Costa Rica and Panama



Caribbean Coast After waiting for one day for our bags in San Jose (never trust Iberia, :-)), we rushed to Cahuita on the rainy Caribbean coast. We used the only sunny day to explore the Cahuita Park, and made our first encounter with white-faced capuchin monkey, sloth ("the lazy one"), yellow snake, blue crabs and more. From there we crossed into Panama and spent 2 days in Bocas del Toro, for some snorkeling.	Volcan Baru, Boquete, Panama We really liked Boquete (apparently, it is quite a popular place for retirement). The highest volcano in Panama, volcano Baru (3450 m) was an obvious target. We climbed for 6 hours to the camp near the peak. It was worthwhile, when early in the morning we climbed the peak to have a clear view of both Atlantic and Pacific oceans.	Corcovado National Park, Peninsula de Osa, Pacific Coast We crossed back to Costa Rica for the highlight of our trip - 3 days trek in the jungle of Corcovado. Accompanied by Heylal, Fraser and Jordi, we hiked from La Palma, to Lost Patos station, to La Serena station and out. It was extremely hot, humid, and we were severely bitten by ticks, but the abundance of animals makes every step worthwhile : tapirs, toucan, coatis, and anteaters are only small part of the animals we saw. More information about Corcovado trek. Corcovado map




Diving on Isla del Cano, Bahia Drake There is no better way to relax after an intensive hike and to get rid of the ticks than diving with sharks. Isla del Cano, the best diving option in Costa Rica for a reasonable price, allows you this pleasure. The dives go from the hard-to-reach, small, and quiet village of Drake. In two dives we saw 5 white-tip sharks and huge flocks of fish.	Altamira, Amistad National Park Before going north, we decided to explore a more wild and authentic region of Costa Rica - La Amistad. It took 5 busses and a full day of driving to get to Altamira village - the entrance to Amistad Park, which was visited by only 600 people since 2006. We stayed in Asaprola organic farm with its friendly stuff and walked one day of the Valle del Silencio trek. We were for sure alone on the way.	Monteverde and Arenal Close to the end of our travel we arrived to the swarming with tourists village of Santa Elena. The canupy tour with Extremo was really fun. We were extremely fortunate to meet Fraser and Jordi again and to join them in a hired car on a very beautiful drive along the Arenal lake to La Fortuna and Arenal volcano. We woke up in the middle of the night to see the volcano eruptions and started the next day by swimming in a hot water river.



Cano Negro Feeling that we want another last adventure in Costa Rica, we traveled to Cano Negro village (close to Nicaraguan border) and early next morning went to a boat tour to watch many different birds, caimans, and iguanas.	Samara Beach, Peninsula Nicoya We spent our last 2 days relaxing on the Samara beach (Nicoya peninsula, Pacific coast), wondering how diverse and beautiful Costa Rica is!	During our travel we used a lot of tips from this travel plan, taken from Lametayel (in Hebrew).