When we arrived at the lodge, the weather was wild, pouring rain, strong wind along with a bit of lightning and thunder. We had a sinking feeling that our luck had run out. How dare it rain us, never mind the fact that we were in the rain forest in the middle of the rainy season. The lodge manager, Danny, greeted us warmly and took us down to our cabin. This was a hike down a hill (Natalie counted about 450 steps down from the lodge restaurant). Danny told us as we walked down the hill in the pouring rain that as there was only one other couple staying at the lodge and if the weather was too much for us in our open-air cabin, we could always move up the hill to a more enclosed cabin. Nice to know but we were determined to get “away from it all”.
Now, our cabin was truly amazing! We had booked La Vainilla, the “honeymoon suite”, a private hut about 200 yards down the hill from the resort and on the way to the beach. It has two stories, the bottom floor enclosed with a bed and bath and the top floor completely open to the elements, with bed and bath. No walls, just railings on three sides offering a 270 degree panorama of a rainforest valley and the Pacific ocean 1/2 mile away. The beds were enclosed in mosquito netting, but oddly enough there are no mosquitoes (being on a hillside, there is no standing water on the property, and hence no mosquitos). The nets are to keep other interesting creatures from joining you during the night.
The first afternoon here temperature-wise it was warm. The rain had stopped but it was very, very humid. Edie felt chilled, bundled up in long pants and a sweater and then crawled into bed. Chris and Natalie took a hike down to the beach to check out the surf, and on the way back spotted some bats. We then headed over the restaurant for dinner, a huge steak with mashed potatoes. We were all wiped out and fell into bed around 8pm.
Lying in the dark, listening to the jungle all around, none of us said anything at the time, but we were all thinking, “what have we gotten ourselves into?” Would we survive four days of this? But it turned out that the best of our vacation had yet to come…
See more Photos of our El Remanso Lodging.
The Next Day: Costa Rica: Exploring the Osa Rainforest
The Whole Trip: Costa Rica: The Summary