SWAP COSTAS THE COSTA RICA FOR
Why settle for Spain when you can experience Central America’s thrilling wildlife, welcoming locals and potent cocktails for the same price?
Night-time in the forest and i’m surrounded by the squawks, rattles and chirrups of the jungle. my heart is pumping as my torchlight scans the mass of foliage, then the beam descends on the red and purple sheen of the strawberry poison-dart frog.
So toxic are its skin secretions that it could kill a human — yet here it is, just a yard away.
this adventure is made all the more thrilling because this is my second attempt at being in Costa Rica. Back in December 2020, amid the hell of the pandemic, i was tantalised by this Central American country between the Caribbean and the Pacific, home to 6 per cent of the world’s biodiversity. this is the nation which, thanks to its dedication to wildlife, recently won
the inaugural Earthshot Prize — the most p restigious global environment prize — launched by the Duke and Duchess of C ambridge. I e agerly b ooked w hat I t hought would be the trip of a lifetime.
But in the last few days of 2020, the Delta variant surged and in quick
s uccession 40 countries closed their b orders to the UK, the portals to these faraway d estinations s lamming d own l ike g uillotines. My Costa Rican oasis was nothing more than a mirage.
In the event, Costa Rica was badly hit by c oronavirus, but now it is welcoming back tourists with open arms and there are no Covid-related entry restrictions.
And sunning myself at Tui’s all-inclusive Hotel Riu Palace, giddily day-drunk on d aiquiris in the 35c heat, I realise I’m not the o nly o ne w ho h as c hosen t his d estination for their post-pandemic holiday debut.
OUT here are several canny Britons who’ve a ll h ad t he s ame i dea a bout which Costa to visit: Why choose the Cost ad el Sol when for the same price y ou c an e xperience C osta R ica? After all, this is where supermodel Gisele Bundchen (pictured) has chosen to have her luxury second home, on the coast in Santa Teresa. And if it’s good enough for Gisele, it’s good enough for me.
Our r esort, a 4 0-minute d rive f rom L iberia airport, is in Guanacaste province on the Pacific coast, with the volcanoes of neighbouring Nicaragua looming in the distance. It’s dry season and this area is cowboy country; its arid plains pockmarked by road side stalls selling thirst-quenching juices squeezed from piles of bulbous m elons a nd t he sweetest organic pineapples, double the size of those in Sainsbury’s.
We are guided by Adrian, a large, bombastic 38year-old grandfather-whose daily litre of coffee rolls around his van in a keg, and whose innumerable friends in
their cars are continually honking their horns by way of hello as we tour his home province.
He goes by the nickname ‘Chino’ (which suits him far b etter) and tells me that ‘everyone in Costa Rica has a nickname’ before awarding me the moniker ‘Miss Dimples’.
To get our jungle juices flowing, we drive for three hours to Alajuela province, home of the active Arenal volcano, which spews threatening columns of water vapour into the air.
On the night tour at Danaus Biological Reserve, I am treated to more t han j ust t he p oison-dart f rog. ‘These animals are full of stories,’ says our guide Elias, an earnest young biologist-turned-wildlife photographer, as he caws the ‘ ha ha — haw haw’ of the boat-billed heron, which only comes out after sundown.
We s ee t he v enomous c at-eye s nake, the Jesus Christ lizard (so called because of its ability to run on water), fireflies with neon green derrieres and twilight b ats w hich s coff 6 ,000 m osquitos an hour. I come face to face with the acid green re d-eyed tree frog and am captivated by its huge goggly eyes and big, splodgy red hands and feet to match. ‘Finding it requires a good pair of ears,’ says Elias, whose double-squelch call sounds are duly replied to.
Then there’s the star attraction, the three-toed sloth, one of the o fficial national symbols of Costa Rica. But she is hidden and p redictably sedentary at the top of a t ree, a ware o f h er V IP s tatus and too much of a diva to give us a good show.
