Ling's Travel Blog

Costa Rica 2008 - Day 5 - Monteverde to Montezuma

2008-08-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

HANGING BRIDGES

The night before, Javier had told us to head into Santa Elena at 7am so that we could get some breakfast and then get to the Aventura offices at 7:30am for the tour at 8am. For some reason we just figured that he was telling us to get there early, so we got up at 7am, packed our bags to leave at 7:30am, and got to the offices at 8am. Turns out that was too late, and the van taking us from the offices to the actual tour location had already left. Luckily, it was only about 15 minutes on a dirt road to get to the forest, and the tour guide even waited for us in the forest near the entrance.

Andriy on the hanging bridges.

Ling on the hanging bridges.

Our guide was really knowledgeable. One of the reasons why Javier told us to go to Aventura was because the canopy tour actually included the guide, and since Olga said they saw no animals when they were in Monteverde and Santa Elena, we figured it was worth it. I definitely don't think we would have noticed any of the things that he pointed out if we were on our own. I used to think that animals just hung out of every inch of the rainforest (actually Monteverde is a cloud forest, which is basically a rainforest in the clouds), but I think that was just a myth perpetuated by my third grade science rainforest mural. The actual rainforest is pretty much like any other forest, except a bit more lush and obviously rainy. I'm still obsessed with it, though. I think it might have been cool to go on the hike in the afternoon, when everything would be cloudy and rainy and mysterious.

When we jumped in, the group was just getting onto the first bridge, and already they were pointing at some animals down below. We saw some agoutis and some red foxes prowling around. Actually, I think the red foxes were hunting the agoutis, but we didn't see any bloodshed, so there was no way to be sure.

Agouti (in the middle of the picture, kind of hard to see).

We got to see this beautiful butterfly cocoon hanging from a leaf, though I was too busy taking pictures to listen to what type of butterfly it came from. Actually, a secret pleasure of mine is to take macro shots with my camera and get a nice clear picture while all the other people get crappy blurred ones because they don't know how to change their settings.

Golden butterfly coccoon.

There was also a tarantula in a hole guarding a giant egg sac from which hundreds of baby tarantulas are eventually going to emerge, which is pretty disgusting if you think about it but also pretty cool. Not only did the guide point the tarantula out to us, but he also had this love for helping people take pictures. When we couldn't get a nice shot, he kept asking us to let him try with our cameras, and then he got this picture:

Tarantula with egg sac.

We also saw some owls, and some people in the group saw coatimundis, but other than that it was mostly bugs and arachnids. Our guide did take us on a "not for tourists" trail where he had been hiking a few days earlier and saw a sloth. He figured, since sloths are so slow, maybe they would still be there, but unfortunately we didn't see any. We did see these naranjilla fruits, which are kind of like fuzzy and slightly sour tomatoes (you can scrape the fuzz off). The leaf is fuzzy and soft as well, but you can't touch the veins of the leaves because they have some spikes that might prick you. Our guide picked one of the fruits and cut it open, and we all (unhygienically) rubbed our fingers against it to get some juice to taste. It tasted vaguely like lime.

Naranjillas.

Another thing that I thought was cool was when our guide talked about the bromeliads. Apparently bromeliads only use their roots to hold on to the tree, and unlike the strangler figs that we saw so many of, they don't harm the tree at all. Instead, they use their positioning to collect water and other organic matter like a little cup, and when the organic matter decomposes, they use up the nutrients. There are frogs and insects and all sorts of creatures that have life cycles centered around the bromeliad, so they go there to die, and their bodies are used as nutrients for the plant as well.

Our guide pointing out the bromeliad.

The highlight of the tour was actually not the hanging bridges for me, rather the giant strangler fig that was completely hollow inside and had been reinforced with a couple of ropes for easy climbing. In order for us to get from where we were to the next hanging bridge above, we had to get inside the fig and climb up like a monkey, which is exactly the kind of thing that I love to do.

Empty strangler fig.

Ling climbing up the tree.

Andriy climbing up the tree.

Ling and Andriy at the river.

Finally, at the end of the hike we came across a bunch of hummingbirds and then a whole colony of red ants walking in a line towards some unknown treasure. Before we discovered this, though, some of the other people in our tour walked right into them and got bitten a few times on the leg. We were lucky to avoid this by running really fast. Afterwards we sat in the lobby for a while drinking coffee before we followed the tour van to the location of the zipline.

Red ants.

ZIPLINE

Ok, ziplines are awesome. One of the English dudes was saying that it was funny, we all start of with the nice calm informational walk, and then we just say screw it and go "AHHHH" crazy on the ziplines. You would think that it would be scary to travel via a metal string a thousand feet above the rainforest (especially considering that, according to wikipedia, another name for zipline is "death slide"), but it's really not. It's kind of like skydiving, you sort of have no conceptual understanding of what is happening to you as it's happening. It just feels really peaceful hanging there and seeing the vast valley of trees all around you as you pass by.

Ling and Andriy entering the ziplines.

All of the people from our hanging bridges tour continued on to do the zipline, even the older English gentleman with heart problems (they had to go slower on some parts). This was cool because we had gotten to know the people in the first tour, so it made it feel more like we were doing the zipline with friends and not just the two of us. There was the English family and some other English people. We were looking at some of the video they took and helped them pass their camera from one side to the other with my jacket, since it had zipper pockets. Then there were two Asian-American boys and their mom, and the older one kept asking us if we wanted to hear him scream like a little girl. Apparently they had also gone on a zipline in Mexico, and he didn't go fast enough and got stuck hanging over the highway. He was really bad at ziplining though, since he kept twisting and turning as he went, so we could definitely see how he could have gotten stuck.

After they suited us up, they brought us over to give safety instructions. You're supposed to hold the ropes together with one hand so they don't get tangled, and keep your other hand (the stronger one) back behind you loosely looped around the cable for both balance (to stay in a straight line) and as a brake. Once you get close to the other platform, the guy will signal you to either keep going or start braking, and then you just press down on the cable with your looped hand to stop.

I was a little concerned at first that I was the stopping mechanism, and I asked the guy what would happen if we didn't stop in time. He said they would take care of it, but since it never really happened, I don't know how they could possibly take care of it, other than collision. I think a bigger problem that they have is people who brake too much and end up stuck in the middle of the wire, where they have to come out and get them (theoretically you could also turn yourself around and haul yourself back in). They always had two ropes, the main rope and the safety rope, and the guides always connected your safety rope as you moved from wire to wire, so it was really pretty safe all around.

I know ziplining is, like, not that difficult, but I must say that I was pretty good at it. It's kind of like driving, actually, so it's easy to get a good sense for how fast your going and how much you need to brake. Also, as they hooked you off one line and onto the other, they always asked you to help them out by pulling yourself up to release the tension in the rope. I have really weak arms, but I was pretty good at that too.

The longest, fastest zipline.

Part of the fun of the Aventura ziplines was that they included in the package a surprise rappel and the Tarzan swing. These two things were absolutely crazy. The rappel is fun because they take care of your start and stop, so you basically drop straight down on this rope without any idea of how far you're going (though you could tell them to go slowly if you really wanted to). The guy just says, "Don't ask any questions," and suddenly you're dropping. When I did it, it was like being on those tower drops at Six Flags, and I wasn't prepared for the stop, so my body was a little too loose and I got a tiny bit of whiplash. The old English guy went really slow, and the mom of the two kids went medium slow (though the kids kept saying, "go really fast for our mom!"). Since I couldn't see myself go, it wasn't until we saw this one girl go that I realized how fast it could be. She just dropped, and it was like she suddenly went from up top to the bottom, and I didn't see how it happened...

Andriy being lowered on the rappel.

I was expecting the Tarzan swing to be a small rope with which you swing from one platform to another, but this one was totally NOT that. It was a bit more like bungee jumping, since you climb up a really tall tower and just jump off and hope that the rope catches you. I actually didn't really think about the whole freefall thing until I got to the top of the tower and realized how tall it was. But I was already there, so I said what the heck and jumped.

I don't even really remember jumping off because the swing caught so quickly, but the initial moment was a little bit like jumping out of the airplane to skydive. You have this sudden gasp in your chest, and then the adrenaline takes over, and then it's over. When the rope catches it's just like being in a giant playground swing, and I tried to keep my legs together and point my toes. In retrospect, I should have hollered and pounded my chest like Tarzan. The little boy did not end up screaming like a little girl.

When they went to catch me, my shoelace was untied, and the one guy got my shoe, and it fell into the bushes below. They retrieved it pretty easily, and the guy put it on for me, jokingly holding his nose like it smelled really bad (it only smelled a little bad).

While we were walking up the tower, Andriy almost backed out. He never does stuff like this (never been on a roller coaster), and I was already proud of him for getting the guts to go on the cave tour and the ziplines, but the Tarzan swing was a bit too extreme. I thought he was going back down, but when I finished and looked up, Andriy was being strapped in and jumped. I was so proud of him I almost cried a little. He said afterwards that it was scary but turned out to be fun, and he got over his fear of not being in total control (he said ziplines were much easier because you controlled your own speed).

The Tarzan swing tower.

Andriy on the Tarzan swing.

Because only one person could go on the swing at a time, we waited around while everyone else took their turn. Everyone was cheering and laughing, so it was a fun time. There were two more lines after the swing, the last of which went over this beautiful expanse of valley, which was a fitting end to a really spectacular tour. We hiked back up to the entrance area, and since we didn't have to wait for the van, we just drove our car out back up to El Sol.

