Costa Rica: Rise - Glamping with Toucans

In the morning we took a taxi with all our bags to a car rental lot. It took like an hour but we got a large white van with nine seats and plenty of room. The only other choice we had was a six seat car with just enough room for us and our stuff but we got the van for all the driving on rougher roads in the next few months. We put our stuff in the van and started our 4 hour drive to Rise (an intentional self sustaining community/retreat centre). 

  My dad works with them and they invited us to go glamping at Rise for a few days before the grand opening. We drove through the jungle the whole way there and were on winding side roads in the middle of nowhere. We even drove across a swinging bridge that the van barely squeezed through.

Once we got there it was a big open plain in the jungle with these cool white cloth tents with actual beds on jute carpet floors. After we dropped off our bags we took a tour of the land. There was a main hall with Wifi  and lounge for people to do their work. 

   There was also a full kitchen where they cooked all the meals for everyone and they only used food grown on site.  We also got to tour the huge garden where they grew all the food and we saw a grass runway they used to fly guests in and out of the retreat centre. 

  After the tour we had dinner and had some of the delicious vegetables from the garden we just toured. As we ate we heard that there was some toucans down at the end of the runaway. After an amazing dinner we all walked down to go see them but there weren't any there at the time so we headed to our tents for the night.

The next morning I woke up first so I decided to go see if could spot those toucans by the runway. The sun was just rising and on my way I saw a Fiery Billed Aracari Toucan perched in a pink blossom tree. 

  The toucan had a yellow chest with a black splotch and a thick red stripe just below it. The head, back, and wings were all black along with the bottom half of the beak. The top half on the other hand was incredibly colourful it had orange at the tip of the beak that blended into yellow at the base of the top half of the beak. 

  It must have seen me too though because just like that it flew off into the jungle. I went to tell everyone but only Kaden was awake and he didn't believe me. Later, once everyone had woken up, six toucans flew right over our tent and landed in some nearby trees. 

One of them even landed in a rainbow eucalyptus tree. As the thin paper like bark of the tree peels off it reveals a new coloured layer of bark beneath it and so forth.

We took some cool photos before they flew off and attempted to raid a flycatchers nest. Toucans are actually omnivores and will attack smaller birds nests and eat the hatchlings/eggs. It was too far away to see if they actually succeeded before the flycatchers were able to chase them off into the thicket of trees. Once the toucans fled we went to have breakfast in the main hall. There was a ton of fruit I had never even heard of before so I decided to try a bit of them all. Some of them were really good and others not so much. After breakfast we had a larger scale tour of the land. 

There was these big fish ponds where they used aquaponics to raise fish from young in a sustainable eco friendly way. Unlike the massive fish nets that trough the ocean and kill all sorts of marine life. There was also tons of fruit trees and bushes all over and I was able to recognize some of the fruits we had just tried at breakfast. As it turns out Rise was a lot bigger then I thought it was and it covered acres of land some of it were fruit trees and gardens but most of it was jungles and rivers. 

  So after the tour Kaden and I went and explored in the jungle. The terrain was quite difficult to navigate with all the thorns and thickets so we tried to remain near the river bank for an easier path. Once we arrived back at the tents it was nearly time for dinner. The food was amazing and soon the sun set so we made our way back to our tents.

  In the morning we saw a Caracara flying by the main hall. A Caracara is a large bird of prey with an orange beak, orange legs, black feathers and a white head with a black crest on the top. It was really far away so we couldn't take a photo so this is one off of google for reference.

We went horseback riding in the afternoon. The last time I had gone horseback riding was when we were in Costa Rica a few years back. Luckily it was pretty easy to figure it out again. We rode through the jungle  for about an hour before stopping next to a long winding foot trail. At the end of the trail there was a small waterfall nestled neatly into the jungle.

   The waterfall fed into a small pool like lagoon before slowly running down into the river. I jumped into the lagoons cold refreshing water to cool off from a day in the heat. After our swim we made it back to Rise shortly before dinner. 

 On our last day we didn't have much left to see. Sage, Mom, and I went back to the waterfall on foot and everyone else was just relaxing back at the main hall.  The next morning we packed our bags and set out on the road.