Hi birders,
Ruth and I have just returned from three weeks in Costa Rica. We were originally going for two weeks with two non-birders, but they pulled out at the last minute. All of a sudden we had the opportunity to turn this into a full-on birding trip however nothing had been planned, and little booked. We originally had four nights booked at Montezuma on the Nicoya Peninsula, and four nights at Drake Bay on the Osa Peninsula. I added a week to the end of the trip but had to sacrifice a few days at the beginning, meaning that we had to drop the four days at Montezuma, but decided to keep the four days at Drake Bay. As it happens, Montezuma is not regarded as much of a birding location anyway. I had previously booked a 4WD a Mitsubishi Montero (similar to a Pajero), from Dollar Car Rentals (www.dollarcostarica.com) and I managed to extend the booking by almost a week.
So the problem was how to arrange the rest of the trip in short notice. Based on recommendations from some birding-aus contributors, I contacted Costa Rica Gateway (www.costaricagateway.com). Sonia Nuñez (crgateway@racsa.co.cr) is the main contact at Costa Rica Gateway, and I must say she was incredibly helpful and rose to the challenge immediately. Just to be fair, I also contacted Tropical Feathers (www.costaricabirdingtours.com) and they were helpful also the reason I went with Costa Rica Gateway was simply that they responded very quickly and I was somewhat nervous about getting things organised as soon as possible. Costa Rica Gateway has sample itineraries, but they customise the trips to suit the group. In our case, they organised all the accommodation, almost all meals and various activities and side-trips, based on their Classic Costa Rica itinerary. Amazingly, Costa Rica Gateway charged us less for this than if I had contacted the various lodges directly! Total price was $3,500 for both of us, which works out to $205 per day accommodation, meals and side-trips!
Incidentally, the flights I arranged were on American Airlines. Melbourne-LA, LA-Dallas, Dallas-San Jose and return. It is not possible to book Qantas flights from Melbourne to San Jose from the Qantas website, which is odd. The American Airlines flights were less than 2/3 the cost of Qantas flights from Melbourne to Dallas. Even more odd is that the American Airlines tickets were a code share with Qantas so we actually flew Qantas between Melbourne and LA!
Our itinerary was two nights in the capital, San Jose, staying at the Hotel Bougainvillea (www.hb.co.cr), which is a great introduction to birding in Costa Rica. Since we were arriving late in the evening of 24th December, and the following day being Christmas Day, we had to spend two nights in the capital. Whilst in San Jose we had a side-trip to La Paz Waterfall Gardens (www.waterfallgardens.com). After this we had the four nights that I had already booked at Pirate Cove Resort (www.piratecovecostarica.com), Drake Bay on the Osa Peninsula (south-western Costa Rica). This was followed by three nights at Savegre Hotel, Natural Reserve and Spa (www.savegre.com), in the central highlands; three nights on the Caribbean side at Selva Verde Lodge and Rainforest Reserve (www.selvaverde.com/lang/en/) with a full-days tour to La Selva OTS Biological Research Station (www.ots.ac.cr); three nights at Arenal Observatory Lodge (www.arenalobservatorylodge.com) in the shadow of the Arenal Volcano to the north of San Jose; three nights at Hotel Villa Lapas (www.villalapas.com) on the Pacific coast; and one final night back in the San Jose area at Orquideas Inn (www.orquideasinn.com) before departing the following morning.
Before we get into the birding, I should talk about the geography of Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a country smaller than the state of Victoria in the Central American isthmus bordered to the north by Nicaragua and to the south by Panama. The Caribbean is to the east of the country and the Pacific Ocean is to the west. The western side contains two bent peninsulas the Nicoya Peninsula to the north and the Osa Peninsula to the south. Much of the country is mountainous, with a central spine of mountains running north-west to south-east. The spine divides into two to the south of San Jose so that the capital is in a valley between the two branches of the spine. This is known as the Central Valley. The Caribbean side is flatter with an extensive lowland to the north-east of the country. The eastern side of the country is known as the Caribbean Slope (as the country gradually rises to the mountain range), and the western side is known as the Pacific Slope. There are a few large volcanoes in Costa Rica, with Poás being closest to San Jose and Arenal to the north of the country. One of the highest peaks in Costa Rica is Cerro de la Muerte (Mountain of Death) almost in the middle of the country. Cerro de la Muerte is 3451m high, so is more than 1000m higher than Kosciuszko and it pays to be aware of the altitude and not to over-exert yourself when hiking near the summit (more on this later). The prevailing weather comes from the Caribbean so the eastern side of the country is much wetter than the west some areas receiving 5m of rain per annum! The country occupies latitudes 8-12 degrees north of the equator. The south of the country is very, very tropical and reminded me very much of Borneo. The north of the country and the north-west in particular, is very dry (although certainly very humid in the lowlands). All of this makes for great variety in habitats with some species confined to certain locations in the country, also the mountain range means that Costa Rica has a large degree of altitudinal separation of species, very much like peninsular Malaysia.
A little on the logistics and other aspects of getting around in Costa Rica. The country is not a third-world country in actual fact it is ranked 69th in the world on the Human Development Index. That being said, Costa Rica is definitely not first-world either, although in terms of services such as education and medical it is definitely very first-world. Also, despite being in Central America there is absolutely no resemblance between Costa Rica and the USA. Costa Rica struck me as being much more European in outlook and attitude than American. Spanish is the main language spoken in Costa Rica however most people that we met and dealt with spoke English.
Food in Costa Rica is basic almost all meals come with rice and beans (generally black beans). Breakfast generally consists of gallo pinto a dish of rice and beans mixed together with onions and capsicum with a nod to western cuisine, this is usually served with scrambled eggs. The traditional Costa Rican lunch is a casado a plate containing rice, beans, generally a piece of fish, chicken or steak, some salad and some vegetables, often served with plantain (a kind of banana cooked and served as a vegetable) we had versions of this almost every day. Sometimes we ate Arroz con Pollo (rice with chicken) or Arroz con Mariscos (rice with seafood).
Roads in Costa Rica are generally narrow and often badly potholed large semi-trailers and busses often make driving somewhat frightening. Road rules are generally advisory despite there being transport police who are supposed to enforce the rules. Overtaking on double-lines is not only common, but essential, as there are often cars travelling at 20km/h on major roads! There are basically two roads that cross the country from north to south the Pacific coastal road, which is quite good and the Pan-American Highway, which is very narrow, twisty and crosses the highest mountains. Car rental in Costa Rica is not cheap the Mitsubishi Montero that we rented cost $2700 for the three weeks however, this did include full no-loss insurance (which I was glad of), and rental of a GPS which is essential as there are almost no street signs in Costa Rica!
Costa Rica is very much a dual-currency country, the local currency being the colón, however the US dollar is universally accepted this came as somewhat of a relief when we encountered a toll-booth on one of the highways and had no local currency! We only took US dollars, which I withdrew from a multi-currency ATM at Melbourne airport. Everywhere in Costa Rica accepts credit cards, which is very useful. Unlike the US, tipping is not expected in Costa Rica.
We took one suitcase each and one Thinktank camera backpack each. Ruths backpack contained her Canon 7D, 100-400mm walkabout lens and her Canon 500mm lens. My backpack contained my Nikon D800, Sigma 120-300mm walkabout lens and my Nikon 600mm lens. Whilst my backpack did technically meet the specifications for carry-on luggage, at 12kg or so, it was overweight and Im glad I didnt get challenged.
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