Next stop, the Pacific coast! We had not seen it since Peru. We went to join Mike and Ana, two French we met in Cuenca in southern Ecuador in early January and for whom we said ‘’see you in Costa Rica in March’’. They rent an apartment for 3 months in Jacó, a small seaside town, well developed and very touristy! A wide and beautiful beach for surfers with awesome sunsets.

We stayed with them for 3 days. Program: beach, frisbee, caipirinhas, home made hamburger’s night and home made sushi’s night! Pretty cool!

After that, we said goodbye and we headed north to go to Monteverde. A small town, very touristy too, lost in the mountains, about 20 kilometers of a dirt road to get access to this cloud forest.
In Monteverde thereis a multitude of things to do. Rafting, Zip-Lines, nightlife tours in the jungle, horseback riding, trekking, museums of chocolate, sugar cane, coffee, ect …
We decided to visit the butterfly garden is a center where you can see a lots of species of butterflies of Costa Rica and where they reproduced them, they also have many impressive insects, the guided tour was very informative, we liked it very much.

In the evening we went for a night hike in the forest. With torch lights, we saw a sloth in a tree at only few meters from the ground, a green toucan, a scorpion, a big spider, a coati and some insects. Unfortunately, it was not easy to take good pictures at night without camera equipment adequate.

The next day we went for a 3h hike in National Park of Nuboso Bosque de Monteverde. We could see some hummingbirds and other birds, lush jungle with good view points.

Then we waited for the end of the afternoon to visit a frog farm, the best time to see them active, the nocturnal ones go to bed and the others wake up. In all the different parks and reserves we visited in Costa Rica, we have not managed to see a single frog in the nature, they hide very well and their camouflage is perfect. We did 1h guided tour, we were happy with this visit, but again not easy to take good photos.

Our last destination in Costa Rica is La Fortuna, a city built at the foot of the impressive Arenal Volcano, our guide-book says it was active, but unfortunately, it’s been 2 years that he is not anymore, so no more lava and no more smoke… But anyway, we had a room with view of the volcano.

After 2 days of endless rain, we decided to wait until the next day to go for a ride to get a little closer from the volcano. We did a 7h tour, it was worth to wait for a sunny day, we visited the Arenal Volcano Park with a guide, we saw some coatis, they are so cute!

Then we had a walk through the park to reach a waterfall and some view points, until sunset.

Then we stoped at the natural hot river, very shallow and with a temperature around 33 degrees, hmmm … Nothing better to end the day.