Here is also a video I took of us ziplining:

LEAVING EL SOL

When we got back to El Sol it was pouring rain. There were a bunch of old people at the main house in their bathing suits heading over to the sauna. The oldest old man stayed at the house on the rocking chair talking to Javier. When we showed up to check out, we spoke to him a little, and this somehow turned into a really long conversation between him and Andriy about NMR and other physics related stuff. Apparently he retired a long time again but still goes to some conferences in Cambridge.

While they talked, I checked my bank account and then got some directions out to Puntarenas from Javier. With all of his mad connections, he called some taxi driver in Puntarenas and came to the conclusion that the ferry did not have too many people in this season and we should take that rather than driving all the way around the peninsula (as the guy at Arenal had told us). Then, when we paid for the room, I was pleased to find that we didn't have to pay for the beer that Andriy had or the semi-use of the sauna. I don't know if they were actually free or if Javier was just being nice to us, but if it was the latter, that was really cool of him.

Right before leaving, I went out in the rain with an umbrella and my camera and took some last minute pictures of the pool and sauna. I said hi to the people in the sauna, who were all just hiding in there from the rain chatting away. It would have really been nice to just stay and hang out, I feel like I could have just packed up and moved there forever (or at least for a few more days).

Javier, Andriy, and the old scientist.

Rainy path with cat.

Pool and sauna.

ROAD TO MONTEZUMA

Monteverde to Montezuma

Javier's directions were pretty straightforward, so we didn't have any trouble making it to Puntarenas. The road after we got out of Guacimal was paved highway, and with the exception of a tree that fell down and a bit of heavy downpour, we sailed along and made the trip in about 2 hours.

Just outside of El Sol we stopped at a restaurant, coincidentally also called El Sol, for lunch. I had some delicious fried fish and fries, and Andriy had a chicken soup. There was a cute dog that hung around our table, and I eventually caved and gave him some fish and fries.

The trouble occurred once we got to Puntarenas. We showed up at the ferry and saw a line of cars waiting. It was around 4:30pm. The ferry was supposed to leave at 5pm. I ran out of the car in the rain to look for some tickets, and some annoying guy on the street yelled at me to stay in my car because, "Hey lady! The next ferry is at 8!" The ferry schedule online said the ferry would leave at 5pm, so I didn't see any reason to listen to a random guy who was going to say "Hey lady!" to me, and I wandered into some bakery to ask a more reliable source. Those guys debated amongst themselves, and it turned out that the ferry really was leaving at 8pm. WTF.

I got back in the car, and we debated for a while what to do. I was glad that I hadn't reserved anything for the next two nights, because this now gave us the flexibility to change our plans if we needed to. On the one hand, we could avoid the ferry altogether and just head to one of the other beaches along the lower coast of Costa Rica. On the other hand, I didn't know how long it would take to drive there, and we had already gotten so excited to go to Isla Tortuga for snorkeling the next day. There were some other places that had easy tours out to the island, so we considered Jacó or Herradura, which were a bit far away to the south, or staying overnight in Puntarenas. In the end, Puntarenas was such a trashy city that it seemed more worth it to at least get across the bay to the peninsula.

Once we decided to go on the ferry anyway, we had three hours to kill. We were just relaxing in the car, occasionally bothered by a guy trying to sell us sunglasses and a another homeless guy. Then the random annoying guy from the street came over and started talking to us. He told us that the guys from the ferry were going to come over at 7pm and give us these slips of paper that confirmed that we were waiting in line. Then we should take the paper and go to the ticket booth to buy the actual tickets. He came over a couple of times to update us on what was going on, and he didn't ask for any money, so felt bad for judging him on his randomness and annoyingness.

I was right to hate that guy! Andriy asked him, "So dude, just out of curiosity, do you work for the ferry?" The guy said he didn't work for the ferry, he just worked for tips. But then he left and didn't bother us, so we thought that he was a nice guy and got out two dollars to give him. He came back a few minutes later and said, "I'm leaving in a few minutes. Look, I take care of you, you take care of me. I normally ask for 10,000 colones." Okay, we were going to give him two bucks, but 10,000 colones?! That is roughly 18 dollars. Is he crazy?! 18 dollars for standing around and telling us some stuff over the course of an hour or two?! That is more than a lot of people make in the US, especially considering we were not the only car that he was probably helping. Yes, he did give us some useful information, but that is just flat out extortion. So I told him I would have to go to the ticket office and get change, and while I was gone, Andriy actually told him off and said that he could either take the two dollars or just go. Eventually he took the two dollars, but he made sure to say that it was not very much money. Yeah, whatever, dude, that is more than the cost of the ferry tickets.

Finally, at 8pm the ferry started to load. We were already tired, and once we loaded onto the ferry, I ate some cold Ramen noodles and fell asleep for the entire trip. It was pitch black outside, so there wasn't much to see, and I figured that we would get to see it on the trip back anyway.

Ferry sign.

While we were in Puntarenas waiting, we came up with some backup plans for when we got to Paquera and saw the road conditions. With an 8pm ferry, we wouldn't make it to Paquera until 9pm, and we wouldn't make it to Montezuma until 11pm. We were already reluctant to drive in the dark, so we wanted to make sure we didn't get stuck in the middle of nowhere, confused and lost. Our first option was to find a place in Paquera. Our second option was to find a place near Curu and just go on an Isla Tortuga kayaking tour from the wildlife refuge there. Our third option was to drive to Playa Tambor, which was closer than Montezuma and down a paved road. Our fourth option was to make it all the way to Montezuma.

When we actually arrived in Paquera, there were clear signs for Tambor and Montezuma, so it actually wasn't really a problem that it was dark out. We were driving along the coast, so even though we couldn't see the water, we could kind of sense it blowing in our direction and knew we were finally at the beach. We made it to Tambor in good time and then decided, what the heck, we'd go all the way to Montezuma anyway.

I was really happy that it all went so smoothly, because I kind of had my heart set on Montezuma already. It certainly sounded the best, and because of all of my research, I felt like I knew a lot about it, so that if we came across a hotel and wanted to know if we should stay there, I already had some idea about the price and the reviews that it got. I also knew some of the tour companies in town that would be able to take us to Isla Tortuga. After that I came to realize how important internet reviews really are, because even just knowing a little bit about the place made me feel so much safer and more comfortable staying there.

HOTEL LUCY

The final stretch of road in Montezuma was a little rough, but we made it to Hotel Lucy, which was the cheapest option in Fodor's at $24 a night. When we got there, I was pleased to find that there were rooms, and even more please that I was able to accomplish all of the check-in in Spanish with the security guard who was on duty. He was just such a nice guy, he put up with me getting exasperated trying to ask about Isla Tortuga tours, and actually I saw him getting in line for the ferry when we left two days later and said hi.

The room that we got was just okay. We had the choice of a nice cute little room with shared bathroom, or a similar but less cute little room with a private bathroom. We opted for the private bathroom, but the problem was that it had no door, only a curtain, so it made the room smell a bit musty the whole time. The other problem was that it had this useless window into the hallway from which you could hear all of the conversations that people were having on the porch. Still, we looked in the shared bathroom and thought it was disgusting, so we were glad to have gotten the private bathroom. To be fair, we're pretty sure the brown stuff was actually just wet sand, and it was gone the next morning after they cleaned. I think if we would have reserved or gotten there earlier, we could have gotten a nicer room with a beach view.

Despite the room (which was still a bargain at that price), the location was amazing. The little hotel was right on the beach with an adorable back porch, equipped with beach chairs and hammocks for lounging and watching the waves. Before we went to sleep, we went out back and walked around in the sand for a little while. The stars were crazy. Though they still weren't quite Belize stars, they did cover the entire sky, and for sure there were many more than any other place we'd seen in Costa Rica (probably because there were far fewer clouds at the coast to cover them up).

The nighttime sky.

Then we heard a bunch of tiny scraping sounds, and we discovered that there were thousands of hermit crabs crawling around everywhere. It was low tide, so they were all washed up on shore moving about amongst the rocks. It was like when the cicadas came to New Jersey, I was definitely glad to have my flashlight so that I could avoid stepping on them!

Costa Rica 2008 - Day 4 - La Fortuna to Monteverde

2008-08-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

VOLCANIC ACTIVITY PART II

I woke up right at 4am and saw the volcano erupting (the second night I learned my lesson and kept my glasses next to the table in anticipation). I was so excited in that first instant that I turned to Andriy and went, "Andriy! Andriy!" and shook him awake. He woke up in a frenzy, and he told me later that the way I woke him up, he got really scared and thought that there were volcanic rocks barreling into our window.

It was really cool, from where we were, we could see and hear the individual rocks tumbling down the mountainside. We watched for a little bit in our room, and then we got our cameras and tripods and went outside to the porch to take pictures. I was surprised nobody else was up with us because the rumbling really was quite loud. Andriy got a really nice picture with his DSLR. I got some pictures too, but he was able to use slightly shorter exposure and lower ISO.

We sat out there for maybe 30 minutes. Even though we knew we had to get up the next day really early to catch the Venado Caverns tour, the air was fresh and cool, and it was so peaceful, like sitting at the foot of Mother Nature.

Arenal Volcano eruption.

