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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nEmanuel and Celina Kolb are filmmakers. They don’t travel to tick off sights \u2014 they travel to see, understand and tell stories. When they left Switzerland in early March, they had a camera, a backpack and the willingness to be surprised. What followed was a journey through a country that refuses to be staged \u2014 and that’s exactly what makes it unforgettable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This account doesn’t cover every hour \u2014 but the moments that stay. And it shows what’s possible when someone who genuinely knows a country opens the right doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Homewood Suites by Hilton Cariari, San Jos\u00e9 \u00b7 2 nights<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n They land at midday in San Jos\u00e9. No tourist welcome. The next morning, they head to a primary school \u2014 not a national park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Together with the local Rotary Club, Swiss Tropical Tourism had organised a donation of school supplies in Puriscal \u2014 books, notebooks, materials. Handed directly to children who rarely receive new materials. Celina had her camera. She’d later say it was the first image of the trip that truly moved her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That same afternoon, still in Puriscal: a visit to a cigar factory. Tobacco leaves rolled by hand by craftsmen who have mastered the same movement for thirty years. Emanuel filmed the hands \u2014 just the hands. That was enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [INTERN: IMAGE 2 here \u2014 Rotary Club book donation Puriscal, children and school materials]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Mawamba Lodge \u00b7 2 nights<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You can only reach Tortuguero by boat. Rainforest on both sides, water mirror-still in the early morning, a toucan in the branches. The national park is one of the most important sea turtle nesting sites in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One night: guided excursion in complete silence, red-light headlamps, thirty metres from a green sea turtle weighing over a hundred kilograms crawling out of the sea to nest. Not a word. Celina put her camera down. Some images are made without a lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Ave Sol River Sanctuary \u00b7 1 night<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rafting the Pacuare isn’t just sport: it’s a journey through a rainforest that grows right down to the water’s edge. Waterfalls dropping directly into the river. Parrots flying over the rapids. Between passages, the river widens and you hear nothing but water and birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [INTERN: IMAGE 7 here \u2014 Rafting Pacuare River or rainforest riverbank]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Le Cameleon Hotel \u00b7 1 night<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Punta Cocles sits south of Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean coast \u2014 a beach that looks nothing like what most people picture when they hear ‘Caribbean’. No mass tourism. Le Cameleon is a small design hotel directly on the beach. A night you don’t forget \u2014 especially when the morning begins with an empty stretch of sand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Hotel El Bamb\u00fa, Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqu\u00ed \u00b7 1 night<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarapiqu\u00ed lies in the Caribbean lowlands, where rivers widen and the rainforest climbs without restraint. For wildlife filmmakers, it’s a paradise: white-faced capuchins, spectacled caimans, kingfishers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That day, a visit that isn’t a tourist attraction \u2014 and that’s precisely why it ranks among the most memorable moments of the entire trip. Finca Roswitha: the D\u00e4hler family’s pineapple plantation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To truly understand Swiss Tropical Tourism, you need to come here. The story begins in the 1970s, when Johann D\u00e4hler \u2014 Swiss, entrepreneur, visionary \u2014 emigrated to West Africa and built a pineapple empire. In Switzerland he became known as the ‘Pineapple King’. After political unrest, the family left Africa and eventually found a new home in Costa Rica. What started as an agricultural project is today a large farm with pineapple, moringa, cacao and water buffalo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emanuel and Celina were guided through the plantation. Rows of pineapple under tropical sun, fruit heavy and ripe. The family history is told as you walk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [INTERN: IMAGE 4 here \u2014 Finca Roswitha pineapple plantation or Sarapiqu\u00ed landscape]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Tapirus Lodge \u00b7 2 nights<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Braulio Carrillo isn’t a tourist park. It’s one of the oldest and least developed national parks in Costa Rica \u2014 dense forest, steep slopes, clouds that move through the trees from inside. Two nights at the rhythm of the forest: early rise, birdsong before coffee. Costa Rica is home to over 900 bird species \u2014 more than all of Europe combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 La Laguna del Lagarto Lodge \u00b7 1 night<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Lowland rainforest north of Braulio Carrillo, near the Nicaraguan border. Wetlands, lagoons, jungle. Scarlet macaws, toucans, woodpeckers, kingfishers. A