Need help with travel plans
 

My girlfriend and I will be in Costa Rica from March 27th to April 5th. We are planning to spend April 1st thru 4th (4 days/3 nights) at Corcovado, but we are having a hard time deciding what to do from the 28th to the 1st (4 days/3 nights). Our initial thought is to spend some time in either the monteverde or Arenal areas. We hope to do some hiking, hotsprings, and rafting. Does anybody have advice on an area to head for to accomplish this?

Thanks for the input.

Bryan

One option would be to raft the Pacuare on the 28th. Tour operators will pick you up at your San Jose hotel and return you after the raft trip. It makes for a very long day though. The Pacuare is one of the great rivers to raft in CR. Then head for Arenal the next day, 29th.
Another option is to hook up with a rafting tour that goes out from the La Fortuna/Arenal area. There are a couple raft trips, I believe, from there but I have no experience with them. check out WWW.arenal.net for rafting info there. If it's not listed just google for Arenal or La Fortuna river rafting.

www.desafiocostarica.com has tours out of La Fortuna/Arenal one hour out.

I second Earthtraveler's suggestion!

A second on the Pacaure! Total highlight of our trip.

Thanks for the input you all. Yeah, from everything I have read it sounds like the paquare is the place to go. One potential problem with the suggested idea by Earthtraveler is that we will not be staying in San Jose. Our flight arrives at 7:30am on the 28th. I suppose that the ideal situation would be for the tour operators to pick us up at the airport and then return us to La Fortuna after the trip. That would make for quite a start to our trip, but I imagine that the rafting trips need to get started earlier than that. If anyone can recommend a rafting guide, I will check with them.

On another note, since my original post I have made a tentative reservation at the Palo Verde resort outside of La Fortuna. Any comments on the place?

And on yet another note, if I don't luck out scheduling something with a rafting group for the day of our arrival, I need to decide on transportation to La Fortuna. I am considering renting a car to use for the 3 days we will be staying there. Does anybody care to talk me out of this, and convince me to catch a shuttle?

Thanks again. This message board is great :)

I realize you're leaving for your trip soon, but thought you might still be interested...

We arrived in CR on an early morning flight and arranged transportation to Casa Turire for the first day (in Turrialba, near the Pacuare river). The next day we were picked up at Casa Turire for an overnight rafting trip with Aventuras Naturales.

Casa Turire was BEAUTIFUL, and an excellent place to spend our first day.

The rafting trip as AWESOME!!!!! Pacuare Lodge was really, really great. Awesome bungalows and food, and you can go on a hike or a zip line tour (or you can just chill in the hammocks at the lodge.)

After the trip, we arranged transportation to Arenal, which got us to our hotel by 6pm.

There's lots to do in Arenal. The Pure Trek canyoneering tour was great. Tabacon was nice, but the buffet was hectic and the food wasn't great.

BTW...I considered renting a car, but I'm really glad we decided against it.
Much better to leave the driving to the pros, and much more efficient and less stressful.

http://www.hotelcasaturire.com/

http://www.toenjoynature.com/MULTIDAY/01.HTML

http://www.puretrekcostarica.com/canyoning.html

Casa Turire is a lovely hotel on beautiful property. Everyone should go there at least once! Starfish, if it's doable, Sproketz has given you a great idea!

You can easily get to Arenal for a couple of days after the Osa and then head back mid afternoon to San Jose and go rafting the day before you leave the country. We have done that several times and it is an exciting end to an always wonderful trip.

Desafio, Agua Bravas, Rios Tropicales all go rafting out of Arenal if you want to do the Sarapiqui.

Rios Tropicales, Costa Rica Expeditions, Aventuras Naturales, are good companies for the Pacuare. We have also used Horizontes on the Reventazon. Another option would be an overnighter on the river. It is a lot of fun. We have done that at least 3 times. Unless they have built something recently the Costa Rica Expeditions camp was a little rustic and you sleep in tents. The other two have lodges.

Casa Turire was mentioned and is an option I suppose. It is a lovely place. We enjoyed our stay there.