Cycling in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama This was the best cycling trip I have done with Exodus. In fact, this is my fifth cycling trip with exodus.The organization and leadership of Roberto made all the difference in experiencing a wonderful trip. His team including Steve, Paulo, Luise and Rolando worked effectively and efficiently together and interacted very well with all the clients. Though they all worked extremely, they had fun with each other and with us. It was a privilege to be on the trip with them. This is caliber of staff Exodus needs to support and hire.
A truly fantastic experience in Costa Rica Discover Costa Rica is a fantastic holiday that is suitable for all ages. The itinerary is expertly put together, meaning you really get a sense of the whole country and the various different ecosystems. 6 lots of 2 night stays with the bookends in San Jose and a comfortable mini-bus for the entire trip (with wifi) take you from the Caribbean ocean and sea turtles in Tortugero, to the volcano and hot springs of Arenal, to the cloud forrests of Monteverde and Savegres, and the nature reserves of Manuel Antonio and Esquinas. Each of these locations present their own individual highlights and the travel in between is well planned and not overly long (4 hours on average on a travel day).
This trip will go down as one of my best, if not the best, holiday experiences. If you love birds and wildlife it is not to be missed. There is quite a lot of traveling between locations, 4-4 1/2 hrs according to our guide each time & he wasn't far wrong. However the journey was always punctuated by stops for loo breaks, drinks etc but also for spotting the wildlife be it a soggy looking sloth high up in a tree in the middle of town, a pack of squirrel monkeys crossing electricity wires or a king vulture sitting in a tree that had our driver Randall very excited as he had only ever seen them in flight before. On the plus side 2 nights are spent in each location so there is plenty of time to relax and unwind. Even the early starts were not a problem as it is dark by 5.30pm but light by 5am so early nights were the norm. We soon realised however that our guide was planning the timetable to the weather forecast and if he recommended an early start it was because there was a risk of rain later whilst a late start was because we would be waking up to rain. We had been concerned about going to Costa Rica in October as it is during the rainy season however we were fortunate in that most of the time it rained at night. Only once did we have a whole afternoon of rain and that was when we were in the rainforest! Again our guide must have known as we did 2 early morning walks before the rain started and the rest of the day was free - we still went swimming in the pool, had to be done! On the plus side, going in low season meant that the majority of the time we were the only people in the hotel or doing a tour whereas, knowing the current popularity of Costa Rica, I had expected to be surrounded by other travellers.