short night \u2014 that somehow feels long when you’re standing on the dock at five in the morning with mist lying over the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Arenal Roca Lodge \u00b7 Los Lagos Hotel \u00b7 El Fog\u00f3n de Chela<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Three nights in the Arenal region \u2014 but not at the same place. Swiss Tropical Tourism knows: the area is so diverse that a single hotel can’t do it justice. Arenal Roca for the first raw look at the volcano. Los Lagos for the hot springs and recovery after intense days. And El Fog\u00f3n de Chela \u2014 a small, family-run guesthouse right at the edge of the national park \u2014 to understand what ‘sleeping on location’ really means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [INTERN: IMAGE 5 here \u2014 Arenal Volcano at sunrise or hot springs La Fortuna]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Casa Rural Aroma de Campo \u00b7 2 nights<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Less well known than Arenal \u2014 and all the better for it. Bubbling mud pots, fumaroles rising from the ground, waterfalls dropping into untouched pools. The Casa Rural Aroma de Campo isn’t a lodge in the conventional sense \u2014 it’s a finca that takes in guests. Horses, chickens, mornings with fresh milk and homemade bread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Finca Amistad Cacao Lodge \u00b7 2 nights<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The R\u00edo Celeste is one of Costa Rica’s most striking natural sights \u2014 a river whose water takes on an otherworldly turquoise colour through volcanic minerals. The Finca Amistad Cacao Lodge connects two worlds: the geothermal nature of the volcano and the gentle farming of a cacao finca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Hacienda La Pac\u00edfica \u00b7 1 night<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hacienda La Pac\u00edfica in Ca\u00f1as is an institution: one of the oldest haciendas in Costa Rica, with wildlife conservation projects and its own nature reserve. A breather \u2014 and a meeting with the other face of Costa Rica, the hot, dry Guanacaste lowlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Santa Juana Lodge Rural Mountain Adventure Tour \u00b7 2 nights<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Naranjito and the Santa Juana area aren’t a tourist destination in the classic sense \u2014 and that’s their greatest strength. The lodge works directly with the local community: coffee farmers who explain the journey from fruit to cup. Families who cook what they grow. For Emanuel and Celina, it’s one of the most human moments of the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Aguila de Osa \u00b7 4 nights<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Osa Peninsula is considered by biologists to be one of the most species-rich regions on Earth. National Geographic once called it ‘the most biologically intense place on the planet’. Four nights at Drake Bay, at the Aguila de Osa \u2014 one of the most acclaimed lodges in the region, with direct access to Corcovado National Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What waits here can’t be summarised in a list: pumas crossing the trails at night, scarlet macaws flying in pairs over the jungle, dolphins at dawn on the boat. And Corcovado itself \u2014 one of the last primary rainforests in Central America, hard to reach, quiet, real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For filmmakers like Emanuel and Celina, these four days are the reason an entire trip exists. The light is different here. The air is different. And the silence is so dense you could almost touch it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83c\udfe8 Trogon Lodge \u00b7 2 nights<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The last stage climbs high into the mountains \u2014 to San Gerardo de Dota, a small valley in the Cordillera de Talamanca at over 2,000 metres. The Trogon Lodge is named after a bird \u2014 and that’s no coincidence. San Gerardo de Dota is one of the most reliable places in the world to spot the Resplendent Quetzal: the sacred bird of the Maya, with its impossible green plumage and long, trailing tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first morning, before breakfast, they find it. Sitting calmly in an aguacatillo tree, eating, barely moving. Celina had the 400mm lens. She takes thirty photos. One of them will be the image of the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two days in the cool cloud forest, with hiking and fresh air. On 29 March, back to San Jos\u00e9. On 30 March, the flight home to Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What made this trip possible<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A trip like this doesn’t come from a catalogue. Sixteen different accommodations, a book donation on the first day, the founding family’s pineapple plantation, rafting the Pacuare, four nights in Drake Bay \u2014 no algorithm plans this. A person who knows Costa Rica from the inside does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Swiss Tropical Tourism didn’t simply book hotels for Emanuel and Celina. The D\u00e4hler family organised the Rotary Club connection, made the Puriscal cigar factory visit possible, opened Finca Roswitha and selected the guides in Tortuguero, Braulio Carrillo and Drake Bay \u2014 guides whose knowledge doesn’t come from books, but from lived daily life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s the difference between a trip and an experience. And that’s precisely what’s hard to google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2714 A trip like this isn’t a mass product \u2014 it’s tailor-made. Yours doesn’t have to look like this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2714 Puriscal, Sarapiqu\u00ed, Santa Juana, Drake Bay: these aren’t tourist destinations \u2014 they’re places you only find with the right contacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2714 Birdwatching in Costa Rica isn’t a hobby for retirees \u2014 it’s an encounter with 900 species that don’t exist together anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2714 Building social projects into a trip costs nothing \u2014 and gives back more than any attraction.