Well, 12 days and 7000 miles later, we came back from Costa Rica. What a great trip. Prepare yourself for this mammoth blog recap. I think a chronological recap should work nicely. I apologize ahead of time for the lack of brevity in this one...
Day one: On our way
Jen found us an amazing deal on airfare, but we had to fly out of LA so we left the house around 0530 in order to give ourselves plenty of time to make the drive and catch our flight. The drive was went quickly and smoothly, we parked our car at our friend Caitlin's dad's house in Manhattan Beach
The flight down to San Jose was pretty uneventful; one quick stop for a connection and a snack in Dallas-Fort Worth and we were headed south to Costa Rica. We got in fairly late (around 7 or 8 pm) so we couldn't see anything from the windows of the plane on our final approach, but the excitement was palpable nonetheless. We got off the plane, swung downstairs to pick up our baggage and some cash from the ATM (every ATM in Costa Rica lets you pull money in either Costa Rican colones or US dollars. Weird!), and picked up our rental car. Our rental guy's name was Mario, spoke flawless English, and even suggested we eat at his buddy's Italian restaurant in La Fortuna. Although dealing with him was a treat, paying for the rental car was not; between the international insurance and the cost of the car itself it ended up being almost $60 a day to rent the car. In retrospect it was the right decision because driving around the country was an adventure in itself, but the initial sticker shock was pretty painful. We threw our bags in the back of our rental Suzuki Jimny (only 22000km on the odometer and already the shocks were toast!)and headed over to the Marriott which would be our home away from home in San Jose. The hotel was great and we got a great deal on it (thanks a million, Patty! We owe you!). Best of all it had free internet so we sent out a quick Facebook update. Nerds...
Day two: Drive to La Fortuna
We got an early start on day two and headed out for our drive to La Fortuna. This was our first big adventure in driving and navigation and we came prepared with maps aplenty. My step-mom had given me an incredibly detailed map she used on her trip a year earlier, unfortunately I didn’t realize how great it was until after our first day of driving was complete. There are a number of routes one may follow to get from San Jose to La Fortuna, and prior to leaving I picked one that I thought would be the most picturesque. Sadly, I missed the turn-off for that route, but we found some signs that eventually led us up into the foggy mountains and into La Fortuna.
The town of La Fortuna sits at the base of the Arenal Volcano, which has been continuously active for a few decades now, spewing lava at regular intervals. Like most of the tourism hot spots, many of the people of La Fortuna make their living in jobs affiliated with the tourist industry, whether at restaurants, as tour guides, or in hotels. The town is nice, built around a big church, and the scenery is amazing due to its proximity to the volcano.
We stayed at the Hotel Mountain Paradise, and although it wasn’t exactly paradise, it was definitely a great place to stay. Our “room” consisted of a huge bedroom with both king and queen sized beds, an equally oversized bathroom with two showers, and a patio with a private jacuzzi tub enclosed by tropical plants. Although having two showers sounds a bit redundant, and I guess it really is, what made them interesting was the design. One shower was typically modern, had all the typical controls, a few body sprayers which was nice, and a clean looking glass enclosure. It would fit in perfectly in a condo in La Jolla or downtown San Diego. The other shower was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It was a jungle waterfall made from formed concrete and complete with ledges and crevices with moss and plants growing in them. It was unbelievable. The service at the hotel was also very good and we really enjoyed breakfasts in the restaurant. Probably the most interesting part of our stay there was the numerous kinds of wildlife we encountered IN our room: we had a tiny frog the size of a big toenail, a 5” long lizard, and a beetle the size of a silver dollar. It was a good intro to Costa Rican wildlife.
Before we even left the states we had already decided that La Fortuna would be a great place to get out and do some exciting tours, so we stopped by the Desafio tour office in town and signed up for a wallet draining line up of tours: canyoneering, followed by a volcano hike, dinner and finishing up with a dip in the local hot springs on our first day, and white-water rafting on day two. We grabbed dinner at a local restaurant called La Choza De Laurel (good typical Tico food, about $8 a plate) that came highly recommended by the peeps at Desafio. It was easy to find because it was right next to a Burger King. Hilarious.
