Puerto Viejo and Journey Home - Days 7 - 9

We're now at Puerto Viejo, down on the Caribbean coastline. Joel and I debated at mid-trip where to go for the beach portion of this trip. The Pacific Coast in Costa Rica has tremendous scenic beauty and great beaches, but there were also supposedly hordes of tourist, ugly condos and not what we were looking for. Joel did some digging and found a small village on the other ocean that was more or less untouched by the tourist hordes. So...we opted to go there.

Puerto Viejo definitely isn't what I envisioned the Pacific Coast to be like. The Caribbean has a more Jamaican feel to it. The people here are more of African descent rather than the Ticos (what the Costa Ricans call themselves) from the interior and rest of the country. It's also really hot. We got a killer deal on a room (no A/C) just inland a few blocks that was pretty much open-air with screens. At one point, the room went over 90 degrees in the afternoon. Amazingly, it cools off considerable indoors at night. Now if I could only get my place to do that without the A/C.

Puerto Viejo has brings with it the lifestyle of Jamaica too. I haven't yet been there, but we got offered drugs on the first walk that first night. The guidebooks pretty much warned of this. The rest of the town was pretty nonthreatening though. I just wouldn't get caught on some sidestreet alone at night, but hey...that's advisable alot of places in the US as well.

The beach here has the rainforest and palms come right down to the shoreline. The beaches aren't groomed, so they don't have that ideal look that you might find in some similar locations.

We went to an even smaller village the next morning called Manzanillo. There was a short little hike along the coastline. Crabs and hermit crabs and coconut shells were everywhere. We rented some snorkel gear and headed out into the ocean. Since the waves were breaking about 200 yards out, we figured the reef would be pretty accessible from this beach. Too bad the ocean was restless, because it stirred up alot of sand. We saw parts of the reef tho and some pretty cool looking fish.

That pretty much wrapped up our Costa Rican experience. The next morning we took a public bus back up to San Jose and got a small hotel room within five minutes of the airport. Thankfully, we managed to keep our time in San Jose limited. We did score a ride with one of the more interesting bus drivers in San Jose. His driving was atrocious and he kept flashing his lights, yelling and flipping off the locals as he switched lanes and swirved through traffic WITH A PUBLIC BUS.

Hope you enjoyed my blog travels to Costa Rica. I'll hopefully get to put another series of posts together this fall when I travel for over three weeks in South America with GAP Adventures to Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Iguassu Falls.

Rafting on the Pacuare - Day 6

Best day yet! I knew it would be. Today was whitewater rafting in the jungle day. We're moving out of the Arenal area and go across the divide to the SE corner of Costa Rica. We had a transport pick us up at 5:45a this morning (yeah...early, geez) and we traveled for about three hours (with our entertaining tour operator, Ricky Bobby) to our rendezvous point for our pre-rafting breakfast. We booked our trip with this recommended company called Exploradores Outdoors. They picked us up in Fortuna, drove us to the rafting sight and then took us on to the Caribbean...and all part of the price of admission ($99). Pretty cool huh? Don't you wish the Ocoee would do that for you?

This wasn't your average whitewater trip. It was my highlight of the whole trip. We heard it routinely quoted that the Pacuare is one of the Top 5 most scenic rafting rivers in the world. I think it lived up to its hype. The raft trip was 18 miles long (as compared to 6 miles on the standard Ocoee run) and hit both Class III and IV rapids (comparable to the Ocoee/Pigeon Rivers). We were probably on the river for a good four hours...no breaks!

There was lots to see and the rapids were fairly continuous throughout...not too many breaks. We floating through three canyons, all of which were pretty dramatic. The last was a narrow rock canyon with a decrepit rope and wood bridge high above crossing the river. There was a tall waterfall to the right that was slicing through the rock and falling into the river...very idyllic.

A thunderstorm (of course) hit midway through the trip and we had to postpone our lunch until the very end. It got a little chilly when it did start raining, but thankfully we had reached near the end of our ride.

We pulled into our final destination of our adventure tonight, Puerto Viejo, down on the Caribbean coastline near Panama for a little beachtime.

No camera on the rafting trip, so pic "borrowed" from the "A Dollar a Day" blog by some random girl from Canada.

Volcano Arenal - Part II - Day 5

We had one more full day in Fortuna and at the volcano. It's really recommended that you go see the volcano spouting lava on its "backside" in the twilight hours when it is really visible. We didn't have that option...afternoon thunderstorms...many of them, and often. Typically the day starts off clear and the clouds built to a crescendo when sometime between noon and 3p, the storms begin. Sometimes they are brief. Sometimes they last until into the night.

