Trips > Costa Rica > June 2002 > Itinerary

Costa Rica: A family trip for parents, kids and game adults
ITINERARY

June 14-23, 2002 10 days/9 nights

I wanted you to have some emergency only contact numbers to leave with family or friends at home so here is:

The Monteverde Conservation League
email: acmmcl@racsa.co.cr
phones: 011-506-645-5003
011-506-645-5200
011-506-645-5104
(good for the whole trip for emergency only)

Hotel El Bosque
email: elbosque@racsa.co.cr
phones: 011-506-645-5158
011-506-645-5221
fax: 011-506-645-5129
(good for the nights we are there June 18,19,20, 21)

Except for a couple of you, we will be leaving St. Louis on June 14 flying American Airlines through Miami to San Jose, Costa Rica. The return will be June 23 via Dallas.

June 14
lv St L to Miami #2896 10:03 am - 1:44 pm
lv Miami to SJ #981 5:25 pm - 6:25 pm

Overnight in old coffee plantation turned into hotel outside San Jose.

June 15
Chartered bus to Monteverde, welcome, hike into BEN (Bosque Eterno de los Niños) The International Children's Rainforest staying overnight at San Gerardo Field Station. Write and draw in your journal.

Jun 16-17
Learning the natural history of this tropical ecosystem through hikes with biologists (ornithologists and entomologists and tropical ecologists), hike to the waterfall, games and RF activities, see Arenal Volcano in the distance, listen to howler monkeys, look for the umbrella bird, see coatis, do a service project, learn a little Spanish. Night hike. We can have a Sunday church service in the forest. 2 more overnights in the BEN. Write and draw in your journal.

June 18
Hike out of the BEN after breakfast, bus to MV for lunch, climb strangler fig trees, get the world's best milkshakes at the Lecheria (dairy) and watch the processing of the milk into cheese. Look for quetzals. Free time. Journal. Overnight at Hotel El Bosque.

June 19
Attend Quaker Meeting, visit Butterfly Garden. Lunch and Frog Exhibit. Learn about the coffee cooperative and roastery and visit CASEM, the women's cooperative of fine arts in leather, wood, fabric and painting. Journal time. Mist netting bats with Richard Laval, Costa Rica's premier bat scientist and good friend. Hotel El Bosque.

June 20
Hike trocha to the San Luis Valley to visit rural school and take our school supplies to donate. Lunch in SL prepared by the SL moms. Sing and play with the kids. Visit Finca La Bella, a cooperative farm to learn about organic gardening, coffee, dairy cattle, citrus growing. Journal time. Evening slide show about Monteverde Conservation League. El Bosque.

June 21
Choice of horseback riding, canopy sky walk or sky trek in the a.m. Lunch. Hiking the Bajo del Tigre trails in the p.m. Free time. Journal time. El Bosque Hotel. Optional milk shake.

June 22
Early departure from MV for raft trip on the Coribici River with monkeys, birds, iguanas and maybe a crocodile! Lunch. Visit to Las Pumas wild cat refuge to see jaguar, puma, margay, ocelot, jaguarundi, and tigrillo. Journal on the bus to San Jose. Overnight near airport.

June 23
Fly home.

Depending on weather some adjustments may have to be made, but this is the current plan. If anything, it will only get better. The scientists that will teach us in the BEN are all friends of mine and experts in their fields.

Your return flights will also be American Airlines

June 23
lv SJ to Dallas #2166 9:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.
lv Dallas to StL #2630 4:06 p.m. to 5:51 p.m.