, we did too. The next km was, indeed, in poor condition, with stairways broken etc, but the final section which would have given us the waterfall views, was down a steep section with metal stairways that had been wrecked by falling trees. So we satisfied ourselves with a partial view and headed back. We reached the car just as the rain came (again) and had a quiet afternoon with a short bird-watching stint when the rain eased.

In the morning we walked down to the quetzal viewing place about 6:15. Surprisingly there were quite a few people there (Jill counted about 40) so we squeezed ourselves in and took photos of the visible quetzals for 40 minutes before heading back for breakfast.

After packing we headed back up to Route 2 and back to the high point at 3300 m and spent a couple of hours in this alpine environment. We found green spiny lizards and lots of interesting fungus among the vegetation. A very different environment to the ones we had seen previously in Costa Rica. We got back to the car just as the rain started, and drove north, with the phone GPS OSMAnd providing directions. All was going well along route 2 that we assumed would take us to San Jose, but OSMAnd took us off on a series of smaller roads, twisting along ridges and through small villages. A much more interesting route. We were surprised, however, when we had instructions to turn left on 206 – this was a gravel road. A wide gravel road, but certainly not sealed. We followed instructions. The road twisted and turned through steep descents. In places we were very glad we had a 4 wheel drive as there were frequent places where water damage (it rains in costa rica) had dug steep, deep rivulets across the road.

Eventually we made it down to the outskirts of San Jose, when the heavens opened. We spent the next hour and a half crawling through dense traffic in torrential rain. We’d switched to Google maps, hoping it may be more savvy on the traffic and get us round the blockages. “there is congestion ahead” it declared “this is normal !”.

Next morning we headed to town on the local train. Quite an experience (see https://youtu.be/zi19NiXsArk). Not quite mass transit, the train had 2 carriages. It ran about once per hour (up to midday when services stopped). Tickets were purchased on board (2 staff per carriage to assist this). The 20 km trip took about 1 hour (the same as google’s estimate for driving, but without the stress of driving in San Jose traffic, and no hassles parking.)

We visited various museums whilst the clouds built up over the mountains, and just after we left for the 2 km trek to the bus station for the return, the skies opened. Torrential rain that went on and on. After about 30 mins sheltering we decided to head off regardless (the day before the rain continued virtually none stop till after dark). Jill’s small travel umbrella, and my with a poncho gave us some protection from above. However the streets were ankle deep so we both ended up with sodden footwear and pant bottoms. The locals didn’t seem to fare any better. As we walked we were approached regularly by umbrella vendors that seemed to spring up like mushrooms as soon as the rain came.

Next morning we were up early for the shuttle to the airport (~5 min) and the uneventful flights home. We had fun during our travels, but it was good to get home too. It’s nice to have drinkable tap water (though, touch wood, we suffered no illnesses during out travels).

Some final thoughts. Costa Rica is a lovely place to visit. We wonder where all the mosquitos etc are – we saw hardly any. What do the insectivorous birds eat? Costa Rican’s have a rather lax attitude to safety. Main electrical delivery wires were often in easy reach from the ground – sometimes even touching the ground. Shower heads with electrical heaters built in were common. The electrical supply usually wires twisted together with a bit of insulation tape over the joint – ideal practise in a wet environment! On the roads, speed limits were seldom heeded – typically people drove at 20+ kph above the nominal limit. If they want to stop to chat, they just stop the car in the carriageway so everyone has to overtake or wait. Overtaking with double centrelines and blind corners was common. Statistics for traffic accidents per 100,000 vehicles per year: 38 in CR vs 7 in Australia. We took care, and had an accident free trip.

Costa Rica is definitely a great place to visit if you are interested in biology and scenery. It is easy to get around, relatively cheap, the people are friendly and helpful, we never felt any threat on our personal safety (electrical wiring and traffic notwithstanding), and although we have very little Spanish, we got by without major issues.

I’ve uploaded a gallery of photos to https://photos.app.goo.gl/9vAWGqzyy915V7IQ2 (link updated 2017-11-01) and because the photos don’t do justice to their dynamic nature, there is a brief video of a leaf-cutter ant trail at https://youtu.be/kahx8NUZXnk

🙂