Lapa Rios is unlike anywhere we had ever stayed. It is a private nature reserve of over 1000 acres, 80% of it as primary forest, the other 20% of the jungle is secondary forest. It was previously a cattle ranch that was replanted with native trees almost 25 years ago.
Even the drive to Lapa Rios was impressive, besides that during the drive was the only air conditioning we had the whole trip! We chatted with Frank our driver, who spoke excellent English, and found out that before working for the resort, he worked on his father's palm oil plantation. There are palm oil plantations all over the place and we had driven past so many that it was interesting to learn a little about it. It is very dangerous work as both the palm pods and palm fronds are covered with large spikes and are dropping about 40 feet to the ground once their cut. On the way were stopped at Frank's father's plantation and it was pretty impressive. I'm guessing driving a couple of gringos around is a lot easier!
Once we arrived to Lapa Rios, and were greeted with a delicious passionfruit lemonade and cool towel, we jumped right in the explore every this place had to offer. Every day there are different tours and hikes available and that first day we did both the Matapalo tour and the Night Tour. The Matapalo tour was great to get a sense of where we were and the kinds of animals around. On that short walk we saw a sloth, loads of spider monkeys, macaws and tons of other birds-this place is amazing!
Before dinner and with the same guide, Danilo, it was just Keith and I on yet another night walk looking for snakes, spiders and all. And we found them. I almost stepped on a scorpion and spotted a giant wolf spider. Of course there were also snakes and poisonous frogs...I'm never peeing in the jungle at night, ever!
My favorite hike was the Rainforest Ridge Walk. I lucked out and was the only person on the hike! Keith was taking a surfing lesson that morning, so it was just me and the guide, Edwin, in the jungle. The howler monkeys were going crazy that morning and their screams were roaring through the jungle, so we did a little off trail hiking to try to find what were probably only 2 or 3 male howler monkeys making all that noise. And while we did find them, I didn't get any great pictures-the jungle was so thick at the point all we could really see were tails and and trees swaying.
Oh well! One thing I hadn't seen yet was a poison dart frog and I really wanted to. There are 2 in the Osa Peninsula, the not very cleverly named black and green poison dart frog and the Gulfo Dulce poison dart frog and we saw them both! Actually we saw a few green and black ones and the only Golfo Dulce one jumped up the guides arm! Apparently you have to lick them for the frogs to be poisonous, so no worries!
After his surfing lesson, Keith just wanted to surf more, so he did. I had a loungey beach day while Keith surfed surprisingly well! Just look how crowded this beach is!
One of the last tours we did focused on the sustainability that Lapa Rios strives for. They have a few pigs that most of the food scrapes are feed too. They also collect the pig poo and it is used to create biogas that is used in the staff kitchens. We have loads of animal poo at home-I wonder if we can do something like this!
While we were on this tour, we hear a rustling the brush and found a very hungry anteater! We actually ended up seeing 3 anteaters while we were in Costa Rica. I don't know why, but anteaters don't really care if people are around and we got surprising close to this one! It was on a mission to chow, and chow he did!
Hungry anteater! from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.
I don't feel like I've done a very good job describing how amazing this place is! Taking an outside shower, looking out at the ocean and having spider monkeys playing in the tree above you or seeing a sloth at the top of a tree just off your balcony is just not something that happens everyday! The hikes were great because the guides we so knowledgeable. And of course the food was great-banana cashew pancakes were my favorite! This was a much more posh place than we usually go and while we'll probably never go to this eco lodge again, it was a great experience and I hope we do go to the Osa Peninsula again!
Fair warning, the next post is almost all sloths!!
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