Costa Rica & Nicaragua

animals in Costa Rica

Trip summary
Rincon de la Vieja Park, Manuel Antonio Park, Monte Verde Park, Rio Celeste, El Castillo, Solintiname Islands.

Quetzal in Monte Verde

Sloth in Monte Verde

Moths in Bijua

Rio Celeste

annole lizard

El Castillo

Montezumas oropendula nests

Beautiful view of Solentiname Islands

MAPS AND SAN CARLOS NICARAGUA INFORMATION

Monte Verde trail map

Rio San Juan map

El Castillo

Transol ferry information Solentiname Islands

Transol ferry locations

Transol ferry san carlos solentiname

San Carlos Solentiname Islands Boats
Transol has a tourist ferry every day to and from the Solentiname Islands and San Carlos.  Leaves San Carlos at 3pm and leaves Solentiname at 9AM.
Duration: 1 hour Cost: $10

A public boat leave on Tuesdays and Fridays from San Carlos at 1pm and from Solentiname at 5AM.  Duration: 2 hours.  Cost: $4

Bus schedule San Carlos, ferry San Carlos Los Chiles

San Carlos to Managua
There is a bus that goes from San Carlos to Managua and takes about 6 and a half hours.  They leave at various times throughout the day. Cost: 150C

Lost Chiles to San Carlos
Boats leave frequently throughout the day.  Transol has a boat.

Ferry information San Carlos

 Boats San Carlos
Boats to Granada and Ometepe leave twice a week.
Boats to San Juan de Nicaragua leave a few times a week.
Various boats to and from El Castillo and in between leave regularly.

map solentiname islands

Leon City map

OTHER LOGISTICS
Bus schedules can be found on www.thebusschedule.com

Nicaragua to Costa Rica Border Crossing
Took the public bus from Huembres Mercado Bus Terminal to Rivas (Duration 2 hours)
Rivas to Penas Blancas (Duration 1 hour)
Penas Blancas go through customs and walk to Costa Rica customs.
Relatively painless process.  Remember to have a flight our or bus ticket out of Costa Rica or they may give you a hard time getting in.  There are bus ticket office across from customs if you do not have an onward ticket.

Outside Costa Rica customs there is a public bus to the city of Liberia.  From the public bus terminal I can walk to the park where the hostels and hotels are clustered.
From Liberia I spent the night in Liberia at a hostel near the park.  I stayed in the dorm of 3 beds for $10. Looks like online you can book a single for $10.

Ricon de la Vieja park
I took the public bus out which lets you off about 8km from the park.  I then hitched a ride with one of the many truck drivers that passed bringing supplies to the geothermal plant.
The park is beautiful.  While the active volcano has been closed to hiking its a beautiful natural park that has does not attract the masses of tourist crowds. There are waterfalls, fumaroles hot springs etc.  I met many ornitholigists and bird waters here.

Ricon de la Vieja Lodge
I stayed at the Rincon de la Vieja Lodge. One of the downsides of the Rincon de la Vieja park is that they do not allow camping so I went to the Lodge to camp. Its $5 a night to camp and the staff was absolutely amazing there.  They invited me in to warm up and dry off and have a cup of tea.  I highly suggest it as a camp site.  There is a park you can camp at that is $3 a night near Ricon de la Vieja too.  The manager also speaks English.

Playa Hermosa
Went to Playa Hermosa near Jaco for a day.  Not a very exciting place if you are not surfing. I wish I had gotten up early as I hear you can see Scarlet Macaws in the morning.

Quepos
Not too much in Cuepos to do.
I stayed at a small tico hotel which was fine.  Rooms are small but price was right and the older gentleman at the desk was nice.
I would recommend wide mouth frog backpackers for a hostel, though I didnt stay there.

Manuel Antonio Park
Its pretty but I would probably skip it and the masses of tourist.  Its $10 to get in the park.  To see most of the animals I would suggest a guide because they all have telescopes.

Monte Verde Park
While it is crowded with tourists its quite beautiful and if you get off the main trails where the guides go there will be less people. There is a public bus with a somewhat limited schedule that goes to the park.  The night tour is also good.

Rio Celeste
I highly recommend Rio Celeste.  The park is beautiful.  Its $10 to enter the park but the colors are really beautiful. Also you can see lots of birds in the area.  In the town of Bijua there are a number of other frog and butterfly farms.  I took the bus to Bijua to go to Rio Celeste. The problem is that there is no public transportation to the Rio Celeste park and its about 9 KM hike to the entrance.  I think its possible to hitch a ride if you are patient.  Most people recommend hitching a ride.  Taxis want about $35 per way.

