Asis Volunteer Center invites you to participate in their ecological and social volunteer program.  We saw several college students from the US who were there for a one month program where they studied and practiced Spanish  and also volunteered at the Center.

Beach at Poor Man's Paradise

Sunset Poor Man's Paradise

POOR MAN’S PARADISE, OSA PENINSULA-COSTA RICA

IMAGINE  a small village of 600 residents whose blood line goes back to Costa Rica’s indigenous people who  live off the land and more recently off tourism which is rapidly growing is this little tropical paradise. No electricity except for occasional  small diesel generators  running only a few hours of the day.  No television or video games.  No crime and no guns. Children run and play freely on the beach and learn to read and write in a one room school house with one teacher for forty students in grades one through  six.

ADVENTURE INTO A TROPICAL PARADISE
It was a hot April morning  when we headed south out of  San Jose…a four hour bus ride taking us to Sierrpe where we boarded a small boat headed for  Poor Man’s Paradise, located in the Osa Peninsula- in the south western part  of Costa Rica.  Osa’s   more outstanding geographical assets are it’s blue green Pacific  coastline with  sandy beige beaches,  and dense primary rain forest filled with hundreds of tropical birds, wild animals, and giant trees whose canopies  seems to reach the sky.

We had never visited this specific area of  the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica, so many pleasant surprises were in store for us.  Upon arrival we had to walk along a long stretch of sandy beige  beach lined with  primary rain forest– trees with 4 meter wide buttresses.   Poor Man’s Paradise is located south of Drake Bay on the Osa Peninsula, and consists  of  ten rustic cabins nestled in a thicket of almond trees and lush tropical vegetation.  Best part  it’s  right on the beach.   No high rises, no condos.  Only these quaint little cabins made from local wood and tin roofs where you can hear the pitter patter  of the afternoon rains.   No electricity on the property except that produced by a small . generator and lasts about  three hours per day.  There is no TV.   Cell phone service does reach  “sometimes”.  Owned by the Amaya family- parents,  eight children and numerous grandchildren, the property was homesteaded forty years ago  and today retains its pristine natural beauty.

The accommodations are sparse, with no hot water and bed mattresses are hard.  The breeze from the ocean flows through the room and I can hear the Big Surf of the Pacific ocean.  I begin to relax and enjoy the tropical sounds.  The hammock on my balcony becomes my favorite resting place.  Afternoon showers patter down upon the tin roof…such a peaceful sound.

The strong under tow of the ocean prevents us from diving in for a quick swim. But the most gorgeous sunset beckons and the children from the near by village come to play in the edges of the waning surf.  Mothers gather to visit with their small babies in arms.

I hear the crackle of the almonds as the Scarlet Macaws are devouring them by the dozens.   I look overhead, over the canopy of the almond trees and see dozens of  Scarlets flying two by two- across a clear blue  sunny sky.

From Poor Man’s Paradise Lodge  one can hire  a guided  trek along a trail inside Corcovado National  Park, known for it’s giant primary rain forest- with  trees  hundreds of years old.  Here we find  one of the last remaining protected lowland rain forest in the world.

We hire a small boat to take us out to Cano Island Biological Reserve, a thirty minute ride from Poor Man’s Paradise.   Cano is best known for its snorkeling and scuba diving.   Among the coral reefs are many species of fish- big eye jacks, smaller manta rays, and reef sharks. Scuba diving is for beginners  with a certificate (about 40 feet depth)  And also for more advanced-deeper current dives.
No people live on Cano Island, only the rangers at the  station.  Robinson Crusoe’s story could have been written here.  Lonely long stretches of beautiful beige sandy beaches  stretch for miles.  We hike up into the rain forest where we find  ancient burial grounds of  the Diquis indigenous people, and

Strangler Fig Tree At Poor Man's Paradise

remnants of the  small perfectly round spheres molded from stones hundreds of years ago by these indigenous people

I would have loved to stay here longer, get to know the local people.   A Unique Earthly Paradise!

