Costa Rica active naturalist privately guided tour
Serendipity Adventures has provided our family a superb vacation encompassing excellent lodging, excellent food, and wonderful adventures at every location. We felt that each individual we met at every specific activity was not only professional but also very knowledgeable, friendly, helpful and extremely personable. We felt very safe at every activity.
We leave your beautiful country with a much better understanding of the people, their cultures, the wildlife and the natural beauty that abounds here.
We are truly much richer for having traveled with Serendipity. It was an awesome adventure. Our sincerest thanks.
—Ken B., Auburn, ME, June, 2005
Balloons are not only fun to fly, they afford the best close-up view of real nature.
This adventure in nature was designed for an Indiana family of five: 2 adults, 2 early twenties kids, and Rose, one very active 72 year old grandmother. They wanted to experience several different ecological systems and meet the real people who lived and worked in each area — cane workers, fishermen, dairy farmers, teachers, shopkeepers. They wanted action, but they wanted everyone to take part in every activity, so we had to design a way that Rose could be there at all points, yet the "children" got sweaty and dirty and enough adrenaline as well.
Oh, by the way, Rose, with Serendipity's itinerary developer, was the family member who designed this trip.
Trip Itinerary
Day 1: Friday
Rodolfo Sanchez, the Serendipity leader for this adventure, will meet your arrival at 6:45 this evening and whisk you away to the west of the metropolitan area into the lush hillsides of the coffee country. At dinner with your Serendipity leader, who is with you the whole adventure, you'll get a chance to figure out what to expect from the days to come.
Day 2: Saturday
It's your first day, so you get to sleep in — but remember that this is the last day for sleeping. After breakfast we'll start the drive across the central mountain range, but stop to spend the day and tonight in a very special place on the way. We take you to our friends' quiet effort to preserve, for generations to come, the mysterious and awesome cloud forest in his private forest preserve. Here we'll hike among spectacular waterfalls and pre-Jurassic plants, some more than 900 years old. Here the resplendent Quetzal bird nests, and in nesting season this shy bird appears frequently.
Day 3: Sunday
After a few hours' hike (Rose has to let us know when it is time to carry her...) we'll drive the rest of the way through the mountains to the ever erupting Arenal Volcano. Tabacón is here, the fancy big tour bus resort style hot springs, well manicured pools and beautiful bodies in swimsuits, and catering to hundreds. And we also know a wonderful place where only the local people come, and a few world-wise travelers, and we have to slide down a muddy path, and take our waterproof flashlights for the way back after dark — it is your choice.
Sneak up on kingfishers and parakeets, monkeys and cayman, gathered at the waterhole.
After dark (here almost on the equator sunset is 5:30 pretty much year round...) we'll head around the back side, or the left side, to find a place for viewing — remember, the volcano changes its lava flow pretty regularly, much like a sand castle gets dribbled on from the top. The roads are nearly imaginary lines on the map here, so thank you, 4x4! And if this still doesn't work, we can try climbing a short distance up the slope to see under the mushroom cloud of steam (the volcano forms its own cloud; steam coming from cracks on the side of the cone manage to condense just enough to block the view of the glowing lava). But even if the visibility is poor, the sounds are enough to fire your imagination — if we get close enough, and far enough from the tour buses and party folks at Tabacón Resort.
This is the tree everyone else climbed — on the inside — if you look closely you'll see Jason, Rose's 44 year old son, in a red shirt, starting his descent, down the outside
Day 4: Monday
Hope you are up to some silence today. We'll inflate our Duckies for a quiet float down a small, isolated stream with riverbanks full of nature, watching for birds and monkeys and lizards and crocodiles. Silence is so important here! We're lucky that we're a cohesive group totally afraid to endure Rose's angry glare if we screw up and make a sound. Crocodiles, for example, will slip into the river to wait under water for noisy tourists to go by. With the little Duckies we can truly creep up on the birds, and lizards, and a few other interesting animals (there are sloth in the trees, but they move so infrequently, so slowly, that you'll need an expert eye to catch sight of one). There are other "treats" here, too, extremely well camouflaged — fruit bats, which look a lot like wet leaves, and snakes, quiet and inactive, coiled on branches to absorb the sun. And birds, lots and lots of birds, hiding below the lowest branches or sitting in the brightest sun possible, wings stretched to dry their feathers. And then the monkeys scream challenges to everyone, and be prepared for some particularly aggressive male to "relieve" himself from a safe height above us — they have pretty good aim.
Day 5: Tuesday
And this is the photo that inspired Rose to become the producer/director of the family tree climbing...
