Pura Vida from Costa Rica!

Puntarenas, Costa Rica
January 23
Eastern Time minus one hour

Pura Vida from Costa Rica!

Pura Vida (pure life) means Wonderful Life here Costa Rica! It is used as a greeting or to say all is right with the world.

My brother Rick and his wife Lori named their boat Pura Vida which made our guide Carla very happy. She knew that meant they loved Cost Rica. Carla was an excellent guide. Tourism is the number one industry here. She has a bachelor degree and a master’s degree in tourism. She was really outstanding.


Our excursion for the day was a 9 ½ hour trip to the Monteverde Cloud Forest for a guided walk through the treetops. We also visited a hummingbird garden and an insect museum with over a million specimens. The trip started out on the Pan American Highway
but quickly changed to a very bumpy trip on a very rutted dirt road. The road was so bumpy that it was hard to take pictures.

We did really go into the countryside which made for some interesting viewing like this ox cart pulling water.

As we approached we could see the clouds hanging over the mountain that was our destination.

The forest has been well preserved thanks to the conservation efforts of several Quaker families that emigrated to Costa Rica in the 1950s. We took an approximately 90-minute walk that traveled on eight suspension bridges through the forest canopy and along trails on the forest floor. The suspension bridges were quite long and had some movement.

The trip seemed even longer on the way back than on the way there. The explanation for the bad roads was that they now get 100,000 visitors a year with the road so bad. They feel that if they improve the road the amount of visitors will double and that may wreck the area. I was really happy we took a ship’s tour. I would have been nervous the whole time due to the distance form Puntarenas and the bad roads. We don’t want to miss the ship this early in the trip!

We really enjoyed our day in Monteverde.

When we got back to the ship we went straight up to the hot tub and then had a great dinner at the Todd English Restaurant on the ship.