All of the Costa Ricans that we met, especially the guides, were very friendly, proud of their country and committed to conservation. Everyone greats you or says goodbye with “Pura Vida”, literally “pure life”. This is believed to have come into the language following a Mexican film in 1956 and became ingrained in the culture by the 1980s.

Travel in Costa Rica also involves hazards. There are 22 venomous snakes with about 600 snake bites a year being recorded mainly by fer-de-lance, a type of viper. While, unlikely to kill, it would extend your Costa Rican stay by around a month while receiving anti-venom. We only encountered one (enough) which was on a hiking track and very well camouflaged. We were with a well trained guide who had dealt with snakes since he was a child. As well as knowing how to persuade the snake to move on he also took a photo for us, so we could keep our distance!

There are also venous spiders, headed by the tarantula and poisonous frogs. All of which we saw during our trip.

Like most people we have a dislike for mosquitoes but now have more mixed feelings having discovered that they pollinate cacao beans as bees and larger insects are too big to fit in the complex flowers.

Other hazards, while less dangerous, include monkeys who like to point out that you are in their territory by defecating on you from a tree !

There are six different species of sloth; Costa Rica is home to two of them, the “two-toed” and “three-toed” sloths. Despite the names, it is actually the digits on the fore-limb that differ as the Spanish for fingers and toes is similar. Other than the number of “toes” they are distinguishable by their colour.

Sloths spend approximately 22 hours a day sleeping at the tops of their favourite trees, only coming down to the ground to defecate, which happens approximately once a week, or to move trees. They are solitary animals, only getting together to mate or when females are bringing up their young.

Three toed sloths appear green as they host an algae in their fur which serves as camouflage to protect from predators – large hawks in trees and jaguars on the ground – and to protect them from the sun. The particular algae is only found on the three-toed sloths and is thought to be passed from mother to child shortly after birth. Scientists are investigating the possibility that the algae might have medicinal benefits for humans.

Most of the sloths we saw were on guided hikes, although we also saw them in the grounds of a couple of our lodges.

One of our guides said that the main purpose of sloths in Costa Rica is to sell t-shirts !

Our final stop in Costa Rica was the Central Valley, just an hour from San Jose. The area is more temperate and less humid than the rain forests and is where coffee was first grown in the late 18th Century.

We visited a coffee plantation and learned about the process from seed to the final product. All the plants we saw were Arabica with the final flavour dependent on the roasting process. Coffee trees grow best at over 1,000 metres and enjoy the volcanic fertile soil. The caffeine in the plants provides a natural defence from wildlife. The only danger to the crop is fungus which is becoming more of a problem with climate change.

The fruit is hand picked as machines are not able to cope with the slopes of the plantation. The pickers are migrant workers from Nicaragua paid piece work with minimum wages set by the government. The plantation we visited pays double the minimum and also provides various other worker benefits.

The process for obtaining the seeds (beans) from the fruit was undertaken until 2021 by a machine built in London in the mid 19th century. It is still operational but as it is driven by water which cannot be returned to the river, it has been replaced by a more environmentally friendly Costa Rican machine.

Following our coffee tasting we travelled on to La Paz waterfalls and animal rescue centre. It is illegal in Costa Rica to keep wild animals as pets, so many of the animals are recoveries from law enforcement. The centre returns animals to the wild where possible but some are too domesticated to do so. A jaguar is housed at the centre which was recovered from a travelling Mexican Circus attempting to bring it across the border.

Golfo Dulce is a gulf in the Pacific Ocean which separates the Osa Peninsula from the mainland of Costa Rica. The Golfo Dulce is considered to be a tropical fjord. Most of the gulf and the coast around it is protected with very little development. There are two towns on the gulf – Golfito on the mainland and Puerto Jiménez at the end of the peninsula – both with around 1,000 residents. We arrived by road and departed from the tiny airport at Puerto Jiménez.

The gulf has several species of whales visit to use its warm calm waters as a breeding ground and a nursery.

We went on a boat trip to see the two species of dolphin who are year round inhabitants; the bottle nose and spotted dolphins. We saw a group of over 100 spotted dolphins who group together against predators as they are small. The bottle nose are larger and generally found in groups of two to four. We saw several groups very close to our boat, at times swimming under the boat or in its wake. Our guide explained that they approach to boats as they are curious and they enjoy surfing the wake.

The Osa Peninsula in south-western Costa Rica is one of the most biologically diverse places on earth with 2.5% of the earth’s species in an area less than 0.001% of the planet.

The lodge we stayed in at the end of the peninsula was founded in 1991 and opened in 1993 on 1,000 acres of rain forest. The land was originally over 80% primary forest with the rest being farmland. The farmland was left to recover and is now natural secondary forest. The lodge became the first privately owned property in Central America to be legally protected, by the owners, in perpetuity to maintain its eco status.

The lodge has resident specialist guides who lead a variety of hikes in the grounds and nearby forests and beaches. We opted for a couple of hikes as well as the “early birds” walk, night walks and “medicine hike”. The guides were very knowledgeable and personable and pointed out numerous animals that we would not have seen ourselves. Mostly this enhanced our knowledge but in the case of a venomous snake on the track, it helped prevent adding a hospital stay to our itinerary!

We were also able to see and hear a huge amount from the lodge itself. This included howler monkeys at 5.30am !

Uvita is a small town in Southern Costa Rica which is situated on Bahia Ballena on the Pacific coast.

The beach has a natural feature shaped like a whale’s tail at low tide, which is appropriate as it forms part of the Ballena (Spanish for whale) National Park. It was established in 1992, predominantly covering the ocean, to protect the migratory humpback whales. The conservation area has blocked the building of a marina, so all whale watching boats have to be launched from the beach inside the park. There are two migratory seasons, our visit coincided with the migration from Canada and the US. The other season being whales from South America during their winter.

Uvita has become popular for expats, mainly from the US with the vibe of a surfers town. The town adopted bitcoin as a currency and is nicknamed “Bitcoin Jungle”. Our debit card worked too !