Sarapiqui – PB Eats, PB Travels

Leaving Tortuguero was sad – I could have spent longer there but I knew better things awaited ahead of me – wildlife wise. A short three hour journey to Sarapiqui, and I was ready for my next session of wildlife exploring. The good thing is that Costa Rica is such a small country, travel times between destinations are short and sweet.

Where was I staying?

Posada Andrea Cristina, a wonderful little hotel, just off the main road.. It was super laid back, you could go into the kitchen and help yourself to crockery and cutlery. There was also a communal fridge where we could store drinks. Lovely communal dining area (the place only does breakfast – included), and an excellent area for bird watching, complete with enticing fruits nailed to a tree…

That bugged some people staying in the hotel (noisy trucks and all), but I got one of the rooms/cabins right at the back and it didn’t bother me one bit. What did bother me was seeds and coconuts falling on my corrugated iron roof – now that sound woke me up with a start every flipping time!!

The room was lovely – minimal but new and clean. Ratings:

Grubbiness factor: non existent – it was a brand new room
Bed = 8/10. Sleep well, marks deducted due to fright.
Shower: 3/10. No hot water! You might say, who needs hot water when you’re in such humidity? ME!

What did I eat?

Breakfast was a selection of fresh fruit – papaya, pineapple, melaon and bananas (from a tree on the hotel grounds). AND. Excellent home made bread made by Alex, who was in charge of breakfast.

I found a last sachet of almond butter (need to find more!) so had that one day with banana – delicious.

Puerto Viejo Sarapiqui is alittle town (not funky like Tortuguero – this was just dull and a bit sad), apart from a couple of decent restaurants – one of them is Soda Mi Lindo. So for lunch one day, I had a lovely smoothie (sin azucar – they add sugar to all drinks!!) – spinach, celery, cucumber and orange. Yummy.

For mains, arroz con vegetables (alright), papas fritas (meh), ensalada (rico – the tomatoes were so flavourful). It was a massive portion – I didn’t finish the rice.

So still craving avocados, I went to the supermarket to buy some – hard like stone or soft as butter – take you pick. I got a few hard ones (STILL waiting for them to ripen) and a single soft one. I also bought a bottle of ‘hot’ chilli sauce (not really) and some yucca crisps (excellente). The avocado turned out to be very good, and smooshed up with lime and chilli turned out to be an amazing lunch. The photo might not look pretty, but I was SO happy (told you before, doesn’t take much!)

Dinner on one night was a salad delivery. Simple salad – tomato, lettuce, cucumber, onion and heart of palm – love those things, just don’t get fresh ones very often. Very tasty. Crunchy, flavourful and very edible.

Dinner the next night was from the other decent place in town (delivered to the hotel) a pizza! It was thin crust, really tasty base with loads of veggies – including carrot, broccoli and cauliflower :). Definitely got my 5 a day from this pizza! Very tasty.

What did I do?

So along with my wildlife fix, I got my flower fix too. The flora and fauna around here is stunning, and I was very click happy. Look!

This region is know for extreme water sports and white water rafting, but I wasn’t interested in that – all I wanted was to check out the wildlife.

We went for a morning walk to La Selva. I really really enjoyed this walk. I strongly recommend it to everyone. We had a brilliant guide and saw loads of birds – trogans, motmots, toucans – sloths, wild boar, spiders – excellent!

The wildlife was excellent, but so was the flora, fauna and the whole place in general made it a very enjoyable day. The rest of the wildlife was not spotted in a national park or reserve – but in the gardens of the hotel!! I am still mastering the names of the birds (don’t ask me just yet) – they were amazing. Throw in a squirrel to boot and PB = a very happy bunny.