Costa Rica 2018

Our travel day to Costa Rica was a bit of an adventure in itself.  Since it is highly recommended not to drive at night, we wanted to arrive as early in the day as possible.  Delta Airlines was one of the few that offered an early morning arrival, but it required an overnight flight from Los Angeles.  So we had a long day of travel, as we booked a reasonably-priced flight from Vancouver to Seattle, then onto LAX, with a 7-hour layover in Los Angeles.  So we left our house at 8am, arriving in LAX about 5pm.

Can't leave Canada without a Tim's!

Our captain gives us a chance to wave goodbye to our home in Tsawwassen...

And we are on our way!

With so much time to spare at LAX, we splurged and bought day passes for the Delta Airlines Sky Club lounge, where we could enjoy some food, a few drinks, even a shower.  But to get there, we had to transfer to a different terminal and at LAX that transfer takes you out onto the tarmac with the planes!

A few hours later - with less than a few hours' sleep - it's sunrise over Costa Rica as we approach Juan Santamaria Airport in San Jose (SJO).

We had booked a rental SUV from a Costa Rican company called Vamos Car Rental.  Vamos has a very good reputation on Trip Advisor and they lived up to it with us.  A Vamos rep met us just outside the airport doors, easily identified, and holding a large card with our name on it.  Though he did not speak much English, he was friendly and was able to communicate enough to tell us our shuttle bus to the Vamos office would be there in 10 minutes - the 10 fingers he held up being a good clue.

All car rentals at SJO are offsite, so after a brief wait and a brief ride, we arrived at the Vamos office - conveniently located right next to the Hampton Inn where we will spend our last night in Costa Rica, 14 days later.

The car rental process is much slower than we are used to in North America; there is mandatory liability insurance that cannot be covered by any credit card so it must be purchased.  We would be travelling through some off-beat areas where high clearance would be necessary to clear rocks and water, so we had booked an SUV.  There was plenty of documentation to read and sign but after about 45 minutes we were ready to explore Costa Rica, in a Ssangyong Korando, manual transmission, 4x4, with - with the help of Jane on our Waze app.  We had brought an unlocked cell phone with us and purchased a Costa Rican SIM card for internet access.

Our first destination was Proyecto Asis near Santa Clara, north of SJO, a wildlife refuge where we took a 3 hour Volunteer tour to learn about and get close to some of the wildlife that Costa Rica has to offer.  Proyecto Asis takes in wild animals that for one reason or another, cannot continue to live in the wild, and in some cases, rehabilitates them back into the wild, or takes care of them permanently at the refuge if they are unable to be released.  Most of the animals are abandoned after being taken in as pets and are therefore not able to fend for themselves in the wild.  Proyecto Asis cares for them and educates visitors about the perils of keeping wild animals as pets, among other lessons.

But first a stop for lunch, and this was our first visit to a Costa Rican Soda, usually small restaurants with limited menus, featuring a cosada (literally "married") which includes the traditional Pinto Gallo (beans and rice), with fried plantains, a vegetable or two, and a piece of chicken or fish.  Reasonably priced at around 3000 to 5000 colones (about 400 colones to the Cdn dollar).  We found the Rustica just off the main street in a town called Sarchi, northwest of SJO airport in Alajuela.

And Cory's first taste of Costa Rican coffee!

And then onto our first Costa Rica adventure, Proyecto Asis...continuing north from Sarchi

Over the next 90 minutes, our guide introduced us to all the animals...from peccaries - both the white-collared and white-lipped varieties (both of which are very aggressive animals and are to be avoided in the wild)

to spider monkeys...

a baby howler monkey

The famous - thanks to Fruit Loops! - toucan...

The nearly as famous scarlet macaw:

During a short coffee break, we notice a tree full of boat-billed herons nesting nearby...

Looks like the youngster is fed up with all those Canadian tourists taking his picture...

The first of what will be many iguanas on our trip:

Then it was time to prepare the fruits and vegetables to feed the animals....here's the menu!

First up are the dangerous macaws...those beaks can cut a finger in two, says our guide...he asks the 3 ladies in our group to bring the food to the macaws' tree, put it down and get out of there quickly before the macaws can get there.....





Our guide obviously has a sense of humour...

Now onto some real bird feeding...Jenni feeds the toucans...






And Cory feeds the parrots....




And then..the thrill of feeding the monkeys.....Jenni & Cory with the spider monkeys




Michael gets a turn with the spider monkeys...




Then onto the very cute capuchins...Cory and Jenni....




 Then back to the spider monkeys....Jenni...





And Michael....




Proyecto Asis was a terrific way to get introduced to some of the wildlife that, hopefully, we will see in the wild in Costa Rica over the next 14 days.

Just outside the refuge, we see our first sloth.  And just as we'd been told, it wasn't much of a sight.  Just a light brown blob in a tree...but WE saw that blob!

And look, there's yet another kind of monkey at Proyecto Asis!

Then it was time to check into the Tree House Hotel, close by to Proyecto Asis, for our first night in Costa Rica.  We plan to do the guided night hike there to see what happens in the jungle at night,

That's for the next installment of our Costa Rica April 2018 blog.