Arriving in Tamarindo

We drove yesterday from Monteverde to the last locale of our trip, Tamarindo. It is another dramatically different environment within Costa Rica. We left 20C cloud forest in the mountains to arrive at a dry and hot coast. We found our hotel, checked out our room and buzzed off into town. The town is a peculiar mix mash of unkempt empty lots, and nice high end buildings. Half the roads are paved, half aren’t. We looked at all the shops in town and then met some people that we were introduced to from a friend back in Calgary. They bought the surf shop and hostel and moved down here 4 months ago. We learned a lot from them about local things and places to go. Then we booked a surf lesson! The town is chockablock with surf shops so I hope they do well.

This morning we got up and met with our surf instructor – Rudy. He’s another emigrant to Costa Rica – they all come on vacation and never leave. He came here from Peru 11 years ago. He got us out in the water and up on our boards in no time. He made it really fun. Brooke rode no end of good little waves. He could pick just the right ones for her and she honestly rode better than me. When I got the wave and got my balance, I could steer and turn and felt like a bit of a surfer. The boards they give you when you begin are huge, allowing you to ride smaller waves – it’s counter intuitive. It feels like we’ve done just about everything in Costa Rica you can do!

The blue line is the drive from Monteverde to Tamarindo


A close up.


The better gravel roads in Costa Rica.


Our Balcony.


Our very nice little hotel room at the Arco Iris hotel.


Some shops in town.














Howler monkeys. This is a boy.

Monteverde Reserve and a Coffee Plantation/Farm

We spent this morning touring the magnificent Monteverde reserve. We skipped the guided walk and just toured around for our own amusement. Right out of the gates we saw the quintessential bird to see – the “resplendent quetzal”. I don’t think Resplendent is a technical term but they always, always call it that. We were very lucky to see this bird as it should really be called the “elusive quetzal” or what Brooke calls it, the “chicken pretzel”. It is a very colourful and regal looking bird.

We continued on around the park and enjoyed the views and the exercise. Half way around the 5km hike we got to the lookout point where, on queue, the clouds rolled in so that we couldn’t see a thing – that’s what you get when you come to a cloud forest!

The cloud forest straddles the continental divide, the same divide that extends all the way north through Canada.

This afternoon, we took a tour of a coffee farm, Don Juan’s coffee farm. Our tour guide was a young, chatty guy who translated for Don Juan as he toured us around his farm. He showed us the process of growing seedlings to replace dying or sick trees, explained the growing season and development of the fruit, showed us how to pick the ripe cherry’s (they are a bright red fruit when ripe), and the different cleaning processes. As I understood it, there are two ways to process the coffee. Don Juan roasts the entire fruit, which is then ground to make the coffee. This is known as natural coffee. The coffee we buy requires the fruit be peeled from the seed and the seed dried in the sun. Once dry, it can then be husked down to the “bean”. Don Juan farms just one hectare of his land, trying to preserve the forest on the remaining land. He does one hectare because can pick and harvest that one hectare himself. He made us “natural” coffee to try which is what the farmers drink, and some home made banana bread having used bananas he grows.

At the entrance to the Monteverde Reserve.


A Resplendent Quetzal
























































Our guide, Alex, for our coffee tour.


Coffee through it's stages. Young green to mature red to dried black fruit.


Don Juan, the farmer.


What a coffee "bean" looks like out of the fruit.


The red machine grinds the fruit off of the bean.


The beans when dried.





A young coffee plant. They grow to 5 or 6 ft tall.





Me with a basked tied to me. This is how Don Juan picks his beans.


This is how beans used to be husked and ground.
Sugar cane we had at Don Juans farm.

To Monteverde et Bat Jungles and Chocolate

We’re now in Monteverde. The drive here was not far from an amusement park ride - incredibly windy but magnificent. Boy, the Porsche enthusiasts would love this newly paved road. Unfortunately, the pavement ends about half way. You take a bumpy gravel road all the way to 4500 ft above sea level.

Monteverde is a mish-mash of cultures. It was a significant landing point for Quakers leaving the U.S. during the Korean war. It followed to be a hub for traveling hippies too.

So, over time, due to an assortment of reasons, Monteverde and the town of Santa Elena have become the hippie Mecca within Costa Rica. The hippie gringos come here and take up art. Brooke and I spent our first hours here going to the myriad of art galleries. The first place was a local artist from Costa Rica who turned out to be the exception. His gallery was very modern, with a very professional style. We continued on to another gallery/store (really not a gallery, just an artsy store) where everything was cute and nice but lacked substance – surprise, it doubles as a yoga meditation studio. We continued on further to the “art cooperative” – totally just a tourist souvenir shop peddling the “supporting local women” clause. Luckily we did find a painting in a nice little gallery nearby. The painting was removed from the frame and brought to the till but when we asked if it could be packaged into a tube, the young guy who was working there (the son of the owner) didn’t have one! He said they often don’t restock things like this. He revealed that, amusingly, they don’t really sell much art there, mostly jam.

We spent the rest of today going to the “Bat Jungle” and stopping in at an Argentine chocolate store– absolutely delectable chocolates. The tour of The Bat Jungle was a great learning experience. They are really trying to get the word out on how important and interesting bats are. Bats make up one quarter of all the mammal species on the planet – over 1000 species! They are not related to rodents - the young guy who took us on the tour was emphatic about this. More likely, bats are related to primates. Those 1000 species break down into groups such as the insect eating bats, the fruit eating bats, the nectar eating bats and blood eating bats (vampire bats). Bats probably got their bad name from that last group, however, you would have to sleep naked in the forest for them to even try going after your blood. And, apparently there is no real harm as they would only take around 25g of blood. The only harm would be if they could transmit something infectious and apparently the scare of rabies doesn’t come from bats feeding on people but occurrences where people pick up sick bats and get bitten.

The insect eating bats eat so many insects helping maintain a delicate ecological balance - in many cases, they are key to protecting crops though many farmers still don’t understand this.

One fascinating fallacy is that bats are blind. In fact, they can see really well in conjunction with remarkable echo location - to the point of being able to locate a human hair in the path of their flight and avoid it. They may just be the most agile fliers on the planet, some able to reach speeds of up to 100km/hour while being able to turn on a dime. Their wings have all sorts of flexibility to change shape and tension during flight so that they can steer with amazing dexterity. Some of the nectar eating bats can almost hover like a hummingbird. Some bats eat fruit from trees, essential to spreading seeds all over the forest. Some bats are key to pollination for numerous plants and trees. It turns out bats are important to our survival. The huge caves of bats in San Antonio, Texas, are home to 20 million bats but this population is declining. Together, they eat over 250 tons of insects per night, mostly cotton bollworm moths, a severe agricultural pest, and are a major factor in keeping crops healthy and insect free. However, pesticides and fertilizers that are used are having a huge effect. The colony is collapsing.

The blue line shows our drive from Quepos to Monteverde


We gained 5000ft in elevation!


Our cute little "room with a view".





The work bench in the art studio we bought a painting at. It was extraordinary.


Hippie car.