San Jose looked almost clean in the morning. The skies were clear, with white rain clouds hanging over the dark green mountains surrounding the Meseta Central. From our third-floor balcony, we could see the colorful yellows and pinks of buildings that seemed washed of darkness and grime by an overnight rain.

It was a change in scenery from the night before, when our bus from the airport shuttled us through a maze of low, metal-roofed bars and houses. In the darkness, everything looked run-down, with feeble streetlights casting yellowish glows on metal bars and spikes in front of every closed door and window. Prostitutes in miniskirts and leather patrolled the corners just up the street from a homeless community bedding down for the night in cardboard boxes on a wide part of the sidewalk. In the only bar with an open door and a light inside, a crowd of people stood to watch the replay of a boxing match on a small television set in the upper corner of the bar.

In the morning, however, our balcony faced a different direction, toward the heart of the city and several taller, commercial buildings. We had breakfast in the hotel with fresh pineapple, mango, banana, papaya and watermelon. The pineapple was particularly noticeable because it was white, not yellow like the pineapples available in the states, and had a sweeter taste and crisper texture.

A driver came at 8 a.m. to take us to the airport. Although it was light out, the side streets still looked run-down, but lots of people were walking around dressed up for church. Most of the stores were closed and still barred; Hari said the clutter, colorful but decrepit houses and low buildings reminded her of India.

The driver dropped us off at a small terminal of the airport, where airline employees weighed our luggage and led us across the tarmac to a Cessna Caravan headed for the Drake airport, on the Osa Peninsula in the southwest corner of Costa Rica.

After takeoff we had to do a traffic pattern to gain enough altitude to clear the mountains surrounding San Jose. We flew west above one set of white rain clouds, which cast dark shadows on the green countryside.

Our pilot cut the landing close, banking low over the forest at a couple hundred feet to hit a one-lane gravel runway. A wooden lean-to structure with a bench underneath was marked "Airport By Drake Bay Wilderness Resort," and was the "airport's" only infrastructure.

A shiny four-wheel drive jeep the color of a hibiscus and straight out of Jurassic Park was waiting to pick us up. It parked along the side of the runway, in thick green grass that waved in the wind from the propellers. Solid green jungle broken by occasional palm trees and splotches of red flowers filled in around the airport.

After a short wait while the driver helped push the airplane off to the side so another one could land, we climbed into the back bench seats of the jeep and set out along a badly scarred, reddish-brown dirt road. The driver slowed down for potholes, most of which were filled with gray-brown water, and for rivers, which were flowing but shallow.

We drove past a few farms and some really skinny cows. Stone spheres, made by a vanished pre-Columbian society, sat in the front yards and fields of many of the aluminum-roofed farms. Most of the houses had clotheslines hanging up despite the high humidity.

Every house seemed to have a dog, many of which came out to check out the car as it passed. At one point, we picked up two kids, who jumped onto the bumper, and a really short, stubby dog, which ran along behind as fast as its three-inch legs would carry it.

The two kids (and the dog) helped us unload our luggage at the long silvery beach at Drake Bay.

The beach curved off into a rocky point. The sand was made of large pebbles and crushed shells, and rocks stuck up out of the shallow water. Although a boat was supposed to come pick us up and transport us the rest of the way to our lodge, the driver said the tide was too low for the boat to land, and we would have to walk. The boat would come back later and pick up our luggage (which, as part of the requirement for boarding the plane, had to weigh less than 25 pounds per person).

We walked down the beach to the point, where we followed a path into the forest. It was stiflingly hot and humid in the trees. Although the jungle had been cut back fairly well for occasional houses, everything was still overwhelmingly green, making it like we were wearing tinted sunglasses. After a few minutes, a woman ran up to tell us we were almost there, and that the lodge was just across a suspension bridge, and that lunch would be ready for us when we got there.

The bridge spanned a glassy, mint-green river. Schools of dark-colored fish hung out just under the surface, which was cratered with insect impacts. The bridge, made of four-foot planks laid down long-way and nailed into an underlying frame, swayed as we crossed over it.

On the other side of the river, we climbed a steep hill until we reached a trail intersection and sculpted path up to the lodge. A sign pointed right to the dock, another pointed left to the beach. A sign straight ahead, in front of a series of long, narrow cement steps covered with an arch of trees, identified the straight path as the one leading to the La Paloma Lodge.

Up the cement stairs we reached the main lodge. Constructed from dark reddish-brown wood with a shiny, almost waxy varnish, the structure had a lower observation deck and upper dining room with a bar. There were several long wooden tables, each neatly set. A girl brought us juice and another woman pointed us to a telescope on the deck set up to observe a local sloth. We started to relax as the others from our jeep straggled in, looking happy to have arrived.

Our luggage arrived and was taken to our room while we drank our juice, and when we were done the girl showed us to our cabin. It had a huge open front, which faced out toward the ocean, and a deck with a bench swing and deck chairs. White mosquito netting hung over our bed.

The girl told us to come back soon for lunch, so we dropped our backpack off and walked back to the lodge. On the way in, she pointed out a small, empty bird nest with an egg in it; as we walked to the lodge the mother bird had returned.

The lodge operated by talking to us while we ate, so as we ate lunch (a noodle dish with ell peppers and onions, accompanied by fresh fruit) the hotel manager explained our options for the rest of the day and what activities we could expect the next few days.

After lunch, we decided to kayak up the river we had crossed earlier. We followed the trail down to the dock, where three scarlet macaws flew over and landed in a nearby tree. As we waited for the dockworker to get our kayaks, we watched the birds, which were pretty noisy.

The dock was actually just a cement stairway running down into the river, where the hotel workers could load and unload food from the mainland and building supplies for the lodge.

Our kayaks were bright, pointy sit on tops, and we paddled them up the river and underneath the suspension bridge. The tide had come in since we first landed, and the water was up several feet from when we had crossed the bridge. Past the bridge, tall trees and vines gradually closed in on the river until the foliage was right up along the bank.

Twenty minutes up the river, we came to a small rapid, with a drop-off of maybe a foot. Eric tried to paddle up it and was rebuffed, but as he emptied out his boat, a tidal surge carried the water level up and over the rapid. The rushing water noise went suddenly quiet. He got back in the boat and paddled straight over what had been a waterfall, then waited at the top for the tide to ebb before returning.

After the rapid, we paddled back down the river. Along the way, we heard bushes crashing, and then saw trees shaking, and finally found a howler monkey climbing around in one of the taller trees. It was mostly black, with disheveled hair around the face. Just after we spotted it, it turned and headed away from the river, disappearing into the treetops.

We kept paddling, past the dock and out into the bay. We could see the beach where we had unloaded far off on the other shore, and we turned away from it and hugged the coastline along the hill leading up to the lodge. A toucan, recognizable only because of its huge white beak, flew over the jungle as we floated on the ocean.

We returned to the dock, passing a floating coconut in the river mouth, and decided to try walking over to the swimming beach. The path led up the hill to the lodge, then down to the other side of the point, where we found a sandy beach good enough for swimming. The drop-off was steep, so the shorebreak broke directly on the sand. The water was warm, not even noticeably different than the air. There were several large rocks poking out of the water, and more just underneath the surface, so we contented ourselves by trying to break a coconut on a rock (it didn't work).