Sensory Overload: February 2026

As we flew over El Salvador on our flight to Costa Rica, we saw the nearly mile wide crater inside the San Salvador Volcano (also known as Quezaltepec). The lake that used to be inside the main crater (El Boquerón) evaporated in the last major eruption in 1917. We rented a car to visit a couple of national parks on this trip. I thought I was getting a stick shift, but the Nissan Kicks was an automatic which turned out to be great for the bumper-to-bumper traffic from the airport to Liberia before driving up the dark winding road to Hotel Hacienda Guachipelin. After the hour drive, we went for margaritas in the cantina before calling it an early night before our busy day at the Rincon de la Vieja National Park. The giant Cenízaro (Rain Tree) outside our room had a very loud colony of Oropendolas that helped wake us up in the morning. The males perform a bowing display where they hang upside down from branches, showing off their yellow tail feathers and emitting a high-pitched, metallic “gurgle-gluck” call to impress the females. The hanging basket nests they weave from vines and long grasses are over 3 feet long and help protect the eggs and chicks from climbing predators like snakes or monkeys.

After breakfast, we drove up the road to the Rincón de la Vieja National Park named after the active 6,286 foot volcano that frequently vents steam and ash. Las Pailas Trail (The Cauldrons) was a beautiful hike, crossing the Rio Colorado and traveling though strikingly different environments around the volcanic landscape. The Bullhorn Acacia trees are easy to spot because of the intimidating thorns that look exactly like the horns of a bull. The real danger is the aggressive Acacia Ants that will rush out to bite and sting if you touch the tree. This is one of the most famous examples of mutualism in the natural world. This acacia species lacks the bitter chemical toxins usually used to deter animals so it relies entirely on the ants who live inside the large thorns. We also encountered several massive Strangler Figs. The fig begins its life as a tiny seed dropped by a bird or monkey onto a host tree. It sends down long, rope-like aerial roots that eventually reach the ground and take hold in the soil. Over time, these roots multiply and thicken, weaving together into the lattice structure. The fig eventually strangles the host tree by outcompeting it for sunlight in the canopy and squeezing its trunk, which prevents the host from growing further. Eventually, the original host tree dies and rots away, leaving behind the hollow, cage-like structure of the fig that can stand on its own for centuries.

The park’s Rincón de la Vieja Volcano powers five main geothermal features that we saw along the 2.2-mile loop.

1 - Laguna Fumarólica (Fumarolic Lagoon): This is a small, boiling pond where volcanic vents are submerged under water.

2 - Pailas de Agua (Boiling Water Pots): The water pots consist of muddy water that is heated to its boiling point by the underlying magma.

3 - Pailas de Barro (Bubbling Mud Pots): The mud pots consist of thick, grey volcanic clay that boils and bubbles as geothermal gases rise through the groundwater.

4 - Volcancito (The Mini Volcano): This unique feature is a small cone that resembles a miniature version of a massive volcano. It is an active vent that has visibly grown over recent years due to the accumulation of minerals and mud ejected from its center.

5 - Fumarolas (Steam Vents): These are cracks in the earth’s crust where superheated volcanic gases and steam—often smelling strongly of sulfur—escape into the atmosphere.

We also spotted Spider Monkeys and White-faced Capuchin Monkeys in the tree canopies, our first time seeing them in the wild. Before it was designated a protected national park in 1973, the land was primarily a collection of sprawling, remote private properties used for cattle ranching and sugar cane production. The trail also passed the Catarata Estacional, a seasonal cascading waterfall that still had some flowing water at the beginning of this dry season. Just outside the park, we stopped to visit the 82 foot Oropendola Waterfall that drops into the narrow canyon carved by the Rio Blanco. The turquoise water was freezing! It was only a short hike with two Hanging Staircases that provided a fun way to access the steep canyon.

After checking out of our hotel room, we visited the Rio Negro Hot Springs heated by the geothermal energy of the Rincón de la Vieja Volcano. There was at least ten different pools of different temperatures with hanging bridges connecting both sides of the Rio Negro. After relaxing in the pools, we applied the grey volcanic mud, rich in silica, sulfur, and magnesium, to our skin before rinsing it off in the freezing water of the river that flows down the center. It was a natural cold plunge!

