Can I travel with my toddler into the jungles of Costa Rica? | Canada Voices

“Are you ready to go to the end of the world?”

My husband, son and I have just arrived in the tiny town of Sierpe – the gateway to the Osa Peninsula – and are about to board a boat to the headwaters of the Pacific Ocean when our guide, Alonso Morales, poses the question. Even though we haven’t left yet, the Sierpe River (meaning snake) hints at wild adventure, which immediately holds true as we spot a cantankerous crocodile thrashing on the bank after setting off.

The boat slithers through the sinuous waterway, weaving through lush, verdant mangroves to the yawning mouth of the ocean, where brackish breakers are roiling in a surging sea. A heavy rain has descended – it’s a La Niña year – and the wind is whipping my poncho away from my body as I attempt to keep it tucked around my now crying two-year-old son.

“Today is easy,” shouts Alonso over the white noise. “We’ve had much higher waves than these during rainy season.”

The boat banks as our captain cuts the engine and rides a swell of seawater through two barren sea stacks that protrude, jagged and lethal, from the ocean. Just as I’m thinking that if this is easy, I don’t want to experience hard, we shoot out of the rocks and the waves and rain ease. My son, now mollified after munching through a mound of cookies, promptly falls asleep.

My family and I have spent the past week exploring Costa Rica’s well-trodden tourist trail, seeking out sustainable and accessible family-friendly hotels and activities before heading to a place where roads are swallowed up by the rainforest and the sky seeps seamlessly into an endless ocean horizon. A place where accommodation after accommodation attempted to dissuade me from visiting with my young son.

We eased into our time in Costa Rica before seeking out an area of the country I’m told is “too remote” and “too difficult to access” for a toddler. It’s been a year since we last travelled internationally with our son, and we are unsure about how he will handle several flights with long layovers and hours in the car on the country’s infamous narrow and winding roads made treacherous in rainy season. We’re coasting on an endless supply of kid-friendly snacks and the faint hope that he will take to travel again like he has in the past.

It turns out that we needn’t have worried.

In La Fortuna, he squeals with glee while wobbling over the Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges, and in between the time we spend suspended above the jungle canopy on the nine different contraptions, we spot blue jeans poison frogs, orange-headed, black masked motmots, swinging spider monkeys and several eyelash pitvipers rendered miniature in their vast rainforest surroundings.

We relax in the sumptuous and soothing hot spring river of Tabacon Resort and Spa before indulging in the hotel’s six-course Ephemeral Table, where we feast on fresh yellowfin tuna, smoked trout and Pacific octopus, slathered with sauces so addictive I can barely resist the urge to lick my plate clean. Our son got his own kid-friendly menu, which included a dry ice chocolate ice cream dish when the staff learned that was his favourite flavour.

After jolting our way on rough roads to Senda Monteverde, a resort that blends seamlessly into a meticulously planted native garden, we watch a light mist steal stealthily into the cloud forest that backs on to our bungalow. We hike through the Aguti Reserve, spotting the burnished coat of the common squirrel-like creature – after which the reserve is named – skittering away into the bush before our vision is obscured by heavier fog and rain. A family of Pizotes, replete with several infants, much to the delight of our son, clambers up the banana trees outside our bungalow, while rescued sloths sleepily stretch and smirk at us in the Natuwa Wildlife Sanctuary, Monteverde’s newest animal reserve, where six two-toed sloths are being rehabilitated for eventual release back into the wild.

We then wind our way down the mountain to the periphery of Manuel Antonio National Park. At the gorgeous Arenas Del Mar Beachfront and Rainforest Resort, we learn that Pura Vida is not just a phrase but a way of life. The pure life is embodied in the way the staff greet my son by name every time they see him and in turn tell me about their own children. It’s in the way we salivate over the locally sourced seafood we enjoy on the beach, while our server scouts scuttling hermit crabs of all sizes for our curious toddler to inspect.

But it’s here, en route to the Corcovado Wilderness Lodge, to what feels like the edge of the Earth, we find true sanctuary. Cut off from the modern trappings and busy streets of Costa Rica’s seaside towns, we find a deep and authentic connection to nature in one of the most biodiverse regions of the country.

And the lodge lives up to the promise of its name: no road access with 30 all-inclusive rainforest and sea view villas – located on a private reserve – that blend luxury with sustainability while bordering one of Costa Rica’s most protected national parks. No crowds, just jungle. No technological distractions, just the sound of rustling macaws in the trees.

We dive into the experience on a tour with Innoceana – an organization that has partnered with the lodge and is working to preserve Costa Rica’s marine ecosystem in and around Corcovado National Park and Cano Island – glimpsing half a dozen spouting humpback whales, several pods of spotted dolphins and two lounging sea turtles sunning themselves on the ocean’s surface. We snorkel around coral reefs where my son dons miniature flippers and surprises us by jumping off the boat, staying buoyant just long enough to observe a sea urchin alongside a swarming school of king angelfish.

On Cano Island, while our son frolics in gentle waves on a sandy beach, we marvel at the history of the Indigenous Diquis people and the mystery of more than 350 pre-Columbian stone spheres that were found buried underground by the United Fruit Company in the 1930s. While most of the perfectly shaped stone spheres (ranging from 10 centimetres to over two metres in diameter) now have a home in a museum on the mainland, there is a single protected sphere in the centre of the island, located in an ancient graveyard. What the sphere was created for, or how it was transported to the island on a bamboo canoe, remains unknown.

Back at the lodge, I spend happy hour sipping a frosty beer 30 metres high in the canopy of an Alfaroa tree that I “climbed” thanks to ropes, a harness and a device that had me zipping up to the roof of rainforest. I relax in a bouncy net with a vibrant sunset ocean view that is obscured only by the occasional appearance of yellow-throated toucans and swinging spider monkeys, before rappelling back down at dusk under the guidance of experienced staff.

On a more family-friendly expedition, waves lick our rubber boots at the entrance to the Bat Cave, accessible only from the lodge’s black sand beach during low tide. We spot what is known as the Basilisk Jesús Cristo lizard – named for its ability to run on water to avoid predators – on a nature walk down to the beach. And even though we can’t swim here because of rip tides and crocodiles, we savour the salty sea air and the wild beauty of the landscape while my son plays soccer with a fallen coconut.

We depart the lodge on a calmer ocean, feeling like more tranquil versions of ourselves too. My son once again falls asleep with a light rain pattering on his peaceful face as we head back toward civilization, with the feeling of never having left home.

If you go

When travelling to multiple locations in one country I rent a car. Vamos-Rent-a-Car is a family-run operation and an excellent option if flying in and out of Liberia or San Jose. A 4×4 is recommended for Costa Rica, especially if heading to Sierpe or down the Caribbean coast. Perks include a cellphone with data for navigation and car seats are provided.

If the thought of driving to multiple locations is too daunting, Kontiki Wayra Costa Rica cruises are an excellent choice for families looking for a package holiday. They have specially tailored itineraries for up to 18 people during the summer months and major holidays and it’s an enjoyable and convenient way to see harder-to-access points along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast.

The writer was a guest of the resorts named in the article. None reviewed or approved the story before publication.