World Travel

Costa Rica Picture Travelogue

San Jose ñ Fortuna/Arenal ñ Monteverde ñ Liberia ñ Rincon ñ Volcan Poas ñ Tortuguero ñ Puerto Viejo

(If you'd rather just see my favourite pictures of COSTA RICA, click here!)

Toucan
Toucan
Our route through Costa Rica (the map is clickable)
Our route through Costa Rica (the map is clickable)

Costa Rica celebrates the wonders of nature. Having many national parks, each offering it's own unique ecology, flora and fauna, seeing more than one is mandatory. It is a country of volcanoes, the most prominent being the active Volcan Arenal. We also visited Volcan Poas and Volcan Miravalles.

The country is quite well off economically with crime being significantly lower than Guatemala. People are friendly and helpful in a manner unknown to us yet: they want nothing in return for their helpfulness. A number of times we were offered help in the likes of 'did you understand what was just said'. Once the explanation was complete, the person offering help left. This was a welcome change from (especially) Cuba and Guatemala, where people always expected something in return.

San Jose has a number of 'Tourist Information' offices, which are all just travel agents. The interesting thing is that their employees will take considerable time in offering all sorts of useful information and think nothing of it if you just say goodbye afterwards. There's no strong selling. This trip was from 20.4.2001 to 6.5.2001.

My favourites of Costa Rica

Currency: Colon; 1 US$ = 300 Colones

The diary

20.4 Guatemala to San Jose
21.4 San Jose
22.4 San Jose to La Fortuna/Volcan Arenal
23.4 La Fortuna
24.4 La Fortuna to Monteverde
25.4 Monteverde Cloud Reserve
26.4 Monteverde: Sky Walk, Finca Ecologica
27.4 Liberia
28.4 Rinconcito Lodge
29.4 Miravalles to Liberia to San Jose
30.4 San Jose
1.5 Volcan Poas
2.5 Tortuguero
3.5 Tortuguero
4.5 Tortuguero to Puerto Viejo
5.5 Puerto Viejo
6.5 Puerto Viejo to Bocas del Toro (Panama)

Tips

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