trvlbug

Hi everyone,

We have finalized our itinerary and now I have some questions as this is our first trip to CR.

1. In Monteverde which Reserve should we take a guided tour through? Santa Elena or Monteverde. Should we do a night tour also or just do a night tour and forget the day tour.

2. Is the Cano Negro tour good in May? I understand that the birds may not be there and that it may not be good at that time of year.

3. In Manuel Antonio should we bother taking a guided tour after being in Monteverde or should we do a night tour or?

4. Has anyone taken the Tarcoles River tour with JD watersports and would it be feasible to do this from MA?

5. What should we do about currency? We are Canadian and am wondering if we have to change to US and then to colones etc. Would prefer to use the cc for most of the trip. Any suggestions?

You guys have been great so far and I am getting so excited. We will be there from April 30th to May 14th. Please help me out so I can get the most out of this wonderful trip.

Trish

Lovincostarica

Hello Trish, I can't answer the first few, but I cna help with Manuel Antonio. Definitely worth the trip through the park, but do use a guide or you will not see the wildlife. I also highly recommend the isla damas mangrove tour (just outside of Quepos/manuel antonio). Tarcoles is possible from here in a day, not sure who that tour company is, but if its where they feed the crocs, definitely worth it. Tarcoles is about an hour and a half away.
i would change your money to U.S. dollars and leave them in that. If you want to use your credit card,either use an atm and get more cash as you need it, or get an advance at the bank. All resteraunts, etc. charge a quite a bit more to process the cards. If you have to get a cash advance, might be worth using them as the lines at a bank can and usually are an hour or more just to get your number called. Hope that helps, have fun, Walt

trvlbug

Thanks Walt.

So you're saying that places will charge me more if I use a credit card! Is it a lot? A cash advance could cost me quite a bit too.

Jd's Watersports do not feed the crocs on their tour (why we picked them) but they leave from Tarcoles so good to know it is about 1 1/2 hours to get there.

Any other responses? Thanks so much.

Trish

RufusTFirefly

Get a guide. They know where animals are most likely to be and can explain a lot about the entire ecological system. Plus you get interesting insights based on their personal experience. Guides help each other out using walkie talkies, cellphones, hand signals, etc.

Don't know how Cano Negro is in May, but it was fabulous on Tuesday. Animals of all sorts galore.

trvlbug

Thanks Rufus,

I was planning on getting a guide. What I did not know was to see the Santa Elena reserve or the Monteverde Reserve and whether or not to do a night tour. Actually your review of Cano Negro sounded so good it is what got me interested in it. However, I do want to find out whether it would be worthwhile in May as opposed to January. Thanks for your help.
Trish

Suzie2

The banks charge a pretty good fee for credit card usage and some hotels, etc will pass that charge on to you. Add that to the over 16% tax added to the hotel bill, you will end up paying a lot more than expected. There is also an automatic tax/tip added to food bills in restaurants. No additional tip necessary unless you choose.
To add to your dilema, there is another option up in Santa Elena. It is called Selvatura and from what I have heard (from a very reliable source), it is even better than the others for canopy tours. Day and night tours will show you very different things (bring a flashlight).
Manuel Antonio is a very different type of area than Monteverde and yes, it is a good idea to take a tour with a guide. You spent all that money to get there you might as well get your moneys worth and see what you came for.
You would be gyping yourselves if you don't.
Regarding Cano Negro, there are always a wide variety of resident birds and mammal to be seen there. I went in Feb last year and thought it was a fascinating place.

lakers

I toured both the Santa Elena and Monteverde reserves last April (on guided hikes), and toured the Monteverde reserve both in the day and night (on the night hike we were provided flashlights). I'd recommend doing a night tour and a day tour (you see very different things, and to me there was something a little thrilling about doing the tour at night, even though on the whole we saw a lot less at night), and if you have to choose between Monteverde and Santa Elena I'd probably choose Monteverde but honestly it won't matter much so maybe just do whatever it most convenient to where you are staying - either way, do a guided tour first (as the other posters indicated, the guides will help you to sight SO much more than you will on your own, and they have powerful binoculars, too) and then your entrance has been paid so you can hike around on your own afterwards. One plus for Santa Elena, though, is that it was a lot less crowded than the reserve at Monteverde. We did a guided hike in Manuel Antonio, too, and likely it was just timing but we didn't see anything different than we had seen in Monteverde, so I probably wouldn't bother doing another guided hike in MA, but that's just me. However, when you are in MA and at the beach, bring your hiking shoes w/ you b/c we found it fun just to hop up after a couple of hours relaxing on the beach to take a quick hike (there are trails right next to the beach - to me it was very unusual and fun to be able to hike through a rainforest one minute and relax at the beach the next!)

RDunn

We just got back Thurs. We did a guided tour through Santa Elena. We saw 4 three toed sloths,vampire bats,turtles,spiders, and many birds. A couple that we met went the same day to Monteverde and saw Howler monkeys but nothing else really. I've heard Monteverde is better but it is probably the luck of the draw and the day. We didn't do a night tour. You will do better with a guide. They will take their big telescopes and if one finds something good they will share. We would have seen pretty much nothing without a guide. We took the same guide to M.A. and hiked then went to the beach. Don't go into the water at the entrance to the park. It looks like an inlet from the ocean but there was a huge croc.that we took pictures of just lying there waiting. we changed some money into colones and used that for smaller places like the farmers market and dollars other places.We changed at our hotel and the conversion rate was almost the same as a bank. Check rates first, but for us the convenience was worth the extra few cents we spent. We didn't change much so it didn't really matter. Have a great time!