“Costa Rica 🇨🇷 ~Arenal and Manuel Antonio Volcanic Regions”

• April 23, 2021
• By Pen
• 0 Comment

 A girlfriend and I traveled together to Costa Rica. The trip was fabulous. We flew into San Jose and rented a car. We took turns driving and getting lost. We had spent extra money for a GPS (this was awhile ago) and it didn’t seem to help us as much as we needed it to. In the end, when we turned the car back, we learned the MAPS system had not been properly updated, so I got our money back.

Costa Rica is a small country, at just 19,653 square miles, but its varying elevations give birth to rolling valleys, tropical beaches and sky-high mountain peaks. This diversity of terrain and landscape creates a variety of habitats, which we classify into 10 regions.
Some, like Monteverde and Arenal, are small regions with big personality, while others stretch for miles and encompass several popular destinations, national parks, and biological corridors.

We did a River Safari along the Penas Blancas by rubber raft and saw plenty of wildlife. We also stopped to pick and eat cocoa beans on our hike into the jungle, to visit a 99-year-old working farm, and we got to see how it operates. There was no electricity or running water, and all dirt floors. The owner, named Pedro, was, at that time, almost 100 years old.
We were served Coffee, Cow Cheese and a Bread Pudding, by his daughter. It was very good. After getting back into the raft, we continued with our wildlife viewing. We even were lucky enough to see the three-toed sloth (very rare, compared to the two-toed).

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We zip-lined across the jungle, high up in altitude, and hiked another mountain to see the Toucan birds, through a telescope.

All in all, we visited two Volcanic regions, and I took time out to ride horses around the volcanic region, too.

We also drove over 500 miles.
We visited the ocean, but not being on the Caribbean side, whilst the water was warm, it was very choppy. This meant, we could not scuba dive, as we had hoped to.

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We entered the Manuel Antonio Volcanic Region.
Our destination was the Pasario Hotel. It was pouring down rain upon arrival, but it was very magical at the same time. I got an instant good vibe about this place. It was all lit up, as we had driven for hours and hours, and it was dark by the time we finally got there.
The unique look of the place was like The Swiss Family Robinson’s met The Pirates of the Caribbean. The road we came in on, after leaving a main road, was a one-lane road, which cut through the thick jungle. We went on and on, and up and up. The long winding road, dead-ended, right at this beautiful resort, in the middle of the rainforest, with nothing else around it but the ocean.
For three days and nights we LIVED in the rainforest.  The sounds I could never properly explain, but it was fully MAGICAL!

I will never forget the mornings, staying in the middle of a jungle and waking up to the Howler Monkeys, Howling! It was so cool. We would hop out of our beds, quickly dress and follow the trail to the howling.
We saw so many Howler Monkeys all sounding-off. Some big male apes, and other smaller females. As we hiked further, we even saw the elusive Squirrel Monkeys.

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Our first hotel stop was really pretty, too, with a constant view of the Arenal Volcano ⬇️

The grounds have 12 hot, hot spas; directly flowing from the Arenal Volcano. The top spa is the hottest and they cool as you go down. There are main swimming pools at the bottom, and only one is a treated pool; the rest are so healthy, full of minerals and nutrients.
We soaked every night and even some mornings.

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National Park Manuel Antonio Parque.
We hiked a good ways and paid to go in and enjoy the beach. We had hoped to see white-faced monkeys acting like gypsies, running around the beach, but we missed them by one day. We only saw a raccoon who eventually stole a bag of food and ran off into the jungle.

This side of Costa Rica has Pacific waters, where the jungle falls right onto the beach. It’s amazing.  The water was very warm, but we are very close to the equator here, and had to stay covered up, as one can burn very easily!

Arenal Volcano:

Considered by many to be one of the most spectacular regions in the country, the Northern Lowlands and Arenal Volcano area are Costa Rica’s hottest tourist destinations. Prior to December 2010 the Arenal Volcano was one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world and it was a truly majestic sight, as it spewed molten rocks and ash from its summit on a daily basis.

Manuel Antonio Region:

Manuel Antonio National Park, on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast, encompasses rugged rainforest, white-sand beaches and coral reefs. It’s renowned for its vast diversity of tropical plants and wildlife, from three-toed sloths and endangered white-faced capuchin monkeys to hundreds of bird species.

Click on the link below, and enjoy all the photos!

https://picsbypen.smugmug.com/Places/North-AmericaLife/Costa-RicaLife/Costa-Rica-Arenal-Volcano/