LEAVING ARENAL OBSERVATORY LODGE

The weird guy wasn't there at the reception in the morning, but check out went fairly smoothly. The only thing that I didn't like was that everything on the room bill was itemized and in Spanish, so it almost looked like there were extra charges, but then I realized they just broke up everything that was included in the original room rate. The price was approximately what I had calculated, but it made me really uncomfortable not to be able to double check that they had added everything correctly.

Another thing that made me constantly skeptical was that I got very very slightly ripped off many times in Costa Rica during our stay. The reason for this is that they always round colones. If it's a touristy place that lists its price in dollars, if you choose to pay in colones, they convert the cost via a slightly rounded up conversion rate and then round up the result as well because they don't like to deal in small change. So really, you lose a couple of cents every time you go to one of those places. There's really not that much they can do considering that the exchange rate always changes a little, but I just feel like you should get rewarded and not punished for using the local currency! I don't think they should accept dollars in the first place, but if I go back, I think I will bring a whole bunch of dollars with me and use them whenever possible instead of colones. With that conversion problem, it's actually worth it sometimes to take the 3% credit card fee (which, incidentally, I don't think the credit card ended up charging me at all - sweet).

We had breakfast in the dining hall and took some last minute pictures before heading out to La Fortuna for our Venado Caverns tour. The guy we asked to take the picture also had a really fancy camera, so he was a good choice because I even saw him move the camera to lock in the focus and then set up the shot.

Last minute volcano pictures.

Last minute lake pictures.

VENADO CAVERNS

Everything always seems to run more smoothly the second time around. When we entered Desafio and said who we were, the guy working knew us immediately. He was like, "Oh yeah, you're the guys who were supposed to go yesterday morning," and I had to kind of laugh embarrassedly and say, "That's us..."

So the adventure started even before we got to the caves. The shuttle van that was driving us had to go pick up one more couple from their hotel, and as it was pulling out, we felt a big jolt and a shattering of glass (luckily only safety glass). The van had run right into the telephone pole as it was backing out. Apparently someone runs into that pole like once a week, so I don't understand why they don't just put a sign up or something to prevent that from happening. We had to wait there for approximately ten minutes while they got another (crappier) van. Andriy felt really bad for the van driver because he was probably going to get in some trouble, while we were just standing around taking pictures of the van and playing with the safety glass.

Tour bus after the accident.

While we were waiting, Andriy chatted with the tour guide and I chatted with the other passengers. There were two girls from Canada (one of them looked kind of like Lori but with a really cool accent), this girl from California who was dressed all sportily and had just been chilling around Costa Rica for a few weeks, and this couple from the hotel we were picking up at who were also from California and were there with the GAP tours. I liked them a lot, and the woman helped us take pictures while we were in the cave. They also had a Canon camera, and the guy had a waterproof case for it, so I asked him what he thought about it (he loves it). The thing that turns me off about the case is that it only works on one model, so if my Canon breaks, I can't use the case anymore either. Plus it's a little clunky.

The ride was roughly an hour long, and even though the scenery was nice, I sort of faded in and out of sleep the whole way. We stopped at some random place on the way, which I wasn't sure if this was part of the company or just the van driver's house, because on the one hand we picked up rubber boots for the caving, but on the other hand the driver also left and his wife and baby came out to replace him driving. The wife drove with the baby in the front, between her and the guide in a little baby carrier, and for some reason I suddenly thought of Britney Spears.

When we got there, we had some time to put on our boots and go to the bathroom. I was lucky that they let us bring waterproof cameras (though they said no cameras, I brought mine anyway), and even though my camera started fogging up halfway through, we got some decent pictures in the beginning and were able to avoid paying $20 for a CD that the professional photographer took of us (though I did still contemplate it because those pictures were nice). While we walked through some fields towards the cave (passing lots of "caca de vaca" aka cow poop), our guide joked, "This is my first time in the cave. But don't worry, I have a map!" He was funny actually, he said he was actually from Venado: "I was born in the cave. Wait. No. Sorry, I don't mean in the cave!"

Ling and Andriy before caving.

Our guide.

Cave entrance.

So Desafio gives what they call "adventure tours," which are basically not so much about history and nature and more so about going out and doing really fun (but also slightly dangerous if you're not careful) outdoorsy things that look straight out of an REI catalogue. So even though we got some minor history about the caves being limestone caves created a long long time ago, really there was not much explanation throughout the whole tour and more so crawling around in muddy water through tight crevices. Which I loved, so it was okay. Aside from pointing out spiders and bats and telling us to step on his shoulder as we climbed up the rock, the only thing that the guide really said the whole time was to keep asking us, "You doing okay? You like it?" He did that, seriously, like every other minute.

When we first got in the cave it was fairly spacious and the water was only about ankle deep. There were holes in the ceiling that reminded me of a spinal cord and made the whole thing feel like we were in the belly of some prehistoric beast. The guide said that the ammonia of the bat poop eroded the limestone over many many years. The weird thing about that is, how did the bat poop get on the ceiling?

Holes in the ceiling from bat poop.

They gave us these masks that we could wear if there was too much bat guano, but we never really needed them. We only needed to watch where we put our hands so that we wouldn't touch the poop... or the big creepy crawlies! The Canadian girl touched one and screamed.

Bats!

Creepy crawly.

Then the further we went, the more wet and cramped everything got. We crawled through some of the tiniest holes, and during one loop the big guy that was with us couldn't come through because the hole was so tiny (luckily it was a loop so he could go the other way). There were quite a few mini waterfalls, which were refreshing and beautiful, and we used them to wash our hands and bodies of sandy mud from the floor.

Some parts we had to step carefully because it wasn't obvious where the stones on the ground were, and I was terrified of taking a misstep and plunging into a much deeper hole below. I liked the boots that we were wearing, though, which were thin enough to be able to feet the floor texture with our toes (though some pebbles got in the boots and rubbed against my ankles and gave me blisters). During one of the passageways, we had to climb down some rocks by stepping on the guide's shoulder, and I jumped a little and hit a rock with my back. It wasn't too bad, but just reminded me that we had to be careful! I was surprised actually that they never asked us to sign a waiver, because something like this in the US would require one for sure. There were more climbing things later on, but I went more slowly and it was fine.

We ended up in this huge cavern with a big waterfall running down the side, right before we climbed out the exit. I had so much water in my boots that I had to lift my leg high in the air to dump it all out. We walked back up to the restroom areas and rinsed off in the showers. They gave us apple juice and water, we looked at the pictures on the computer, and we played with the baby a little before we hopped back on the van and headed back.

Andriy in the cave.

Ling in the cave.

Little butt going into the big butt.

Ling and Andriy during caving.

Ling and Andriy after caving.

Before we left La Fortuna we went back to La Choza de Laurel for lunch. This time Andriy just got a chicken soup because he didn't want his stomach to react. I was actually also finding it a bit like Taiwan (where too much heavy food plus heat was making my stomach feel less hungry), so I also got a soup and a side of fries. The soup was absolutely delicious, and it was very light which was nice.

ROAD TO MONTEVERDE

La Fortuna to Monteverde.

It was a little after noon when we headed out to Monteverde. Actually, the place we were staying was just a bit outside of Santa Elena, but the two towns are so close together that I'm not really sure if we were ever in Monteverde. Monteverde is actually really close to La Fortuna, but for some reason there is no road that goes directly in between them. Instead, you have to go all the way around Lake Arenal, which is not that long of a distance but for some reason takes 4 hours. Here's why.

Driving started out with the same wonderful paved road from our trip to La Fortuna. Even though the yellow line eventually disappeared and the road began to wind more and more around the mountains, it was still paved and gave us spectacular views of Lake Arenal. I finally decided to start driving mountain roads, and it actually wasn't so bad once I understood when to slow down and when to accelerate (gas for better control in the turns), and then after that it was a breeze.

Ling and Andriy at Arenal Lake.

At one point we got stuck behind a truck. Actually, it happened a few times that trucks would come in from the nearby town and slow up a line of like ten cars, all driving 20kph and inhaling nice truck exhaust. But, it was only once that we got to get this great picture of guys hanging out the side windows of their cars:

Guys hanging out the side of their car (click on the picture to see the larger view, you can't really see the guys so small...)

Then we reached the sort of midpoint town, Tilarán. So the entire way that you're driving, there are clear signs for all upcoming towns, up until you get to Tilarán. Then, suddenly, you're in the middle of the town facing a menacing dirt road that just screams, "Turn back, this is the wrong way." So I got out of the car and asked some woman who told me that we just needed to turn around and the boy in the middle of the road would give us information.

So we turned around, and sure enough there was a kid who was probably 14 years old with a little leather folder who told us some directions to continue on to Monteverde. Then he showed us some really (and I mean really) ghetto photocopied maps, showed us this "license" that he had, and said that if we wanted the maps it would cost 2000 colones (roughly 4 dollars). We didn't really need the maps, but then after some internal debate we gave him the money and figured that we were supporting the locals (Andriy called it a reward for learning English). The funny thing is that Andriy had read some website of these two Russian photographers who said that they had also made a wrong turn in Tilarán and also bought some maps from a local kid, and even though they didn't really need the maps, they also figured they should support the locals.