We got up a little earlier today so that we could enjoy the outdoor hiking without the heat. Well, the sun rises at 5:30 and we found that the difference between 8:30a and 10:30a is marginal...still hot. We went to the Arenal National Park today. Let's just say it's not to be confused with the national parks back home. They still charged $8 to enter, but the only "facilities" were a single bathroom and a fee collection station. What we got was alot of hiking in sugarcane fields (borrrrring) and some as-close-as-you-can-get views of the volcano, very near the foot of it. There was some gurgling and rumbling coming from the heavens...and then you would see a few semi-molten boulders tumbling down the flank of the volcano. Pretty cool! Unfortunately, I wish I could say more about this park, but it was nothing more than the sugarcane and listless lava fields from twenty years ago. *shrugs*

So...we're out here at the park with no facilities and we need to get back to Fortuna. It's a ten mile trip to get there my taxi, but there's not even a phone within sight. We walked the roads and then the highway for at least 2-3 miles until we came to the famous Tabacon Grand Spa & Thermal Resort. This place is all to well known for some very dynamic hot spring pools in a intimate, tropical setting....and all for the low, low price of $65/visit. Yikes! Now...*enter* the two cheapskates. No way were we paying $65 to smoke cigars, toast champagne, burn money...whatever they do at these luxury spots. We found the hot springs (really a mountain creek) ran right under the highway bridge. So, we found a side trail and ducked in behind Tabacon's own property and enjoyed the hot springs to ourselves...for free!

The springs are pretty cool too. It's a mountain stream that is freshwater runoff from the volcano...very clean and very, very warm (100 degrees or so). I didn't care for the really hot stuff, but the springs were mixing with another cold water stream, creating the perfect bathwater....ahhhhhhh...bliss.

We spotted an iguana chilling on a log over the springs...check him out.


BTW...we didn't hike the entire ten miles back. Thankfully we found a phone just as another big thunderstorm hit. We were spared.

Volcano Arenal - Days 3 - 4

After the ziplines and a break back at our hostel, Joel and I were off to our next destination, Fortuna and Volcano Arenal.

There were a couple options on how to get to Arenal. We could take the standard public transportation again. Unfortunately, Fortuna is not on a direct path from Monteverde as it must go around Lake Arenal. Total ride - something like 6 - 8 hours. Enticing? NO.

Our other option was taking private taxi van transport directly down the mountain to the lake, float across, and hook up with another taxi van on the other side. Total ride - 3 hours and only $21. Accepted? you bet!

The ride down the mountain from Monteverde was extremely scenic. The boat ride across Lake Arenal was likewise. We had views of two volcano on opposite sides of the lake (one being Arenal). A huge thunderstorm (notice a theme?) was approaching and hit about the time we reached the other side.

We stayed in another quaint location, a small hotel this time...no A/C again. It was a little warmer in Fortuna...mid 80's but the humidity was oppressive here at those temps. We adapted quickly if we wanted to get any sleep.

We decided to hike on our first full day in town. We hired a taxi to another reserve and had a hike planned to summit a inactive volcanic cone named Cerro Chato. Mistake - starting late. Problem - first half of the "vertical" hike was exposed in the sun. It was a five mile hike and was easily the hardest short hike I've ever done. One think I've learned from Costa Rica and Hawaii, if a hike involved assaulting a volcano, it's going to be steep...very steep. Volcanoes aren't gentle climbs. Rocks from the top take the path of least resistance down and so they ALL build fairly steep.

The second half of the hike was in rainforest jungle. It was the trail and then there was dense vegetation on both sides. I was on the lookout for snakes the entire length. Joel's in a bit better shape than me and plowed up the thing...but I didn't linger too far behind and managed to keep a pretty good clip with some occasional stops to accommodate my screaming lungs. Scripps doesn't exactly prepare me for this line of work with the deskjob.

The view at the top of the cone was a very, very rewarding view of the adjacent bigger brother, Arenal. Arenal is the picture attached to the blog. Arenal is steep. I'm used to the shield volcanoes in Hawaii that cover hundreds of square MILES. All of Arenal is right before you here. It is much more of a visual cone-shaped volcano than the immense ones in Hawaii (and there are reasons for that btw).

A hike down into the crater and then the bottom of the cone provided a couple rewards. Joel went swimming in the crater's center where a deep, green lake was formed. I elected to wait until the bottom of the hike and wait for the La Fortuna waterfall and deepwater pool that was at the bottom of the falls. Both were very refreshing after a very hard hike.

With Day 4 complete, I'll post about our activities on Day 5 later...

