Costa Rica
The mountains
- Fortuna: A well developed region with decent restaurants, some good roads, and spectacular hot-water springs like Baldi (16 pools of all imaginable temperatures, sizes and bubbles, with view on the volcano - that was hidden in clouds when i was there) and Tabacon. Truly recommended. If you’re bored there’s also a ton of other diversions like a serpentarium, a waterfall, etc.
- Monte Verde: A strange place because it’s fully developed for tourism, yet there’s no concept of roads. Enter the nearest national park at 7 am when it’s supposed to be the best time to see animals and you will find yourself lining up with a heap of other tourists trying to catch a glimp of a monkey in tree sofar away you can only see it through a telescope. Luckily you can see many of these animals along public streets ! I guess you’d better try to find some hiking trail and see if you can get away from the crowds. By the way, there’s no shortage of insects, like the spider below that was being dragged across our trail and some other bug (pict to the right of the spider) that I found in my bed.
- Rincon de la Vieja: a truly peaceful place where you can experience real hikes. the climb to the top of the volcano is quite the endeavour so you will not encounter any mass tourism. The small hotel “Aroma de Campo” I stayed is very nicely decorated but you will have to learn to live with an extremely loud parrot and kids that wake you at daylight. The rooms are cute but badly laid out because the toilet and shower are not separated from the bedroom with a full wall and doors. The entry is straight into a patio with all the guests staring in your room from the one and only breakfast table, so if you’re not careful they might catch you wiping your ass. If you like to be intimate with strangers, well then, here’s your place.
- I also stopped by the rescue shelter “Las Pumas”, for wild animals in Canas (Guanacaste), along the pan-American highway. They are so beautiful, aren’t they ?
