2007.01.20
Costa Rica
On Tuesday, January 16, I returned from a two-week trip to Costa Rica. Josh, who has been a friend of mine for many years, decided to get married in Costa Rica on January 4, and I decided that it was the perfect excuse for a vacation, so I booked myself in for two weeks.
I’ve posted a number of my photos (but far from all of them) online.
The flight left Calgary at a rather ungodly hour of the morning on January 1. Suffice to say I had very little sleep before leaving for the airport at 4:20am (and I do mean very little), and to make things worse, I was so excited about the trip that I found it impossible to sleep on the flight. Finally, after about 9 hours (including a stop in Vancouver), I arrived in Costa Rica, threw my bag on the bus, and travelled the 20 minutes or so to the Fiesta Premier resort, which I would be calling home for two weeks.
The other 16 people who attended the wedding had already arrived on December 30, and I ran into most of them at supper after I had unpacked a bit and showered. I confirmed that we were booked for the canopy tour the next morning, which meant being ready to leave before 8:00am. I slept surprisingly well and wasn’t tired the following morning. My lack of sleep took about 5 days to catch up with me, in fact.
The canopy tour was a lot of fun, though we didn’t really get to see as much stuff as I had hoped. After that, I went snorkelling for the first time of the trip – I would go about 12 more times in the next two weeks, and on every trip I saw something new. I managed to see all of the following on the various snorkelling trips:
- Lots of angel fish
- Spiny puffer fish
- Spotted puffer fish
- Sea stars
- Sea spiders
- Octopus
- Jellyfish
- Reef sharks
- Sea turtles
- Guitar rays
- Moray eels
- Nosefish (several types)
- Sea cucumbers
- Sea urchins
And many other ocean critters that I can’t put names to.
The following day, the whole wedding group had a sunset cruise booked which was quite nice. We also got some snorkelling in.
The morning of the wedding, most of the guys went out on an ATV tour which was a lot of fun. The brakes on my ATV weren’t working all that well, which I discovered at exactly the wrong moment – I almost ended up sliding into a ravine, but fortunately I managed to keep the ATV more or less on the trail. While on the trip, we saw lots of howler monkeys, some lizards, and a few interesting farms.
The wedding itself took place at sunset on the beach at the resort. It was absolutely gorgeous, though I can’t even begin to imagine how warm Tara must have been in her dress (though she looked even more stunning than usual, for sure).
After the wedding was over, most of the group only had a couple of days left, but since I still had more than a week left of my stay, I pretty much just spent the days relaxing and snorkelling.
The following Tuesday was easily the most memorable day of the entire trip. A few days earlier, I had met a couple were from just north of Manchester, England who had come to Costa Rica to do some birdwatching. I was looking for some hiking, but our interests lined up enough that we decided to hire a private guide for a day (along with two other friends of mine, Bob and Deb) and head to Parque Nacional Rincón de la Vieja for a day of hiking and birdwatching. It was nothing short of incredible. While I never really intended on doing any birdwatching in Costa Rica, I’m very glad I did. We spent seven hours hiking through the park, and saw lots of things besides just birds. I arrived back at the resort tired but very satisfied at the end of the day.
The other two day trips I took were a river float down the Rio Corobici and a shopping trip to the nearest major city, Liberia. The river float was very relaxing and there was a lot of wildlife to see. Liberia was a really interesting city, and wasn’t at all what I expected. I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but I enjoyed the chance to see a little bit of the city and do some solo exploring.
Though I’m home now and happy to be back, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and I would love to return to Costa Rica someday.
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