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Day three: Canyoneering, Volcano Hike and Hot Springs
We scheduled ourselves for the late-morning canyoneering adventure, so we had plenty of time to eat breakfast and drive in to the office to meet up with our tour. The trip out to the canyoneering site consisted of a 20 minutes van ride on the paved roads and another 30 minutes riding in the back of a truck along unpaved, rustic country roads to the cabin that serves as home base. At the cabin we got all kitted out with our gear and once we were all harnessed up with d-rings and ropes dangling like Christmas ornaments, we hopped back in the truck for another short ride up to the entry point for the canyon. I’d never done canyoneering before, but it’s basically just hiking and scrambling down a river canyon, then rappelling down the portions that are too slick or vertical for you to scramble down. Jen and I were the only ones on the tour, and our tour guides were great. There were only 4 rappels (the largest was down a 200’ waterfall) but we had a blast. It was fun to make our way down the jungle canyon knee deep in water, in the pouring rain talking with our guides. They pointed out all kinds of plants, played a few jokes on us, and even asked for help with English grammar (when to use "like" versus "as", we had to think about that one for a minute)! Overall it was one of our favorite tours of the trip.
After canyoneering we set out on our hike, and this was the first point that we noticed a serious flaw in our packing: neither of us had brought any sort of jackets or sweatshirts. It had been pouring down rain all day, and it was probably only about 60 degrees (hey, we live in San Diego so that feels a little chilly!) so we were prepared to get soaked and cold on the hike. I decided to just tough it out and get soaked, while Jen, as always, was intelligent about the situation and bought a poncho so that she could at least stay dry. The hike would have been spectacular, with impressive views of the mountain, lava, etc., but the thick overcast layer creating the pouring rain also completely socked in the top of the volcano, so we really couldn't see anything at all. Also, all the animals in the jungle were hiding out from the deluge, so we also didn't see any animals. The only good thing was that at the end of the hike our guide broke out a bottle of Cacique guaro. Guaro is the traditional Costa Rican version of rum made from sugar cane, and a couple drinks of that stuff helped to warm us back up after getting soaked in the jungle.
We left our hike hungry and a bit disappointed that we didn’t see anything and got soaked to the bone for no reason, and headed off to The Springs. Although our hike was certainly not worth the money, we were optimistic that dinner and a dip in the thermal springs could salvage the deal. We were right. The Springs is one of three major aquas termales in the area. It’s a pretty impressive place; kinda like the Disneyland of hot springs, made all out of poured concrete and complete with dozens of pools, a swim-up bar, and even a water slide! It’s a pretty swanky joint, and dinner was great. The funny part was that we were only people in the pools. Literally. All the guidebooks claim that late December is the “high season”, but it didn’t seem too busy to us.
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Day four: The White Water Rafting Incident…
After the amazing time we had canyoneering, we were stoked for white water rafting. We opted for the Rio Toro (class 3/4) instead of the Rio Bolsa (Class 1/2) because, um, duh, we weren't coming all the way to Costa Rica for some wimpy rapids! We wanted a challenge! Sure we did...
We met up with our tour guides at Desafio headquarters and hopped in the van with the other folks. The trip out to the river took about an hour through beautiful countryside filled with farms of all kinds: papayas, banana, palm tree plantations, and lots of sugar cane. When we reached the river our guides got everyone together to hand out our safety gear and give the obligatory safety brief. When they got to the part about what you should do if the raft flips over I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "Man, I kinda hope our raft flips over. That sounds exciting." How prophetic. Stupid, but prophetic. Six of us climbed in the raft and we set off down the river. After about a half an hour we were really getting into a groove. Our guide barked paddling orders and we'd instantly spring into action to paddle or dive in the boat, or whatever. The one we hadn't quite mastered, however, was "in". That one meant that we were all supposed to move into the center of the boat because there was a chance that the boat would flip on a rock. So here we are 45 minutes into the trip with some mighty class 4 rapids looming just ahead. As we approach the white water the guide starts yelling, "paddle, paddle, paddle!" All of a sudden, out of the frothy, crystalline water a gigantic, fiendish rock arises, grabs the right side of the boat, and overturns it in a great arcing crash. Prior to our up-ending I was on the forward left side of the boat, so due to the fact that the boat rolled to the left, not only was I crushed by the raft, but I was crushed by nearly everyone in the raft. To add insult to injury, I timed it perfectly and as I hit the water my left elbow struck a river honed razor-rock, splitting it wide open and leaving me wondering if I'd fractured my left arm. I tucked my arm in, and followed the guide's earlier safety instructions, floating feet first down the river, scratching along every rock along the way. Immediately upon coming to the surface I started searching for Jen, because I figured if I was this banged up, my poor fragile, 100 pound wife must be worse off. I was wrong of course, and as I looked downriver I saw her just next to a raft being hauled in by its members, shaken but unharmed. The members of the other raft did the same for me, and when we beached our overloaded raft on a sandbar I hopped out to survey the damage. While the blood drained from my face and I had a seat on a large rock, Jen went instantly into nurse mode, cleaning the wound with water from someone's Nalgene, and piecing the loose flaps of shredded elbow skin back together with the meager first aid supplies available to her. Once I got all bandaged up and the color had returned to my face, we all got back in our raft and hit the river once again. We had only covered about 45 minutes of river, and we had nearly 2 hours left! The rest of the ride was fun, but our whole boat was scared of flipping over for the rest of the day, so "conservative" was the best adjective to describe our subsequent white-water rafting style.
