Tico travel challenging, but rewarding

Costa Rica's most remote vacation spots worth the trouble of seeking out

By BEN STURTEVANT

Staff Writer

SAN RAFAEL DE ESCAZU, Costa Rica -- The pilot wrestled with the control stick as we exited the clouds 9,000 feet above San José, Costa Rica's largest city and gritty capital.

The tropical gusts seemed determined to blow our tiny 6-seater plane out of the sky and into the surrounding mountains.

I grew queasy after an hour airborne with more bumps and dips than I care to remember. My girlfriend, Erin, was terrified. She sat in back with a death grip on the seat beside me, refusing to look up. We were flying to San José from the Tiskita Resort in the far south of Costa Rica. It had been a long trip, featuring a three-hour cab ride over bumpy dirt roads with a one-hour ferry ride across the Rio Coto Colorado, a rain-swollen jungle river, to the air strip in Golfito .

As we descended toward a small suburban airport, I recalled what my friend Dave Sherwood had to say about travel time in Costa Rica. To paraphrase, it's a real kick in the pants.

He wasn't kidding. Sherwood, a former colleague at these papers, was the outdoors writer for the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel for three years. In January, Dave and his wife, Grace, moved to Costa Rica for work and adventure. Dave works as a reporter at the country's English newspaper, the Tico Times. Grace helps manage L.L.Bean's Latin American operations in Escazu.

Some local knowledge goes a long way when you're vacationing in a foreign land. Dave and Grace provided it in abundance and took us to some places we'd have never stumbled upon on our own.

In Costa Rica, where roads are often closed by landslides or made nearly impassable by crater- sized pot holes and knee-deep mud, getting around isn't easy. Ticos, as Costa Ricans call themselves, are shaky with directions. Street signs are either nonexistent or unreliable which complicates matters considerably. The 40-mile trip from San José to the nearby Pacific Ocean for a day at the beach can take three hours, one-way. As we made our final approach to the runway, I was glad we were flying from Tiskita which lies about 150 miles south of the capital, but I also couldn't wait to land and kiss the ground.

Tiskita Jungle Lodge

Flying gave us an opportunity to see parts of the country that remain largely undeveloped in the far southwest corner of Costa Rica. Remote Tiskita, located about 10 miles north of the Panama border on the hills above the Pacific, is an eight-hour drive from San José, but less than an hour flight. The lodge is in the middle of the rain forest at the mouth of the Golfo Dulce. Eco-tourism is big here. Unlike in other parts of Costa Rica where development is out of control, many local entrepreneurs and land owners, including our host at Tiskita, Peter Aspinall, are going all out to preserve the surrounding rain forest.

Tiskita has eight rustic cabins, all of which blend into the jungle and were built using local wood and green construction methods. The cabins have large porches and views of the Pacific. When it was clear, we could see 10 miles across the bay to the Osa Peninsula. It is difficult to describe all of new creatures and plants we encountered -- there were simply too many. The highlights included three species of monkey -- squirrel, white-faced capuchins and howler monkeys which live up to their names. Howlers sound like a subway train coming through a tunnel and can be heard from a mile away.

We also saw some great tropical birds -- toucans, scarlet macaws, caracaras, trogons, tanagers and at least 10 species of hummingbirds. We had some interesting guests at our cabin, including a large white ghost bat who slept all day while hanging from the rafters above our porch and a pair of giant green iguanas who climbed noisily atop our metal roof to bask in the sun.

We enjoyed napping in the hammocks on our cabin's porch, but we also stayed busy. We hiked, fished for snook, surfed the gentle waves out front, took a four-hour horse ride on mountain trails and along the beach and swam in pools above a tropical waterfall.

We also took a couple of fascinating walks with Aspinall around the compound. He led us on a tour of his orchards and described the many kinds of fruit trees he grows. We sampled some of his starfruit. Delicious. The taste was sort of a cross between tangerine and grape with the texture of an apple. It was the tail end of the rainy season so many of his fruits weren't yet ripe, but after hearing him describe the mangosteen which he said is the world's best tasting fruit, I swore I'd return to try it.

He also took us on a bird- and wildlife-watching tour along the lodge's trails. Walking with Aspinall was a joy. His knowledge of the rain-forest flora and fauna made me feel like I was walking with a college professor.

Tiskita is out of the way, but it is so beautiful and interesting, that it is worth making an effort to get to. It wasn't cheap, about $1,000 for five nights, but it was a good deal because it included the flight to and from San José and three very tasty and nutritious meals per day.

A couple of tips if you go:

• Bring a flash light. The cabins are several hundred yards apart and away from the main lodge. There are no lights along the trails and you really want to be able to see where you're walking when you're in the jungle at night. You don't want to step on a poisonous snake, like the much-feared and deadly Fer-de-lance or nocturnal coral snakes.

