Falling for Costa Rica: how a motorbike accident sparked a love affair with the country

It’s rainy season and I am on a Suzuki dirt bike with my husband, Shriram, snaking through Costa Rica’s central highlands.

Two hours after having touched down in the capital, San José, we are heading to the town of La Fortuna, in Alajuela province, 170km to the north. On the advice of local bike enthusiast Jose, of the Wild Rider rental company, we are skipping highways and spiralling down adventure trails that appear as dizzying red squiggles on the map: around cloud-shrouded mountains; across surging rivers; and through sleepy rural towns blanketed in rain.

The roads become narrower, with treacherous drops into green valleys on either side, leaving no room for error. The temperature sinks and mist wraps us in its tight embrace. Visibility drops to less than a metre as we pass a thick tropical cloud forest near Bajos del Toro, a village wedged between the Poás and Vieja volcanoes.

Eventually, we glimpse majestic Arenal volcano rising on the horizon, and then a rustic wooden farmhouse, our accommo­dation for a couple of nights, heaves into view after a final ascent up a muddy trail.

Having grown as an agricultural town, La Fortuna has become Costa Rica’s epicentre of adventure, and we spend the next day soaring above the rainforest on a dozen zip lines. An intoxicating sense of fearlessness comes with careening through a 120-metre-deep canyon in heavy rain, held aloft only by a metal clasp. Once the clouds clear, we clip onto the longest cable, swinging above the La Fortuna waterfall, and duck to avoid onrushing branches as giant hawks wheel over a lush tropical landscape teeming with more than 300 species of birds.