Sure enough, right after we passed the boy, there was another sign for Monteverde. For some stupid (or not so stupid) reason, there was only one spot in the entire trip that we did not see a sign for Monteverde, and conveniently there was a kid there to remedy that for money. To be fair, there were a couple of times on the road where, though we were pretty sure we were going the right way, we were reassured by confirmation from the map.

The road from Tilarán was not good. It was an entirely dirt road with occasional potholes that worsened once it started to rain. The rain was kind of fun because we closed the windows and let the muddy water splash up all around the car. As we got closer to Monteverde the road became more mountainous, but the air and the clouds and the valley scenery made it extremely peaceful and relaxing. Not to mention the cows in the road...

Cows.

The road.

We passed through Santa Elena and stopped to get some money from the ATM. I went to the bank only to realize that I didn't know where my ATM card was. I looked everywhere, and even now I have no idea if I left it in the machine at the airport, dropped it somewhere, or just put it in some unknown location in my bags. This kind of freaked me out a little, but I just trusted that everything would be fine, and I looked up my bank account on the (super) slow internet the next morning at El Sol. Since there were no charges after already so many days, I just figured I could take care of it later. Luckily, Andriy was still able to go and take money from his account instead.

BEST SUNSET EVER

We thought that the place would be right outside of Santa Elena, but it was actually 15 minutes or so down yet another dirt mountain road to get to El Sol. I suppose that we're attracted to these places because they are so far off the beaten path, and certainly the distance from town was rewarded by the most fantastic vistas ever. As we were driving I looked to the right and just saw a sunset that was absolutely breathtaking. I think the biggest tragedy is that I kept assuming that we would be there really soon and hence be able to settle down and take some pictures, but unfortunately, as Javier the owner's son said, "When you see a sunset you just have to stop and take the picture. The sunset waits for no one."

The best we could do were the pictures from the very beginning of the sunset, when we stopped to relieve ourselves on the side of the road before Santa Elena, and the pictures from the very end of the sunset, when we settled down in our cabin and saw the best location for a balcony I've ever seen. The sunset in between - the full blown sunset - it would be difficult to describe, it really was like nothing I've ever seen before. It was like the whole sky exploded, with the sun radiating through the center of the clouds, and color everywhere just painting the entire sky. It was really amplified by our proximity to the clouds at that altitude, you just felt like the whole thing was going to swallow you whole.

Sunset beginning.

Sunset ending (this is the header picture of my blog, but this one had longer exposure, so there is a little more detail of the valley).

EL SOL NUESTRO

El Sol was rated Fodor's choice and was another place that people just absolutely loved on TripAdvisor. It seemed a bit pricey to me at about $95 for just a cabin ($125 for the bigger one), but everyone who was there basically said it was the most calming experience they'd ever had. Some quotes: "The spiritual vibe you get is amazing." "It is difficult to describe this place... it has a positive energy that starts with owner, Elisabeth, and spreads to all corners of the property." "... owned and operated by a decidingly zen German lady..." I figured I needed a little Zen in my life, so it sounded perfect.

Elisabeth's thing is to give everyone hugs (according to a bad review, even if you don't want them). She even said in her email, "[blah blah blah about directions]... you see the trail to the main house... where you have me sitting at the computer, waiting for you with my hug!" So, true to form, we saw the little wooden yellow sun (no other name sign) and pulled in, and there was Elisabeth with her son Javier, waiting with a hug. My hug was a bit rushed because I was apologizing for being a bit late (though I had emailed her to tell her about the tour mishap, we were still delayed by the rain and having to get cash from town), but when Andriy finished parking the car and extended his hand, she was like, "Sorry, I give hugs."

We were lucky because we were supposed to stay in the little cabin, and we ended up getting upgraded to the big one for free. I don't know what the little cabin was like, but the big cabin was definitely worth the price of the little cabin. This was like the king suite of cabins. It was huge, with a beautiful balcony overhanging the valley where you could just sit and breathe and watch the sunset (that's where we got the last pictures of the sun going down). There was also a kitchen area, a dining table, a living area with a couch facing the big glass windows to the balcony, an elevated sleeping area with optional sliding wooden panel to separate it from the living area, and a bathroom with a bathtub and hot water.

Being there, I immediately regretted having to get there so late and cutting short the six hours of relax time I had planned. I especially lamented the fact that we weren't able to be there thirty minutes earlier so that we could have gotten the best sunset pictures. If I were to go back, I would stay for at least two nights and take the day in between to go on their horseback riding tour into the valley.

Kitchen.

Dining table.

Bed.

Elisabeth was actually really busy the entire time we were there, and I only talked to her a little when we first arrived, and then one more time when she sent some guy over in the morning with a telephone with her on the other end. Apparently she had business in the main house and couldn't leave. However, we got the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Javier, who was totally hot btw. One of the reviews had even said, "Just keep the young teenage girls away from the host's son... he's extremely good looking." The thing was, I saw a picture of him on their website, and that was when he was much younger, and he was sort of chubby and not very impressive, but he really grew up. Turns out he's married though, we saw him in town the next day with his wife. Andriy thought his wife was too plump for him, but I guess Latino men like their women with curves...

Javier came with us to our cabin to help us arrange zipline/canopy tours for the next morning. Since we really wanted to take pictures of the sunset, he waited for us and chatted the entire time. He's approximately our age, so talking with him was just like meeting someone new at school, someone that you really clicked with. He was really cool, and his English was excellent (I was actually really surprised that he didn't speak any German). He had helped us carry our luggage, but since he seemed so much like a friend it didn't even occur to me to tip him or anything like that.

Javier was also a tour guide, which meant that he knew the best stuff and also had great connections and was able to convince us not to go to Selvatura for our zipline/canopy tour and to go to Aventura instead (we didn't regret it). Apparently Selvatura is now so popular that the tour sizes are like seventy people, which is way too much, and plus Aventura has a Tarzan swing, which is awesome. Since all those guys knew him, we didn't even need to bring our student IDs, which was good because I didn't have mine. Javier is currently building his own cabin near the others, and he got this horrible looking patch of raw skin on his hand from an accident with the sander. He told us about Costa Ricans, how they view tourists (they're just used to the tacky American attempts at Spanish), when and why their family settled there, and all sorts of tidbits about Costa Rican life.

I was shocked to find out that Javier dropped out of school at 14 and has been working ever since. The reason this surprised me was that he was really intelligent and knew a lot about a lot of things, even technical things, and it just seemed a shame. It was interesting that some places just have different values, and maybe we put so much emphasis here in the US on education, but maybe in some place like Costa Rica there's not a huge market for the set of skills you would learn in college (at least not as huge as the tourism market). Or, is education really intrinsically the ticket to success, regardless of the situation?

After Javier left, Elisabeth arranged for the local family to bring us dinner for twenty bucks, which was really nice because we didn't have to go out again down that bumpy road. This boy around 12 years old came and delivered it to our door in this big picnic basket. There was fried pork, shrimp, rice and beans, mashed potatoes, tortillas, salad, and some other stuff. The only menace was that there were a couple of bugs in the cabin from when we sat outside on the balcony with the door open, and we also had to first clean some ants out of the coffee maker. But the food was delicious (there was quite a bit, but I wished there was more).

Before dinner Javier had walked us to the Finnish sauna, where we had sat for a little while trying to light a fire in the burner. We went back an hour or so later to put some more wood in, but it never really got hot like we wanted, which was a pity. I checked in again the next day when some other people were using it, and it still wasn't terribly hot, so we probably should have just used it when we were in there. The smell of the wood was really nice though, and the pool outside had a couple of cute toads on the side, though I thought it was a little too cold outside to go in. We napped for a little while and returned again at 11pm, at which point we gave up and decided to go to sleep.

Costa Rica 2008 - Day 3 - La Fortuna

2008-08-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

VOLCANIC ACTIVITY PART I

So one of the reasons that we chose the Arenal Observatory Lodge was because someone said online that they couldn't see the volcano the entire time they were there because it was too cloudy, except for one night when they awoke at 4am to rumbling sounds and saw the red hot rocks spewing out of the top. Since I really wanted to see the eruption while we were there (and was sure it would happen at 4am), I opened all of the shades to the big windows so that we could face the volcano all night in case it happened. Well, even though there was the little problem that we were sleeping and our eyes were closed...

But the trusty volcano warned me exactly when it was erupting with lots of thunderous rumbling (it really sounded like thunder actually), and I woke up really delirious. I was so delirious, in fact, that I couldn't figure out if the volcano was actually erupting. I didn't have my glasses on, so all I saw was this red glow, and I kept staring at it trying to figure out if it was the volcano or not. Finally after a few minutes I got my senses back and realized that, actually, it was just the light on my camera battery charger, and I was looking at the wall and not the window. Yeah... When I decided to look at the window I thought maybe I saw some redness, but it also looked kind of foggy, and I was too exhausted and lazy to get up to get my glasses, so I just went back to sleep. I would have probably tried harder, but I figured there was always the next night.

MORNING HIKE

We went to the dining hall around 7:30am for the buffet breakfast. There were all these choices, like different fruits, eggs, bacon, gallo pinto (rice and beans), buttered pastries, pancakes, and these really delicious puffs of fried potato with some meat in the middle. Also, lots of delicious juices like the passionfruit I had the night before and guava! The actual dining hall was also really nice because the sunlight was streaming in on all sides, and you had Arenal Lake out one window and Arenal Volcano out the other. After breakfast we tried to go outside to take some pictures, but it was getting near 8:30am, so we figured we'd head to the reception to catch the tour.