After our morning/afternoon of excitement on the river, we figured a more relaxed evening of dinner and volcano watching was our best plan. We had just met a nice couple from Pennsylvania named Karen and Christian and we decided to try to get a glimpse of the lava that continuously spews from the volcano. After climbing in our car we drove out of town to the dirt road that hooks around the mountain and kept going until we reached a little bridge with dozens of people milling about, waiting for the clouds obscuring the lava to part so they could get a peek at the spectacle. We got there just before sunset and the overcast layer looked like it was thinning out, but as the sun went down the clouds grew thicker and thicker. After about 45 minutes of waiting and watching without seeing much of anything, we decided to head further up the dirt road toward the observatory to see if we might not be able to find a better vantage point. About 5 minutes into our drive we saw a single car parked on the side of the dirt, mountain road with two guys looking toward the mountain so we stopped. Jackpot. For some reason there were no clouds here to block the view and we watched an almost continuous rain of lava spewing up and out of the mountain and exploding as it tumbled down the side. Awesome and well worth the drive.
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Day five: The long drive to Monteverde
As per usual, we got a bit of a late start on the way out of La Fortuna on our way to Monteverde. All the guide books talk about the poor condition of the roads up to Monteverde, so we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get there before dark, setting aside extra time for getting lost. Heading west from La Fortuna I was impressed with the quality of the road for the first 15 miles or so. It was definitely windy and quite narrow in places, but the asphalt was new and it was a smooth ride. Gradually, though, the quality and width deteriorated, the potholes grew ever larger, the asphalt gave way to dirt and rocks and the number of animals in and around the road multiplied until we slowed to a snail's pace of around 10-15 kph (that's around 5-10 mph for you American folk). The slow speed was actually appreciated during the day as we passed some interesting sights like a Swiss chalet and numerous quaint Costa Rican villages, but once the sun went down bouncing along an unlit and unmarked road started to wear on our nerves. We ran out of proper, improved surface road about 30km from Monteverde, and it took us around 2.5 hours to make that last leg. Yowch. Our hotel, Trapp Family Lodge was at the very end of that rocky, bumpy road and by the time we got there it was definitely time for bed.
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Day six: Fun in the Cloud Forest
Objective number one for us in Monteverde was to explore the cloud forest, and since our hotel was only a short walk from the reserve we tossed some granola bars in our pockets and headed out. Monteverde is up in the mountains at about 5000 feet, so all the warm, moist air comes from the Pacific and as it rises up through the mountains it condenses into clouds and much of it is dropped as rain. Costa Rica's equatorial location keeps it warm, and this combo creates a cloud forest; a rainforest at high elevation with incredible biodiversity. It was storming up a gale with high winds and bouts of pouring rain, but we were generally protected by the canopy and Jen's poncho. We didn't really see any animals except for a few small birds, but we had fun exploring the jungle and crossing an awesome suspension bridge that hung about 100' above the forest floor.
We left the cloud forest, hopped in the car and headed off to the El Trapiche tour. This was one of my favorite tours of the entire trip. It's an old sugar cane plantation that they've converted into an educational visitors' tour. The tour starts with an example of a banana plantation explaining the differences between bananas and plantains, and rolls straight into coffee. Our guide showed us how they cultivate the coffee plants, pick the berries, separate the beans from the berries, dry the beans, and finally, how they roast the dried coffee beans. After the coffee portion we hopped in the back of a traditional, wooden ox-cart that pulled us over to el trapiche. In the good ol' days they harnessed the power of the ox to run a machine that crushed the sugar cane and extracted the sugar juice. Nowadays it's cheaper to use electricity to the do the same thing, but it was interesting to see how it was originally done. We finished off the tour with a cup of coffee made from the beans they grow on the plantation. It was the first full cup of coffee I've ever drank, but it should really only count for about a half cup of coffee given the copious amounts of milk and sugar I added. We ended the day with a night hike of the reserve, and saw a huge, hungry-looking tarantula, a bunch of bats, and a sleeping Quetzal (that's a bird). We also met a really nice couple from Calgary, Alberta named Jenna and Andrew, and at the end of the tour we all decided to meet up once we got to Manuel Antonio.
