For our big summer vacation, scheduled for the 2nd half of August 2004, my future wife, Suzy, and I headed south to Costa Rica for two weeks of fun and adventure. This page contains a brief trip report and photo thumbnail links for that trip. Wanting a little more freedom than tour busses offer, we rented a 4x4 vehicle for the entire trip, allowing us to go wherever we felt, for a long as we wanted. The only drawback to this plan was not knowing for sure where we were going half the time. Suzy did a great job of reading the maps though, while I concentrated on avoiding the potholes and any other hazards or obstacles.

Arriving in Costa Rica late in the day, we started our adventure straight off by getting lost trying to find the Hotel B&B Puerta del Sol, about 5 km from the airport. Road signs here indicate where you are going instead of identifying what road you're on, and this took us some getting used to.

After a good night's rest we started out with a visit to The Butterfly Farm, just outside of Guácima, which is supposed to be the 2nd largest in the world. The following shots were taken there, and at a couple of the other similar facilities around the country.

After the butterfly Farm, we spent a couple days in the Volcán Poas area, staying at the Lagunilla Lodge Restaurante Tipico, near the volcano. As I opened my eyes on the morning of our 2nd day there, I was startled to see the shadow of some critter crawling around on the natural lighting panel above our heads. I was relieved to see it was just a kitten, when it stuck its head through the broken corner of the panel.

The crater of Volcán Poas is nearly a mile wide, 1000 feet deep, and contains the largest boiling lagoon in the world. Our first attempt to view the crater, early in the morning, was completely obstructed by fog; however, after a little hiking around, the weather started clearing, and we managed to get some good shots.

Leaving the Volcán Poas National Park with nothing specific planned for the afternoon, we almost drove past the sign for the La Paz Waterfall Gardens. The trails run along the river, through the rain forest and past five beautiful waterfalls. However, between the rain and the mist from the falls, the trails are really wet, and my wrist hit hard against a rail when I slipped going down a stairway; so, watch your step.

After a fairly full day of sight seeing in the Volcán Poas area, we still wanted to see a coffee tour before leaving for the Volcán Arenal area in the morning, so even though it was late in the day, we drove over to the Doka Estate Coffee Plantation, about 30 minutes from Volcan Poas.

Since we missed the last scheduled tour for the day, the Doka staff offered to start another one for us, but we agreed to just looking around a little on our own instead; I was feeling a little guilty about showing up so late. The roasting facility was what I wanted to see most anyway, and the young man roasting that day was extremely friendly, giving us a complete run-down of the process. So, we were pretty happy with the visit. The aroma in the roasting area was extremely strong, and the smell of fresh roasted coffee beans stayed with me for the rest of the day, into the evening - I loved it!

After a beautiful morning drive from Volcán Poas over to Volcán Arenal, the most active volcano in Costa Rica, we checked into the Hotel San Bosco in La Fortuna. While we had hoped to actually view some of Arenal's eruption activity, this was the rain season, and just getting a clear view of the volcano took some patience. When the opportunity did presented itself, we were off doing other things and missed it.

Talking to one of the locals, and questioning their safety living so close to the volcano, we were told that La Fortuna was supposed to be in the "safe zone", but...???

Canopy tours (zipping down cables strung between tall trees in the rain forest) seem to be getting quite popular here, and we couldn't resist giving it a try. In the shot below, our guide seemed to be having as much fun with it as we were.

After the canopy tour, we drove over to the La Fortuna Waterfall and had a couple fun hours, in the rain, hiking down to the falls and swimming in the river just downstream of it.

Moving on, our next destination was Santa Elena, in the Monteverde Cloud Forest area. About a hour into the drive, we saw this White Nosed Coatimundi (related to the Raccoon) along the road going around the north side of Laguna de Arenal. Stopping for pictures, I was surprised at just how close it was getting to our vehicle. As it came up along side of my door, I leaned out the window to get another shot, when it suddenly stood up and started begging. My perception of wildlife will never be the same. Is there any place on earth where tourists don't feed the animals?

The small village of Santa Elena (pic 3), way down a long rough road, was the most enjoyable destination of our trip. The café (pic 4), around the corner from the super market, served the best and stongest cup of coffee we had ever had, and we made a bee-line for it every morning. The next shot of Suzy enjoying her first cup of the day (pic 5), up on the 2nd floor of the café, includes a little playful photo editing.

After a couple days of paying a little more than we had expected in park entrance fees, we were headed for the currency exchange booth when we were stopped by a parade working its way through town. These horses (pic 6) really stoled the show as they pranced high and in-step proudly down the street.

As the evening rolled in, we took the Twilight Walk at the Monteverde Ecological Farm, just outside of Santa Elena. My night photography skills weren't up to the task though, and this shot of a creepy looking spider was the only good picture I got.

Selvature Park, northwest of Santa Elena, was a good place to go on our first day in the area. We started with the Jewels of the Rain Forest Exhibition, which is the 3rd largest private insect collection in the world. Then, as the rain lightly came down, we took the 3 km Tree Top Walk Ways trail through the cloud forest, which includes 8 suspension bridges, the longest being 510 feet (170 meters) in length.

The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve was our choice to start off our 2nd day in this area. We spent three hours hiking the trails, again, in a light rain, and at one point, we had some monkeys playing around in the trees above us. We think they were Howler monkeys, but with the thickness of the forest, and the high contrast between the darkness of the forest and the sky above, it was hard to tell with our limited knowledge. The high contrast and their constant movement kept me from getting any good shots too.

There's a trail from the Hotel Las Orquideas, where we stayed in Santa Elena, leading down to yet another waterfall. On the way down, we encountered a line of ants coming up the middle of our trail for about 50 yards. Suzy grabbed a tree for balance at one point and immediately discovered that they have quite a bit.

On our way out of the Monteverde area, heading for the upper west coast, we made one last stop, to see the Monteverde Frog Pond. What can I say - frogs are cool, and I enjoyed this tour.

As we vibrated down the road leaving the Monteverde area, Suzy had me stop and get a shot of this farm. It's an interesting way of fencing in the livestock.

We had saved the best part of our trip for the 2nd week, so it was finally time to put aside all the tour and sight-seeing business, and relax at the beautiful beaches. We had made it over to Playa Hermosa in the upper Peninsula de Nicoya, checked into the Hotel El Velero, and immediately started hiking up the coast, annoying all the sea critters along the way. About this time, Suzy broke her little toe in the surf getting around a rocky point.

The next morning, while the weather was still good, we took a short drive down the road to Playas del Coco, where Suzy got this great shot of a young boy playing with his puppy in front of a souvenir shop.

We spent the last three days of our trip further down along the Peninsula de Nicoya coast, at Playa Sámara, near Isla Chora, and staying at the Hotel Villas Playa Sámara. We had a cute little villa right off the beach, but had just one little problem with it: ANTS! Ants getting into everything.

The toad in the picture below was chasing a cricket across the floor as we ate dinner at the hotel one evening.

Of course, our last but not least photo, taken by Suzy (who seemed to be enjoying this more than I was), shows a smiling young policia posing with the radar gun that nailed me for speeding. When I argued that I hadn't seen the sign dropping the limit from 80 to 60kph, he simply showed me the reading on the gun, 88kph. That pretty much shut me up. They were extremely helpful though, offering to let me pay them directly to avoid a written ticket.