While waiting for our Rio Negro Tubing Adventure at 2:30pm, we had lunch and cocktails at the poolside Rincon del Cafe. The Volcano Bowl was awesome! I would travel back just for that! The adventure center had lockers for our stuff before they drove us to the river where we carried our tubes down the canyon trail to the water. They also have the option to travel by horseback that takes an additional hour. We had three guides for just Tori, myself and a Canadian so we had a lot of hands-on help navigating the Class II rapids of the river at this time of the dry season. Fun, but not too crazy! There was also several calm pools and wider sections to float along between the three mile stretch of rapids. After returning at pack up our car, we left before dark to drive to Playa Negra. We stopped for groceries at the Maxi Pali in Santa Cruz before we arrived at my dad's house at 8:30pm. It was a full moon with no mosquitos, so we hung out in the hammocks for awhile before going to bed.

For our first full day in Playa Negra, we had our favorite breakfast burritos at Jalapeño Eatery before hanging out at the beach, helping my dad set up his new iPad and going for cocktails and pizza at Hotel Playa Negra at sunset. On Sunday, we drove our rental car in the morning to visit my dad's property in Playa Lagarto. Even though my Dad purchased the land that he first saw during our Costa Rica trip in 2004 together, I had never visited it before. The undeveloped property is full of trees and heavy brush so we walked though the horse field alongside it, crawling under two barbed wire fences to reach the beach. The tide was extremely low so we walked out on the reef and around the point of the empty shoreline before driving back to Playa Negra where Tori and I had a delicious lunch at Mycelium. The Yuca Fries with the two dipping sauces were so good! We ended our day with a sunset swim.

On Monday, we walked over to Hotel Playa Negra for Tori to take the morning Yoga class while I practiced my Pilates on the sand. After the yoga class, we took advantage of the shady wood platform by the beach to work on an AcroYoga flow of the Kraken, Ninja Star and Naked Singularity machines that is in the video below.

After avocado toast at Jalapeño Eatery, we had a relaxing day until we returned to the beach at sunset to shoot some AcroYoga poses we have been working on. My favorite photo is the one with the waves crashing on the black volcanic reef behind us. For dinner, my dad made cheeseburgers, baked potatoes and rice and we watched a movie together.

On Tuesday morning, we left Playa Negra at 6:30am, stopping for gas in Santa Cruz and arrived at Hacienda El Viejo at 9am. After checking in for our riverboat tour, we walked up to the Casona for some of the fresh fruit, coffee and juice provided. The Casona is a national heritage building at this historic cattle and sugarcane ranch. While two-thirds of the hacienda is still a sugarcane plantation, one-third (5,000 acres) was set aside to create a private wildlife refuge that preserves the region's tropical dry forest and wetland ecosystems. The Hacienda El Viejo Wetlands sit across the Tempisque River from the Palo Verde National Park. Our guide for the river boat tour asked us to give him a ride over to the boat in our car and he took us on a short detour to visit the water buffalo who serve as an eco-friendly way to clear open water channels through the marshes with their heavy grazing and trampling, helping to restore migratory bird habitats that are being choked out with aggressive and invasive aquatic grasses. These are docile river and swamp buffalo breeds originating from Asia, with their horns sweeping backward and downward rather than upward like African cape buffalo.

The riverboat tour cruises the Tempisque River between the Palo Verde National Park and the Hacienda El Viejo Wetlands. The river basin holds one of the highest concentrations of American Crocodiles in the world. I think we saw at least 50 basking along the riverbanks as we cruised along in the boat, my outside arm only a few feet above the water! Our guide was really good at spotting all the other different creatures along the river. In the 5th photo below, you can see a perfectly aligned row of tiny Proboscis Bats clinging to the underside of a tree trunk that overhangs the water. Their mottled, grayish-brown fur blends with the lichen and bark. When disturbed, the entire line will take flight simultaneously and move a few feet further down the river, immediately re-establishing their precise vertical formation. They are insectivores that play a massive role in keeping the river’s mosquito populations in check. In the last photo is the Bare-throated Tiger-Heron, the biggest predator of the Crocodile along the river, hunting them down while they are still young hatchlings. It has a heavy, compact body and thick, muscular neck compared to other herons.

