We haven’t come to Mal Pais expressly to see wildlife — for that, we’d visit Manuel Antonio National Park or one of Costa Rica’s other reserves. Yet by staying at the small Hotel Moana, we’re in close proximity to the natural world, a fact underscored the following morning when we’re awakened by the calls of red-furred howler monkeys.At breakfast, on the lodge’s cantilevered dining pavilion — featuring, perhaps too literally, drop-dead views of the swirling ocean below — we spy iguanas in the treetops. Vultures circle in the distance. “So you like Tico style,” observes Bruno Demarco Quiroz, our hotel’s young Argentine manager. Tico? “Native Costa Rican. Laid back, pura vida, live and let live.” We all nod and, assured, he gives us a recommendation: a surfing school at Playa Hermosa, or Beautiful Beach. To get there, we must first drive through Santa Teresa, a small, hectic town crammed with surfboard and sunglasses shops, in a swirling cloud of dust. People buzz around on mopeds, most of them wearing bandanas over their faces. We drive by a French bakery and an open-air chicken restaurant, where whole chickens are being grilled. At the Shaka Surf School, we hire Brent Newell, a 23-year-old blond transplant from Cocoa Beach, Florida, to coach my husband and son. He steers us to a through-the-jungle shortcut that, he assures us, will lead to the beach. The path quickly turns into a river of mud. With the boys off on their lesson, I’m left to slip-slide along it with one child hiked up on each hip. Together, the three of us pass under a canopy of giant trees bedecked with mud clumps — termite colonies (a fact I keep to myself). Little brown spider monkeys up in the branches rain nuts down to the ground. Kerplunk! Kerplunk! Then we see it: a beach even bigger, wilder, and more beautiful than the last one, the only commerce on it two men selling coconut water fresh from the husk.By the time the kids are getting hungry, I ask Newell for suggestions. “Koji’s,” he answers. “Awesome sushi. And don’t worry about having the right clothes. This,” he points to his bare chest and board shorts, “is being dressed for Costa Rica.” We descend on Koji’s in our beach cover-ups and flip-flops. The food is amazing and the crowd casual, in a beautiful-people sort of way. Still, the vibe is decidedly Tico, with friendly dogs roaming between our tables. And so begins the routine of our two-week trip, although we'll try something new each day. We’ll hike to waterfalls near the neighbouring town of Montezuma. We’ll visit a beachfront Italian restaurant, Playa de los Artistas, where we’ll enjoy perhaps the best, and most artfully arranged meal we’ve ever had. We’ll ride horses with a 16-year-old guide named Josué, who, as he leads us through a campground, will warn, “there'll be some dogs; don’t act scared,” just as a ragtag pack of 20 or so friendly hounds bound towards our horses. We’ll lose track of time, forget what day of the week it is, and, near the end of our stay, discover a beach with tidal pools where hundreds of snails cling to the primordial rock. Our children will play here for hours, splashing among the hermit crabs, starfish, and other sea creatures. “It’s like SeaWorld,” I’ll tell them. “No,” my 11-year-old will say. “It’s the real one.”