Costa Rica in October

  I booked this trip last April after spending all my dark, cold days in the PNW dreaming of warm, humid, tropical days.  Balin and I agree that it's not good for me to travel alone, so we decided that Perrin would enjoy a surprise tropical trip.  I was able to keep it a surprise until the last couple of days as I forgot to tell the teachers it was a surprise as they gave her homework for the week of school she was missing.  Next time I'll know better.

 Friday morning we both woke up at 3:30am excited for the journey ahead.  We decided to fly Alaska Airlines, which had a pretty comfortable series of flights from Spokane - Seattle -  Los Angles - San Jose Costa Rica.  We left at 6:30 am and we're in San Jose by 7pm that night.  One of the many blessings of traveling to the tropics is we didn't need a ton of clothing.  We each packed a small back pack of swim suits, shorts and a dress and we were set.

  We spent the night in an Airbnb near the aiport - Perrin thought we were going to be kidnapped by the taxi driver as we went through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods on our way to our little room, but I assured her that we were good.  The Airbnb proved to be clean, comfortable and only $40, which was a bargain compared to the $120/night for a hotel near the airport.

  The next morning we grabbed an Uber and headed to the small national terminal to catch our puddle jumper to Quepos.  What is normally a 4 hour drive took us 20 minutes and $150 r/t to fly.  I had wanted to check it out to see if it was a reliable option for living in the South and not having to pick up people in San Jose.  Definitely worth the time and money.  Though I will admit it was a bit of a roller coaster as there was weather - Perrin thought it was great fun to remind me that I don't like small cramped spaces with no exits, of which this plane was both.

In the little airplane to Quepos.  Pretty tight fit.

View from above.  Costa Rica is such a gorgeous country.

We rented a house in Playa Colonial, which is just up the street from the beach.  It's two streets of American style culd-a-sacs with side walks and underground power.  Perrin and I both agree that it's quite nice to stay in a clean and modern house as many of the Tico houses are pretty rustic.  Our first stop was to drop our bags, go to the grocery store to load up with some snacks and then head out to explore a little bit.  The area surrounding Uvita is pretty spectacular and so lush with vegetation.  It pretty much sums up what you would think of when you think of Costa Rica.  Night comes early in Costa Rica with the sun setting about 5pm.  With it being the rainy season, the rain also comes in the late afternoon and continues through the night. The rain and evening bring out the toads and nocturnal animals, which I adore.  There are toads croaking and other insects singing quite the symphony throughout the night.  Accompanied by the soft rain fall - it's pretty close to heaven for me.  The temps are in the 70's at night and mid 80's during the day - again, just about perfect.

  Sunday we went on our first excursion into the jungle.  We went on an ATV  tour which was really fun.  With it being the wet season, the roads were muddy and rocky - perfect for an ATV.  On the southern coast the lush jungle goes straight up from the beach, getting to about 2000' within a couple of miles.  It's steep, lush and pretty wet.  We had a side-by-side ATV that allowed me to drive and Perrin to sit next to me, we were even able to chat as we went along.  Our first stop after driving for about 45 minutes, was at a coffee plantation.  We drove what felt like the middle of nowhere on such steep roads I was curious to know how the natives got to town.  At the top of this ridge was a family who has been farming coffee by hand for 3 generations - and boy was it good coffee.  They made us some traditional Tico snacks and had some coffee for us to drink.  It was so good I didn't even take sugar or milk with it.  They also grew Cacoa plants and made blocks of chocolate.  I bought a block of their chocolate and Perrin bought a pour over coffee maker - hoping to make some delicious Mochas when we get home.

From the coffee plantation we headed out to a waterfall for a snack and a swim.  The roads again were half the fun - Perrin said it was a mix of a Roller Coaster and a Jurassic Park ride though way more fun as it was not nearly as safe.  We actually came to a steep, muddy (and the mud is more like orange slippery goo) section in the road where a gringo and his rental car tried to come up and got stuck.  Minutes after we stopped a clean and pretty truck came down the same section and got stuck a foot away from the other car.  8 men and a 4 wheel drive ATV pushed both cars to relative safety but not before there was multiple close calls of collision.  We were very thankful to be in ATV's and learned a valuable lesson of taking the rental car only on paved roads.

  Monday we had to get up pretty early and head out to Sierpe for our tour.  We thought we were going to the island of Caño, but that's not where we ended up.  Lesson of the day - ask where you're going before you get in the boat.  Not that it mattered because after 10 minutes on the open sea, I was glad to stick close to the shore.  Our tour ended up going to Corcovado National Park, which is a huge park with limited access into it.  We took a boat from Sierpe down the river Guarumal to the ocean and headed south to the Park.  They pointed out the island Caño as we were bumping along the ocean in a small boat and 4 foot swells.  I said to Perrin, "I thought that was where we were going but I guess not."  We both just looked at each other and laughed and were thankful our trip wasn't going into unprotected ocean.

   Along the estuary, in the mangroves, we saw our first wildlife; Capuchin monkeys.  He was pretty cute and fun to watch.  As we headed out to the ocean we were blessed to see a baby whale.

On the way home on the river we got close up sightings of both a crocodile and a boa constrictor...makes me shiver just thinking about it.  We were both pretty tired after our tour so we headed to pizza and then to bed.