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| Ecotourism |  |
| Pure Vida Costa Rica | |
by Anne Soberger
My best girlfriend and I just returned from our end of May 10,2001 day trip to Costa Rica. Northern Costa Rica is where we spent most of our time. We really preferred the small towns, the less touristy environment and the incredible friendliness and service from the local people. We were spoiled!
My fear of the volcano Arenal dissipated after meeting 2 volcanologist and having our guide give us all the pertinent details. We had an awesome tour up an old cart path to an old lava flow and saw the notorious Eyelash Bit Viper sunning himself on a vine.
La Fortuna is a great little city with lots of local charm and is where we met our guide and friend, Alberto. He works for Sunset Tours and is worth requesting as he has memorized all the page numbers of the birds in his Costa Rica bird book. This really saved time and resulted in us seeing and discovering a lot more wildlife. After several tours with other guides, we really came to appreciate his expertise. The Safari Tour was very special. We saw a lot of wildlife on the river and got to spend time at a local farm with a local family, have lunch, meet the ox and really see how they live. The Howler Monkeys were hooting at us the whole way down the river.
We took a brief trip to Quepos by Manuel Antonio Park and went on a tour of the mangroves. We saw Capuchin monkeys, a Boa Constrictor, purple and red land crabs and a white-nosed Coati. The Capuchin monkeys came on our boat and ate bits of banana. They are so human!
Our next stop was the Buena Vista Lodge high atop a mountain near many other volcanos. This is where I had the biggest thrill of my life flying through the jungle canopy like a bird. You are harnessed to steel cables between trees and zoom from tree platform to tree platform. At this point, I fell in love with Costa Rica. We also saw many really beautiful birds here as well as an anteater and Collared Peccary.
The abundance of wildlife was astounding and amazingly easy to observe in the wild. It was a lot more than my initial expectations could have even imagined. It was the greatest vacation I've ever had! So much so, we're going back in early November 2001.
Anne and Jolene
