Arriving in La Fortuna it was clear that it is very geared up for visitors. On the way into town all manner of hot springs and sloth experiences becon. I found my accommodation and asked for advice about trips and food. I booked two back to back full day tours. It nearly killed me, but these were indeed two fabulous albeit strenuous days.

I am scared of heights so I was not sure that I would be able to cross those hanging bridges. But, in the spirit of setting myself some challenges, I decided to go for it. It was a bit scary at times, but I thought of all those people in Musselburgh who made such great wire rope and reasoned that I would probably be safe. I survived. I would now like to return to Monteverde to visit Selvatura and do the hanging bridges there. Zip wire? Probably not yet.

I booked the accommodation in La Fortuna because it had a washing machine. The location was great, the flat was lovely and the hosts were truly marvellous. The washing machine, however, was a twin tub. I am guessing that many of you don’t even know what that is. I had only ever watched other people using them. You have to fill the water by hand, let the machine wash, drain by hand, rinse by hand, several times, then transfer the washing to the spinning tub. Still the labour saving device of its day, but I can imagine there has been many a bewildered millennial standing in front of that machine. I managed to get my washing done. It was time to head to the next stop.

After two weeks of the heat at the beach and with my head steaming from all the Spanish classes, I was glad to head to the mountains to cool down. My first tour was Curicancha Wildlife Reserve. We saw toucans, white collared peccaries, and all manner of birds and butterflies. We hiked through primary forest and admired some very big trees and the plants that live on and around them.

Next was a visit to the coffee plantation. I was in luck because the coffee was actually in bloom which happens for just four days each year. I learned a lot about coffee from seed to cup. The plantation we visited pays living wage to the pickers who come from the same village in Nicaragua each year. They also have a sophisticated system of making their own organic pesticides and fertilisers – that was our bonus lesson for the day.

It was very windy in Monteverde, so I dodged the hanging bridges park. I visited the Monteverde Cloud Forest National Park where we saw more amazing forest, creatures and plants. It was here that we managed to see the resplendent quetzal. It is estimated that only 50 000 of these birds remain. This picture from Wikipedia shows it better than my fuzzy one above.

In the afternoon, I tagged along with two lovely friends from the morning tour to visit a butterfly and insect exhibit. A very passionate entomologist introduced us to some of his special friends and then we strolled through different climate zones to see the butterflies.

The transfer from Monteverde to La Fortuna is fastest by the Jeep Boat Jeep method. We were driven about an hour or so to the lake and then crossed by boat and a minibus on the other side took us to La Fortuna.

My keyboard stopped working, so the texts will be short from now on. At the end of my course at the beach I took a trip to Tarcoles river mainly to see the birds, but in fact, the big attraction there is the crocodiles.

Only two of us on the boat so we were able to get quite close to the birds and animals. We met three great crocodile personalities Lady Gaga, who is blind in one eye Shakira, who has three little babies, and Mike Tyson who is 6 m long and weighs 800 kg.

After meeting with crocodiles, we took the boat into the mangrove swamp, and saw lots and lots of birds.

After one week of Spanish course, I was more than ready to start meeting the wildlife of Costa Rica. Three German co-students and I took the first bus at 6am for the two hour trip to Manuel Antonio. We had arranged a guide who met us at the park gates with two further guests. Before we even entered the park we saw howler monkeys in the trees. We later learned that these monkeys have abandoned the park in favour of locations where there is tourist food to be scavenged.

Within the first fifteen minutes, we saw the three creatures below: the beautiful hummingbird, some kind of wee crab that lives inland and grows its own algae for food and the Jesus Christ lizard, so named because it can walk on water. The photos were taken through the guide’s telescope.

What we really wanted to see was sloths. One of my German friends was on her last day after three weeks in Costa Rica and had not seen one yet. She was all ready with a massive paparazzi type camera. We took a few more steps in to the park – and there it was high in a tree.

Our walk continued, and then we spotted another sloth, an adolescent male. He was on the move down from the tree. The guide informed us that they only come down once a week – to do their toilet business. We were told to stand well back, be silent and wait. Once the sloth had finished his business, he decided not to go back up the same tree, but rather to cross the path. This is a very rare sight, apparently.

And so we watched the sloth cross the road and then climb up on the other side. High up on the other side, we spotted another adolescent male, which might explain why the sloth crossed the road. Those two faced each other off for a bit, but did not come to blows.

As our tour continued we saw more wildlife – squirrel monkeys, capuchin monkeys, bats, iguanas, white tailed deer, flightless birds, and many more creatures that I’ve never even heard of. We rounded off the day with a dip in the sea and lazed around on the beach for a bit before taking the long bus journey back to Jaco.

Manuel Antonio National Park

The long awaited trip to Costa Rica has finally happened and I thought I’d use the opportunity to revive this blog. You’ll have to bear with me a bit because my WordPress skills are very rusty.

I flew with Iberia and had a lovely view of the alps from the plane, followed by a view of more arid Spanish countryside. On the long flight I watched all the films I had missed at the cinema. I thought I should watch one in Spanish and chose Llena de Gracia -which translates as Full of Grace. Turns out it is the true story of some famous Spanish footballer.

I spent the first few days in Santa Ana near the school my niece attends to get used to the heat and adjust to the time zone. I love a market, so my first outing was to the San Jose central market.