Visiting the East Coast of Costa Rica

After working for a good ten days at Christopher and Lorena's place, it was time for Lucas and I to get a change of scenery. So we packed our backpacks and took the first bus to San José.

On the spot, we put our things in a youth hostel. Here, the atmosphere is special: there are many Germans and the manager is not particularly friendly. It doesn't matter, we only stay two nights and we intend to visit the city.

The city of San José is not very beautiful; it is really what you can call: a concrete city. Louanne (LouanneManShow) and Antoine (AntoinevsScience) had already warned us but we did not expect this. Fast-foods are present in every street. I think that I had never seen such a concentration of McDonald's...

Then the buildings are not very high, color: grey concrete. There is a lot of traffic and the city is not really thought for the pedestrians.

On Monday, we meet my grandparents and my aunt and uncle who have come here to visit Costa Rica. We visit with them the central market where we eat and walk through the pedestrian streets of downtown. It's good to see them; I'm very happy and they are too.

The next day, we leave at 6am direction Tortuguero. There, we will find my family but first we have to take two buses and then a boat.

Unfortunately the second bus is cancelled and we take a private driver that we share with two other French women.

We finally arrive at La Pavona, the place where we have to return the boat. We take advantage of this stop to discuss with the office of the guides of the natural park of Tortuguero. We explain them that we are a French association and they seem very interested. So much that everything will accelerate!

Within an hour, everyone seems to know us. The driver of the boat too; when he arrives, he takes us aside and we get on last. We are the only ones with Lucas who don't have life jackets and he is our guide during the trip. The boat is very long and it flows on the small river: the pilot knows by heart the shallows and we are impressed by the trip.

After 1h20 of transport, the boat stops in front of our hostel and we are the only ones to get off with Lucas. There, it is authentic atmosphere because we find ourselves in a barrack to sleep. We visit the small village of Tortuguero with Lucas and we are taken in this atmosphere between the picturesque alleys and a very present tourism.

Tortuguero is a very small village on the Caribbean coast and its isolation has kept it away from the hustle and bustle of other tourist spots in the country. The small colored houses with tin roofs have remained very simple and so have the people. Only tourism due to its natural park attracts tourists who never stay long.

We take advantage of this place and of my grandparents. The park proposes several activities and we decide with Lucas to make the night walk as well as the visit of the park in the early morning by boat.

As for the night walk, we were rather disappointed... Nothing particularly exotic except a frog and huge spiders. We did see a snake and a sloth on top of a tree.

As for the boat ride, it's quite different. We get up with difficulty to start the tour at 6 am. We are alone with our guide and the moment is exceptional. The man knows the jungle by heart and explains everything about the animals: birds, sloths, monkeys, caimans, ...

We take full advantage of this moment out of time. The guide even talks with the howler monkeys!

At one point, the man stops and goes crazy. He has just seen a bird that he had not seen for 15 years! We stayed for 20 minutes trying to photograph the 5 centimeters bird, in vain.

In the afternoon, we visit a part of the park on foot and once again there are monkeys everywhere.

We also come across a apple green snake. The day is exceptional and I'm even more happy because it's my birthday.

The next day, we leave in the direction of Puerto Viejo, a surfing town in the South East of Costa Rica. We do 2h20 of boat in the jungle and then take a shuttle for 2 hours. Once again, the captain is a pilot and we fly over the water.

In Puerto Viejo, we spent three nights in a seedy hostel but that was okay; we surfed and partied for a few days and that was the goal.

Après cette petite semaine we go homeand finally at Lorena and Christopher's house. We will spend two days working with them before leaving for Golfito, with coffee purchased by the community!

To be continued.