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Day seven: The drive to Manuel Antonio
All right, if you've made it this far, I commend you. I never intended for this to be such a novel, but I'm going to give you the condensed version from here on out.
The roads on the way out of Monteverde were very similar to the roads on the way in, but we saw some beautiful scenes, came across some funny animals (a couple cows and oxen, and one big blue iguana) and finally made it back to asphalt. Once back on the main highway it was smooth sailing. About half way to Manuel Antonio we found the Tarcoles river bridge. I'm not sure how it's happened but over time a group of about 20 huge crocodiles has found that if they hang out directly under this bridge stupid tourists will drop them all kinds of good things to eat.
The rest of the drive was uneventful and we rolled into beautiful Manuel Antonio just in time to watch the sun set from our balcony overlooking the ocean. We stayed at the Hotel Costa Verde and it was amazing. We had the most incredible view from our balcony, and we woke up every morning to the screeching of howler monkeys!
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Day eight: Kicking it in Quepos
Since the national park is closed on Mondays we decided to spend our first day in Manuel Antonio chilling out and exploring the nearby town of Quepos. MA is a very tidy, very touristy town while Quepos is like it's dirty, less interesting little brother. Afterward we hooked up with our friends Jenna and Andrew, who we met up in Monteverde, for dinner. It was great to see them again, and we made plans to hook up the next morning for a tour of Manuel Antonio state park; the real reason that tourists flock to the little beach village.
Day nine: Oye! Monos!!!
Bright and early we hopped out of bed and scampered down to the park. We ended up getting there about 30 minutes after we were supposed to meet up with Jenna and Andrew, so when we didn't see them at the entrance we figured they'd already headed out so we started our hike. Within 30 minutes we saw a troop of howler monkeys crossing our trail by jumping from tree to tree. Monkey spottings continued from there. Around lunch time the capuchin monkeys came out in droves. Apparently, over the years these little guys have learned that tourists carry bags, and in those bags they carry food. It seemed like every single monkey's single-minded goal was to wait until some unsuspecting tourist went into the ocean, leaving his or her bag unattended, and at that point to descend from the trees, snatch the bag, and carry his prize back into the canopy to rummage through it at his leisure. The only problem with this plan is that as soon as the monkeys come down to bag level, throngs of tourists gather around them and blow their cover. The monkey then has a very difficult decision to make: continue to draw ever increasing attention by being near the bag, or retreat back to the relative safety of the overhanging limbs. You can see in the monkey's eyes that it's a difficult choice indeed, but while I was there every one of them chose to run away before they garnered just a little too much attention. It was great.
We saw all kinds of animals in the park: howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys, bats sleeping in a palm tree, a caiman, Jesus lizards, and iguanas. Once we'd had our fill of hiking through the jungle Andrew, Jenna, Jen and I hopped in the cerulean blue waters to cool off. What a day.
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Day ten: Kayak attack
Day eleven: Back to San Jose
Due to a closure of part of the main Pan-American highway that runs north to south across Costa Rica we got stuck in a seriously circuitous detour that extended our drive back to San Jose at least an hour, but we arrived back at the hotel we'd spent the first night in none the worse for wear (thanks again, Patty!).
Day twelve: Spending Christmas with the TSA
Traveling on Christmas is definitely cheaper than traveling around Christmas, but the cheapness is a draw for more people than I would have thought. The San Jose airport was packed. Our flight from San Jose to Miami was packed. And our flight from Miami to LA was packed (that's right, we had to fly from San Jose to Miami and then across the country to LA). Luckily for me, my wife is a genius and she got us on an earlier flight out of Miami and we got into LA relatively early. We ended our trip with a smooth drive from LA down to San Diego and after giving hugs and kisses to our little buddy, Hawkins, collapsed in our comfy, familiar bed.
We had an absolute blast in Costa Rica, and we'd go back in a heartbeat. Hopefully we'll make it back there some time soon, but there are just so many places we haven't yet seen that it's hard to justify going to the same place twice! If you've read this whole post, I applaud your persistence. If you just looked at the pictures, well, I honestly don't blame you...
