TucanCosta2009

Before I begin, a little about us, we are in our mid-30’s and have traveled to Alaska, Hawaii, Australia, Mexico, Bahamas, Jamaica and various other smaller trips within the US and of course now this exciting trip to Costa Rica which we just completed from Feb 4-14th 2009. I plan all my trips on my own and they are jam packed with adventure, sights and people to see. My philosophy is we travel and do not vacation which is a huge difference if you know what I mean. I also know that we will never return to a location since the world is too large and our capital is too limited so we make the most of enjoying our time in each location during our trip with that mindset.

I rarely use travel agents when I plan a trip but get most of my advice from Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, Trip Advisor, friends, etc. I do almost all of the research, reading religiously for weeks and months in advance as I am a researcher by nature. I then share bits with the Mrs., make the arrangements and then she enjoys the fruit of my labor. For me trip planning is not a chore like some see it but an obsession of mine. The only time I read is for research purposes as I can not read for pleasure such as novels, magazines, etc for the fun of it as I view it to be trivial and a waste of my time while others indulge in the escapism that a book provides, but hey that is just me. To each their own I guess, different strokes.

The overall trip Itinerary is as follows and their will be multiple posts to this report as time permits me to write them over the course of the next week.

Dates : Feb 4 - Feb 13 2009

Feb 4 – Flight from Appleton, WI to Minneapolis to Newark to SJO arriving around 10pm. Staying the night at Hotel Grano de Oro.

Feb 5 - Early flight on Nature Air to Puerto Jimenez and staying at the Bosque Del Cabo (BDC) in the cabana Mariposa arrived around noon. I got a massage from Jutta at 2pm that day Did Sunset Tour with Carlos before dinner

Feb 6 – Staying at BDC in cabana Mariposa. Lot of on grounds hikes.

Feb 7 - Staying at BDC in cabana Mariposa. More hiking around grounds.

Feb 8 – Flew on Nature Air to Arenal area through SJO and stay at the Arenal Nayara (deluxe room). Used Sunset Tours for drive to hotel from airport. Picked up by Sunset Tour at 3pm and take their Arenal Hike and Hot Springs and Dinner Buffet at the Tabacon Hot Springs.

Feb 9 – 7:30am Ziplining with Sky Trek/Sky Tram in morning. 1pm Hanging bridges guided tour with Jacamar Naturalist Tours and spent another night at Arenal Nayara

Feb 10 – Did an all day tour in the Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge through Sunset tours. Night at Arenal Nayara

Feb 11 9am Lost Canon Repelling tour with Desafio in morning and back by around 2pm. Went into La Fortuna for a dinner at La Choza de Laurel and returned for another night at Arenal Nayara.

Feb 12 – Left Arenal at 11am via Luis our private driver from Tucan Limo Services and take long trip back to SJO (Grecia, Sarchi, Naranjo, Zarcero and Ciudad Quesada) Spend last evening at Hotel Grano de Oro and dined there since food is good and because we need to be at airport by 645am for 9am flight.

Feb 13 – Flew out at 9am in SJO to Newark on Continental in around 3pm. Spend evening in NY City since can’t get home bound flight out – lodging at Club Quarters Rockefeller Center location (perfect). Went to Broadway for dinner, Time Squares and Top of Rocks for a view.

Feb 14 – Tour NY in morning via Gray Line hope off and on bus tour seeing the sights and flight our via Newark at 5pm to Detroit and back to reality in around midnight in Appleton, WI.

Part 1 of multiple part Trip Report – What supplies worked and what I could have gone without

I am going to start this trip report off with some essentials that I brought with us on our Costa Rica that were welcomed suggestions from many of my fellow Fodorites. My wife thought I was nuts with all the pre-trip shopping I was doing based on the advice I received of what to bring but in the end it paid off time and time again to make the trip more comfortable and easy for us.