Poor Man’s cabins rent for $50 per day double occupancy which includes three meals.  Cost of the boat round trip  is extra and of course cost of getting to Sierrpe by land  and also by air is also extra.

SAD THING IS
A  gravel road has just been completed from Drake Bay to this area!  And is passable in the dry season only.
This brings the four wheeled modern invention called the automobile, which means hoards of people who are not from this area will flock to this pristine paradise and there goes the peace and tranquility.    Although, money will be spent  in Poor Man’s small local restaurants and  Costa Ricans will pay  to pitch their tents on Poor Man’s  property as well as the other places on the beach and the economy related  to income will improve–is it worth it? …. To lose this special unique quality of life style which is “gone with the wind” in most parts of our world today?

Would you like to visit the beautiful Osa Peninsula?   Contact Vacation Planning to Costa Rica by Ann, the Costa Rica Expert  Contact her:  anncreed23@gmail.com      She can design for you the perfect vacation to this most pristine region of Costa Rica.   Go to her home page www.costaricalearn.com

Casada-typical plate of Costa Rica

Typical Costa Rican Food as experienced by my friend Jack who also writes a travel blog.

The Great Culinary of Costa Rica-Typical Costa Rican food. In Costa Rica it’s really interesting how the people cook well,  but with simple recipes. The dishes are basically made with rice, beans, maize, vegetables and bananas! The famous and delicious bananas! Most of the time, this basics recipes are complemented with fish, beef or chicken. One of the cheapest foods in Costa Rica is basically this, in most cases that’s the lunch meal and it’s amazing! The name is Casada. A plate with simple Costa Rican Food- rice, black beans, platanos topped with fresh sour cream,  shredded cabbage, and a meat such as chicken, beef, or fish.  And a fresh fruit drink.
In some places the breakfast is what they call “Gallo Pinto”, a really good meal with the rice and  beans of one day before mixed and milled. The dish counts too with some eggs, corn tortillas and cream sauce. In some places the dish comes also with cilantro, bell pepper and onion a little bit fried.  It’s really good! And as a finish point sometimes they include one local sauce that is called Salsa Lizano and gives that special touch to the recipe.
The  Costa Rican coffee is always a drink  at the breakfast,  also they have the água dulce (with a dark yellow sugar) and the marvelous fresh natural juices. There is a rumor about the country that you shouldn’t drink too much juice or things like that in some places, mostly with ice, because the ice may not be made from filtered water, but the truth is that ANY juice in Costa Rica is really good, and in a general way they are safe to drink, so don’t worry!
Costa Rica has other typical and really great dishes, such as the following ones:
Arroz Guacho: a kind of rice cooked in a way that becames sticky;
Higado en Salsa: a kinf of beef liver in Sauce -
Escaveche: kind of chicken with a different marinaide vinagrette sauce;
Papas con Chorizo: really good chorizo sausage with potatoes;
Barbudos: a great and different omelet of beans;
Mondongo: minced beans  with beef.
More than this dishes you can experiment the tapas, hmm!! You have the following ones: Platanos Maduros, Platanos Asados, Pejibayes, Picadillo de Chayote con Elote, Picadillo de Papaya Verde and Picadillo de Vainicas.
And at last, you can experiment this dishes in some street markets Saturdays! The country has some restaurants of international food, since the Brazilian till the Spanish and oriental, if you don’t like the marvelous Costa Rican food you can also opt any others.
I’m from Brazil, and i love to travel! I love the Costa Rica Learn Blog and everytime i have the opportunity i follow all the tips! My blog is : http://journeytown.net/  mostly about travelling but i also enjoy cooking and restaurantes so if you are from Brazil and enjoy this i also recommend this website: http://www.janamesa.com.br/  . Sometimes I find some

Fresh Mangos

great places with different international food, and some are really similar to the Costa Rican!!!
Best regards to all the readers of Costa Rica Learn and to the sweet Ann, that negotiate this marvelous partnership with me and my blog!!
Jack, From Brazil

