1-23-19 ALAJUELA, COSTA RICA: Our plane rolled into SJO, San José Airport, a few minutes early. The flight left EWR at 7AM. We got to the terminal at 4AM so that we could get through security without a long delay. We slept on the plane.
At SJO the Nat Geo rep was a no show, so after a half-understood phone call to the local office, we taxied to Alajuela, a city to the north of San José, to our hotel, Xandari Resort for check-in and lunch. We liked the taxi driver, Roy, so we used him as a guide to for an impromptu visit to La Paz Waterfall Garden, Roy’s suggestion. The trip took about 45 minutes. Road travel is slow, and there is plenty of traffic on bumpy roads.
On our drive east to the La Paz garden, we went over a 6000-foot mountain with a cold, wet cloud at the top. We saw coffee plantations, cattle and dairy farms, twisty, steep roads. There were tropical plants, our houseplants all grown up and adult sized, vivid flowers are everywhere. There were abundant hydrangeas and bougainvillea. The volcanic soil is very fertile, and every thing is on the side of a mountain.
La Paz is a hillside garden, extensive and beautiful, with an animal rescue center. We spent so much time with the birds and animals that we never got to see any of the several waterfalls. Xandari also has a big garden, also on a hillside, also with waterfalls, but we didn’t see them either—so, in total, we passed up ten waterfalls. The view from the resort and our room was all the way to SJO, distant mountains and a sunset at about 6PM.
The pix below are from La Paz Waterfall Garden...
Is green out of fashion now? Strawberry poison-dart frog is terrestrial and diurnal.
Red-eyed tree frog lives high up in trees not in a pond and is nocturnal.
Many, many hummingbirds, this is a Violet sabrewing.
This one is a Green-crowned brillant hummingbird doing a stare down with a Common chlorospingus.
Puma at the rescue center. We saw no cats in the wild. One of our guides, who leads walks everyday, said he the only cat he ever saw in the wild was a puma and only once.
Many orchids, cultivated and wild.
Bananaquit hangs out with the hummers.
Nat Geo sent us a plate of chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of malbec by way of apology and offered to reimburse us for our taxi expenses.
The airport, SJO, has jetways and air conditioning, rarities in tropical airports. The cars here are mostly late models and clean, the people are friendly and English speakers readily available. Almost every house or business is enclosed in a wall or fence with gates. The unit of currency is the Colon, 600 or so to the dollar, but dollars work fine too.
After dinner at Xandari, it was off to bed. The pix below were taken the next morning.
White-crowned parrot outside our room at Xandari Resort.
The view from our room at Xandari with a Turkey vulture soaring over the valley.
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