After breakfast we travel by horseback across rivers, through pastures and cane fields, and into a primary flatland rain forest. The culmination of this ride is a 700 year old strangler fig tree. Rose says she wants to get to the tree via 4x4, which is also an option.
The hollow center of this tree has natural "steps" which invite ascents. The wildlife inside the tree provide added excitement.
You will emerge through an opening in the trunk above all but the tallest trees in the forest, then rappel back down to your horse before galloping back to the ranch house. And Rose? Once she get to the tree, she'll be the one sitting in the tree giving everyone else very precise directions...
Day 6: Wednesday
Sunrise is the most serene time of the day, and most stable for the balloon. The rain forest between our launch place and Arenal volcano is filled with toucans, howler monkeys, iguanas, sloth, and brilliant birds and butterflies — and these are only visible in full color from above. We try to descend into the forest to play with the animals, and we also try to ascend to see Arenal above its halo of clouds. But we can't guarantee the direction — the pure joy of flying is enhanced by the freedom of direction of these giant bubbles, and the landings are always a source of curiosity for local people.
We have about 4 hours of driving today, passing through the volcanic mountain range, through some "backroads" of Costa Rica (no tour buses here!). En route we'll be stopping to have lunch, and we might as well enjoy the highest waterfall in Costa Rica while eating.
The Caribbean zone is perhaps the most primitive and ignored part of Costa Rica, and is rich in bio diversity and REAL people. No large tourist enclaves here, only small, passionate privately organized animal rescue shelters and people dedicated to replenishing our living planet. Of course it rains here — that keeps our coastal area clean and with gently comfortable temperatures. But to put it in perspective, it rains much like the coastal areas of Florida or the Bahamas or Jamaica, anywhere that the Caribbean weather system dominates.
And tonight we'll be on that coast, enjoying the animal rescue sanctuary of Luis and Judy Ramirez, with star guests Buttercup and Spiderman.
Day 7: Thursday
The whole southern Caribbean area is eclectic, with the largest concentration of bird species in Costa Rica. But wait ... not just birds here. Costa Rica indigenous population, the Bri Bri, operate small communal farms as they have since before Columbus arrived. Serendipity works closely with INAI, a non-government foundation devoted to developing the Caribbean zone without sacrificing the local heritage. We have opportunity to visit some of these isolated farms, plus our friend Steve Brooks' own permaculture station with hundreds of edible species growing, literally, next to the almost-invisible path through the forest.
Day 8: Friday
Did we say turtles? It's March and the beginning of the nesting season for the gigantic leatherbacks. The nesting beach is entirely protected, and difficult to access (fortunately for the turtles...) and we're making.
Turtle watching is a night activity, using red lanterns so we don't disorient the transe-like arrival of the females lumbering onto the shore. The beach area is under the dedicated watchful eye of hundreds of volunteers who come stay here each year to protect this shore.
We have come to gaze in awe at this phenomenal primitive ritual, bringing these turtles back to their own birthplaces, as they have been doing since before mankind arrived on this planet.
Day 9: Saturday
Katrina and Greg will take us with them while they continue research on the Taxuci dolphin. What?? Taxuci? Yes, Greg and Katrina and Shawn have discovered the small gray Amazon freshwater dolphin frolicking in the coastal waters off Gandoca, here in Costa Rica. Their research is now funded in part by the Nature Conservancy, but more so by people like us, paying for the gas for the boat so they can go out for more first-hand observations and record-keeping.
Day 10: Sunday
Rodolfo, Rose and the family will leave to return to San Jose (civilization? Who's definition is that, anyway?) right after lunch. We have the rest of the day to explore near the city. There's Lankester Gardens, with magnificent tropical plants, and the bird sanctuary where we can clearly see any species we missed during the adventures, and of course butterfly farms and snake farms and coffee farms and museums and shopping — basically tons of tours are based from San Jose, and today you can play conventional tourist.
Or we can pass all this mayhem to go back out into (past the airport) the country on a picnic and a view of the Pacific at the top of Espiritu Santu (not a place where any tour buses go — it's strictly four-wheel-drive) - there's no end of things we can do with Rodolfo enthusiastically showing you his country on this, your last real day here.
And the last chance for some adrenaline, too — he'll bring the ropes and harnesses (same ones you used in the tree in the forest), and you can play "murciélago" from the old ruins here.
Day 11: Monday
Your return flight from Costa Rica, alas. We'll head for the airport at 7:00 to catch your flight at 8:55 (they really want you there two hours before flight time — but we know another shortcut....). You'll leave behind Rodolfo, guanábana, gallo pinto and the miserable potholes. But you'll take back some great new skills, and memories of Rose doing things she hasn't done since childhood in Joplin, Missouri. And you can come back, any time you get the urge...
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