Bijua
From Bijua its easy to get to Los Chiles to cross into the border to Nicaragua.  The border crossing is small and uncrowded and very fast.

Solintiname Islands
Mancarron Island
I went to hotel buen amigo and would recommend it compared to the other hotels I looked at.  I suggest buying food and bringing it to the islands as there is no place to eat and only one small store on the island.  There is only wifi at the public library and no where else. its 10C per half hour of wifi.

Fransisco Island
Again there is no where to eat except at the hotels and there is only one small store on the island.

Esteli, Tisey Reserve, food, Cacao, chocolate factory

We took some day trips from Esteli.  

First we went to Tisey Reserve. First we took the 6:00 bus to Tisey and went and walked around an ecolodge there where you can get breakfast and then hiked up to the top of the hill to see the view.  We then hike out to Garnacha to get buy some homeade cheese and honey as well as to hire horses. The horse are $5 an hour per person to rent.  We then went to the house of the rock sculptor. The sculptor gave us a tour of his grounds for a tip.  He was very friendly and talkative though often repeating himself.  He gave us the most amazing pineapple that he picked from his farm.  It looked green and was really hard so I thought it wasnt ready but it is one of the sweetest pineapples I have had here.  I wish I remember what type of pineapple it was.  It had very sharp thorny leaves and had many baby pineapples coming off the bottom which was growing on a stalk. 

The next day we went to spend the day in Matagalpa.  

Less than two hours from Esteli we arrived at the city in the morning and had time to walk around and get breakfast.  We first went to the chocolate factory which is a short cab ride from the center.  El Castillo Chocolate factory is one of the only producers of chocolate in Nicaragua. They give a free tour in the morning and the cacao they purchase is organic, the problem is finding organic sugar so their product is not completely organic.  They make a non milk chocolate which is great for baking.  They temper their chocolates so its still nice and smooth and not like Mexican chocolate which is often gritty and not smooth.  I highly recommend their chocolate as well as their tour.  The owner who happens to be Dutch was nice enough to give us a lift back into the city. 

We went back to the city center and had a nice lunch and then headed to the bus station to catch the bus to Jinotega to get to the coffee factory, farm and hotel Selva Negra. Its a very beautiful place and the tour was nice though very expensive at $12 a person!  They produce organic coffee.  They only have arabica which is picked once per year whereas robusto is picked 2x a year.  They obtain about half their coffee from their own farm and half they purchase.  They use organic methods and use natural pesticides as neem citronella and eucalyptus.  The guide joked that they like to hire women cause they dont get drink fight and they work faster.  After the beans are picked they are put in water to separate the beans from dirt and other things.  The beans floats and the dirt goes to the bottom.  They then take off the fruit and skin and the let the beans ferment in water for 15 hours.  They use the bean skin after fermenting for biogas. The biogas they use the bacteria from the 4th stomach of teh cow and put in in the tak with teh   The fruit they use in the worm compost.  The worms live around 4 to 5 years and takes about 3 to 4 days to get to the food at the top of the compost when they put a layer of new food on top to attract the worms away from the compost.  They cover the compost in plastic to keep out birds and to keep it moist.   

The beans are shipped to another location that is more sunny to dry in the sun for 2 weeks.

They produce 4,000 sacks and 44kios, 180 tons

They have 250 permanent workers and 600 temporary coffee pickers that live on the farm for 4 months from around November to March. The workers get free housing school and free medical care.  They have an onsite nurse.  The coffee costs about $7/lb in Nicaragua and they sell in bulk to Whole Foods for around $4 or $5/lb.  They plant their coffee trees such as banana pineapple, and avocados,  which the workers are also able to take for free.  

They also have around 60 cows and milk the cows by hand to make cheese.  they produce milk for around 20/25 years. 

While I have found most of the restaurants in Esteli to be disappointing I have at least been able to take advantage of some the fresh products.  Especially all the fresh dairy products.   

Mushrooms on a log in Tidey Reserve

Some pretty flowers in Tisey

Went to look at rock sculptures

Cacao beans as part of the process that is mostly by hand and with very few workers at the chocolate factory in Matagalpa

The view of Matagalpa from Selva Negra coffee farm

Batidos, making a banana eggnog shake with a scoop of ice cream and some spices

Half eggplant and half olive pizza, though my favorite was the two cheese (parm and mozza) pesto pizza with pinapple. 

Warm bananabread with pieces of chocolate we bought at the factory tour, topped with some cream mixed with brown sugar and rum