Costa Rica ... A Tropical Paradise!

 

By Corinna Schmidt

 

From SOCIETY OF INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP NEWSLETTER 36, Spring 1994

Situated between the Pacific and the Caribbean, Costa Rica, a small Central American country about the size of Kentucky, has beautiful tropical beaches, cloud forests, active volcanoes, and lush jungles.

Relaxing in Costa Rica is easy­the country offers a variety of things to do such as: snorkeling, scuba diving, deep sea fishing, horseback riding, and golf, to name a few. For the more adventurous, there are also exciting white water rafting trips and guided tours through dense rain forests.

With both a Pacific and Caribbean coast, there is no shortage of tropical beaches in Costa Rica. A question that frequently comes up is, "Which side is better?" ... well, that's hard to say. The Pacific coast tends to be drier and more mountainous, and is more built­up for tourism; whereas, the Caribbean coast has more of a Jamaican atmosphere and the beaches tend to be more remote and less visited.

Accommodations range from luxurious hotels to oceanside cabins. You can even camp on the beaches, in the rain forests or in the mountains--the choice is yours. And, wherever you stay, you can be sure to find monkeys and tropical birds in the trees by the ocean's edge.

Crawling with animal life, Costa Rica is a veritable petting zoo for some of the world's most exotic creatures. The animal life is fantastic! It is not unusual to see monkeys, sloths (a very slow moving animal that resembles a monkey), coatimundis (a relative of the American raccoon), caimans, iguanas, sea turtles, dazzling tropical butterflies and exotic birds in their natural habitat in Costa Rica. Other animals such as jaguars and tapirs are also present in the rain forest, but you have to be lucky to see them.

Traveling alone in Costa Rica is no problem. In the local bars or at the bus stations, one can easily meet other tourists to travel with and share expenses if you are on a tight budget. Spending less than 50 dollars per day for food and lodging, I felt safe traveling alone as a single woman through the rain forests and back roads of Costa Rica. In fact, I probably met more people and had more fun than had I traveled with friends. It left me open to new experiences and new people.

Tours and transportation to various places within Costa Rica are best arranged from San José, the capital of Costa Rica. Founded in 1737, San José is a cosmopolitan city, located in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, with a population of approximately 275,000 people. The city consists of closely­placed low concrete buildings and a few nice Spanish Colonial churches scattered throughout the city. There are department stores, shopping malls, and even fast­food chains like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut. Looking for the unusual, I was particularly fascinated with the open markets near the city center which sell everything from fresh fruit to handmade hammocks and handicraft artifacts.

It takes a few days to adapt to the Tico (Costa Rican) way of living and to begin to understand the basics of the language. Upon arrival in San José's center, one is immediately bombarded with Spanish advertisements-- all competing for attention--and "the crowds."

Trying to walk down the crowded main streets of San José is like to trying to push yourself through the entrance­way of a concert hall. It was not unusual to see women carrying their babies, wearing knitted caps with little ear coverings, in harnesses hanging from their necks. I couldn't help wondering if these children were not hot-- the humidity being close to 90%. However, what struck me the most was the friendliness and hospitality of the people. Asking someone for directions always resulted in a genuinely warm smile and an attempt to help out--a refreshing change from some other large cities.

A nice open café at the Hotel Gran Costa Rica gives one a good view of the activities in the Plaza de la Cultura. While enjoying a cup of fresh Costa Rican­grown coffee at the cafe, I observed a group of Peruvian Indians dancing in the square. What I thought were women at first were actually four men playing wooden violins and flutes wearing black hats with long, black, shiny, braided ponytails. As they played, they would bow up and down and dance around in a small circle--they were charming to watch! There was also a stage in the square where a group of local dancers were performing traditional dances such as the mirango and even dancing the two­step to a song about Arkansas--being a long way from Arkansas, it seemed a bit ridiculous, but nevertheless quite enjoyable!

Alongside our table, on the street outside of the café, two very cute children, a boy and a girl age 3 to 4, wearing colorful clothing and little black cowboy hats, rapidly strummed tiny guitars and sang a song in unison; while another young boy played a hand­made flute that made this sort of weird call that one would expect to hear in a jungle. Fascinated, I waved him over so I could have a better look. For a few dollars, he sold me two beautiful hand­carved flutes that had animals such as alligators, frogs and turtles carved into them.

The following day, I rode on a bus to the secluded sandy beaches of the Caribbean coast through the majestic mountains, cloud forests, and lush jungles of Costa Rica, passing through small remote villages, coffee fields, and banana plantations along the way.

Traveling by bus through Costa Rica gave me a great opportunity to mingle with the native people. I found myself on a crowded bus full of local people, fruits and vegetables, and packages, eating fried pig skin, potato chips, and grapes along the way! There was hardly enough room to get through the aisles. Luckily, on that particular day there were no goats or chickens to obstruct the walkway.

An old, shriveled woman sitting next to me kept smiling at me with a toothless grin as we whipped along the dusty dirt roads toward the small remote town of Cahuita on the Caribbean coast. When the bus arrived in Cahuita, I somewhat reluctantly departed the bus ... and looked around the town.