The first photo is of a typical Costa Rican lunch plate called “Casada”  rice, black beans, fried plaintan, shredded beef,  cabbage and beet salad,  tortilla, picadilla de papas (potatoes chopped with onions and salsa lizano)

To Ann from Sharon Koenig (Family of three)

Hello Ann,
Our vacation to Costa Rica was really great!  The Solid Car Rental Company worked out really well. We were so pleased to have our hotel pick us up at the airport and drop us off when we departed. It really made our travel experience stress free. The car worked out well. However, I would recommend that others follow your advice and rent a slightly larger 4WD. The Jimmy worked just fine but b/c of its’ short wheel base, it was not particularly comfortable on the dirt roads — the only roads — to Mal Pais. The roads weren’t even bad! The agent from Solid Rental Car came to our hotel with the car just as scheduled on the morning after our arrival and the paperwork was just as expected. We returned the car to our hotel on our final day in CR and another agent picked it up. It was very easy and just as planned. No surprises.

Hotel Buena Vista , near the airport was beautiful and a wonderful first/last night room for us. I was concerned about finding it on our own on the return trip but it is sooo easy…. one road from the airport directly up the mtn to the hotel, no more than 15  minutes, absolutely peaceful and not one beep of traffic b/c we were essentially out of town.

Our stay  the Playa Selva Tree House in Mal Paisfor 3 nights was really good.

Costa Rica Sunset

The last 4 nights our stay at the  Pachamama was also really good.  The owner Franz is an absolute gem of a person. We stayed in the big house and it was gorgeous. The gardens are perfect. We mingled with the other guests — 2 young couples. Franz arranged and joined us for a Valentine’s dinner 5 minutes away up on the hill at Brisas del Mar. Gorgeous views and fabulous food.

The best swimming beach is directly across from the main intersection of Mal Pais/Playa Carmen when you enter the town — 5 minutes from the places we stayed. We drove everywhere b/c the dust from other cars is too much — although  we are big walkers at home.  The beaches in front of our property were rocky — not okay at all for swimming but nice for walking and watching sunsets.

Thanks for your help in planning our C Rica Vacation.  We will definitely recommend you–you can use our name and email as a reference.
Regards,  Sharon and family

Bromeliad at Arenal

to Costa Rica   January 2012.

Here is what they had to say.

We are back from our wonderful trip and want to thank you again for your help. We really enjoyed our tours (although that’s the first and last time I will ever do a zip line!) and found both Desafio and Iguana to be very good outfits with knowledgeable guides. The Volcano Lodge in Arenal was quite nice  - the people were friendly and helpful and the room very clean and comfortable although I would grade the food as just passable. Tabacon was great – but in hindsight I would do that last to relax after the zip line. David enjoyed his canyoneering and said its good he didn’t try to convince me to go!
La Mariposa is a beautiful setting with the nicest people and the food was excellent. They upgraded us to a room with an ocean view so that was very nice. My only complaint is that their mattresses are very hard. We really enjoyed the tours of the Mangroves and the National Park and getting up into the  rain forest  area on horseback was fun – if a little challenging. The dinner that was provided after that at a ranch was quite delicious.
Ending the trip at Buena Vista was terrific – the rooms are so comfortable (and good mattresses!), and the food was delicious, and again the people were so gracious and helpful. We had the tour of Doka, which I did enjoy – just learning more about coffee for me was very interesting. I found it disappointing that all through Costa Rica the coffee is not very strong and they don’t have cream – only milk or hot milk, so I did not enjoy it as much as I had hoped, but bought lots to make at home the way I like it and as gifts.
Here’s what I can tell you about shuttles: DO NOT RECOMMEND GRAY LINE TO ANYONE! It turns out that they combine tours and shuttles and if you happen to get on a shuttle with a tour, you get kidnapped! Maybe we should have been tipped off by the fact that there was a driver and a guide who proceeded to tell us about things as we were driving, but we thought maybe that’s just the way it was on shuttles. We got to La Fortuna where they dropped off several people staying in town, and then proceeded to drive right by our hotel and refused to drop us off because they had a family they had to take to Lake Arenal and then to Tabacon first.