• Bring knee socks (soccer socks would be perfect as many of the locals wear them.) When hiking around in the jungle muck, you'll want to borrow some of Tiskita's rubber boots to keep your feet dry. Long socks will prevent the boot tops from chafing your calves and shins. My lower legs were a bloody mess after we hiked four miles to the nearest town, Pavones, to use a pay phone. Tiskita has no phones.

Rainbows of Rio Savegre

We hated to leave Tiskita, but we knew we'd be in for some fascinating new experiences up north. Sure enough, we weren't disappointed.

Upon arriving back in San José, the first thing we did was laundry. Every bit of our clothing was soaked after five days in the humidity of the rain forest. It was a treat to wear dry, clean clothes again.

The next day we rented a car and drove about 30 miles up steep mountain roads and through coffee plantations to the Poas Volcano, elevation 10,000 feet. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see much. We went to the gate of the Poas National Park, but the guard discouraged us from paying the entry fee. We made a U-turn and headed back to the city.

That afternoon, we met up with Dave and Grace and headed south again, this time along the Pan-American Highway to an area called Cerro de la Muerte. (mountain of death). For a while, I was sure the place would live up to its name.

The drive on the Pan-American, Central America’s main thoroughfare, was hellish which is to be expected in these parts. The road winds through the mountains. It is a narrow two-laner featuring hairpin turns with steeps and dips capable of making even those with cast-iron stomachs nauseous.

Besides that anarchy rules the roads here. Drivers are notoriously aggressive and unpredictable. Plus there are all manner and vintage of vehicles on Tico highways -- mostly fossil-fueled, but many are also powered by oats and hay. And many (both motorized vehicles and livestock) appear to be held together with chewing gum, including some of the overloaded semis and farm vehicles. Pollution is yet another concern. We were treated to several lung fulls of black particulate-filled smoke excreted from an oil-burning rig ahead of us which may well have thrown a rod. That's not uncommon as the country seems to have lax emissions laws. I inhaled many strange fumes courtesy of Tico vehicles during my travels.

Grace drove like a Costa Rican pro and got us there in one piece. It took about 2 1/2 hours to reach our destination -- the Savegre Mountain Hotel in the village of San Gerardo de Dota.

The hotel is located in the so-called cloud forest, deep in a valley along the Savegre river, but still 7,000 feet above sea level. The climate and terrain were much different than what we'd seen at Tiskita. It was chilly, in the 50s, and the setting appeared more European than Central American. Oak and spruce trees outnumbered palm.

The views were breath-taking, but we came here for the rainbow trout. The octogenarian owner of the hotel, Ephråin Chåcon, stocked the Savegre with California rainbows back in the 1950s. The fish thrive in the clear 50- degree water, so much so that the neighbors have diverted portions of the river and created their own trout ponds chockfull of husky rainbows. We enjoyed fresh trout for breakfast, lunch and dinner during our stay.

The next morning we broke out the fly rods. The water was so clear we could easily see our quarry -- wild rainbow trout. And they could see us. We had to sneak along the river banks to avoid spooking them. We used large (size 12 and 16) Royal Wulff dry flies which were easy to recognize in the flat light and fast currents.

Dave said it's not necessary to match the hatch here. There aren't many bugs this high up. The hungry trout will hit just about anything you throw in the water.

The key, he said, is getting a good drift which was a challenge in the strong currents of the Savegre. The water was running high and fast. We found a deep pool below a bridge about a mile upriver and began drifting Wulffs over a large school of trout. I hooked a 10-incher after 20 or so casts. Dave landed a similar-sized 'bow on his very first cast. Grace caught the biggest fish on the day, a muscular 16-incher that put up quite a tussle. We released them all quickly and continued down the river, trying different pools but the fishing was slow because of the high water so we gave up after a couple hours.

After fishing, we hiked some of the trails near the hotel and spotted a Quetzal, a spectacular blue-green, irridescent-feathered bird with a long tail and orange breast. Then it was time to head home. It was a rewarding end to a great trip.

Back in San José, I puffed on a Cuban cigar and nursed a cold Imperial beer while sitting on the Sherwood's deck overlooking the hills and thought about the trip.

Yes, getting around Costa Rica took some work, patience, blood, sweat and nerves of steel. It was not a relaxing or easy vacation, but it was all worthwhile.

Ben Sturtevant - 623-3811, ext. 518

bsturtevant@centralmaine.com

On the web:

Tiskita Lodge

http://www.tiskita-lodge.co.cr/

Savegre Mountain Hotel

http://www.savegre.co.cr/ indexeng.html

Poas Volcano

http://www.costarica- nationalparks.com/poasvolcanonationalpark.html