We arrived in San Jose after a gruelling 15 hour flight (including a layover in Atlanta) and headed straight for a hotel near the airport. The next morning we left on our Natureair flight to Puerto Jimenez. The flight to Puerto Jimenez was both beautiful and sad. The beauty of the rainforest and coastline was so nice to see, although those feelings were tinged with sadness as you saw the devastating effects of deforestation. Thankfully large parts of the Osa peninsula (where we were headed) were being preserved both by the Corcovado national park as by private conservationists, often in collaboration with ecolodges. Bosque Del Cabo our ecolodge was one of these, it is a small lodge with accommodation for 40 to 50 guest’s maximum yet it is preserving 700 acres of rainforest. To get to Bosque del Cabo we were picked up at the airport in Puerto Jimenez, where we had to be careful when landing as an old lady pushed her bike across the runway. The trip to Bosque took about an hour and when we got there we were met with a welcome drink. The accommodation was superb, overlooking the pacific ocean and one day we had howler monkeys coming to sleep right outside our bungalow. That was an amazing experience, although they did wake us up at 4am. Fruit trees are planted all around the accommodation area and we saw toucans and Scarlet macaws almost straight away. To be fair the accommodation area and an orchard of fruit trees near the Titi trail seemed to provide the best photographic opportunities as the birds were more in the open. Photographing in the rainforest was quiet difficult as the subjects were usually pretty high up and in the shadows. You really need a flash X-Tender to make the most of the opportunities in the forest.
The highlight of our stay in Bosque del Cabo was seeing a Puma staring at us on the last day. We spent a lot of the time hiking and that gives you the best chance of seeing the wildlife. Should you go there I really recommend the Titi trail as it is furthest away from the accommodation and provides the best opportunity of seeing wildlife.
After we left Bosque we flew to La Fortuna and picked up a rental car and then drove to Leaves and Lizards a great little accommodation with fantastic views of the Arenal Volcano. Unfortunately we hardly saw the volcano as it was usually covered in clouds when we were there. The accommodation was comfortable and also overlooked an area that the owners are looking to reforest. /there were already some mature fruit trees there, which attracted a lot of birds. Overall I was slightly disappointed by the Arenal area it seems to be a real tourist trap centred on the volcano, but the apart from the volcano itself the actual scenery and wildlife was pretty disappointing. It’s good if you’re into zip lining and the like, but I was disappointed with the photographic opportunities. One place I did like was Cano Negro which is a wetland habitat about 1 ½ hours from Arenal. It is teeming with wildlife, primarily birds, but we also saw sloths and monkeys.
From Arenal we drove to Monteverde, don’t believe everything you read the road is perfectly fine to drive, although I do recommend Sat-Nav. Granted we had an SUV, but I’ve driven in worse roads in Canada and the USA. I was again slightly disappointed with Monteverde it is a very dense rainforest and we were there for 2 days and hardly spotted any wildlife. When our guide did spot something good, a snake, it was so far away you need a scope to see it properly. In Monteverde we stayed at Valle Cabanas, which is actually a small coffee farm, it was really nice to stay there and my wife says the coffee is amazing, we brought quite a bit back with us. I would recommend staying there, but the accommodation itself was nothing really special, but was good value.
After we left Monteverde we decided to spend a few days on the Guanacaste coast, we drove to Bahia Hermosa and just chose a hotel which had availability and was near the beach. The beach was lovely and quiet. And we even managed to see some iguanas on the beach.
Overall this holiday was a mixture between a good family holiday and a good photography holiday. If you really want a spectacular wildlife holiday I’d recommend the Pantanal in brazil over Costa Rica, however Costa Rica would be a great compromise destination if you have family members who aren’t just interested in wildlife and photography as it has some great activities that provide fun for all the family.
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Tags: adventure, photography, wildlife
If you didn’t see as much wildlife in Costa Rica as you wanted, you didn’t go to the right places! Osa Peninsula is great, as you said, but both Arenal and Monteverde are too crowded to see much wildlife. And to see wildlife, you really have to hike “off the beaten path.” It’s all there – you just have to look for it. One option is to spend more time in one of the National Parks – they are all over the country. Glad you had a good time!
thanks for the comment Hattie. Regarding the wildlife, I was extremely impressed with it at the time. However having been to the Pantanal twice since then I can honestly say that it is much better than costa Rica, in terms of wildlife viewing.
There’s a ton of wildlife at Manuel Antonio National park and its easy to spot. The access to this park is very easy. I saw more wildlife in Manuel Antonio than in Corcovado National Park.
I had guides for both national parks and, because of this, would consider the playing field to be even. Three species of monkeys peeped at us in Manuel Antonio, while only one was visible in Corcovado.