In order to enter or cross the indigenous reserves you need the blessing of the people who own them. There's no official "permit" but we hired two baquianos (indigenous guides) and a local porter for each trekker which provided implicit permission according to our head guide. Entry permits for … [Read more...]
Experiences With the People and Places
Want to know how to make tamales? Well you start with 50 kilos of pork...at least if you're helping in the kitchen preparing for the fiesta patronal in Fortuna Bagaces you do. The entries in this blog tell story of how we came by our tamale recipe and many other experiences we've had getting to know Costa Rica.
Quebrada Gata
update - I recently headed up to Poco Sol again and saw that the hydro project on Quebrada Gata was complete. I don't know how far up the canyon they tubed the water but I do know that because of the electrical generating infrastructure they no longer allow access to the area. Ours was the first … [Read more...]
¡Pura Vida!
...and Ni Sa Bula Vinaka... or Aloha... If there were just one phrase to evoke Costa Rica it would be ¡Pura Vida! “What does it mean?” you ask. Well, it’s roughly the equivalent of bula bula! (pronounced mboola mboola) – or more formally – ni sa bula vinaka! (pronounced … [Read more...]
Turtle Hatching
Sometime things don’t turn out the way you planned, but fortunately in Costa Rica that often means that they turn out better. We particularly anticipated the last couple of days of one trip to Costa Rica because they coincided with the waning moon and an Arribada (mass nesting) of sea turtles. We … [Read more...]
Round Rock Roads
There is a gravel shortage in Costa Rica. At least what you might usually think of as gravel. To make gravel, large rocks are normally crushed into fairly uniform pieces somewhere between the size of a grape and a golf ball then filtered through a screen to eliminate any softball, bowling ball or … [Read more...]
Ask the Right Questions
Finding your way around Costa Rica can be challenging Adventure is the most common word we hear when we ask travelers to describe navigating around Costa Rica and it's no surprise. Street names have only been introduced in the past couple of years and signs and addresses still only exist in about … [Read more...]
History of Canopy Tours
Modern canopy tours were invented in the 1970's when the rain and cloud forest canopies were the last remaining frontiers of botany, zoology, entomology and ecology. Ph.D. students Donald Perry and John Williams first strapped on their rock climbing harnesses, clicked their carabineers on to a … [Read more...]
Killer Cashew
Sue and I are both biochemists, so we felt right at home talking with the scientists, and getting a perspective on some of their studies while visiting the biological research station in Santa Rosa National Park. I also got an explanation for the blister that had persisted on my upper lip for … [Read more...]
Missed by Miles
Our longest bicycle tour was three months from June through August and had a lot to do with our decision to try to make a good map of Costa Rica. We were lost more often than not and the detour we took the first time we tried to visit Bijagua and the Tenorio, Miravalles, Celeste Region was a … [Read more...]
Traffic Frog
Anyone who’s spent any time on the road in Costa Rica has spent time sitting in traffic waiting for something to break loose down the road. Whether it’s a one lane bridge, accident, washout or construction it’s nearly impossible to drive for more than half an hour without something bringing traffic … [Read more...]
Mountain Bike Palo Verde
The washboard frequency was perfectly inharmonious at any but a breakneck pace and we knew we had a full day of riding across Palo Verde National Park ahead of us so we jolted down the dusty road relaxing as best we could on our way from Cañas to Bebedero. Bebedero is a typical Costa Rican … [Read more...]
How Costa Rica Got its Name
Costa Rica-the Rich Coast Columbus (Cristóbal Colón) “discovered” Costa Rica in 1502 on his last voyage to the Western Hemisphere. He anchored in the Caribbean near the current location of Limón and sent out a landing party. Tradition states-probably incorrectly-that Columbus christened this land … [Read more...]
Intimate Sea Turtles
I was flipping though some of our wildlife photo albums when I came to the surprising realization that the tropical animals we'd seen the most intimately weren't the ubiquitous monkeys, sloths or macaws of the rainforest. It was sea turtles. It was surprising because we're not avid SCUBA divers … [Read more...]
Heart of Palm
(with apologies to Mr. Conrad) This is the story of a heart of palm salad or a mysterious deal involving duffel bag swaps in the heart of the jungle or how we spent the first day of our honeymoon in Costa Rica twenty years ago. We were invited by the brother of a guy we met in line at customs … [Read more...]
The Big Screwdriver
I lost one of the little screws that holds the trap of my bicycle pedal onto the body and stopped at a hardware store for a replacement. It was a Japanese part with unusual threads so we had to search through a box of odds and ends to find one that matched. It was about twice as long as necessary … [Read more...]
Bad Trip
There are about thousand stories about the great times we've had on our travels in Costa Rica. At one point I might have been willing to say it's impossible to have a bad trip but I would have been wrong. Or maybe it was all just a bad dream… The first couple of weeks of the trip on the south … [Read more...]
Common Misconceptions
It can't possibly snow in Costa Rica - it's the tropics Been there, seen that. It's unusual enough that I was contacted by a meteorological researcher from the U.S. when she read about it, but I grew up in Colorado and know snow when I see it. It definitely Graupeled on us at the top of Chirripó … [Read more...]
Don’t Drink the Natilla
Go ahead and drink the water... The mountainsides below the continental divide north of Varablanca Costa Rica are reminiscent of Switzerland. Black and white Holstein cattle feed on the rich pastures that have replaced the rain and cloud forests over much of the area. After a sweaty climb on … [Read more...]
Imperial Beer in the U.S.
Cheap Imperial Beer Coming to a Liquor Store Near You Cerveceria Costa Rica never had significant market penetration in the U.S. prior to their recent acquisition of North American Breweries. Imperial was sporadically available in a few specialty stores, but now the liquor store down the street … [Read more...]
Disastrous Border Road
A few people have asked us when we're going to add the new multimillion dollar road from Los Chiles to the Caribbean to the the map of Costa Rica. We tell them the same thing "when the road actually exists." Although the official completion of route 1856 (aka "the border road") was announced a … [Read more...]