View of the lake from the dining hall.

Breakfast.

Reception area.

While we were waiting for the tour this old American guy with a big telescope wearing some army colored outfit walked around and told us the tour would be starting as soon as "the karma level rises." We figured this guy was the tour guide, but then this other Costa Rican guy named Eduardo came around and introduced himself as the tour guide. The old American dude turned out to be a helper guide, but really he was just some guy who liked being there a lot and started doing a lot of wildlife watching and eventually just stayed. He gave a lot of useful commentary in the beginning though, before he disappeared to explore the volcano or something.

There were probably 20 people in our group, but I guess you have to expect that from a free tour. They were fun though, one woman was fascinated by everything and added the commentary, "Oh, WOW!" to every single thing that Eduardo said. We started off with a leisurely stroll near the pool towards the volcano, which turned out to be lined with lots and lots of howler monkeys. Actually, Eduardo was really good at making howler monkey imitations, I wish I'd caught him on tape. Since both guides had telescopes, we were able to get a good look at their darling faces, and there was even a little baby in the mother's arms. Then the volcano erupted, and we saw giant boulders rolling down the side of the mountain. Eduardo mentioned later that Arenal volcano is actually about half the temperature of the volcanoes in Hawaii, so unlike in Hawaii, it's not hot enough to create molten liquid lava, and what we actually see are red hot pyroclastic rocks. So I think that Fodor's (and wikipedia) actually lied by referring to the "lava flows" that you can see from Arenal (though I don't know much about lava, so maybe the rocks are actually considered part of "lava"?).

Hanging bridge.

Our guide Eduardo.

We walked a bit through the forest and then stopped for a while under a little shaded area for "storytime." It was a really long while actually, because there wasn't enough bench space to seat everyone, and I was getting tired and had to go to the bathroom, so I stopped paying attention towards the end of the story. Eduardo basically gave some information about the volcano and then proceeded to recap what happened the first time it erupted in 1968 (it's funny because he doesn't pronounce like half of his syllables, so he was saying things like "e-ru-tion" and "sei-mo-gra").

Before the first eruption, people lived on the slopes and called Arenal the "mountain," with no knowledge that it was actually a volcano. When stuff started falling down in their houses they thought it was mice, and when there were rumbling sounds they thought it was an airplane ("that was bad information" says Eduardo). Finally there was an eruption and a hundred or so people were killed by either the hot ash or giant boulders. Then Eduardo showed us a piece of volcanic rock that already had some seedlings growing on it. After the eruptions, bird poop with seeds in it replanted the soil, which was really rich with potassium and calcium.

There was apparently this cowboy that started to flee the area a week before the eruption, and the people asked him why he was leaving, and he said it was because of the volcano. They all thought he was crazy because "that's a mountain, not a volcano!" but he warned them that all of the animals had already started to run away from the mountain base. Then of course the thing erupted. This story really made me think about people, the fact that we are so far removed from our instincts that we can override fear with logic (even if it's incorrect logic). In some ways it makes us dumber than animals, that we can't even have common sense to run away from a volcano.

Volcanic rock with little seedling growth.

After I thought my legs were going to give in we finally stopped standing around and hiked through more forest and down steep and eroded steps to the waterfall. I wished I was wearing Tevas so that I could hop into the water like some of the other people, but the spray was nice, though it made a lot of our pictures blurry. We didn't have much time to play because we spent too much time taking pictures and the guide had to come down and call us back to the group.

Bug that landed on Andriy's lens.

Steps to the waterfall.

Waterfall.

We walked over another hanging bridge and through an area that looked like it came out of a campground in northeastern US because it was full of pine trees and pine needles. I don't remember why they were there, but Eduardo said that they had been implanted there for some reason and now nobody likes them but they're still there. Then they took us on a tractor ride all the way back to the reception area.

Tractor ride.

Scenery from the tractor.

VENADO CAVERNS MIXUP

After the hike we got changed and headed into La Fortuna to meet for our adventure tour into the Venado Caverns. We had booked the tour with Desafio, so even though the tour was at 2pm, I figured we should head out earlier to make sure that we could find the meeting place and make sure everything was okay.

While we were on the main road, we saw a bunch of animals being fed out of the window of some stupid tourist car. I sort of look down upon people feeding wild animals, but I had to admit I was glad they did it so that I had the opportunity to stop and take pictures. Some guy on the road told me that the animals were called "pizotes," which I later found out were actually coatimundis, and they're actually so much like raccoons that I kind of feel like they're supposed to be eating trash anyway...

Roadside coatimundis.

So cute.

So, foreshadowing. Earlier in the day I wasn't sure if the tour was at 1pm or 2pm, and I looked on my reservation sheet and noticed that I hadn't specified the time. I sort of had a subconscious thought of, "That's weird," but I didn't think much of it (I really should have). When we got to the Desafio offices, we told the guy we were there for the afternoon tour and just wanted get everything in order. The guy asked these girls to look us up, and then they started speaking in Spanish. I heard some snippets that included the word "mañana," and I got this horrible feeling that something must be wrong. The guy then told us that we were supposed to go in the morning, and they were waiting for us in the morning wondering where we were.

I got really scare that I never actually specified which tour we were going on, although I really though that I had mentioned it in one of my emails. So my first instinct was to go online and find the email to show them. I cursed myself a little for not printing it out, and cursed myself a little more when their internet wasn't working. The stupid thing was that it worked on one of the two computers, but the computer that it worked on had a really really dim monitor. Eventually we asked them if we could switch the monitors, and they were like, "Okay, if you know how to do it..." I finally got on my email only to discover that I couldn't find the email I sent because my mac doesn't save the outgoing mail on the server.

I started to freak out a bit because I had already paid for the tour (and it had already been charged on my credit card), and I didn't want them to tell us that it was our fault for not showing up and that we wouldn't get a refund. The guy said their reservations guy was out to lunch, so I'd have to wait until he came back to discuss. Normally I wouldn't have been so anxious, except that I knew that it was highly possible we were partly to blame, and I had no way to prove otherwise. Luckily, I must've looked so distressed that one of the girls came over and told us that we could join the tour the next morning. We were supposed to leave for Monteverde the next morning, but the only thing I had planned for that day was to relax once we got there, so we did have some amount of flexibility. I was really glad that I built that extra time in for emergencies like this.

In the end the reservations guy Greg came back, and we came to the conclusion that I must've hinted that I wanted to go in the afternoon in my very original email, which was over a month before I filled out the reservation form, and he must not have connected the two. Though, to be fair to me, he should have asked me when I didn't specify. Part of what really messed us up was that he sent me a confirmation form which I told him I wasn't able to view in my pdf viewer, and after he sent it again twice with no results I just gave up and figured everything would be alright. Lesson learned: don't ever assume that you don't need the reservation confirmation!

Since we now had a free afternoon, we decided to go to the Fortuna Waterfall (which was actually on my original plan, except that the morning hike took longer than I thought it would). Greg was really nice and gave us good directions and recommended the place down street next to Burger King for lunch. I wasn't feeling too hungry so I got a delicious Costa Rican ceviche (even better than Peruvian ceviche!) with a watermelon smoothie, and Andriy got some chicken.

Delicious Costa Rican ceviche.

Toucan decoration made from a tire.

FORTUNA WATERFALL

The Fortuna waterfall was very close to town but, again, at the end of a long dirt road. I think it was my favorite waterfall all trip (even though it cost $7 per person to get in), mostly because of this amazing prehistoric vista that we saw when we entered. Seriously, I don't know how this giant hole appeared in the earth and got so green with vegetation, but it looks like I could enter and find dinosaurs from The Land Before Time.

Fortuna Waterfall
(click on the picture to see the larger view, you don't really get the whole magnificence from this little thumbnail...)

In Fodors they say that the waterfall "requires a strenuous walk down 1/4 mi of precipitous steps," and all I kept thinking about while I was climbing (yes, climbing) was "precipitous steps." I was reminded of when we were in Caracol in Belize, which are these Mayan ruins where the steps are like each over a foot tall, and I had to sit on my butt and climb down one step at a time. That always also reminds me of in Spirited Away, when the little girl is going down these really steep steps, trips, and just starts running down and runs into the wall at the end (which is hilarious btw). So these steps weren't quite as bad, but I still kept wanting to hold onto the guardrail just in case. The hardest part was that some of the dirt steps were also wet, so I was afraid to slip. Andriy tried to teach me Armin-style toe-heel footwork to maintain better control, but I wasn't a very good student.

When we got down there it was a bit chilly, considering we were at the bottom of this giant ditch that didn't get that much sunlight. Still, it was warm enough to shiver a little and go swimming. I was a little bit afraid to go too close to the falls because Greg warned us it might be dangerous, but there were plenty of people swimming around in it, so I managed to get partway in while staying near the rocks. I also wanted to walk around to the cave behind the waterfall where I saw some other people, but the path was a bit slippery and I didn't want to risk it.

Me and the waterfall.

While I was playing around in the water, Andriy was sitting on the rocks sort of awkwardly, complaining that he couldn't go in yet because he ate too much and was feeling too out of shape from climbing down all the stairs. Then he threw up in a bag. A lot. It kind of looked like those bags of beef noodle soup that they give you in Taiwan, except that it was red and looked more like borscht. I don't really know what happened, it didn't seem to be anything bad with the food except that maybe he ate too much and the constant winding steps might have given him some nausea. Or maybe it was an adjustment to climate, which happens to me sometimes. He felt okay enough to hop in the water a little, but then it went on and off a bit for the rest of the day.