\u2714 Visit Finca Roswitha: not as a tour, but as understanding. Anyone who wants to know Swiss Tropical Tourism needs to come here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twenty-seven days. One country. No standard programme. Emanuel and Celina Kolb are filmmakers. They don’t travel to tick off sights \u2014 they travel to see, understand and tell stories. When they left Switzerland in early March, they had a camera, a backpack and the willingness to be surprised. What followed was a journey through a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[188,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-costa-rica","category-nicht-kategorisiert","th-blog blog-single has-post-thumbnail"],"yoast_head":"\n4\u20135 March<\/strong><\/td> San Jos\u00e9 & Puriscal \u2014 arrival and straight into it<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n This is the Costa Rica that Swiss Tropical Tourism wants to show \u2014 not the one from glossy brochures, but the one built on real encounters.<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 6\u20137 March<\/strong><\/td> Tortuguero \u2014 where the road ends in the water<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 8 March<\/strong><\/td> Pacuare River \u2014 white water through rainforest<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Rafting the Pacuare is what Swiss Tropical Tourism means by adventure tourism: not adrenaline for its own sake, but nature at its most intense.<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 9 March<\/strong><\/td> Punta Cocles \u2014 the other Caribbean<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 10 March<\/strong><\/td> Sarapiqu\u00ed \u2014 the visit that explains everything<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The D\u00e4hlers didn’t come to Costa Rica to sell tours \u2014 they came to stay. Anyone who visits Finca Roswitha understands why Swiss Tropical Tourism is different.<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 11\u201312 March<\/strong><\/td> Braulio Carrillo National Park \u2014 jungle without compromise<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 13 March<\/strong><\/td> Northern Plains \u2014 wetlands and biodiversity<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 14\u201316 March<\/strong><\/td> La Fortuna & Arenal \u2014 three days, three faces<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 17\u201318 March<\/strong><\/td> Rinc\u00f3n de la Vieja \u2014 where the earth bubbles<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 19\u201320 March<\/strong><\/td> Tenorio Volcano \u2014 cacao, R\u00edo Celeste and blue water<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 21 March<\/strong><\/td> Ca\u00f1as \u2014 between Pacific and llanos<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 22\u201323 March<\/strong><\/td> Santa Juana \u2014 mountain village, coffee and real life<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 24\u201327 March<\/strong><\/td> Drake Bay & Osa Peninsula \u2014 the wildest Costa Rica<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Drake Bay and the Osa Peninsula aren’t for everyone \u2014 but for anyone who genuinely wants to understand what tropical nature means. Swiss Tropical Tourism knows the lodges, the guides and the trails that make the difference here.<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 28\u201329 March<\/strong><\/td> San Gerardo de Dota \u2014 the Quetzal and the final chapter<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \ud83d\udccd Full itinerary \u2014 4 to 29 March 2026<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> <\/td><\/tr> 4\u20135 Mar San Jos\u00e9 \/ Puriscal Homewood Suites Cariari \u00b7 book donation \u00b7 cigar factory<\/td><\/tr> 6\u20137 Mar Tortuguero NP Mawamba Lodge \u00b7 turtles \u00b7 canals<\/td><\/tr> 8 Mar Pacuare River Ave Sol River Sanctuary \u00b7 rafting<\/td><\/tr> 9 Mar Punta Cocles \/ Caribbean Le Cameleon Hotel<\/td><\/tr> 10 Mar Sarapiqu\u00ed Hotel El Bamb\u00fa \u00b7 Finca Roswitha (D\u00e4hler family)<\/td><\/tr> 11\u201312 Mar Braulio Carrillo NP Tapirus Lodge \u00b7 jungle \u00b7 birdwatching<\/td><\/tr> 13 Mar Northern Plains La Laguna del Lagarto Lodge<\/td><\/tr> 14 Mar La Fortuna \/ Arenal Arenal Roca Lodge<\/td><\/tr> 15 Mar La Fortuna \/ Arenal Los Lagos Hotel Resort & Spa<\/td><\/tr> 16 Mar Arenal Volcano NP El Fog\u00f3n de Chela<\/td><\/tr> 17\u201318 Mar Rinc\u00f3n de la Vieja NP Casa Rural Aroma de Campo<\/td><\/tr> 19\u201320 Mar Tenorio Volcano NP Finca Amistad Cacao Lodge<\/td><\/tr> 21 Mar Ca\u00f1as Hacienda La Pac\u00edfica<\/td><\/tr> 22\u201323 Mar Naranjito \/ Santa Juana Santa Juana Lodge<\/td><\/tr> 24\u201327 Mar Drake Bay \/ Osa Aguila de Osa<\/td><\/tr> 28\u201329 Mar San Gerardo de Dota Trogon Lodge \u00b7 Quetzal<\/td><\/tr> 30 Mar Return flight from San Jos\u00e9<\/td><\/tr> <\/td><\/tr> Total: 26 nights | 16 different lodges & hotels<\/td><\/tr> Travel style: intensive \u00b7 1\u20132 nights per stop \u00b7 always close to nature<\/td><\/tr> <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n