Transportation and Tours Advice
 

Hi-
Am planning an early March trip to CR staying 3 days in Monteverde and 3 days in Quepos/MA. Have two questions:
1) We are planning on using taxis to get around, including from San Jose to MV, MV to Quepos, and Quepos to San Jose. Does anyone have good suggestions about companies to use? What price range should we expect?

2) We are planning on doing guided rainforest tours as well as canpoy/zipline trips. Should we make reservations in advance or will we be ok to wait until we arrive.

Thanks all in advance.

Our hotels arranged transportation for us last year--from San Jose to MV and then from Arenal to San Jose.

Taxis will be too expensive for your transfers. They will charge you around $100 or even more for these transfers. Check on Interbus. It runs between all 3 of your locations and will cost about $25-35 per person per transfer. They are safe, reliable, small turismo vans.

www.interbusonline.com

There is another company called Costa Rica Transfers. I don't know how to get hooked up with them but this lady does! She lives there, owns a hotel, and is very helpful in booking hotels and transfers, etc. . .

[email protected]

abbykdc,

1) We used Oscar to drive us around in his taxi which is really an SUV. He was terrific. You can do a search on this site using his name to find out more about him, including how to contact him.

2) I think 3 days is a lot to spend in Monteverde if you're planning on staying there and not going to Arenal or someplace else. We spent 1.5 days there this past December and that was plenty to do the private reserve rainforest tour and a canopy tour. The only other tours in the immediate area, as I recall, are a tour of a frog pond, the cheese factory, a second private rain forest (Santa Elena I think), and a night tour where you see the wildlife that is active then. The most popular rainforest reserve supposedly limits the number of people who enter at any one time...something like so many people can go in every so many minutes. You buy an entrance ticket for a designated time. Going in the early morning is supposedly better for getting a chance to see the quetzal. It's a magnificent bird worth getting up early to see (hopefully). Thus, if you are going when the reserve is typically very busy and if you want to be sure you get an early morning tour, I'd suggest contacting your hotel to see about making a reservation, especially if there's no fee to cancel. One more thing to consider when booking these tours. You want a guide that speaks good english. Not all do. We used Costa Rica Expeditions and had a great guide. Also, be sure to bring binoculars. They are far more useful than opera glasses.

Similar advice for the canopy tours. One of the more popular ones there is the Sky Trek (I recommend it). We waited to book it upon arrival but that was almost a mistake. They have tours starting at fixed times and during the busy season, they fill up. We were there in off season but they only had one starting time available the day we could go. Fortunately it fit our time schedule. So if there is no penalty for cancelling, there's no danger in making an advance reservation.

Dave