Costa Rica: Volcanoes, Cloud Forest & Coast

January is the start of the dry season in Costa Rica, which mostly means it rains a bit less. We had sun most mornings and a shower most afternoons, and nobody minded, because it was 80 degrees while everyone's family back in Texas was dealing with a cold snap.

We started at Arenal, the near-perfect volcano cone above the town of La Fortuna. It showed itself fully only once, at breakfast on the second day, and the whole dining room got up and went out on the terrace. In the afternoon, we walked the hanging bridges through the canopy, and in the evening we sat in the hot springs, which are fed by water heated by the volcano.

Monteverde was a different world, cool and misty, with moss on everything. The highlight was a guided night walk. Our guide found a tarantula in its burrow, a sleeping toucan, and a two-toed sloth climbing slowly down a tree. One traveler, who had said on day one that she was "not a bug person," ended up taking more photos of the tarantula than anyone.

Then we went down to the Pacific at Manuel Antonio, where the park is small but full of animals. We saw three more sloths, a lot of iguanas, and a troop of white-faced capuchins. One capuchin came down from a tree, walked straight up to a beach bag, unzipped it, and took a ham sandwich. It was the most confident thing any of us had ever seen. The sandwich belonged to our guide, who should have known better. She took it well.