Keen Sandals – Absolutely the best footwear on the planet for this trip hands down. I always have issues with sandals in general fitting comfortable and rubbing on my heels but not this pair of Keen H20 sandals. They were so comfortable, the enclosed front to protect the toes worked wonderfully on the trails and they dried out super fast once we got them wet. My wife thought I was wasting my money buying special shoes for the trip until I bought her a pair for Valentine’s Day to take with and admitted their worth for the same reasons mid trail somewhere deep within the Osa Peninsula. You do take on some small rocks in the opening on the sides but heck any opened sandal will have that issue. They worked wonderful in slippery rock climbing conditions on our waterfall repel tour mentioned later under tour operators. I wore these for about 90% of our trip with the exception of zip lining and our 26hr layover in NYC for obvious reasons (the cold) or else they could have been the only things I wore for the entire trip. Skip the heavy hikers as they just add weight and are limited use items for a tight weight restrictions you have when traveling in CR. Score one for Fodors advice and listening husband.

Packing Cubes – Ordered 3 sets from Ebags to organize our luggage and eventually returned one. I was even skeptical about these to be honest but had a pair of slim ones used for all the batteries, electronics etc and another S/M/L set for my clothes and found them to be useful in keeping me from having to resort all my clothes and allowed me to find things quickly when we wanted to change and get going hiking etc. My wife mocked me again for this purchase that is until I had a few extra when packing and she used them up with little argument and mumbled something about how nice there were a few days into the trip. He shoots he scores another direct hit.

Bandanas – Not a huge fan of an idea of a bandanas not even going to a Guns and Roses concert would make me wear one but I bought a pair based on this board’s advice. Guess what, I used mine to wet in a stream repeatedly in the humid hikes in the OSA and it did the trick to keep my head cool and sweat out of my eyes. How can you go wrong on a piece of cloth for a buck that has that kind of pay out and functionality? I will have to save it for the cold day in hell when Guns and Roses does do go out on tour to sport their long awaited Chinese Democracy CD – you have to be my age to get this joke I suppose.

Luggage –I just want to say that we never, never, ever traveled to a place for 10+ days in all our trips under 50lbs in luggage much less with 1 bag each. We had more bags and weighed as much as a male polar bear when we went to Alaska. I guess it was because domestic flights within CR require it and were strict and if you don’t guess what, your bag might not go with you or you pay through the nose. So we both packed under 28lbs and that included 7 of that being the actual luggage itself with wheels so that was a major accomplishment. Nature Air, a domestic carrier even weighs you with your limited carry on which shocked us but heck do what you need to do to have the proper weight ratio to keep the plane from clipping trees or worse yet smacking into the side of a mountain range. Our bags were checked and not carried on back in the US as they were the next step up in the luggage food chain with minimal incident (will get to that later in the trip report) and never lost.

I did buy 2 of the weekender bags from Ebags that we later returned and never used. I loved the layout on how it was organized and the weight being like 3lbs but the depth of the bags just were too small for us so we passed on them but can see why so many people recommend them and like their functionality.

Zip Lock Bags – Please, can something this simple be that important? Duh with a resounding Yes I might add, this is a must for a trip to keep clothes organized, dirty ones from stinking up your clean ones as you move from location to location and to take with you on various day hikes. They also were a god send to keep paper and other key documents from rolling up or being wet under the high humidity levels. Take plenty of small ones, a nice mix of large and XL will be used one way or another. Another item wife questioned at first but was won over in the end to their use.

Wicking Clothes
Even though we are from Wisconsin and have high humidity it still doesn’t make me a fan and to me there is nothing worse they sweat dripping in every known crack to man when you hike. So with that said I took the great advice of purchasing wicking material t-shirts using both the Mountain Wear and Patagonia brands and both were worth the $25/shirt costs. Kept me dry and happy even on the most strenuous of hikes at our stay in the OSA. Add the fact they are light weight to wear and towards the weight restrictions of the domestic carriers and you have a double whammy winner. I had 4 pairs of the zip on and zip off pants and for about 10 days in country this was the right amount. We did do laundry service through the hotel ½ way through our trip at Arenal Nayara and this saved on what we needed to pack initially. A good idea though I must not say not entirely cheap at $36 for a few pair of socks, underwear, pants and T-shirts for about 5 days into the trip. However the alternative of heavy packs and excessive luggage fees balanced this in my mind.