The position of sloths inthe trees at night canindicate the next day’s weather — her high place today means tomorrow will be cool and wet. ‘People here trust the birds and a nimals more than they trust weather forecasters on TV,’ says Elias.
I’m t old t he s hiny m arble across the water is the eye o f a l urking c ayman, while other beasts that frequent the reserve includeanteaters, boaconstrictor snakes and even wild cats, as ‘it’s like a fast-food takeaway forthem here’. But don’t worry about hav- ing to hack through perilous j ungle t o s ee t he w ildlife: t his half-mile trail is tame and accessible enough f or a n e xperience i n w hich y ou are l ess l ike S teve I rwin a nd m ore l ike David Attenborough.
In t he p ast f ive y ears, C osta R ica h as become a mecca for bird-watchers worldwide. And it’s not hard to see why — this is a twitchers’ utopia. They come for the caracara raptors soaring overhead and the sprightly red-breasted meadowlarks, for flamboyant macaws, iridescent kingfishers and banana-beaked toucans. As I ’m q uad b iking o n t he b each, h uge brown p elicans d ive f or t una i n t he s ea. And on a lazy boat cruise along the Local: Model Gisele Bundchen
This is the joyous country in which the religion is soccer, the music is merengue – and you can even hike to an active volcano
Playas del Coco we are chaperoned by effortlessly hovering frigate birds as dolphins traverse the bows — all against the backdrop of a flaming sunset torching the sky from burnt ochre to neon pink.
The flora here is just as impressive as the fauna. We visit the Monteverde Cloud Forest where the climates of the Caribbean and Pacific sides of the country coalesce, creating hanging clouds in a mystical forest where 140ft trees are swathed in primordial vines and mosses.
Costa Rican trees have no rings in their trunks — thanks to the country’s unique rotating microclimates instead of seasons — so it is impossible to tell their true ages.
Walking across the forests’ hanging bridges is a serene experience — until we spot an orange-kneed tarantula in its burrow. Just one glimpse of its thorax and a huge bristly leg is enough for this lifelong arachnophobe to make a mighty quick dash for it.
This country is full of waterfalls, one of the most spectacular of which is Catarata del Toro. But we head to Celeste River, where i see water so phantasmagorically blue it’s like something from a Disney princess film. it’s not magic but it is alchemy: the convergence of two rivers has created rare mineral deposits which are reflected in the sun’s light to create the river’s mesmerising electric hue.
You can’t swim here, so we head to the Baldi Hot Springs, where 25 hot mineral pools are heated by the arenal volcano.
The only problem with Costa Rica is that it’s such a well-oiled tourism machine, it can veer from authenticity to a kind of Truman Show façade of what it believes visitors want. i was expecting to soak in bubbling volcanic water so tranquil that it would be like bathing in a crater of the Moon. instead, i’m greeted by polystyrene ‘waterfalls’, disco lights and even a sports bar. But i can’t hold too much against ‘The Rich Coast’. This is the infectious country where the religion is ‘soccer’, the music is merengue, the cocktails zing with jalapeños and ‘if you cut us, we bleed coffee’.
it is actually illegal here to produce any type of coffee except 100 per cent arabica — the highest-quality coffee beans — and at the Don Juan coffee farm in Monteverde we learn how it is produced from fruit to steaming cup, known in this area for its floral notes.
later, after a raucous day spent zip-lining, laughing and eating fish tacos, i learn that Costa Rica is one of the few countries in the world without a military.
i feel guilty for going on holiday when there are such atrocities taking place elsewhere in the world, and ask Chino how Costa Rica views the Ukraine invasion. He reminds me of pura vida,
this country’s inescapable catchphrase, which means ‘the pure life’.
‘not just pure life but the positive life,’ says Chino. ‘looking up, looking forward. The world will always have problems, but what is your attitude to them? That’s what makes a good life, being positive.’
i depart Costa Rica grateful for the charm of these people and their warm, optimistic and exhilarating country.