Most of the females crocodiles we saw were between 8 and 12 feet long. We didn’t spot the only male croc who controls this part of the Tempisque River, but they can grow to the massive size of 15 to 18 feet. Luckily, they don’t like the boats and stay away. The 45,000 acre Palo Verde National Park was founded in 1978, serving as a wintering ground for tens of thousands of migratory waterfowl. It also contains some of the last intact remnants of Central American tropical dry forest. Before becoming a park, the area was a massive cattle ranch for 50 years. In the 3rd photo below is the Great Blue Heron, the largest heron in North and Central America, standing up to 4.5 feet tall with a 6-foot wingspan. It is a winter migrant to Costa Rica from North America and prefers open water edges, wide mudbanks, and deep river channels. (I have seen them in the lagoons back home in San Diego.) The next photo with the iridescent green feathers of an Amazon Kingfisher on its fishing perch is my favorite. I love the look of this bird that hunts by dive-bombing the river. We also spotted White-faced Capuchin Monkeys forging for berries and seed pods in the trees. These are some of the most intelligent primates in the Americas. While they love fruit, they are omnivorous and will eat insects, small lizards, and bird eggs.

Returning from the river, we took the Cultural Tour where our guide told us about the daily life of the Sabeneros, the Guanacaste cowboys from the previous era of the ranch. While the hacienda has evolved into large-scale industrial processing of sugar cane, on the tour we learned the old methods of processing sugar cane with the Trapiche, an ox-driven mill used to extract juice that was boiled into a hardened form known as tapa de dulce (raw brown sugar). In the past, the oxen were worked hard all day, now the few remaining rest in the shade and only work for 10 minutes every hour for the tour and are fed sugar cane as a treat. After visiting an old farm house, we cooked corn tortillas with the guide's mother. We shaped the tortillas by hand from the corn meal dough and fired them over the wood-fired stove. They were delicious with the local cheese! After the tour, we enjoyed the Casado lunch served at the Casona. After returning to Playa Negra, we went for a sunset beach walk before going to dinner with my Dad at La Vida Buena. The Caprese Pizza was very good!

On Wednesday, we returned to the beach for our morning Yoga and Pilates. We took a couple AcroYoga pictures of us doing Bird on Hands and Needle poses on the sand. While having breakfast at Jalapeños, we played around with the photos, trying to get Gemini to edit the poses so I am standing instead of lying down in the sand. AI sucks at understanding the physics of AcroYoga, always getting confusing by the correct placement of arms and legs. I did get a decent standing version of the Bird on Hands pose by comparing it to same move in Dirty Dancing, but I could not get it to understand a standing version of the Needle that didn't look insane. There was no surfing for me on this trip. In all our visits to Playa Negra, we have never seen the ocean so flat at this surf break made famous by the movie, Endless Summer II.

Video of Baby Howler Monkey playing in the trees at Playa Negra.

Walking back after our afternoon swim, we found a troupe of monkeys traveling through the trees, stopping to spend time in a Mango tree. Mantled Howler Monkeys are named for the long golden fur along their flanks. They are the loudest and largest of all the New World Monkeys. Since it was sunset, one of the males was emitting his howling call, amplified by an enlarged hyoid bone in his throat, acting as a natural resonating chamber or loudspeaker. For dinner, we returned to Mycelium for another taste of the delicious Yuca Fries. I ordered the Tuna Tataki while Tori had the Crispy Mushroom Satay and we shared the Brownie with Coconut Gelato.

On Thursday, our last full day in Costa Rica, we planned to drive up the coast to Playa Avellana but we discovered a slow tire leak. The local mechanic shop removed a large screw from the tire, but was not able to plug it successfully. To limit our driving with the small spare, we went to the Corazón Surf Café instead that is now located at El Mutante Skatepark, only a five-minute drive from the beach. We packed up after our afternoon ocean swim and my dad made chicken and rice for dinner. The next morning at 7am, we drove to the airport and the rental company was nice and didn't charge anything for the punctured tire.