Costa Rica – The Travelogue.

9 things to know when travelling in Costa Rica

Gavin Greene — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 18:38:28 +0000

A comfortable, reliable network of minibuses you book online or at your hotel; they pick you up from one hotel and drop you at the next. Also carbon-offset, which is nice. ? Visit the Interbus website for more. Google Maps says 2hr 35min by road, so it’ll be at least 5 hours. Roads are slow and windy; use the added time to admire the amazing views. ? For a great offline map…

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Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

Gavin Greene — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:59:00 +0000

We opted to stay at the beautiful ‘Hotel La Mariposa’, as it claimed to have the best view of the area, and also featured in a book of ‘1000 places to see before you die’. No harm in getting one place closer. The view from the hotel was incredible. From the terrace you could see dense rainforest below, and hear the distant call of howler monkeys and screech of parrots.

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Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica

Gavin Greene — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 11:40:08 +0000

We stayed in the small village of Santa Elena, a short (but surprisingly tiring) 9km walk from the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde, at a charming little ho(s)tel called Pension Santa Elena. From the hotel terrace you could sit and look across the coffee plantations in the valley as clouds passed by. Not just mist or fog, but clearly-defined clouds, looking as individual and fluffy as…

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La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Gavin Greene — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 12:00:25 +0000

We arrived at the beautiful Hotel Roca de Negra early in the afternoon; what a place to stay. Our little lodge had a terrace with a view of the huge volcano looming over the town. Around the terrace, banana, fig and mango trees grew in abundance, while chickens, geese and an occasional peacock strolled around the grounds. We sat on the terrace with a cool drink, looking up towards the rainforest…

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Tortuguero, Costa Rica

Gavin Greene — Mon, 30 May 2016 14:37:49 +0000

A ramshackle collection of houses and huts are arranged along a winding path. Residents sit on steps of houses, watching with curiosity as we scrambled from our boat into the village. The land around Tortuguero is waterlogged in the wet season, the houses perched on stilts to keep them above the waterline. As we wandered through the village, Nicola peeped into shops at locally-made jewellery…

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San José, Costa Rica

Gavin Greene — Sat, 28 May 2016 14:52:57 +0000

When we arrived at the check-in desk at Heathrow, the woman working there seemed baffled, and said she didn’t even know they had volcanoes in Costa Rica. We hoped she wasn’t flying the plane. San José is described in guidebooks as everything from a ‘necessary pitstop’ to a ‘chaotic jumble of cars, buses, buildings, and people’. While its not going to win any prizes for architecture…

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