Monteverde - Day 2 & 3

Saint Elena (the town) and Monteverde (the reserve) are these cool spots way up into the green highlands of central Costa Rica. Saint Elena is nothing more than a couple of square blocks but is packed with small backpacker hostels and eateries. There are loads of ecolodges and several tourist "attractions" on the outskirts. Here, we're up around 4,000 or 5,000' elevation...away from the heat of the lowlands and up in the cooler, wetter cloud forest as they call it.

So what is a cloud forest anyway? Well, it's a bit different from the rain forest because at this elevation, your on par with the passing clouds in the sky (think Mount LeConte or Clingman's Dome for you Smokies hikers). Every afternoon, the heat in the valleys below builds and sweeps up the slopes of the mountains here...condensing and forming almost daily rain showers. There's constant moisture between the rain and the passing clouds and Monteverde is thus able to support a huge variety of plant, bird, reptile and animal life.

Joel & I are staying in this small wooden hostel. The thing with Costa Rica...you can snag single rooms (rather than your typical dorm bed) for dirt cheap here. We're talking like $25/night, cheap. That comes with a bathroom and a couple beds, but not much else. But hey, we're not here to sleep and relax. We're in Monteverde to be outside.

The first day here was spent at the reserve itself. You had to arrive early if you wanted to take the 2-3 hour guided tour with a local "ranger". These guys are amazing. They can spot a bird on a limb 500 feet away in dense vegetation. You'll see more wildlife in an hour with them than you'll see all day on your own. Our guide helped us spot several of the rare quetzals here. Only a few hundred exist and we saw several that day. We saw guans, an emerald Toucan, a few frogs, many, many hummingbirds and a few active holler monkeys way up in the trees at one point.

We ventured out post-guided tour later also, just avoiding the afternoon requisite rain shower and caught a great view of the entire reserve from the Continental Divide at a viewpoint with the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on both sides far in the distance.

On our second day, it was time for an adrenaline rush and so we hit up the Selventura zip lines that morning (). Check out the website if you want to know specifics, but basically, the "park" has 13 zip lines strung from platform to platform in the cloudforest. Some zip under the tree canopy, some zip well over the tree canopy. Some hit 40mph and one zip line goes over 500' over a canyon for almost a full mile! Joel found the zip lines to be a bit mild...but hey...he owns a motorcycle and is also an adrenaline junkie. Me...yeah, I got plenty enough of a thrill out of the 500' drop being held up by a couple of clips and a rope.

After the zip lines, we were finished with Monteverde and the cloud forest and off to the land of Costa Rica's most famous volcano, Arenal.

Costa Rica

Just to let everyone know, I'm sure this set of travel blog entries won't be nearly as entertaining as the Europe trip a year ago. For one, I'm already home and I'm backdating all of my entries, since net access in Costa Rica was an issue. With that footnote, here goes...

Day 1 - San Jose

I'm traveling with my friend, Joel, from work. We had been looking for a weeklong "rugged" vacation for the last several months that we could do for this summer. Most of our focus all winter had been a planned backpacking excursion in the summer on the Pacific Crest Trail in either Washington or Oregon. Logistics and the fact that taking a full WEEK to backpack made such a trip a little more difficult and somewhat uninspiring (this year).

So, somewhere along the way Costa Rica got thrown into the mix. We found this "killer" package deal on the net back in the spring, but a little digging showed some flaws. For one, any package involving a 4WD rental car included some nasty insurance and taxes. Costa Ricans aren't exactly known for safe driving and State Farm won't insure my driving down there either.

So a couple months ago, I ran across an Atlanta - Costa Rica airfare for just $308 (taxes included). Booked! So here we are, flying out of Atlanta this very, very early morning and headed for San Jose for 9+ days. This isn't going to be your average Costa Rican vacation either. No ecolodges...no 4WD rentals...no plush beach rentals...just hardcore, independent, by the earth travel. We'll be traveling by local bus, staying in hostels and small hotels and there won't be any frills thrown in.

We land in San Jose @ 10:40a after a brief layover in Miami. San Jose is on Central Time, but they also don't observe Daylight Savings Time. Sun-up is at 5:30a and sunset is at 5:30p. Now doesn't those hours suck? Twelve hour days too? Yep...only down near the equator in summer. The sun's directly overhead and it's very intense too.

San Jose is a city of over a million people. We aren't going to Costa Rica to see city, so we're immediately headed to the bus station on foot and headed up into the mountains. The first bus is a 5-hour trip up the Pan-American Highway and then some rough dirt and rock roads to the city of Saint Elena near the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. That's where we plan to really start our trip. Enjoy!