Writing this while on the bus, yet again, driving back to San Jose – another 8 hours mostly sitting in a cramped bus. I am hoping not to be spending time on a bus for a week at least. This tour has been a lot of sitting: on busses, on boats, at lunch, at dinner and so on. There has been a little casual strolling a couple of times to go briefly into the jungle, not surprising when considering the target audience of the group.
That said this first week has been a lot of fun, we have pretty much travelled in a big loop around Northern Costa Rica, hitting both coasts, seeing five or so volcanoes, at least three of which are mildly active at this time.
San Jose is a small but bustling city roughly in the middle of the country on the West side of the Continental Divide in a biggish valley. The views of the three local volcanoes are great, frequently wreathed in clouds, wild and wooly jungle not far off. We arrived at 9:30am after a brief flight from Mexico City, were picked up by Caravan and whisked off into the heart of San Jose to stay at the Aurola Hotel which is centrally located, a few blocks from the Mercado Central where we had an enormous and filling lunch (like we needed more food).
Wednesday we had a day tour up to Poas Volcano, very misty the day we were there. The volcano has three peaks/craters, only one of which is active, but all three are filled with water. None of which were visible due to the dense cloud/fog/mist. We lunched down on the lower slopes with a great view across the valley to San Jose. Afterwards we wound up the day at the Museo de Oro, owned and operated by the national bank of CR. A small museum with an interesting collection of pre-Columbian gold artifacts.
Thursday, we headed off to the Caribbean coast to catch a ferry up the coast to Tortuguero, the national park dedicated to saving four different types of turtles. As it wasn’t nesting season there were no turtles. But we did go on two tours on small, open boats and saw many beasties, howler and white-faced capuchin monkeys, iguanas, jesus lizards (so-called as they run on the water), two types of toucan, kingfishers, herons (great whites, great blues, night and little), egrets, oropendulas (a type of oriale), ahningas (a cormorant relative), a couple of caimans, a prehistoric fish with lungs instead of gills known as a gar fish (related to pikes), a handful of other birds like hawks. The weather was warm and humid but not horrid, the lodge was simple but nice. The local village across the river was small and funky and only a stone’s throw from the Caribbean which you couldn’t swim in since the surf is quite rough and the currents quite strong.
The following day was a long, long day making our way out and across up to Fortuna on the northeastern slope of Volcan Arenal. The lodge, Lomas de Arenal, was very nice but with rough edges. Sore tushes, a few beers and a big meal = early to bed. The next morning we headed for another long day of sitting and headed up to Los Chiles near the Nicaragua border where we had another boat ride up the river to the actual border and to spot yet more monkeys, caimans and birdies. The day wound up with two hours soaking at a local hot spring resort which was delightful.
So here we are, Monday morning, and we had yet another long day of sitting on a bus on our way over to the west coast to stay at the Marriot Luxury Resort which would be deserted if it wasn’t for the stream of Caravan Tours passing through every two days. The hotel is great ($250/night for normal mortals, minimum), has good food, too much really, an enormous serpentine shaped pool that stretches from the beach to the main ground level entrance of the hotel. Needless to say I spent the day playing in the ocean and the pool, enjoying the free drinks and getting well-sunburned across my back.
And now we are sitting on the bus again heading back to San Jose for the final night. We just stopped at a roadside stand nearby to Monteverde where we indulged in ice-creams and people bought yet more souvenirs just in case they didn’t have enough already. Lunch will be in Sarchi, the tat-capital of CR where all manner of wooden things, in particular gaily painted oxcarts of all sizes, can be purchased. We get lunch here. It is 35C outside but feels hotter thanks to my sunburn. I had been thinking it would be nice to go hiking in the Monteverde Reserve after we are done with the Caravan portion of our time in CR but if it is this hot forget it.
Costa Rica is an interesting place, lots of amazing scenery, incredible life, volcanoes, opulence and squalor, a lot of English language speakers which isn’t so good for our nascent Spanish skills, high prices for a lot of things (most things actually) although the locals don’t get paid much above $500 a month give or take meaning that the published prices must be for the well-heeled visitors more than the locals since there is no way the local population could afford to eat much if the prices were what they seem.
We have given ourselves two months in CR but may cut that short and head down to Panama or up to Nicaragua. Depends on the staying power of our money and the interest on our part. I can tolerate the cool humidity of the rainforests and even the hot humidity of the Pacific coast but the dry inland heat is pretty much beyond my limits, especially if we are lugging 20kg packs.
I have uploaded all the photos from this trip to the Picasa website (there is a link to the right). Bear in mind that you will need to zoom in to see most of the animals. When we get back I will upload photos from Tony who brought a real camera with real lenses.
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