The Boeing swoops down over a valley dotted with fields and farms, then small factories and a sprawling city, lights coming on in the tropical twilight. I am arriving in San José, the capital of Costa Rica and let me tell you that I am a little nervous. It is not for my safety, because Costa Rica is a peaceful place, they call it the Switzerland of Latin America. But I have no idea where I’ll be lying tomorrow night, or the night after, or…

A patient man in his early 60s meets me as I cross the barrier of madness from the airport into the real world. I know where I’m staying tonight, and he takes me there, but all I have for the rest of my stay is a coupon book and a list of a hundred or more hotels that will gladly trade them for a room. and breakfast. Or so I’ve been told. ‘Just make it up as you go’ the good folks told me before I left London. Apparently they’ve been using this system for self-drive vacations for years, and it works like a charm. They could arrange it all for me in advance, they said, but where’s the fun in that?

On the plane I flipped through the list of hotels and decided to try Almonds and Corals Lodge, an eco lodge in the woods where you sleep under a tarp. It looks amazing in the photos and I am dying to try it. The next morning, my patient friend returns, this time with a man from a car rental company in a fancy little four-wheel drive car. We read maps, discuss my route and I confess the growing tension I am experiencing. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a SatNav, presses the buttons for my destination and sets it up on the dash. I relax. They give me a cell phone and the idea is that I call ahead to reserve my room every night, no more than a day before. I try the phone. After 2 rings, a nice lady in the jungle answers and confirms that they have room. She takes my name, and I’m ready.

‘Pure Life!’ exclaims the rental man – that’s ‘Vida Pura’ for you and me, and Costa Ricans say it all the time. What a great way to prepare each other for a positive take on the day. I return the compliment and we slap each other. A few minutes later, my bag is in the back of the car and I pull out of the parking lot.

The road climbs into the mountains, the traffic thins, and suddenly there is a sweeping view of the slopes leading to the Caribbean – a mesmerizing sight. My jungle lodge is just south in Puerto Viejo, as far from San Jose as you can get. But Costa Rica is a small place and by lunchtime I’m almost there. I stop at a beach bar where a small group of surfers are having their coffee, pausing to gaze fondly at the crashing waves. A magazine clipping tattooed on the wall tells me that this is where a special wave called ‘Salsa Brava’ arrives. I consider texting London to quit my job and sell the flat.

When I get to the hostel, it’s everything I projected on it, and more. Clean wooden boardwalks wind around giant trees hanging from lianas, to wooden platforms raised on stilts, with pitched canvas roofs like a well-organized and unexpectedly luxurious safari camp. The next morning I wake to the distant roar of howler monkeys, a wondrous sound that still haunts me. Birds sing from all sides as I wander over to a breakfast of tropical fruit. just no get much better than this.

I spend the whole day exploring the jungle, they show me plants, insects, birds and butterflies of all kinds. My favorite is a bright blue butterfly the size of my hand fluttering dazzlingly into the sun’s rays. Over lunch, I plan my next move and ask the lady at the desk her opinion of Sarapiquí, which my guide says is a wildlife hotspot. She approves and calls me ahead of time. Of the four hotels in the area, the first option is woefully full, but the next one has space and I’m tidy.

Stopping at a town on my way, a little boy shows me his beetles. There are seven of them on his staff, each about three inches long with big horns and funny feet. His mom shows up and we happily spend ten minutes making them awkwardly crawl on our hands and arms. There are another 50 or so of them on a bush in his garden, a beetle festival is going on.

My hotel in Sarapiquí is a lovely little place and they show me a room with a view of their farm. It’s not very big, about the size of a tennis court, and it’s wrapped in a net. I am curious and discover that they breed butterflies. Through convoluted gates I enter and find a world of fluttering splendor: hundreds of bright wings flap merrily mating, laying eggs, and mating again. The chrysalises are exported to fanciers around the world: a trade in vivid glimpses of the bright Costa Rican sun.

I’m here to visit La Selva, a research station that reveals the secrets of life in the rainforest. The coordinates are on my SatNav and I park, pay a surprisingly modest entrance fee, walk across a bridge and into an area of ​​neat cabins next to a Visitor Center. I didn’t know they had them in the jungle. A bearded young man in a University of Arizona Tucson T-shirt waves at me as a family of coatis runs across the lawn behind him and disappears into a tree. There’s a trail map that would keep Richard Long busy for a fortnight, so I settle on a modest loop that promises a lot. I’m not disappointed. In an hour and a half I see more wildlife than David Attenborough could tackle in a 6-part miniseries.