Andriy swimming.

After we'd experienced the waterfall, we walked around the corner to a swimming hole river area where I tried to take some pictures of fish with my underwater camera (didn't really work though, they were too fast). Then all the other tourists showed up and we decided to climb all the way back up and head to the hot springs. We stopped at a supermarket on our way back and got chips and Ramen (and the guy blatantly gave me the wrong change, but I didn't feel like going back to argue since it was only a few cents) and also filled up some gas.

Swimming hole.

BALDI HOT SPRINGS

I read this other girl's blog online about Tabacon Hot Springs saying it was the most amazing paradise ever. She said that she went to Baldi Hot Springs afterwards and thought it was so tacky in comparison. Then she met another traveler later on that was talking about these hots springs that were so amazing, and it turned out the other traveler was talking about Baldi, and the girl scoffed and thought that the other traveler had no idea what she was missing.

At the front desk of Arenal Observatory Lodge, the guy had enumerated a bunch of hot springs options for us. Tabacon was $70, Baldi was $21 (would have been $25 but the hotel gets a discount). Yeah, so obviously we chose to go to Baldi... I had asked about the night pass, but the hotel guy said it was $60, though now I know that that is only if you want the buffet dinner (it's only $45 without). Olga had mentioned that she went to some free hot springs that locals go to, but we didn't really ask about it, and I kind of wanted to see some of the fancier stuff anyway.

When we first entered Baldi, I thought that the girl from the blog must've been crazy because it really was like paradise, and I couldn't imagine Tabacon being much better. There were tropical plants everywhere and tons of different hot springs of different temperatures scattered all across the grounds. You even have to walk up the trail through some leafy tunnels past the giant water slide and helicopter pad to get to some of them. We were there around 5pm, so I brought my camera around with me to take pictures before the sun set. We walked all around to discover all of the nooks and crannies, and then we went back to the locker to lock our stuff up (in retrospect, we could have probably saved the $5 and locked it back in the car).

Swim-up bar.

Ling and Andriy at the hot springs.

Shower?

Exotic scenery.

More exotic scenery.

We went on the water slide. That was kind of ridiculous. It was not patrolled from the bottom like they do in Six Flags, and it doesn't look too steep, so you're not prepared for how fast it goes. And then all of this water sprays up into your face and nose, and you're forced to close your eyes before landing into the pool. It was fun to do once, but once was definitely enough for me.

Water slide.

Then it got dark and we resigned ourselves to just relaxing in the pools. We soaked in really hot and then medium hot pools, I got a couple of great waterfall massages, we competed for how long we could hold our breath underwater (my new technique is to fall asleep), and we sat near the swim-up bar without paying $10 for drinks. My favorite part was when it started to rain, but it was really peaceful because we were already in the hot springs, so the rain was soft and cooled us off a little bit.

In the end, I started to see what the blog girl was talking about, because I noticed that some tiles were missing from some pools, and it did have a bit of a plasticky feel to it. Also, they had this ridiculous disco ball overhanging one of the bigger pools (that was stupid because there weren't many lights to illuminate it anyway), and they blasted party music on speakers. I mean, I didn't really mind because I liked singing along, and the thermal waters themselves were still really nice, but I could just see how some people might hate it. Probably if I went back to Arenal I would try out Tabacon, just to see what the fuss is about, but I think that Baldi was just fine for us.

Costa Rica 2008 - Day 2 - Alajuela to La Fortuna

2008-08-20T12:00:00.001-07:00

ROAD TO POAS VOLCANO

La Garita to Poas Volcano.

When we woke in the morning, Cinthya served us a really delicious breakfast. It was weird, though, because I was expecting to just kind of sit down with the family, and instead she gave us each a menu and made our specific orders for us while we sat there, which was again super awkward and made me really feel like I should get up and help her wash the dishes. I got this London omlette or something like that, which was eggs with ham and cheese and tomatoes on top and really tasty. There was also coffee and orange juice, but I didn't finish my coffee because I was anxious to get on the road.

We wanted to get going by 7am because the volcano opened at 8:30am, but we didn't make it out until 8am (I was just glad we weren't with Serghei and Willa - then it might've been noon before we headed out =P). Somehow I convinced myself that we were close enough that it would only take 30 minutes, but it ended up taking an hour and a half to drive up the mountain. I think part of the problem was that Cinthya gave us a vaguely labeled map, and even though there were signs for the volcano along the way, they occasionally contradicted themselves or disappeared. I think we ended up making a roundabout loop, because the problem was that there were multiple ways to get up the mountain, and all the little villages look the same. Even now I'm not entirely sure which way we went on the map.

Andriy was driving, which was good on the one hand because I wasn't used to driving on mountains without railings, but bad because I always make fun of him for being such a n00b at driving (like Steph Wang, he can actually count how many times he's been behind the wheel...) so I kept getting scared that he would mess up a turn and drive off the side. Fortunately, it went pretty smoothly and gave me ample opportunity to take roadside pictures of cows and coffee farms.

Cows.

Valley.

CRATER LAKE AND BOTOS LAGOON

So Poas Volcano is not active, but it has this steaming crater lake that steams sulphurous gases and occasionally erupts like a geyser. Actually, when I was near it I could smell the sulfur, and I sort of imagined that my nasal passages were burning up just a little. When we got in the park, we spent some time walking around the visitor's center, then hiked a very short road to the crater. On the way there were these giant leaf plants (sombrilla del pobre, aka "poor man's umbrella") that you could just stand under (too bad it didn't rain so that we could test it out). They also had these weird phallic growths around the base, I suppose they were leaves that hadn't yet opened or something, but they were disturbing...

Sombrillas del pobre.

There were already a whole bunch of tourists looking at the crater by the time we got there around 10am, but it was nowhere near as bad as places like Niagara Falls or Grand Canyon. When we first walked up to the railing the crater was totally covered in cloud. They warn you to get there early for the best chances at clear viewing, and I was really scared that we were already too late. The fog made for some nice pictures itself though, and luckily the clouds passed in a few minutes, and we were able to get in some nice shots of the crater itself. They even had an elevated viewing platform that we used to take pictures of each other from above.

Andriy trying to take crater pictures.

Me and the crater.

The crater.

Then we walked a minor trail to reach the Botos Lagoon, which is an extinct crater that has since been filled in to form a cold but slightly acidic lake. It was also on-and-off shrouded in clouds, so we waited there for a while listening to this American woman talk to her Costa Rican friend/boyfriend/tour guide about how Bush is a criminal. We speculated but never quite figured out their relationship because he talked a bit about how he guides tours of people from all nationalities, but the way they talked was more personal than tour guide and customer, and then they asked us to take a picture together for them. I guessed that maybe she was on some sort of exchange program and was staying for an extended period of time with some Costa Rican acquaintances. The woman wondered out loud if you could swim in the lake, and I started up a conversation with her by telling her probably not, considering it's acidic and all.

Botos Lagoon.

...shrouded in cloud and mystery.

DOKA ESTATE COFFEE PLANTATION

The trail back from the lagoon was kind of long and relatively uninteresting, and it was noon before we got back, even though we were supposed to go on the 11am coffee tour. Despite all of the signs that we saw on our way up pointing to the coffee plantation, it was still really difficult to find. I think the thing that threw us off the most was passing a sign saying it was 3km away, shortly followed by a sign that said it was 25 km away. I think it's the alternate routes again that were causing this confusion, but we finally saw what we thought was the right road, even though it was a sketchy dirt road behind some little elementary school. I tested out my Spanish again with some school mom waiting in her car, this time with better results, and then again a little bit down the road with some random school kid. I love when the people don't speak English because, even though it's frightening, you don't feel quite as stupid because there's no other choice. The school kid had never heard of the place by name, which I thought was really odd considering he lived basically right there, but once I got across that we were looking for the coffee plantation he knew where it was (I didn't know how to say plantation, so I just said "la plantacion del cafe," but I guess the actual word is "el cafetal"... though "plantacion" does actually mean plantation, so I don't know).

Finally we got into the actual estate, and we encountered our first non-paved road of Costa Rica. It was okay though, the gravel was relatively consistent if you just drove somewhat slowly. There were fields of coffee bushes along the way too, which were pretty. The only pain was the dog that kept barking and chasing the car such that we had to drive slowly to avoid hitting it. I don't know why Costa Rican dogs are so dumb, because this happened multiple times to us later in the trip, and it's like, seriously, if we just decided we didn't care, those dogs would be so dead.

Road into the plantation.

So in my correspondences with the coffee guy, he told me, "If you get late do not worry we will still do the tour for the two of you." He said, "We have three tour guides at your service, I meant that you do not have to worry because we can have something in between, and you don't have to pay any extras for that." He also said we could take the special buffet lunch tour for $21 per person. Well, I should have printed out this correspondence because the guy at the desk said that we'd have to pay the regular tour price of $16 plus $8 for lunch, and we'd have to wait for the next tour at 1:30pm. He said that they only had one tour guide at the time, and he couldn't check the computer because it was down, and the manager was out for the day. It was only $3 more per person, but it was still annoying, not to mention that he called me "lady" when addressing me (I don't know if this is a Costa Rican thing, that they don't know it sounds really rude, because it happened again later in the week as well). I suspect that we couldn't get the lunch special because our timing wasn't right and they didn't have the buffet lunch out anymore, but I still think the way he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about is bull (esp since it's on the website... bastard). The worst part was that we weren't about to just leave and forget the tour because we already planned it, so we just sucked it up and paid.

