Costa Rica Part Two: Journeying down the Pacific Coast

Monteverde to Quepos

So, we left Monteverde at 7.45am on the Transmonteverde bus for Puntarenas (the first leg of a journey to Quepos) from the ‘station’ below. Our bus was basic and there was no putting your bags underneath, which was a kind of relief as you always have to be hyper alert when the bus stops in case someone pinches your rucksack out the cargo doors.

The journey was great … it followed the river and made lots of local stops down the mountains, giving us a greater sense of the area. It seems the locals sit in the first 2-3 rows of seats and catch up with each other and the driver, before they disembark again.

As we drew closer to Puntarenas, a spit, the bus driver suddenly announced that anyone going to Quepos should get off, swap sides of the road and wait for a bus ‘grande y verde’ in about 5 minutes. We stumbled off with an extended French family, following his instructions. Although this seemed like a stroke of luck, getting us on our way to Quepos without having to locate a new terminal and a 1 or 2 hour wait at Puntarenas, we were without any water! The next journey was to be about 3.5-4 hours! I was eyeing up the Frenchies’ water, day dreaming of asking them if they had a spare or haggling for a coke from a passerby. The bus arrived about 10-15 minutes later after many a bus passed us by, making Stewart a bit edgy to say the least! Add to that vicious ants eating your ankles and we were a little out of sorts.

When we reached Quepos bus station, we had 3 options: walk, get a bus to Manuel Antonio Park which must pass our Airbnb somewhere or try an Uber. Apparently, there’s only 2 Ubers in the whole area; we were lucky to secure one. I’m so glad we didn’t try walking! I had visions of a flat seaside path; Stewart rightly envisioned immediate hills that I would cry about! As it turned out the bus was a continual loop from Quepos town to Manuel Antonio Park for 380 colones each way, which is about 50p for us.

So what did we think of Quepos? Expensive. Between the basic seaside town and Manuel Antonia is a long winding up and down road which is lined with hotels discreetly hiding £100-300 a night rooms. You can’t tell from the road, as they all look very Costa Rican, but we realised how expensive they were when we were researching somewhere we could get a day pass for a pool day. This makes everything costly from laundries to restaurants. There was a little laundry on our lane, a simple home where the washing was hung on her gates and such like. We took our bundle of washing to her thinking it would be only a little more than Guatemala. $20 or £15.49 for a single wash and dry! She argued it was cheaper than the hotels and we wouldn’t find less. We didn’t. Then there was the Indian restaurant run by an Indian family, highly praised on Trip Advisor for being authentic. Awful. We chose biryanis to keep it simple and only drank water – £36! It tasted like someone dropped the pepper jar in and forgot anything else.

The only positives were the wildlife we saw as we casually went from A to B and a sunset over a marina full of very expensive yachts from places like Florida Keys.

Manuel Antonio Park

Obviously, the only reason we were in Quepos was to go to MAP but we hadn’t realised that it is essentially a national park of beaches as well as jungle-y areas. Had I realised this I wouldn’t have allowed for beach time in Quepos really. I thought there was one beach in the park and that it got busy so it was best to allow more time for outside beaches. However, there were a few different beaches in the park and as long as you book the first time slot of the day there is barely anyone on them. There is ample time to walk the trails and see the park before it gets busier as the guides tend to stay close to the entrance – a formula we had already seen in Monteverde. It seems birds and wildlife are never from the admission points. There was no problem getting the bus for the early slot as they run from 6.30am or maybe even earlier.

We didn’t have a guide this time as we’d paid our money in Monteverde and you have to have one in Corcovado, further south, so we decided to do it ourselves. I think that was a good choice for a second experience. We enjoyed the trails, mangroves and beaches despite not seeing all the top ‘critters’ without a guide; actually we enjoyed our own finds more: a beautiful eagle, iguanas and some very smart crabs that could jump from rock to rock.

So, should you go? Yes. But stay in Quepos for as little time as you can if you don’t want to pay over the odds.

Next stop: Uvita and the Whale Tail Beach

Getting from Quepos to Uvita was super easy. We got ourselves to the bus station in Quepos for 9am using the MAP-Quepos bus for 380 colones that we’d used all week. The bus to Uvita pulled up at 9.30am and cost 5000 colones (£7.90). The journey was great again … all along the coast road, although it is disappointing to see all the Palm Oil trees planted – huge stretches of palm trees arranged in grids – but it seems this replaced banana plantations that failed some time ago.

The driver asked us where we were all staying and dropped everyone off near their accommodation which was very surprising for a public bus and a major plus when it is boiling and you’ve got rucksacks. We stayed at a glamping park, which was basic but turned out to be one of our best experiences. £17.50 a night for a triangular cabin, kitchen and shower block. Stewart was very much in his element – cooking outside and testing the ‘could Emma survive a festival or campervan life’ question! The best supermarket if you’re staying is a little bit of a trek up the hill, back up to the road, but the BM supermarket is the way to go.

Uvita was a much more pleasant place than Quepos – no fancy hotels, very local and we were 5 minutes from Ballena National Park which is the beach basically. We watched a group of youth practising their marching band instruments; kids played football in the park and the community gathered making a big meal in what seemed like a care home.

We saw lots of colourful birds along the dust roads and apart from being boiling all the while, it was very pleasant. Stewart really enjoyed the Scarlet Macaws. The Whale Tale beach is a fun walk – when the tide is out you can just walk the sand path but we waded across when it was fairly shallow (well, up to our knees) – a good work out! Be careful that the tide isn’t coming in though as the whole tail part gets submerged. The park is $7 to get in but you can go in and out all day with your ticket and the beach has different parts – some good for surfing, others for swimming (although don’t lose your prescription sunglasses like I did!) and some raw jungle edged bits too.

One of the days we found ourselves on a somewhat scary walk through this jungle part – obviously a Learoyd walk with no bug spray, no water and no real understanding of distance to the end – just Stewart’s gut feelings … which paid off as we popped out on to quite a raw, natural section of the beach with lots of driftwood and a lovely sunset.

On our last day, we splashed out on a whale tour with Aventuro Uno, recommended through our host and paid the ‘Tico’ (local) rate of $50 cash each for a 3 hour trip with 30 mins watching 3 whales: a mum, baby and wannabe suitor, with a little snorkelling off a small rock island out at sea. It was great, except I mis-timed my Dramamine and ended up balking off the edge of the boat as we arrived back – I wasn’t the only one, though. It seems snorkelling in a life vest can make me sick too! Seeing 3 whales wasn’t a given, even for that time of year; we spoke to a French guy the next day who only saw one whale from a distance. We felt very lucky.

What we did realise is that all the tour companies do exactly the same trip. When you’re watching the whales there will be 4-5 boats around that communicate with each other for whale sightings so there is no need to worry too much about which tour you go with, and definitely find the ‘tico’ rate if you can, through your host, as they charge up to $100 each otherwise.