Miranda, 6 november 2010
Costa Rica , Liberia 31°

Two weeks in paradise

Hi everyone,

Beginning of August I spent just over 2 weeks in Costa Rica. Here is a quick overview of what I did in those 2 weeks, and pictures!

I was supposed to meet up with my Dutch Friend Marieke (aka Flap) in Houston, from where we would fly together to Costa Rica. She had booked the hostel in the city of Liberia and she speaks Spanish fluently. So I didn't need to worry about anything and didn't need to prepare anything before departure.... right?! In Houston it became clear that her flight was so much delayed that she wouldn't make it to Costa Rica the same day. I couldn't change my flight, so I had to fly by myself. Suddenly I had a moment of shock... I didn't know the name or address of the hotel, and I don't speak a word of Spanish!
Luckily I found a computer with internet and Flap had sent me the address. It also turns out that most Costa Ricans that work in the tourist area (and that's a high percentage of the inhabitants!!) speak English. So I found my way to the hotel and walked into 2 Dutch girls with whom I spend a few hours in the bar of the hotel.

The next day Flap arrived and our adventure could start. Writing about everything we've done would be too long, so I'll give a list of things we've done first, and will tell about some highlights.

- hiking to a waterfall near a volcano, and to geysers and mud pools (where my pants fell apart so I had to walk back half naked).
- lots and lots of guided nature tours in rain forest, cloud forest, wetlands and other national parks (where we've seen the most spectacular wildlife)
- a guided tour at night (my first encounter with a tarantula)
- hiking to the top of a volcano with views of Arenal, an active volcano (and we saw it erupting!)
- horse riding around Arenal Lake
- guided tour to the Tortuguero Beach on the Caribbean side to see sea turtles lay eggs
- a flight in a small plane that holds 15 passengers
- a boat tour to find dolphins (this was the worst part of the vacation.... 4 hours of absolute agony due to sea sickness!)

The highlights were definitely the erupting volcano (we saw ash clouds and even some lava going down) and the sea turtles (I decided to adopt a sea turtle). And the enormous list of wildlife we've seen is pretty impressive too: agouti, coati, howler monkey, spider monkey, three-toed and two-toed sloth, capuchin monkey, caimans, emerlad basilisk, fer-de-lance (poisonous snake), green iguana, green sea turtle, Jesus Christ lizard, leaf-cutter ants, dolphins, toucans, Resplendent Quetzal (tough bird to find) and plenty of other birds.

You can see pictures at the following two links. As the links won't work, copy paste the whole link from beginning to end into your browser:
http://www.mijnalbum.nl/Album=Y3VYQQIF
http://www.mijnalbum.nl/Album=MS6TFOQW

Verras Miranda in Costa Rica met een belletje via HalloBuitenland.nl