If you missed my story covering the first half of the Light family’s trip to Costa Rica, catch up here, then read on for more of their incredible adventure.

Arenal Volcano peaking through the clouds

The group began the second week of the trip in La Fortuna, a small town in Costa Rica, northwest of the capital, San José. It is called the gateway to Arenal Volcano National Park, with two volcanoes, one that is active: Arenal Volcano with last eruption in 2010.

The day after arriving in La Fortuna, the group traveled to an animal rescue center called Proyecto Asis where they saw monkeys, parrots, Coatis, toucans, a Collared Peccary and others. Kris was excited to see a Strawberry Poison Dart frog in the leaves. After the tour, they prepared food for the animals and the workers put the food in leaves, toys, egg cartons and even tubes of bamboo for the animals to find. This was to keep the animals from getting bored since the animals they saw were not releasable. There was also a stop at a souvenir shop where they saw butterfly frames. Costa Rica is the source of all the chrysalises shipped to butterfly houses in the US. The butterflies have a short life cycle. Once they die, they are collected and mounted in frames like the picture to sell as souvenirs.

In Arenal, the group walked the trail to the waterfall that Kris described as “roaring” from the torrential overnight rain. Since it was the low season for orchids, they did see a few, but other trees and flowers were in bloom. The most interesting of these were pink bananas. They finally saw a troop of Coatimundis, related to raccoons, a snake going after frog eggs, and a lot of different moths.

Later that day, they left Arenal to go to Guanacaste in the northwest part of Costa Rica, viewing a lot of damage from mudslides due to the rain from the night before. They stopped at roadside restaurant, finding it very unique. The floor was covered in macadamia nut shells and a door was covered with police and fire department patches including one from a Clinton, TN firefighter.

The following day was a beach day experience, but not your usual beach chair relaxing type beach day experience. It was a beach day spent looking for critters on the beach and in tide pools. There was some snorkeling, but the group was always looking for special creatures.

On the last day of the Costa Rica trip, the group went snorkeling twice because the water was much clearer than the days before. They successfully saw many kinds of fish, sea fans, coral and seaweed that looked like fern fronds.

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