Money and Prepaid Debit Card – Instead of utilizing the travelers checks as in past trips we decided to prefund a visa debit with $500 and use this card in sketchy locations or places with whom you might be afraid to get their hands on your main credit card (used it more in NYC then in Costa Rica) for fear of identity theft which I though was a great idea that credit goes to my Mom for having on their own trip to Arizona. Anyway we preloaded that and took about $600 in cash which was the right amount with mostly small bills for tipping and taxis, etc. We should have taken more singles as I burnt those up quickly with only about 70 dollars in $1 denominations. I should have had about $100-$120 but it all worked out for us.

Misc Small Stuff
• 300mm camera lens – Assuming your camera or one you borrowed was working, which we will assume to be true (oh how I wish it was), I would say this size of a lens works very well for most wildlife you encounter. If it is birding your after you need a slightly bigger lenses for most opportunities but this one worked well when my camera was in auto focus mode (about 10% of my trip).
• Flashlights and Headlamps – A must for your stay in the OSA and headlamp was used minimally but I still liked it for night hike so glad I had it. Won’t kill you to use a flashlight only unless your stalking animals in the dark or the other way around and you need your hands free to take pictures or fend them off. Just kidding people.
• Binoculars – Not sure how good your eyes are but mine thanks to computers are on downward slide so bring this item is a no brainer.
• Clothes Line and pins – They were great for a few days at the Osa but I could have just hung them over the rail on our Cabaña so not really needed.
• Pocket Knife – Used once to cut clothes line so a waste.
• Extra batteries – Never needed them but you can never know so still bring them.
• Reading Materials – Books at CR airports are like $14 when normally about $6-$7 in the US so plan accordingly.
• Flip Flops – Used once at the Tabacion Springs Spa for like 10 min so that was a waste.
• Eye Drops – Bring some since they were hard to find and costly. One of the few sundries I failed to bring.
• Brought my own 40oz water bottle – used it twice on hikes and could have left it home and reused the bottled water bottle we purchased at BDC over and over again.

I could ramble of on each of the things we brought but the main stuff was useful and the advice from fellow Fodor travelers invaluable for all the pain and suffering they spared me while I packed and traveled across Costa Rica. Next trip report will get into the lodging, activities and people we encountered that we enjoyed during our trip.

Stay tuned.

volcanogirl

Wow, you packed a lot in; you're my hero! Looking forward to all the details!

sandy_b

I'm loving this already and sitting here awaiting the next installment . . . your writing style is great!

Sandy (in Denton)

TucanCosta2009

Thanks Sandy and Volcanogirl. Well as anal retentive as I am about structure, order and process (project planner wouldn't you know) I do get bored with going down the list in order from time to time. So with that said I will fast forward our trip report and provide installment #2 - the finish in New York City here next and then back to Costa Rica.

So without further delay, here is the hyperlink to our trip's travel report #2 I wrote about a few days ago in the US forum. Enjoy.

http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...rip-report.cfm

tully

Great report, glad you liked the packing cubes, I think they're great! Looking forward to the rest of it.

shillmac

Nice report--thanks for taking the time. So glad you enjoyed yourselves!

I just have to say one thing in defense of the eBag weekender. We have those (glover's advice), and I remember thinking they were way too shallow to be useful. I don't know if you actually tried filling them up or not, but those suckers hold TONS of stuff! I am constantly amazed at what I can stuff in there and still zip it. Not meant to be contradictory. . .just want to point out that the way they look is deceiving!

