hello from costa rica!!! enjoying 1st trip
 

hello from el sapo dorado, costa rica. thanks to all of you who advised us we are having a great vacation.

it´s pouring rain right now so not much to do in cloud forest in rainy evening. great lunch at el sapo dorado restaurant.

<lots and lots of very well behaved insects here in Costa Rica. They really do mind their own business, truly. <only 1 mosquito bite so far.

Thanks to good advice and research, we liked all our hotels so far... <hotel Villa bonita in alajeula, yes! <lost <iguana resort in ARenal, yes! get the luxury suite for sure.

<<hotel si como no in manuel antonio, a big yes for hotel! really fun place! great staff!

la finca que ama, very special place, a big yes. <neta and arbel gave us a great dinner, and the company was even better. We felt like friends or family! cute casitas nestled into nature. not in a touristy area, like a mountain retreat sort of. a good stop between manuel antonio and monteverde.

el sapo dorado, monteverde, we are here now. it is pouring rain at about 7 pm. classic mountain cabin, basic but clean. we only arrived a few hours ago. took us a little under 4 hours to drive from la finca que ama near turrubares to monteverde.

<oh yes, saw lava flow every night for 3 nights from lost iguana resort at arenal. also saw lava at arenal observatory lodge where we went for dinner.

<pura vida! will write more when we get home.

Glad you are having a good time.

Try to stay dry!!!

Boy that road from Monteverde should really be something after the rain.

Keep having a good time and do a posting when you get back.

Percy

I was wondering how your trip is going. So glad you're having fun! Can't wait to get the full report when you get back.

Hey Melissa,
So glad you're having a great time! Looking forward to the details! Write when you get back!

Just how IS that road to/from Monteverde after heavy rain. We were on our first trip to CR in early June, and drove those roads. Altho we had been getting a bit of rain every day, they weren't bad (yet). It was slow-going, but I never was worried about getting stuck.
Does the road get worse as the summer rainy season progresses??
Does the road get so muddy that a 4WD can't make it???

This is in planning for our NEXT CR trip.
Thanks,
EK

Yeah Melissa !!!! We've been waiting ! Faith .

It is rainy again on our second afternoon in monteverde.

We saw the beautiful primordial cloud forest: Monteverde cloud forest reserve, this morning. good timing as it started raining on our way out. loved it. some of the trees look like they might get up and walk away like in <lord of the rings.

<havent had any bad meals in monteverde so far. El Sapo dorado restaurant, <johnny´s pizzeria and morphos all good, also stellas bakery, good food.

<it seems to rain every afternoon in monteverde so plan to get up early and do hiking in the mornings. met another couple who told us they had the same experience.

the road to monteverde is hilarious. but it´s a dirt road with pebbles, rocks etc. Truly therre are worse roads in costa rica in my opinion, the paved roads with huge potholes in other areas are worse because they give us motion sickness.

however it´s pretty scary seeing 2 humongous trucks try to pass each other on the road up to monteverde!

my turn on the computer is almost over. people waiting for a turn. only reason <i´m on here is it´s pouring this afternoon again!

will write a trip report when we get home. bye!

make sure to see the hummingbird place, just outside the entrance to MV park. It is a shop that has a pretty good selection, but the owner puts out Hbird feeders and there are thousands of them, at least at 5pm when we were there. We just sat for an hour or so, watching.

Hi Melissa!
So glad you liked Si Como No! I will tell my kids N and K, they'll be so glad you enjoyed your time there, as they did. Were you able to get a room in the area where they stayed?
Continue having a woderful trip!!!
Drive safely!

This is our last day at Monteverde!

Advice for anyone planing trip to costa rica! Research in advance which activities you want to do, including nature walks! here is the reason (see below):

The very competent hotel staff at all of the hotels we have stayed at have mostly "hotel english", meaning they can understand and answer basic questions relating to your needs. they are trained to do their job at the hotel, they are not naturalists, they are not guides. Some of them have never done the activities you are trying to plan.

The hotel staff or concierge can make you a reservation for a specific tour that you request, but they cannot compare different tours for you or go into detail about them.

The hotel staff or concierge cannot answer questions like, "where can i go to see the most wildlife?" With questions like this you will get a blank stare or else an answer of "i don´t know". They either don´t understand your question, or else they really don´t know the answers.

In Costa Rica, hotel staff and concierge are NOT naturalists nor are they tour guides. Therefore I recommend you research your activities and nature walks ahead of time!

Understand that I am not being critical of the staff here in costa rica. We must accept this is how things are here. There are wonderful people who serve as hotel staff. they do their jobs well.

Then there are the naturalists who have jobs as nature guides. they also do their job well.

If you have a biologist or naturalist in your family, as we do, then you don´`t need a guided nature tour. do it on your own as we did. hubby and daughter found monkeys, sloths, etc. for our family. but if you don´t have any naturalists or biologists in your family then i recommend hiring a private tour guide, a naturalist, for a 2 to 4 hour nature walk.

don´t join a big tour group of more than 6 people because those big groups ruin the experience...we actually heard one guide leading a giant tour group into the forest yelling so loud we could hear him from the next trail. he had to yell because he was leading about 15 or 20 people! if the guide is yelling you can´t hear the bird calls, the insect sounds, the sound of the gentle rain falling in the rainforest or the cloud forest.

gotta get going! will be home in a couple more days to do a trip report.