Adventure Tourism for Lazy People

Costa Rica is renowned as a destination for dedicated adventure tourists, eco-tourists, and what I call “pre-extradition” tourists (You’ll find a great many Americans of questionable repute in Costa Rica. These people really don’t merit further discussion.). Apparently, it’s also become a top destination for sex tourism, which now accounts for approximately 10% of all tourism in Costa Rica. By my reckoning, however, the sex tourists should be included in the last category I described above. Honestly, it’s only a matter of time before these people gather together enough money for airfare to Thailand and get themselves into some real trouble. Well, enough of this...

So, Costa Rica is indeed known as a hot-spot for people who crave a bit of adventure tourism or eco-tourism; within this small country, one can pick from seemingly countless varieties of canopy tours, marine activities, and rainforest tours. Costa Rica is also known as a hot-spot for people who like to sweat; thanks to year-round tropical temperatures and truly intimidating levels of humidity, one can enjoy countless hours of sweaty discomfort.

This was my third trip to Costa Rica, so I’d already ticked most of Costa Rica’s offerings off my Costa Rica Adventure Tourism “to-do” list. Additionally, I was in need of a bit of rest after an unusually hectic busy season at work. Taken together, these two factors meant that I would be enjoying a rather lazy adventure holiday in Costa Rica. So, my week of lazy adventure tourism consisted of the following adventures:

Adventure One: This consisted of a bit of waterfall rappelling (that's abseiling, jumping, snapling, and rappling to my British, Australian, Israeli, and Indian friends, respectively). Whatever your nomenclature, waterfall rappelling is where you tie a series of ropes around your junk, and then dangle your body (using said ropes) over a 100 foot (30 m) waterfall. You then descend the waterfall by clumsily loosening the rope. On occasion, you lose your footing and your body slams against the rocks behind the falling water. If you manage to descend the waterfall without injuring yourself, you’ve done something wrong, so you’ll need to climb back up and make another go at it.

Oddly, this activity (the dangling one's body part) wasn't the most adventurous part of the day. Rather, it was the 1.5 hour journey along (extremely) unpaved roads aboard a 4x4 "taxi" that was piloted by our ominously-named driver, “Kamikaze.” I’m pleased to report that I arrived alive.

We had a local guide for the day that was astonishingly well-informed regarding the flora and fauna of the rainforest. As we made the short walk to the waterfall, he'd often reach down, grab seemingly random weeds, shove them in my face, and then instruct me to eat them. As you might imagine, I was a bit wary at first as I typically don't go about munching on plants in the forest. However, I was delighted when he fed me cilantro, cinnamon, rhubarb, and a variety of other delicious plants. By the end of the tour, he had to stop me from grazing on the weeds as we walked back to our base camp.

Adventure Two: Mid-week, the entire family went on a mangrove tour. That's where tourists pile onto a boat and explore the tidal mangrove waterways. With any luck, your boat will include some shockingly rude Canadians (Who knew there was such a thing as rude Canadians?) who insult the tour guide, suggest drowning fellow passengers, and subsequently get tossed off the boat due to their poor behavior. My tour included two such passengers.

Once the Canadians had taken their leave, the mangrove tour was great fun. As we puttered slowly through the brackish inland waterways, we saw several exotic birds, marine creatures, and several troops of white-faced monkeys and squirrel monkeys (Note: A “troop” is a group of monkeys. Add that to your trivia inventory upstairs.) Oh, and we also drank some beer.

Adventure Three: The entire family hired a private guide (after extensive haggling to agree on a price) for a tour of Manuel Antonio National Park, which is a rather breath-taking national park that borders the Pacific Ocean near the town of Quepos. There we saw howler monkeys, at least one caiman, two sloths, too many large lizards to mention, and several other animals. I enjoyed the tour almost as much as I enjoyed not getting bitten by one of many venomous snakes that slither within the national park.

Adventure Four: My dad chartered a rather brightly-colored boat ("The Pink Panther") to take us swimming and snorkeling along the coast of the national park. Despite my initial reservations about climbing aboard an old boat that doubled as a floating work of copyright infringement, it was surprisingly fun. Once aboard The Pink Panther, we relaxed, took turns almost drowning (see the photo of my dad at left), and ate some entirely palatable seafood. Oh, and we also drank some beer.