Impression Costa Rica

Our 3 1/2 week journey in short:
We travelled by plane from Amsterdam to San-Jose in Costa Rica, with 1 th stop-over in Atlanta Airport (usa) . We stayed the first 2 days in San Jose, than 1 day travelling by bus to Tamarindo-coast. There we stayed with Christmas (6 days), by 1 day travelling by bus again we reached Monteverde where we visited o.a. the Rainforest by guide. Of course we saw many species of animals: birds,plants,trees,flowers etc. We stayed 2 days in Monteverde /St Elena. Again a 1 day travelling by bus-boat-bus ( crossing-over the Arenal Lake) to 'La Fortuna the St Carlos'. There we visited ( by feet/hiking) a waterfall , also the town La Fortuna, and we saw a view-top of the Arenal Mountain, her we were in the Cloud Forest...
We celebrated new-years-eve in an outdoors jacuzzi....(Dutch time with a can of 'fanta' and a bag of chips) From La Fortuna we travelled again 1 full day , via Quipos to Dominical...we arrived there late at night. In Dominical we visited there the 'National Baru' park ( by feet/hiking) and the village. After 2 hours on a very bumby road we arrived finally in Manuel Antonio half day travelling, we stayed ther 4 days and visited the Manuel Antonio National Park and of course we enjoyed watching the beautiful sunsets.

We stayed during our journey in local 'eco' lodges, wich means that the working-people were all local hired habitants, also the food was local. We travelled by "interbus and Greyhound-bus"( rented 4 to 10 persons-busses), because the roads in Costa Rica a terrible bad... so going by a rented car is not recommended! We walked/(hiked) all our tours by ourself's, or we went mostly individual, but sometimes with a guide, only where needed. The lodges for the night were all low little low local houses (3 stars) , with a small garden in the front, ou own bathroom (except the first night in San Jose not), sometimes we had a kingsize bed, two times a hammock , but we always had a fan.

Doubleclick on the pictures to enlarge.
Our first stop (up and down) was in Atlanta-airport Usa, ( we'll never forget the stupid security....fingerprints ... and so on) we travelled for more than 24 hours , to arrive in San Jose international airport.......and the same, back to Amsterdam.


The local breakfast. I took the fruitplate from pineapple, melone, water and sometimes a yoghurt. Bert took the eggs and bread + black beans , and fruitjuice , also a local breakfast.

Walking on the Tamarindo beach.

By boat we saw the 'Mangrove's' , we saw many birds a big (black) wild monkey's.

On one of our hike's to the waterfall, we drunk-ate local fruit.

Left: The waterfall. Right: A 'wild' monkey.

Left: locals travel by horse. Right: A local house + child.

Left: Typicall CR flower. Right: Coffee beans.


Left: Walking in the Monteverde Rainforest with a guide, looking trough a 'Tele' at the birds. Right: A very rare known bird.

Monteverde Rainforest. Left: The trees a filled with mossy stuff. Right: A hollow tree. We also saw a big spider ,birds and many plants, trees.


Above left : The Arenal Vulcano!! Right: a view of the cloudforest.

Above: Walking in La Fortuna village.

Left: A Blue butterfly. Right: A local red bird.

Left: the same blue butterfly as above. Right an animal on the beach in Manuel Antonio, we lso saw there some leguans.

Left; Bert on the beach. Right: JoAnn in front of the lake Arenal.

Finally : the beautiful tropical sunsets.... very romantic...