Anxious to read more--keep it coming. Don't those bandanas work great when you're hiking and it's hotter than hades? As long as the head is cool, it just feels lots better all over!

shillmac

sandy in denton--"nonstop" from OKC had nice things to say about you. Cool that you guys were able to meet!

volcanogirl

We have the weekender convertible bags too, and we love them. It got me from 50 pounds of luggage to 22 pounds, and I still had everything I needed. Sounds like you found something that worked for you though.

TucanCosta2009

Part 3 – Lost Canyon Adventure Waterfall Repelling Tour with Desafio Adventure Company

I am going to be upfront with you all – I am great with faces and places but I have a horrible memory when it comes to names so many of my report sections will lack a guides name. Not that they are less important its just that my memory is great for long term items but hey were are my keys type of memory that I had 5 min ago is a total lost cause.

When we had to rearrange our schedule in early January because of the earthquake we added a day to the La Fortuna area and an extra night with Arenal Nayara vs. the originally planned 2 nights at the Peace Lodge. So with an extra day in the area, how could I not fill it was another adventure. So we decided to try our hand at a repelling tour and selected Desafio Adventure Company as our operator after reviewing testimonials, Trip Advisor, Fodors and various YouTube videos, etc. We did this on Feb 11th our last full day in the Arenal area.

I have to say I hate heights, can’t stand up on my parents roof to reshingle their garage without feeling like I could fall off at only maybe 20-30 ft if that. So why not try something we never have done and go big with repelling down a 200ft waterfall. After all if I am going to be scared it might as well be on the verge of paralysis.

A few of you are probably going to cross this tour off your list (now I can off my bucket list) after just the 1st paragraph – well don’t! I will admit I have now skydived, repelled, zip lined, parasailed learned to surf all while I have a phobia of heights and a great respect of the ocean and a very real fear of death by drowning. To not try things that push your comfort zone is not living if you ask me. Take chances and live my friends. We all have to die sometime and who knows you might live to tell folks how much fun you had doing things like you fear the most. Okay enough philosophical stuff – leave that to my counseling professional wife who can help you for a mere $150/hr session and I get 10% cut for bookings – LOL.

We selected the early trip so we could go back into La Fortuna later in the evening for a little local flavor, shopping and dinner so we were picked up around 730am tour and had about 8 people in total on our tour, of which 1 couple were repeat customers back with some first time friends. It is about a 25 min ride to their house where you change into swim trunks or anything else you don’t mind getting wet. You get fitted for gear and then placed on a more rugged truck for about a 10 min ride to a debriefing platform for instructions before you begin your descent to the depths of hell – just kidding.

This was probably the 2nd favorite memories I will have for adventures from our trip while being honestly scared silly. Not going to lie repelling is a little work physically but more so mentally but totally a labor of love and fun. We started off with a baby waterfall to break us in with it being 15 ft to get the hang of using your right hand as a break (if you’re right handed) and the left guiding you down the line. The baby falls as I call them were the hardest, honestly just because you’re not use to it and you’re kind of pressed up against the rocks. In all we did 4 repelling opportunities if memory serves me – 15ft, a the 2nd being I believe a 150ft drop off a platform and probably 20 ft in between some rocks and water onto a ledge being the 3rd and with wrapping up on the 200 ft falls at the end.

In between you hike up and down a stream of rock formations and will need some good shoes – I recommend the Keens H20 water sandals which provided non-slip traction and can totally get wet. The water wasn’t cold but refreshing. They made us jump into a water hole maybe 7 ft deep and that took care of anyone’s illusions of not getting wet, after all it is a waterfall tour for god sake. The more you interact with your guides, the more fun you have – totally got into a water war fight with one and he and I had a blast and it built the confidence and trust I had in them.