At the end of the day, there is just enough time to drive to the small town of La Fortuna, just below a huge volcano called Arenal. I arrive at dusk and, seeing smoke coming from above, I ask the hotel receptionist if it is about to explode. Not tonight, she says. Arenal is permanently active and happily spends its time steaming and gently belching lava, which I can only see as a jagged rim at the top of its steep cone, glowing red as night falls. Tired after a busy day, I head to the hot springs and gently soak in the volcanic waters as the crescent moon appears. Every now and then there is a distant rumble as Arenal goes about his work.

Although I haven’t come very far from the lowland forest of La Selva, here I am high enough to be in a different kind of forest, and the next day I walk the ‘Puente Suspendentes’ – metal walkways that stretch out so Enterprising through small connected gorges. paths through the trees. My guide stops and lifts a leaf to reveal a small frog, no more than an inch long, red but with bright blue legs. I’m sure it has a strong scientific name, but ‘Blue Jeans Frog’ suits it very well. We see birds in abundance, and I wonder how many live here. About 170 species, I’m told, which puts my London bird table in a new light.

I’m not much of a birder now, although I imagine I can tell a robin from a wren, but looking through my guide’s binoculars made me realise, for the first time, that I could become one here. The colors, for starters, are amazing. You may not believe me when I tell you that I saw birds with bright purple chests and strikingly red legs, elegant little boys all in turquoise, [others]. Later I stopped for a muffin and juice (don’t ask me to name it, but it was delicious) at a hummingbird gallery, where I swear a hundred hummingbirds buzzed and flew around plastic devices filled with an enticing liquid. I saw toucans carrying the weight of beaks the size of a decent banana, wildly decorated in seven different colors. And large macaws that romantically fly in pairs through the treetops by the sea.

There is something special about Costa Rica that I am beginning to understand. Here they really enjoy and delight in the nature that surrounds them and apply a lot of ingenuity so that you can share the experience. And in fact they like to receive visitors, it shows in the faces that light up when a tourist enters the hotel door, or walks down the street, or stops to ask the way. I’m sure it’s not just the money, but if it is, I don’t envy them a dime.

I spent the next two days in northwestern Costa Rica, dry plains where they raise cattle. I phone a converted cattle ranch in a national park and hand my little coupon to a man with a face the color of walnut and wearing a white Stetson. Steak and beer for dinner. The next morning they milk the cows, fry up a hearty breakfast, and ask me if I’d like to go hiking, rafting, or horseback riding. They had some horses to round up. I narrow my eyes at a squinting Clint Eastwood and say I’ll give them a hand.

We mounted small horses with surprisingly comfortable saddles, and the cowboys were off. I do not. I click my heels into the flanks of my mare. She wanders around a bit, but she doesn’t seem too sure until she tells me the secret. She needs a kiss. Not on her lips, thank God, but the sound of a kiss, out loud. With the command system thus mastered, we set off. A merry gang of cowboys blowing kisses. Twenty minutes later we’re circling a group of horses, running to find the fugitives, yelling and howling like in the movies. It was fun. We led them back to the ranch, arriving in a cloud of dust and neighs that would swell the heart of any proud farmer in the Wyoming badlands.

It’s beach time. At dinner I meet a lovely couple from Virginia who come to Costa Rica every year, who recommend a town on the coast. I found a promising hotel there on my list, pulled out my cell phone, and within minutes, I was booked for the next night. I rest, swim in the pool and the ocean, eat fish for dinner and sleep like a log to the sound of waves lazily lapping against the shore.

My time is up. I haven’t been to Ostional, where hundreds of turtles arrive to lay their eggs, or to Manuel Antonio, where sloths hang from trees above forest trails behind tropical beaches. I have not explored the Southwest, where humpback whales and dolphins patrol the Pacific off the Osa Peninsula, whose forests are so thick and undisturbed that they are home to jaguars. Nor have I gone up into the mountains to the cloud forests of Monteverde or San Gerardo de Dota to see the Resplendent Quetzal, the sacred bird of the Mayans.