Anyway, we loved Costa Rica and hope to return again some day and thanks you again Ann for all you knowledgable planning for us.  I would not have gone as smoothly–we wasted no time.

If you are planning a vacation to Costa Rica Ann is the expert to set it up for you.  It definitely saved us time and money and made our adventure vacation more relaxing and fun.

Contact ann at   anncreed23@gmail.com

Arenal volcano

I would like to share with you this wonderful Manuel Antonio Video is by Bazhe.  please visit www.BAZHE.com to view more of his fabulous videos plus his oil on canvas paintings, poetry, and short stories.

Here is what Ellen had to say:  We  enjoyed our vacation to Costa Rica very much!  Hotel Nayara (Arenal) was an amazing resort, great rooms and wonderful food. It was voted by our kids to be the favorite hotel of all the trips we have taken as a family. The adventure activities in and around Arenal  were great!  And each of us participated in all the outdoor activities.

Tabacon Hot Springs, horseback ride to Arenal Waterfall,  Zip line tour,  and ATV Tour were among the fun adventure things we did at Arenal.  Ann set all this  up for us and we had a smooth, stress free-fun  time with the family.

On the central pacific town of Jaco we stayed at a condominuim which I choose called Oceans of the Palms and enjoyed swimming and surfing in the Pacific at the unique black sand beach.

The kids  enjoyed the little town of Jaco with a very “Costa Rican” atmosphere.  We had lunch at a  typical Costa Rican restaurant and did some shopping for local arts and crafts made of very colorful native wood.

Ann, thanks for all your help in planning so a wonderful experience!   I will pass your name and email should anyone want an adventure filled vacation to Costa Rica.

You may contact Ann:  anncreed23@gmail.com

“Ann, The Costa Rica Travel planner ,  Allowing Ann to “design”  our  the trip to Costa Rica made it a wonderful and stress-free adventure for my husband and I!  Her expert knowledge of the country and its top attractions allowed us to plan the trip of a lifetime and leave feeling we saw everything we could have wanted to from monkeys and sloths, rain forests,  volcanoes and beautiful  Tortuguero canals.

Emmet and Esther

Ann’s  help in finding places to stay that were wonderful and within our budget and transport between locations made trip planning a breeze before hand and travel in the country stress-free as we didn’t have to worry about getting from place to place. Traveling with Ann was always fascinating as she has extensive knowledge of the country and the people. If you love nature and animals, I would highly recommend a trip to Costa Rica and contact Ann so you will be sure to enjoy the best this country has to offer!        Contact Ann  “The Costa Rica Travel Planning Expert”  at  anncreed23@gmail.com

Written by:  Emmet and Esther Loney, July 2011

Itinerary included- Central Valley- Hotel Buena Vista located in a mountain settings with gorgeous cool, clean air  with views Poas Volcano.  Day tour Poas Volcano National Park and lunch at Chubascos,  typical Costa Rican cuisine.   Four Generations Doka Coffee Plantation Tour.

Three Day Tour Tortuguero  National Park and the Tortuguero Canals along  Caribbean Coast.   Turtle nesting region.  Monkeys, sloths, toucans, lush tropical vegetation, crocodiles, manatees,  and green parrots.  Lush tropical jungle setting.

Arenal Observatory Lodge-Arenal Volcano.  Sky Tram and Zip line tour,  horseback riding to La Fortuna Waterfall,  Butterfly Gardens,  Tabacon Hot Springs with dinner.

Northern Region- Blue River (Rio Azul)     Rio Celeste Hideaway Hotel   Hike to the Blue River (Rio Celeste) in the Tenorio Volcano National Park, swim in Blue River under the eight foot waterfall,  Day Trip to explore the limestone caverns at Barra Honda National Park.