There were no paved roads. Several men (most likely of Jamaican descent) and 5 or 6 homely­looking dogs were sitting on the front porch of a local bar made of rotting, lime­green wood. Across from the bar, a tan horse was tied to a palm tree. There were open restaurant­style huts with dirt floors. Roosters and goats were running loose in the middle of the street. And, of course, curious tourists were walking in the streets.

Cahuita is actually best known for its attractive white and black sand beaches, many of which are in the Cahuita National Park. Nearby, there is also a beautiful coral reef that is ideal for snorkeling. It is possible to go deep sea fishing for big game fish, such as tarpon and snook, when they are in season.

While in Cahuita, I stayed in a cabin that was practically on the beach and an arm's length from the jungle. It had a hammock located on the front porch. During the day I loved to sway in the hammock and read. I could feel a cool breeze blowing through my hair as the smell of salt water and fragrant flowers lingered in the fresh air. Occasionally, a hummingbird or a bright tropical bird would fly by to investigate and would break my concentration. It was times like this that I wished I had a reference book, so I could look up and identify all the pretty birds I observed. At night, I fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the nearby rocks.

My first day in Cahuita, I really got a scare. I was walking with another woman, Kathy, on a jungle trail behind the beaches of Cahuita National Park, where we noticed hundreds of red and blue crabs crawling on the ground. Kathy thought it would be fun to throw a rock at them and watch them all scurry away. However, she accidentally hit a large crab on the back and plopped it over. I went over to turn the poor fellow upright again ... that was a BIG mistake! Within a few minutes, I found myself standing in a nest of large green snakes. It was incredible; they had camouflaged themselves so well that I did not see them until they started to move. After counting at least three of them within inches of my feet, I decided it was probably best to leave ... fast! From that point on, I stayed on the trails.

Back in town, it was very easy to meet other tourists at the local bars and exchange stories from faraway places. While I was in Cahuita, I met a group of people from the US, Canada, and Germany, and we decided to plan a trip together to Tortuguero National Park, a place where endangered sea turtles nest. It was fun to listen to people speak English, French, Spanish and German all simultaneously among one another.

Tortuguero National Park is about 60 miles south of the Nicaraguan border on the Caribbean coast. In order to get to the park, we rode in a jeep for about 1 hour back to Limon down bumpy dirt roads with very large potholes, a halo of dust and rocks flying up from the jeep. From Limon, we continued by public boat to Tortuguero Park. It took us about 4­5 hours down jungle canals to reach the park. Upon arrival, the boat dropped us off at a village in the middle of the jungle and picked us up three days later.

It was a great opportunity to view wildlife such as spider monkeys, howler monkeys and sloths in the trees. Anteaters, tapirs, and coatimundis are also frequently sighted. In addition, we saw many species of freshwater turtles sunning themselves up on logs in the river. It seems as soon as they would see us, they would plop back into the water as if they were playing some sort of hide­and­seek game. We also saw quite a few caimans--many were ten to twelve feet long-- and crocodiles basking in the sun along the riverbanks. The highlight of the trip was to see the silhouette of a very large iguana, five or six feet long, sunning itself at the very top of a barren tree along the river.

When we reached our destination, Tortuguero Village, we rented little cabins along the beach. One of my favorite pastimes was to search at night for leatherback turtles and giant marine toads, some of which can weigh over 1 kg. I would walk along the beach and keep my flashlight turned down so I would not frighten away turtles that had not made it to shore yet to start nesting. Once I spotted a trail mark, I would follow it up onto the beach to look for the turtle laying her eggs. The turtle remained on the beach until she finished laying all of her eggs, a process that could take up to a few hours.

The following day we rented a canoe and went with one of the locals through the jungle canals. It was very peaceful to observe the monkeys playing in the trees as we drifted quietly down the river canals. Frequently, we would see 20 or more monkeys swinging from branch to branch or just lazily relaxing in a tree. While canoeing, we spotted a lizard that looks like a small dinosaur, called a Jesus Christ lizard, skipping across the water. And, we saw several large bright Morpho blue butterflies along the edge of the jungle. These butterflies camouflage well with their environment. When they flutter their wings, they are an electric cobalt blue, but when they are resting they close their wings to expose a dark brown undercoloring. We also stopped the canoes along the way to hike through the jungle in search of Poison Arrow frogs. These frogs are bright red with black markings and their skin secretes poison--although, they rarely are harmful if touched casually by humans. The local Indians use the poison from the skins of these frogs to coat their arrowheads. While canoeing it started to rain--more like a torrential downpour--and we took cover under the trees by the riverbank. As soon as it stopped raining, the sun came out again and so did the animals. Suddenly, the jungle was alive again with the whistles, squawks, howls, chirps and buzzing sounds of its inhabitants. This was one of the best times to spot tropical birds, herons, and egrets, or to look for crocodiles sunning themselves along the riverbanks.

Upon our return back to the village, we had a hearty meal of arroz con pollo (chicken and rice) and spent the remainder of the day relaxing on the beach and planning the rest of our trip to the drier, but also nice, tropical beaches of the Pacific coast. Along the way, we stopped at an overlook on a mountain where, on a clear day, one can get a bird's eye view of both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea simultaneously. A view that is incredibly breathtaking and unforgettable, like all of Costa Rica!

Corinna Schmidt is a freelance writer who currently lives in Germany.

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