LONELY PLANET'S OFFICIAL ITINERARY INFORMATION
Itinerary: Riding the Río San Juan
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TEN DAYS / LA VIRGEN TO TORTUGUEGO
This trip is only 200km, and could be done in a week if the tides, weather and the various independent boatmen you’ll need all work out. But if you’re going to the trouble (and expense), get your captain to take it slowly and you’ll see more wildlife and incredible scenery than you ever imagined.
Travel exclusively by boat in some of Costa Rica’s (and Nicaragua’s) most remote regions near the sparsely populated northern Caribbean coast.
From San José, head to the tiny town of La Virgen, a rafting and kayaking mecca where you can take a ride on the Río Sarapiquí and spend the night at the luxurious lodge Centro Neotrópico Sarapiquís. Then head up the river to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí: take a day to wander through banana plantations, spot wildlife and mingle with busy scientists at the Estación Biológica La Selva. Leave terra firma and grab the morning boat up the Río Sarapiquí to Trinidad Lodge, on the south bank of the Río San Juan. Stay on a working ranch, ride horses and go birding before setting out, again by boat, along the Río San Juan, with your eye to the Caribbean coast.
This river (Nicaraguan territory) offers an incredible ride, which will take you through a combination of ranches, forest, wildlife and old war zones (from when Contras inhabited the area), and through the remote Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Barra del Colorado, to the village of Barra del Colorado and its loose assortment of lodges, where travelers can go sportfishing, bird-watching and looking for crocs. Afterwards, continue to the more touristed village of Tortuguero, to watch green sea and leatherback turtles and to canoe through the infinite canals of Parque Nacional Tortuguero, Costa Rica’s mini-Amazon. Then head to San José via water taxi and bus through Cariari and Guápiles.
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