Why Costa Rica Will Stay On Your Bucket List

Costa Rica is every first love.  It’s intoxicating and you want to shout about it from the rooftops. For me, it was like walking through a zoo that had lost all its glass barriers.  Monkeys, birds, coatis and iguanas come as close as they please.  Ferns, flowers and huge textured leaves grow like weeds to turn ordinary road verges to vivid life.

Perhaps most surprisingly of all, everyone makes a conscious effort to reduce their impact on wildlife and help it flourish.

My first-sight, butterflies-in-stomach moment was Manuel Antonio; a watercolour of greens leaking into a blue sea and sky.  The hotels near the national park are set into the hill, so it felt like my husband and I were explorers in an undiscovered corner of the world, which is very far from the truth as Manuel Antonio is one of Costa Rica’s most popular national parks, with 475,000 visitors annually. Two squirrel monkeys joined the hotel’s welcome tour (or maybe they were just investigating the pineapple in my cocktail).

Manuel Antonio National Park

The nature in Costa Rica can’t be contained in its national parks, and on a short walk from the hotel guttural chokes surrounded me as my steep path down to the beach met a crossroads with a howler monkey path through the canopy.  My skin was so slick with a layer of water it was difficult to know where my sweat ended and the humidity started. 

Resplendant Quetzal in Monteverde 

Costa Rica is only one-fifth of the size of the UK, so a multi-centre trip is worth the driving time and next on the itinerary was Monteverde.  Our guided tour was more of a chase around the cloud forest, rushing with a bird-watcher’s telescope after the light squeaks of a resplendent quetzal.  That night gale force winds disconnected electricity lines and we were without power for 24 hours, causing hummingbirds to abandon their sugar water feeders, and allowing coatis and their snuffling noses to mop up what was being spilt by the wind. 

Costa Rica is a patchwork of microclimates and Monteverde’s mountainous chilled winds were quickly left behind on the way to Pacific-coast Tamarindo.  Again, the hotel was set amongst the trees, underneath another howler monkey highway which had its peak commuter time at 6am.  Animals weren’t encouraged to come here by the hotel staff (in fact, one person had to spend all day clearing up the droppings the monkeys left behind), but people and wildlife are naturally occupying the same space.

Big ol' tree

Humans make way for birds and mammals and at dusk they make way for armadillos and the clicking bell frogs.  Costa Ricans have realised that they need to co-exist with their incredibly biodiverse country.  Not every single citizen is an eco-warrior, but they recognise that protecting their landscapes is key to the future of their country. 

And, just like first loves, it will be heart-wrenching to say goodbye, but it will leave you a little bit more alive.