You miss a lot of the country if you travel by plane, so we have opted to drive. After arriving at the international airport in Liberia, Guanacaste Province, and spending three days at a resort, it was time for a change of scenery. I left the USA with a slight cold, but three days of sun and salt-air cleared my lungs and head. Even though Costa Rica is a small country it takes about 10 hours to drive from the north to the south along the west coast. The road is good for most of the journey, but since the coast is rugged and steep mountains meet the shore, the way is not straight or flat. The road is often quite scenic, except when you catch up with a bus or truck. The winding roads require concentration, but it is the kind of driving I enjoy.
We stopped a few times to take pictures along the way and were happy to see the vegetation change as we headed south. I have been wanting to visit Guanacaste since I heard Dr. Daniel Janzen, a renowned conservation ecologist from the University of Pennsylvania, speak at a conference on biodiversity in Washington, DC, at (if memory serves me well) the turn of the millennium. It was from him that I learned of the tropical dry forest. He dedicated his life’s work to research into this rare ecosystem. Most people are familiar with the tropical rainforest and know it is lush and green and loaded with biodiversity. The dry forest is deciduous, that is it loses its leaves for part of the year to conserve water. I have to admit, after a few days in the dry forest during the dry season it was good to make it to the rainforest. I guess I love the green.
After a day of driving, we made it to the hills above Manuel Antonio National Park, but did not get to go into it. We stopped at a local, upscale, watering-hole at sunset. To complete the scene, a pair of Scarlet Macaws flew above us squawking loudly. The picture above is from that location halfway from point A to point B. We still had another day’s drive to get to our next planned destination. Click here to see more photos.