“Design a Costa Rica  TRAVEL ADVENTURE Vacation” by Ann The COSTA RICA Travel Planner EXPERT

Costa Rica Travel Adventure  Vacation Planning:  “Design a Costa Rica Vacation”  by Ann, “The  Costa Rica Travel Planning Expert”   Take advantage of this unique service!  Let Ann design  the land portion  for your individualized vacation itinerary for your   Costa Rica vacation.  It’s easy and it will not cost you any extra money.  In fact you will save money and time.

Because Ann lives part of the year in Costa Rica and has worked many years in the Costa Rica Travel Industry,  she knows the distances, road conditions,  and time needed  to drive to popular tourist destinations, therefore, saving you time .  She knows the best hotels and travel adventure tours to suit your desires and  your budget.  She has knowledge of the different and diverse regions of the rain forest and the beaches and  the weather patterns in each.   She is an expert on  the  National Parks,  including the popular Arenal Volcano area and  Manuel Antonio National Park and all the adventure tours and other activities offered there. She can set up car rentals to be delivered to your hotel door on the day you arrive.  Or  if you wish, she can arrange private transportation.   Truely Ann offers a unique servi

ABOUT ANN:  Ann has been working in the Costa Rica Travel Industry as a Travel Agent specializing in individualized  Costa Rica travel adventure vacation itineraries  for  fifteen years and  lives part of the year  in Costa Rica,  along with her husband, Ken Creed, a professional videographer who has worked for National Geographic. So she knows the country like “the back of her hand” She has traveled to the most popular tourist destinations, from the mountains and rainforest to the beaches of the Pacific and the Caribbean.   So her advice is given from the  perspective of one who has visited or stayed in  the hotels and has done the adventure tours, and is familiar with the tour companies which have proven track records.     By following her to “Design”  your Costa Rica Vacation, you  will travel easier, smarter, and cheaper.  Thus have a relaxed-fun filled vacation!

Ann and her husband Ken  have made a travel adventure video on Costa Rica’s most popular tourist destinations   Ken, a professional videographer  has twenty five years of experience in the  travel adventure video business.  His works  have been selected by National Geographic to be shown at Constitutional Hall in Washington D.C. and Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh, Pa.  Together Ken and Ann created the  58 minute adventure travel video “Costa Rica a Travel Adventure Spectacular”    This Costa Rica Travel video will help you better plan a vacation.  It highlights the most popular  National Parks and Adventure Tours.  To see a 3 minute trailer  (and purchase the video -if you wish)  go to the top of the home page of costaricalearn.com  and click on Buy Our Video.

HOW DOES IT WORK TO SET UP A TRAVEL ADVENTURE Costa Rica VACATION  DESIGNED BY  ANN?

First you  email Ann    anncreed23@gmail.com  You and Ann discuss  by email and phone which areas  you would like to visit in Costa Rica.  Ann will offer suggestions of the most popular destinations and places to see the most spectacular tropical beauty and wildlife of Costa Rica, and answer all  your questions.    If you have CHILDREN or TEENAGERS  Ann will suggest the best options for a family travel adventure vacation.

Together you will choose the hotels, mode of ground transportation, and adventure tours you wish to take.  Ann will  design an itinerary, price it, and email it to you. How does the money work?  You pay with your credit card to the hotels, tours, ground transportation and receive vouchers from each segment.  Your credit card is taken to guarantee and is not charged until you check out or finish the tours.  Cancellation policies are explained by Ann.    Then, after your travel adventure  Costa Rica vacation is finished,  Ann receives commissions directly from each of the hotels, tours, etc which you take.  (no extra charge to you, no hidden fees)

   Contact Ann       anncreed23@gmail.com       TO  “Design Your Costa Rica Travel Adventure Vacation”

“Father Time”

These mammoth trees which call the rain forest of Costa Rica their home, and we need to preserve them for all mankind.