Jenss Family Travels: Costa Rica

ByRainer Jenss
June 29, 2009
8 min read

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they’re blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys’ Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

When our TACA flight from Lima finally touched down in the capital city of Costa Rica, it marked just the first time on this entire world tour that we arrived in a new country without any game plan whatsoever. Admittedly, we aren’t exactly backpacking it around the planet, so this was new territory for our family. This was also intentional because we wanted to add a twist to the final month of the trip so we wouldn’t get too caught up in counting down the days until we had to go home. The only arrangements we had made were to spend a day in San Jose with a Lonely Planet guide to get our bearings and devise a strategy for the next two weeks.

The first of many spontaneous decisions was made before we even checked into the hotel. Driving from the airport, I noticed several street vendors selling Costa Rican soccer jerseys. The taxi driver explained that the U.S. was in town for a World Cup Qualifier match that very night, and the stadium was only 10 minutes from where we were staying. Never one to pass up an opportunity to attend a major sporting event, I scalped myself a ticket and jumped right into the local culture by watching Costa Rica embarrass the U.S. 3-1 in front of a jubilant sold-out crowd.

To my surprise, there were more than a handful of Americans in attendance, a precursor of sorts to the large number of U.S. tourists and expats we would encounter throughout our stay. I subsequently found out that a sizable contingent of Americans have come down here in recent years to retire, start up businesses, or relocate to a tropical paradise. Their large presence also served as a reminder that we were not too far from home anymore, a thought that didn’t actually excite us. For this reason, we made a conscious decision to try to avoid the more commercialized and developed areas of the country and stick to the more natural, unspoiled terrain.

The Costa Rican tourism business seems to cater to three distinct groups of travelers: eco-friendly, wildlife enthusiasts; adventure seekers; and sea, surf and sand lovers. The latter has certainly contributed to the increased number of tourists and resident expats from the States. It’s also blamed for transforming several of the country’s laid-back beach communities into Miami Beach-style resort towns.  Although many people like ourselves could easily fall into two or more of these categories, we opted to pursue the exotic wildlife and natural beauty that put Costa Rica on the tourist map in the first place, while sprinkling in a little adventure and surf every now and then for good measure.

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As someone who’s made a career in marketing, I had to laugh at how the rainy season has been aptly re-named the “Green Season.” That’s some pretty clever positioning to draw more people down here between May and November.  But the threat of daily rain didn’t deter us, because we weren’t here for soaking up the sun or lying on the beach. In fact, we headed straight for the rain forest to see what we could find.

The first stop was Tortuguero National Park, known best for its miles of turtle-breeding coastline. We were picked up by our guide from the Turtle Beach Lodge at our hotel in San Jose and took off bright and early for a half-day drive and boat ride that would take us into the park. Although we didn’t see any turtles (July through October are the best months to catch sight of them), there was no shortage of interesting animals. Without leaving the property, the boys saw Jesus Christ lizards, the ones you’ve seen running on water on those wildlife shows, tent bats, howler monkeys and those adorable red-eye tree frogs which have become the poster-animal for Costa Rica and rain forests in general.

The action got really exciting when we cruised through the forest’s backwaters and canals. We were introduced by our guide to Josh, who heads up the Canadian Organization for Tropical Education and Rainforest Conservation.  Taking advantage of the fact that we had two pre-teen boys in tow, he recruited them to help count caiman along the stretch of river that abuts the research station. This fact-finding mission turned out to be quite entertaining.  Not only did Josh collect GPS data on the dozen or so specimens we sighted, he reached in and pulled out a few to show the kids. Maybe it was because of my affiliation with National Geographic, but he was definitely showing off. Before we finished, Josh even found and grabbed an annulated boa snake which he had been looking for since he arrived five months earlier – another crowd-pleaser for sure.

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With an appetite for more wildlife watching, we made our next destination one that’s growing in popularity, but still hasn’t succumbed to the perils of over-development. The cloud forests of the Monteverde and Santa Elena National Parks remain relatively uncrowded due mainly to a long stretch of unpaved road that keeps the tour buses at bay and a local community that’s lobbying hard to stem the tourist flow. To get into the vibe, we stayed in the eco-friendly TreeTop House, which as the name suggests, is nestled in the forest and offered great views and peaceful surroundings.

Part of the area’s appeal comes from the chance to see a rare and unique bird called the Resplendent Quetzal, which we got some terrific views of thanks to a knowledgeable and sure-footed guide. Some of the animals that are harder to see in the wild can fortunately be viewed at a number of different sanctuaries and attractions scattered between the town’s restaurants and art galleries. The kids were thrilled to visit places like the Bat Jungle, Ranario’s Frog Pond, and the El Jardin de las Mariposas Insect and Butterfly Garden. But the highlight might have been the Jewels of the Rainforest Exhibit at the Selvatura ecopark, which houses an entomological collection of over 500,000 insects from all over the world in a display that’s as aesthetically stunning as it is informative. While there, I went on Selvatura’s zip-line excursion, which is arguably the country’s most scenic and thrilling canopy tour, with the final two platforms connected by more than a kilometer of wire cable some 210 feet over the forest floor!

Feeling like we had already done as much as most vacationers do in a single visit, we put away the guidebook and headed south to slow down the pace and take in more of the amazing variety Costa Rica has to offer. (See Part 2 in my next post).

Photos: Frog Photo, Tyler Jenss; Snake and insect photos, Rainer Jenss

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