This operator comes as I mentioned previously as highly, highly recommended and I can tell you it was the only one I considered doing this with and their motto of Safety first and fun second is very much lived. I never worried about falling, about having a brain fart and forgetting to hang onto the rope even when I got dangled about 75ft down and had to adjust and add slack in my line to continue. The team of 2 guides ooze confidence in their ability and willingness to help make this truly memorable.

I do have to say that bringing your camera in my opinion on the adventure is foolish. It will get wet I can assure you so unless it is a waterproof one forget about it. If it is waterproof $10 one without a flash forget about it, to dark for most shots. They have an independent camera man whom goes with and takes about 40 pics for $25 CD (bring cash) as it is not part of Desafino tours and can save you hassle of tracking him down later. I thought for 40 good pictures and no wet ruined camera - why not. Heck I paid $20 for 2 pictures on zip line tour and had only wished they did something the same as this creative photographer. Everyone ponied up and purchased their own CD pictures.

I will say honestly that the walk back up some very step long trails to the house where you get your gear and lunch sucked beyond belief. No sugar coating that one and read lots of reviews and did not hear about this at the end so you have been warned.

They feed you lunch which was your typical (I say that now) casado meal which satisfies the grumbling of your hard worked abs. The photographer during lunch will burn your CD of pictures and when your all done they drive back to the main road where you switch back to a comfortable small bus that takes you directly back to your hotel. I think

TucanCosta2009

I think in total about a 4 ½ hr tour was scheduled but as all our tours this ran late about 45 min or so which was no big deal to us but if you have plans that are tight to this tour beware you could be late. I think when in the La Fortuna area I would rate this a must do adventure, once in a lifetime and interact with great Tico guides.

Their information if your interested and I receive $0 in commission but you can send me your credit card if you wish for this advice – just let me know how much of a limit you have available for me to spend. Making a reservation was painless and we did so about 2 wks before we left.

www.desafiocostarica.com. Their phone is 506-2479-9464 or in USA it is 1-866-210-0052 and the cost for me and my wife was $180 for the tour + tips. I say make sure you tip these guys they do a great job but the cook also had a tip jar as well FYI.

janenicole

Welcome back, Tucan! Sounds like you had a successful trip. Looking forward to reading the rest!

sandy_b

I'm still loving this report!

shillmac, thank you . . . it was great fun meeting "nonstop" and we could have talked travel all afternoon. We seem to go (and love) the same places.

I'd love to meet you too and any other Fodorite who might be passing through Denton.

Sandy (in Denton)

TucanCosta2009

Part 4 – Bosque Del Cabo (BDC) Nature Tours with Carlos

I told you previously that I don’t like order entirely so this part of the report will be no exception. I have never been a very concise writer, perhaps my greatest downfall and also another reason why I was a successful Request for Proposal writer at some point in my career because I could write more fluff then a whipping bowl of dessert.

I will get to our stay at Bosque Del Cabo and those details in a future edition of my trip report but for now I will stay with the topic of the nature tours we did with a guide. Phillip was on vacation during most of our 3 day stay so we had poor Carlos who was working like a dog on doing all the tours. Carlos was exceptional; see I can remember a name of some people. He was funny and extremely knowledgeable and passionate about his job. I also will say professional and did not pan handle or fish for tips at the end of each tour like some other operators we have had in other journeys. We did tip him at the end of our stay at BDC along with other staff and I think he pretty much leaves his faith in being rewarded for his efforts to that philosophy.

There are many tours/trips that one can take while in the OSA that BDC offers in conjunction with your stay. We did not opt for any tours off property as I felt with 3 days here that we were here for the animals on the property and any trip into Puerto Jimenez would be time away from trails and “getting away” time not to mention another Costa Rican massage I can not to have (inside joke for those that travel down this scenic road to the BDC). I had no tours planned prior to our arrival at BDC and for me this was pure madness. How can I not have it mapped out? How did I not have anything schedule? I made the comment to the wife that we would just wing our stay here and it threw her for a total loop – what soul had possessed her husband? This as you can tell is an all time first for me to go with the flow and guess what – it worked and I was relaxed. Again trying new bold concepts can be found to be addictive.