Despite the annoying guy at the desk, the tour guide was really nice. Tt was this older man who wore a typical gaucho outfit and liked to say "crap" a lot. He came around and told the kitchen staff to set up lunch for us (which was delicious and featured eight different coffee blends and a delicious blackberry milkshake), and then he came to get us before the tour started. There was only Andriy and me and this German family there for the tour. The mom didn't speak English, so the girl had to stop and translate everything while the guide waited. I liked hearing the German though, so I didn't mind the extra wait.

Lots of different types of coffee.

Lunch at the plantation.

The tour is supposedly best during the picking season (Nov-Jan), where you get to pick your own coffee beans and see the beans being processed. It was sort of dark and rainy when we were there, and we only got to see the plants and the machinery, but none of it was functioning because there were no beans to process.

We started off with some coffee history. Coffee originally came from Ethiopia, and it didn't come to the Americas until relatively recently, which is surprising because we associate coffee growing with a lot of South and Central America. We stood in the field where the guide showed us the seedlings that they had planted. You always have to plant two coffee beans together because they are hermaphrodites and you can't tell which one will become the female (at least as far as I understood, but I was sort of taking lots of pictures so I tended to zone in and out of the explanations sometimes).

Apparently coffee flowers and then replaces the flowers with ripened fruit (the beans) three times a year in November, December, and January, so the pickers come and have work for three months in the year and siesta for another six. I think the other three months they clean the grounds, but this was never quite clear because the guide was so intent on his joke about Costa Ricans wanting to party for six months that he didn't seem to understand when we asked multiple times what they do in the other three months (the German guy whispered to us, "I don't know about you, but we have twelve months in the year in Germany). So anyway, you see three different sizes of fruit on each branch, and I guess the pickers have to know which ones to pick. They make a dollar per basket of beans that they pick, which is something like $35 a day, and they save up as much as they can for those three months. The plants also have to alternate years because after being picked, a coffee plant needs a year to rest and recover.

Baby coffee plant.

Adult coffee beans.

A cool fact was that there were lots of banana trees planted sporadically amongst the coffee, and the guide said it wasn't just so they could have bananas to eat (he said bananas are crap that nobody cares about). The banana plants are taller than the coffee, so they help break the wind and protect the coffee during storms. The banana plants also absorb and hold a lot of a lot of water, so when dry season comes, the coffee plants are able to absorb some of the water back from the roots of the banana plant. The guide cut a branch from the banana plant with his machete (the way he hacked he must've really thought they were crap) and squeezed out all the water for us to see.

Our tour guide hacking the banana plant with a machete.

How much water the banana plant holds.

The coffee beans then go through the processing area where they are separated by size and quality, peeled, lose sugar, and left to dry. First they are dumped into this giant vat that is filled with water, and the good beans sink to the bottom while the bad beans are not dense enough and float to the top where they are carried away to become fertilizer. Then some weird suction from this pipe in the middle causes all of the good beans to be sucked up and transported to the peeling station. In the peeling station they have these rotating grates that are sized so that the little beans are separated in the first round, the medium in the second, then the large in the third. The grates also kind of smush the beans a little so that their skin comes off. Then the beans are left in these sink-like areas until they lose some percentage of their sugar and water weight. After that people bring them outside to what looks like a mini basketball court and rake them flat like Zen gardens to dry in the sun.

I understood most of the process from the tour guide, but then he also showed us an informative video of the same thing, which was actually good because it showed us the actual action that we couldn't see because it was not picking season. The only thing we wondered was if the people wore special "bean-drying-area-only" shoes while they walked back and forth raking the beans in the sun. I wouldn't want to drink coffee that people stepped on with shoes that they stepped in poop with...

Andriy and the German people where the water separates the good and bad beans.

Coffee peeling machinery.

Finally we went to the roasting center, which was not very interesting except that they had this pretty display of coffee bags and their associated pre-roasted beans. Then they gave us chocolate covered coffee beans that were quite tasty and led us into the gift shop where we inevitably bought two bags of coffee (even though I knew I could get it cheaper in a Costa Rican supermarket).

Roasters.

Buying some coffee.

ROAD TO LA FORTUNA

Poas Volcano to La Fortuna.

By the time we finished the tour it was already past 3:30pm and raining. It was going to take us approximately 3 hours to get to La Fortuna and the sun set at 6pm, so we were running a high risk of driving in the dark, which we had been trying to avoid. We asked the tour guide for directions, and he basically gave us this look of dismay and told us not to go all the way to La Fortuna if we could help it. We already had a two night stay booked at the Arenal Observatory Lodge, so there wasn't much we could do about it. I was anxious to get over there anyway, so I didn't really mind driving a little bit in the dark.

Turns out that the road to La Fortuna was one of the nicest roads I've ever seen. We asked about it later at the front desk when we arrived, and we found out that the road was actually newly paved this summer, which is probably why the tour guide thought it was horrible and dangerous. Even though it was only one lane on either side, there was a double yellow line and reflectors on both sides, making it quite safe and pleasant to drive on. We made great time to La Fortuna and got there just a little after 6pm. There were also beautiful mountains all along the way with some roadside waterfalls.

Beautiful scenery.

Long one-way bridge.

Nice paved road with reflectors.

It was only after driving past La Fortuna that it got a bit rough. So far we hadn't encountered any non-paved roads, and we figured everyone was lying about how driving in Costa Rica was so bad. Let's just say that we only had to drive 9km to get from the main road to the lodge, and it took us over half an hour. They warn you on TripAdvisor that the road into the Arenal Observatory Lodge is 9km of hell, but you never know what to expect until you've experienced it. I was driving, and at first I tried to dodge the potholes, but after a while you start to realize that there is no way to dodge them because they are basically organized in layers like bricks, perfectly aligned so there aren't gaps in between that you can hide in. It became funny after a while, because our car was just jumping up and down, and for some strange reason this gave me an indescribable urge to make scat-like noises like "boo boop be doo wop" (I sounded like Ed from Cowboy Bebop).

At some point we saw lots of people gathered around looking at the volcano (these people took a nighttime tour and paid money to come all the way out here where we were staying just to see the volcanic flow), and soon after I basically had to drive through a mini-river. Since it was dark I thought I was driving into a lake, but luckily I came out and there was magically a road road on the other side. I chastised Arenal Observatory Lodge for not paving their roads, but it turns out that section is outside of the lodge premises, and we reencountered a semi-paved area after we got inside the gate. At the gate the guard asked what room number we were, and when I told him we hadn't checked in yet, he took a while looking us up, and I got really paranoid that we weren't on the list, even though I'd already called twice to reconfirm.

Road inside Arenal Observatory Lodge.

ARENAL OBSERVATORY LODGE

We checked into our place in La Casona, which was this cabin a couple hundred meters from the main hotel area. It had a shared bathroom for five rooms, but really there were two bathrooms that were pretty large and were separated from the shared sink area by locked doors and a changing area. When I called a month ago to reserve rooms, they already didn't have any volcano-view standard rooms, so this was basically the only choice that we had if we wanted to see the volcano in our sleep (which turned out to be worth it as I'll explain later). It only cost about $60 a night + tax (someone described La Casona online as "getting all the amenities of the rich people for half the price"), the rooms were nice, free yummy breakfast, lovely pool and jacuzzi, and free guided tour of the grounds in the morning. Not to mention that this was one of the only hotels on the active side of the volcano, aka the side where you could see the eruptions, and we were the closest at about a mile away. All day long you hear the volcano rumbling, and it sounds like thunder (someone described it online as "the earth breathing"). I would say that for the price, it was definitely worth it staying there rather than one of the many many cheap hotels with a nice view on the inactive side of the volcano.

Here are some pictures of the place I took before we checked-out:

La Casona.

Inside.

Our room.

Chairs in the room set up for sitting and viewing the volcano.

View from the window.

View of the lake from the porch.

So the guy who checked us in was really weird. He talked sooo much about the weirdest things, like he was asking about my name and explained to us the whole history of Spanish last names, that the Lopez are people who worked for Lope or something like that. Regardless, he was funny and really enumerated all of the options available to us for things to do, even though we already had most of the stuff planned.

We put our luggage in the room, then went to the restaurant for dinner. I knew it would be marginally expensive, but we obviously didn't want to venture out through the 9km dirt road again, so we had to accept it. I got a sirloin steak, which I assumed was going to be fancy because it's always the really soft juicy stuff in the US, but it turned out to be almost hamburger like, which was weird. I guess wikipedia is telling me the stuff I was thinking about was top sirloin. Andriy also got a sirloin, but his had bacon on it and he really liked it. I think the highlight of dinner, though, was the delicious passionfruit juice for $1, of which I had two.

After dinner we got our bathing suits and went to the pool. It was a little cold to be in the pool, so we just sat in the giant 12-person jacuzzi. There was like nobody there except for at the end, when a family of four came and joined us. The privacy was nice, especially considering how obvious it was from dinner that the hotel was full of American tourists. We were there for about two hours before crashing for the night.

