Costa Rica November 11-18, 2017

My brother took care of the condo for the week. My flight was $375.00 round trip from OIA to San Jose, Costa Rica. The 5 of us guys split the first two days of fishing and my brother and I handled the last day on our own. All 3 fishing trips cost a total of $5400.00, but we took some of the biggest and most expensive boats the first 2 days of fishing. We could have gone cheaper but this was a trip of a lifetime for us and we went big. It paid off though. The four wheel ATV tour we took was $160.00 for 4 hours. I took $5000 with me for fishing, food, drinks, souvenirs and incidentals. I came home with $2000.

 

I wish I did, but unfortunately I didn't think about it until after the trip was over and I was back at the condo.

 

I will do what I can as far as telling you about my trip planning.

First of all, the condo was won as a vacation deal from a CCA banquet. I'm on the executive board of the local chapter of the Coastal Conservation Anglers. I brought my brother and his wife to the annual banquet last year and they bid and won the condo stay for $2400. If you want to see the condo we stayed in, go to www.hummingbirdvacations.com and there is a ton of info. The owner of the condo is an American and a big supporter of the CCA. He has a woman named Carolina that lives locally in Costa Rica and is the manager of the condo for him. Her contact info is also on their website. Carolina arranged for us to be picked up at the airport. The driver stopped at the Walmart near the airport so we could load up on groceries and then we also stopped at a local restaurant for lunch since our drive in to the Los Suenos Resort was about 1.5 hours. Carolina asked and then arranged for the 3 days of fishing on the different boats. I told her we wanted 2 offshore days and I told her which boats and which days we wanted them. I told her we also wanted 1 inshore fishing day for Rooster fish and I told her the day and the boat. She arranged all 3 trips before we arrived and we paid upon arrival in cash. She would have also arranged any golfing, ATV tours, ziplines or anything else but we decided to figure those out on our own. Two of our guys did golf while my brother and I went Rooster fishing. There is an awesome course right at the resort. We did meet another tour operator in the town of Jaco while we were there and it was her that arranged our ATV trip for us. Her name was Daniella and you can reach her at www.danikatours.com or check out Danikatours on Facebook according to her literature.

I hope this helps someone. It really was very helpful having people in country to help you navigate the economy and arrange the excursions you want to go on. Daniella even went on the ATV trip with us and had a lot of fun.

 

In the areas of Jaco and Los Suenos I felt very safe. The Los Suenos resort is a gated community and you have to check through a guard to enter. There was another gate and guard to enter our condo neighborhood within the resort complex. There was also roving security guards at night. I was called in the middle of the night by the security guard to tell me me car door was left open. A couple of our guys went into town drinking and left the door wide open to the SUV when they drove home. We rented an SUV from the owner of the condo and we drove ourselves everywhere except back and forth to the airport. It was pretty easy to get around. Driving there was similar to the driving here except that you didn't feel threatened to get pulled over by the police and many of the traffic laws there felt as only a suggestion. I'm sure if you're not careful that it could happen to you but the locals I talked to said that it was a fairly crime free place unless you went into the big city (San Jose).

 

We had 5 anglers on Monday, 4 anglers on Wednesday because 1 decided to stay at the condo and sleep and then only 2 anglers on Friday's inshore trip.

The 5 anglers shared the cost of the Monday and Wednesday trips. My brother and I split the cost of the inshore Rooster trip.

 

I never asked that question but maybe I can still find out. They all appeared to be standard "6 pack" boats to me.