By the way names of animals and specifics on birds is not a big deal to me so you might be upset if I don’t have all the scientific names provided. I guess sorry to say you will have just have to deal with it. I do think it was funny on a personal note that people would take out guide books and look up an animal before taking a picture. Here is how I view wildlife photographer, take the darn picture and many more and look it up later so you actual get the animal in question. You can always review your pictures and the book when you get home and might miss the photo op if your to busy determining the item in question. Snap away, quickly and quietly.

We did 2 tours with Carolos, that being the Sunset Tour and the Afternoon Bird Tour. I almost forgot he was also our driver back from our beach hike which will play our in another installment later.

Sunset Tour
We had about 4 couples that were new to the lodge on this tour with us so it was fun to meet folks that we would later dine with and hear about their expectations and dealings of the day.

The Sunset tour was about an hour in length and cost us as a couple $40 to go on. We decided since we got to BDC around noon that we would do this tour that 1st evening and it was really easy to just to Geri at the front desk to book it and that was that. The tour is on the grounds and you walk around the pond and find spiders, and snakes (not a fan – another phobia of mine go figure), red eyed tree frog was spotted and a huge frog, some toads.

I hate snakes, scared as hell of them and don’t want anything to do with them. Guess how we ended our tour? We decided to try to find on the way back to dinner some poisonous snakes on a back trail by the living quarters of the staff. Seriously Carlos are you nuts? Yep, we were tracking some but oh darn we came up empty handed on our quest. I could not chicken out and not walk the tour after all how was I to find my way back to dinner on my first night with or without a flashlight. I shutter to think what we would have done if we did find them.

Afternoon Bird Tour
We are not bird people but after seeing some pictures of a ½ dozen macaws in a tree from another quest the night before from this tour we decided to sign up. We didn’t get that great of a shot like the one our fellow traveler did but animals after all are unpredictable in nature (no pun intended),

The cost of this afternoon tour is about $30 per couple and takes about 1 ½- 2 hrs if I recall correctly. It starts around 3pm or so. You end up leaving the BDC property although not far; about a 15 min ride on the back of the open truck they have down the bumpy road to some pasture area. You’re thinking as I did, what the heck are we actually here and you are. There are more species of birds in this area then in most forests in North America.

We walked up and down the road for about an hour in total taking our photographs of about 20 different species of birds. We saw a ton of birds from scarlet macaws, hawks, the Baltimore oriole, toucans, and numerous other small interesting birds of which as I said below leaves me clueless in name.

Not only did we see the birds but the cows in pasture against some nice floral landscape and just got to soak in the beauty of the area in general.

Carlos should be awarded the title of “eagle eye” cause man this man can find the tiniest bird painlessly amongst the leaves or forest backdrop. He has this incredible spotting scope that he will then put up on the birth he found with his naked eye and we all took turns looking through it. Bring your binoculars and a bigger lens if you have it then a 300mm because for birding it is a challenge to bring them nice and tight in a photo.

We only had another couple with us so it was really great to ask questions and get a good turn looking at the birds.

In Summary
At the end of the day we did enjoy the tours in breaking up our own hiking and hoped to see more animals or at least gleam information that I would never know about the animals. I would say mission accomplished here. I do think however, that BDC could offer the Sunset Tour as a complementary tour for the new arrivals as part of the experience and included in the cost of the stay since your only using an hour of time for Carlos to do it and not incurring any materials or additional costs to provide it. Would I do both of them again – yes.

volcanogirl

We loved Carlos too; we did an early morning birding tour with him because we had not seen any toucans, and he was determined to find one for us. It took about an hour, but he did find one. It was a big thrill for us. Thanks for the info. on the canyoning; we haven't done that yet, but we loved repelling on our zipline tour so I think we would enjoy it.

