Costa Rica
By Marianne Gray
Photography by Libby Robb
and the gold
museum which are
diverting, and end
your stroll with a
cool cocktail (of
which there are
many) next to the
fountains in the
totally colonial
Gran Hotel.
M
y cousin is a great
birdwatcher and when
she rang to say, “Let’s go to
Costa Rica because the most
beautiful bird in America, the
Aztec-named green and red
quetzal, lives there.” I
immediately dragged out the
atlas.
You need to hit the road to
explore this fascinating country.
There is an extremely limited
train service due to a 1991
earthquake destroying much of
the Pacific network. The roads in
Costa Rica are mainly good and
they wind over mountains and
hills lined with colourful tropical
Very soon we were landing in
San Jose, the small, pleasant
capital at the foot of the
mountains. San Jose is a slow,
balmy town with warm, smiling
people but much of its history
was lost in the 2012
earthquake.
greenery full of butterflies and
berries, howler monkeys and
soaring black vultures with
feathered wingtips catching the
therms. It is an extremely
beautiful country with big views
in every shade of green, dazzling
flowers and red iron acid soil.
There are many
organised mini-bus
tours that make
travelling easy.
Some trips are for
those who just want
to quietly explore
the rivers,
volcanoes, lakes,
forest, beaches and
relax in thermal
springs. Others are
for those who want
to whitewater raft,
8
THE LONDON & UK DATEBOOK
We preferred slightly less action,
like having a nice cool Imperial
beer on the beach or
overlooking a great view. Or a
plate of rice and black beans
(gallopinto) in a local bar near
the volcano. Or a visit to a sugar
mill where oxen still turn the
grinding wheel. Or a cup of
Arabica coffee in the plantation
kitchen.
We walked up central
Monteverde and into the forest
with brilliant bird-man Marvin, in
his snake-proof wellies and with
a high range telescope, who
spotted two splendid quetzals
(male and female) hidden high
in the treetops for us within the
first 15 minutes. There are 910
different birds in Costa Rica
sometimes making an
abundance of colour tumbling
over each other.
Costa Rica. A strip of land
straddling the Caribbean and the
Pacific, full of mountains,
volcanoes, valleys and rivers, is
squeezed in between Panama,
where the hats come from, and
Nicaragua, with it’s huge lake
and lawlessness.
Stroll along the Boulevard Calle
17 where all life jostles or take
coffee in the elegant National
Theatre, which was built in the
1890s on the coffee industry’s
success. There are several
museums, like the yellow fort
kayak, zipline, canyoneer, ride
horses, surf, watch whales, dive
into waterfalls, fall off hanging
bridges in the cloud forest or fly
like Tarzan through the trees.
We also loved chugging up a
deserted river with a jumble of
exotic trees and liana vines
tumbling onto riverbanks alive
with small furry things …
coatis, sloths, agoutis and
monkeys leaping through trees
and slow scaly things like giant
iguanas, spectacled caymans
and turtles creeping along the
moist shores.
Travelling upstream as far as the
Nicaraguan border at Las
Chiles, passports were at the
ready in case there was a
riverine version of a roadblock.
Accompanied by a Jesus Christ
lizard, a green lizard with
webbed feet so it can walk on
water, it felt about as far from
civilisation as one could wish.