Costa Rica 2008 - Day 1 - Boston to Alajuela

2008-08-19T12:00:00.001-07:00

GETTING THERE

So I spent months reading the Fodor's Costa Rica book from front to back, highlighting and putting post-its like Chen used to do, preparing for this one week in Costa Rica. It was really stressful actually! But I was really happy to have made and rechecked my packing list weeks ago, because the day we had to leave I spent a really hectic day finishing up odds and ends at work and then cleaning the house after weeks of neglect. With the packing list, I didn't really have to think at all and worry that I'd missed something, and yet I still forgot my student ID (I actually stupidly took that out on purpose, but luckily I didn't end up needing it) and my mini alarm clock that I bought in Germany that saved me from oversleeping many long train journeys with Sam.

We were getting picked up by Dima at Andriy's house at 2am, so I had to bike all my stuff over there. I would've just waited to get picked up, but the other half of the stuff was already there, and I wanted to consolidate everything and make sure I didn't forget anything. I was so tired from holding up my huge bag of clothes right in the middle of the bike handle so that it wouldn't cause me to swerve into oncoming traffic that I was forced to take a short break at Sally's apartment on the way. Which was good because I had to say goodbye before she left for California, and then we watched a bit of the women's gymnastics uneven bars finals where everyone boohooed that Nastia Liukin didn't get the gold (pretty crazy the tie though).

Finally getting to the airport, plane leaving at 5am, no sleep for two days, and lots of baggage to carry meant a really cranky Ling. Fortunately the flight went smoothly, and we were able to avoid any delays, even though we were passing through Houston aka hurricane central (I checked wikipedia hurricane report every day, we were very lucky). They played Made of Honor on the first flight, but I fell asleep halfway through. That movie was basically a total ripoff of My Best Friend's Wedding with reversed sex roles and an even more poorly devised characters. Finally, around noon on August 19th, we arrived in Costa Rica.

CAR RENTAL

Course of action for travel around Costa Rica.

So everywhere you read about getting around Costa Rica, they tell you about how horrible the roads are and how you can't get by without a 4x4. We did like all of this research to get the best deal possible, and we still ended up spending roughly $520 on a Daihatsu Terios Bego automatic 4x4, which has great handling but a really sad engine. We could have gotten only the basic insurance and saved a hundred dollars, but we figured we might as well go all out and avoid having to think about things like if some crazy Tico cuts you off or you fall off a bridge with no railings or your car gets stolen because you left something of not much value in plain sight. We could have just taken the bus, but we packed so much into the itinerary that the inflexible bus schedules just didn't work out (plus the added laziness factor of not wanting to carry a giant sack of belongings around to the bus stop), and shuttles were only marginally cheaper. In the end I was really glad to have had the car because the whole experience of Costa Rican driving was totally part of the adventure (it wasn't that bad, and the parts that were were fun).

Our car.

The airport was relatively small, but customs was a lot faster than we expected. The car rental guy met us at the entrance with a little sign for "Didovyk" - personalized service! We waited about fifteen minutes for the driver and chatted a little bit about the weather, and finally we were taken to Toyota Rent A Car. The place is slightly outside the airport with a few other rental companies, which is nice because you avoid paying the airport tax of $12. There were a couple of companies that were slightly cheaper, but we read some horror stories so we thought we'd stick to a highly recommended company. Again, smooth service, free water and coffee - Costa Rica was really impressing us so far!

JARDIN TROPICAL B AND B

We headed out onto the highway for the short drive to our overnight bed and breakfast, Jardin Tropical B and B. However, since we were not exactly at the airport, we asked for some altered directions from the car rental guys. That was a mistake! Whatever they said and whatever we did was definitely not the same, and we ended up driving all through the town of Alajuela, which was surprisingly small and reminded me of some of the villages in Taiwan. I got super confused because it was only after we drove away from Alajuela that we found our way back, even though we were supposedly staying in Alajuela (turns out Jardin Tropical is actually in the nearby area of La Garita). It was lucky for Andriy's navigational skills, because I had no idea where we were.

I even asked a local in Spanish - also a mistake! It's sort of pointless to ask in Spanish when you can't understand the response (though I got back into the groove of speaking Spanish as the week went on, and it all sort of came back to me, for which I'm grateful). The thing about speaking a different language is that you have to be fully confident. I was afraid of sounding stupid, so I ended up being more timid, and since I was more timid, I spoke more softly and my voice wavered, and since I spoke more softly and my voice wavered, the guy couldn't understand what I was saying, and since he couldn't understand what I was saying, I had to repeat it, and since I had to repeat it, I got embarrassed, and since I got embarrassed, I got more timid... really vicious cycle.

Andriy at the gate of Jardin Tropical.

So we chose to stay at this Jardin Tropical place because I read raving reviews on TripAdvisor about how homey it felt. It was... okay. The hostess Cinthya speaks excellent English and she was really nice, but compared to Oma's house in Cochem (where Frau Ostermann was basically like our oma) and this place called "Our Home" in Taiwan (where the place was full of people who were once customers that moved there because they loved it so much), it felt really a lot like a nice home that we were staying at and not our home. Cinthya was really accommodating, but I felt a little awkward because she just talked a little about what we needed and whatnot and wasn't super talkative (maybe we were also tired and not so talkative ourselves). She has two cute little boys that also speak English, but again, they felt like strangers and not like "family" as the reviews suggested. It was okay for us though, we were so tired anyway that we just wanted to be left alone.

When we got settled in I just kept thinking about our house in Taiwan, mostly because the room furniture was made of bamboo and smelled like it. We got the cheapest room for only $40, and even though it wasn't big, it was clean and the beds were comfortable (I only lament they were kind of squeaky, which was a bit annoying). We also had to share a bathroom in the hall, but there were no other guests sharing it for that night, plus it was really big and clean and smelled of fresh potpourri. There was also a TV so we could watch some Spanish pop videos and news about Obama.

ZOO AVE

Even though we were a little bit away from the town of Alajuela (which didn't really bother us because, driving past, it didn't look like there was much to see), we were just a few blocks away from the zoo. We got to Jardin Tropical around 2pm, but it was over an hour later when we left for the zoo. I don't know what took so long, we just kept reorganizing stuff, leaving, forgetting something, coming back, reorganizing again, etc. On one of the rounds I helped kick a soccer ball to some local boy, which made me feel super cool.

The road to the zoo was lined with banana and coconut trees, which reminded me of Taiwan for yet a third time. It's interesting because the rest of Costa Rica wasn't all that similar (with some exceptions), but that first day really made me want to go home. Andriy had never seen a banana tree before, so I told him he just had to go visit Taiwan with me sometime. We took a couple of pictures on the road, and all these cars driving by honked at us, which made me feel really touristy and embarrassed.

Andriy on the way to the zoo.

So the zoo, Zoo Ave, is not actually Zoo Avenue or Zoo Avenida, rather a zoo of birds with some other animals thrown in (Ave = birds... light bulb over head moment). They totally tricked us into thinking the zoo was free by the free entrance from the parking lot, but then you have to pay a little bit further in. I was a little more successful in speaking Spanish this time while we paid for tickets.

It basically started raining once we got there, but we had umbrellas and rain jackets, and the rain made for some really nice lush green pictures. I really liked the zoo because the way they set it up was really rainforesty to set the mood and made for a nice relaxing way to start off the trip. Andriy has his fancy camera with his new wide aperture lens that can take those artistic pictures with the blurry background, so everything takes like 5x longer because I have to wait for him to get the perfect shot (I didn't think I'd find someone who was worse about that than I was). There were lots of birds, and I even saw an ocelot! The only thing was that the animals started to hide once it really started pouring, so we left around 5pm.

Ling and Andriy at the zoo.

Macaws.

Peacock Man.

Monkey Woman.

Mural of birds.

Flower.

DINNER

On our way back we stopped at the small "restaurant" across the street from the zoo for dinner. It was basically a large open air dining area in front of a kitchen area with strings of onions and squash-like-things hanging on the way, and during our stay we came to realize this was a very typical Tico restaurant. The food looked delicious, steaming hot in the cold rain, and it was not very expensive (around $13 for the two of us). I got the fried fish, which was delicious, and Andriy got some sort of "fajita" which was really just meat with rice and beans but also delicious. I was just sad that the food got cold fast after we got it because of the wind, while I watched more piping hot soup being served to nearby customers. We also got drinks, and Andriy's papaya milk juice was really good while my tamarindo was very blech ("like bull's pee" - Andriy). I thought tamarind was this tomato-orange like fruit, but now that I look it up it actually looks kind of like brown edamame, so I'm not sure what I was thinking about. Yeah, it wasn't very good.

When we got back to the house we were covered in mud, and I felt so bad about trekking into Cinthya's house, but she insisted that we not care about it. It was so nice to have a shower, but I didn't figure out how to get the hot water until I was almost done (the cold water wasn't terribly cold though). I was glad that we were exhausted because I couldn't think of much else to do, and I didn't really feel like chatting (I guess I wasn't really quite ready to mingle among the Ticos...). We were so tired, in fact, that we fell asleep at 7pm and slept all the way until the next morning around 7am. Despite the squeaky bed, it was a great sleep! It was good because we didn't get to sleep much for the rest of the time in Costa Rica because we were so busy loving it!