TucanCosta2009

I have to apologize for some typo's I am catching. Not a fan of this new forum format which no longer allows you to preview before a post - well this is a whole other conversation to be had outside of this discussion as many have already started the dialogue in other posts.

TucanCosta2009

Part 5 – Hanging Bridges Tour with Jacamar Tours

This will be a rather short report. The only reason we selected this tour company is because we had negotiated credits with our stay at Hotel Arenal Nayara and applied a total of $114 of the credit towards seeing the hanging bridges with round trip transportation and a guide provided on the tour.

They picked us up from our hotel on day 6 of our trip (Feb 9th) at around 1 pm after an exhilarating morning of ziplining. We made 1 more stop to get another 4 people for our tour and then drove to the hanging bridges area. We had one of those people that ask way too many questions which slows down the tour to begin with. I like animals and plants and birds as much as the next guy but I was bored out of my skull. I think tours like zip lining and repelling are ones that you obviously need a guide for but I truly believe you can do this one solo if you don’t want a science class lesson on every twig, leaf and animal known to man kind.

As you can tell already, this was one of my least favorite events of the trip because it was suppose to be a tour of around 2 1/2 hrs and ended up going over the time well over an hour. Since we did do extensive hiking in the OSA in a rain forest, we could have skipped this tour for sure. It was the guide’s first actual tour and day on the job and while he was enthusiastic and wanted to impress us he really took the overview and information way to deep a level for those common folks like myself. Perhaps he was trying to appease Miss 1001 questions but it wasn’t working on me. He also was a bit irritated on the trip and would stop and start over if anyone was not listening to his every word or having a side bar conversation about anything but his lecture. It was like having your high school science teacher keeping your after class as punishment. Seriously dude, if I am interested I will listen and come to think of it I am the customer so move on.

Some tours on the other hand were like whole casino buses filled with blue hairs (old people) piling out onto the trail with a single guide and not a chance in hell for those in the rear to hear a single word. I so wanted to be that little old man on the tour that past us with the cane bringing up the rear so I could listen to the birds and not the guide speaking.

Back to the tour. Overall we did something similar in Australia near Melbourne called the Otway Fly where you walk on suspension bridges at tree height to get a different perspective of nature and the rain forest. On this tour we did see spider monkeys, howler monkeys and many exotic birds along the way. I did learn, as much I care not to admit it information on foliage and growth patterns of a rainforest. I could however have done this in 1/3rd the time we spent and been as satisfied as all on the experience and soaking in Mother Nature. So I would say, do the bridges as it is beautiful and a nice filler for those wanting to walk in a rain forest but on your own terms unless you like detail at nausea.

The good news, I consider this a free tour since I got it part of my hotel package. The bad news I spent 3 1/2 hrs on this tour when I could have used the time and credits towards a long massage.

cmerrell

Thanks for sharing the details of your trip, TucanCosta. Sounds like you had some really fun experiences! Like many here, I'm also a fan of Arenal and the Osa and always enjoy reading other people's perspective on these 2 wonderful locations.

parrmt

Your report is a delight to read. I too am obsessive in planning our trips. A little manic actually. But for me a good part of the fun is all in the planning.
We say, I plan it, and hubby figures out how to pay for it.

We are off in 10 weeks to Arenal, Monteverde and a return trip to BdC. can't wait. Do you have pics to share? Great report!

TucanCosta2009

I have to finish up on the lodging, a few more tours and transportation. I plan to get some pics up or a link to share in the next few weeks - stay tuned.

motmot

sandy (sorry to the OP for hijacking), a few years ago, I learned that nonstop is also an Oklahoman, and we discovered we know some of the same people. He even attended our daughter's wedding last summer as his wife was out of the country for a week. Very nice guy--has a passion for Central/South America. Like me and many others, loves the culture. I've never seen anyone work so hard at the language! It's always fun to meet fellow Fodorites. We come through Denton every now and then. Will look you up sometime. I always appreciate your input on the board.