Costa Rica, Part 2
So unfortunately those people never sent me the picture they took of me diving from the cliff. Oh well. I'll have to figure out how to extract an image from the mpeg video. Any suggestions anyone? Well, back to the trip.
So, back to the same hotel I stayed at the first night. Very mellow night, then leisurely morning before checking out and heading out to the airport to pick up my traveling companion. We had rented an SUV and of course they tried to upgrade us, we said no, then they said they would give it to us for the same price. Nice. The nice thing is that the woman asked us our itinerary, and we gave her the first two destinations, Arenal Volcano and Monteverde, and she totally hooked us up with a map and step by step directions to get to Arenal. And let me tell you, the map I had wouldn't have gotten us anywhere near. Signs are nonexistent in Costa Rica once you get off the main highways. Oh, and the SUV was manual transmission, which is always a little exciting on vehicles that large. I offered to drive even though it was her rental. Once we got off the main drag into the mountains, I let her rip. Barely any lane dividers, and we got stuck behind a truck once for about 15 minutes. Otherwise, we made fantastic time, getting to our hotel (Hotel Campo Verde) in Arenal in maybe 1.5 hours instead of the recommended 2.5-3. Our hotel had a fantastic view of the volcano, as can be seen below.
.
That is actually smoke from the volcano pouring out of the top.
After a dinner across the road at some lame steakhouse which was WAY too expensive for the quality (even for Costa Rica), we headed out to the other side of the volcano to try and see the lava at night. After off roading for about a half hour (SO happy we had an SUV), we reached a spot where a bunch of people were hanging out. And while we drove over, at one point we got a great profile shot of lava splattering out of the mountain. Unfortunately, we only saw the lava 3 or 4 times, and it was really far away.
The next morning we woke up real early and got picked up to go canyoneering. Basically, we were going to hike into the woods and then do 5 rappels, 4 of them down waterfalls. I had never done real rappelling before, so I was looking forward to it.
The first rappel was the longest, unfortunately. I went down somewhat tentatively, only getting to about 6 yards at a stretch. I wish we had save the big one for last, as I was ready to do some long descents by the end, but it was still a blast.
They provided us a basic lunch and then brought us back to the hotel. That afternoon we had signed up for the 1 to 5PM stint at the Eco Termales hot springs, a very 'exclusive' (limited to 100 people) set of 4 successfully hotter springs that were fed by the volcano. The setting was gorgeous and when we got there around 1:30, we were the 3rd and 4th people there. We had the place to ourselves for another hour before a large group of high schoolers from North Carolina showed up. While it was no longer quite as exclusive, at least it was good eye candy.
We eschewed going back to catch another lava viewing, which was really surprising because usually I'm the first one to do whatever is necessary to maximize viewing opportunities, vacation opportunities, picture stuff, etc.
The next morning we went to do the final Arenal excursion to see the Fortuna waterfall. This required a rather long descent of maybe 1 mile to the base of the waterfall, with numerous views of the waterfall along the way. When we got to the bottom, the waterfall pool was pretty much empty. We set up various photo ops, and then I had to do my usual diving thing. The first dive was very minor, and while I was in the water, I researched the second dive, which was off a much smaller rock. There were some rocks underwater, so I had to feel them with my feet to make sure they weren't doing the optical illusion thing and were really close to the surface. After confirming my landing spot, I climbed the rock, had to take off my tevas because the rocks were so narrow and slippery, then climbed the rock to get set. I was on a very narrow perch, and then once the video was running, went to do the dive. As I pushed off, my foot slipped and I landed very short of my intended spot. I quickly put my hands in front of me to protect my body, and fortunately I was still able to push off the sand/rocks without a potentially nasty injury.
Long climb back up the mountain, then back to the hotel to shower and check out by noon before heading off to Monteverde Cloud Forest National Park. This was going to involve driving around Lake Arenal and was supposed to take around 4 hours. I drove again, and we made the park in record time, just over 2 hours (or something like that). Basically well more than an hour under the recommended time. This was an interesting trip. After rounding the lake, we veered southward away from the lake. At one point the road forked to the left and we went straight. A hundred yards later, some guy stopped us in the street and basically explained how the way to Monteverde was back the other way at the fork. He had a turn by turn map that he wanted to sell us for 4 bucks. Well, always ready to support the locals, we purchased the map. It ended up being useful if only to monitor our progress. But 20 yards after we went back and took the other fork, the road disappeared and we went offroading. At times, the road was TERRIBLE and I had to drop to around 5 miles per hour. But for the most part I was able to continue to be pretty aggressive, passing lamer drivers at will. Fortunately Christine didn't have a problem with my driving. It would have sucked having to slow down or be less aggressive, because we had a long road to go.
After finally getting there and settling into our hotel (Hotel Arco Iris), we signed up for a night tour. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading, sunning, I went for a walk around the town triangle (really, the town was a single paved triangle surrounded by dirt roads). Finally, we got picked up for the night tour, got equipped with lanterns, and went walking. We saw a lot of sleeping birds, bugs, a sloth, and at one point, he enticed a tarantula out of its burrow. Boy, was that thing HUGE.
Next morning we had signed up for a zipline tour with Selvatura. I had also done the zipline tour at Tortuguero. Fortunately I did it in this order, because I would have
been VERY disappointed in the Tortuguero one after this one. There were twice as many ziplines, and the views were spectacular. At one point, we had to do a 700 yard line. It was so long that we had to go in pairs to have enough wait to reach the other end. This was great as it allowed me to take video and still footage of the traverse, because the guys wouldn't let me take a hand off the lines for doing video. Christine took anchor and did all the braking. This shot shows another pair about halfway across the traverse.
The highlight of the zipline tour was actually the Tarzan swing. I had done a tiny Tarzan swing at Tortuguero, basically swinging between two platforms like 10 yards apart. Whoopee. I was the first one to, which ended up being great because I had no expectations. They hooked me up from the platform, and there was no platform on the other end. He tells me to grab the rope, and then says jump. I look at him a little dumbfounded, then jump off. I process to drop maybe 30 yards and swing out into open space and REALLY high. I definitely shouted in surprise. TOTALLY cool. Swung back and forth a bunch of times before I shed enough speed that they could wrangle me in. Then sat and watched while everyone else did it before moving on.
After finishing the tour, back to the hotel to shower and check out. We were off to Manual Antonio national Park, down on the Pacific coast. 10 minutes into the trip out of Monteverde, we could see the Pacific beckoning to us. I drove again and made excellent time. They had projected between 4 and 5 hours to get there. We made in just under 2.5 hours. It was a solid hour of 4 wheeling again before we finally got to a paved road. I was fortunate to not get stuck behind any cars for any length of time. That was probably the benefit of such a crappy conditioned road, in that cars were going so slowly it was easy to quickly pass them even though the sightlines wouldn't have allowed it on a paved road. It was a pleasure to finally get out to the main highway and not have my teeth continually shaking. This main highway included two one lane bridges where traffic stacked up on either side while the other side went across. We waited less than 10 minutes at each bridge, although we found out later at the hotel that depending on the time of day, you can wait for more than an hour at each bridge. I guess that was one of the reasons the estimate for the transit time was so large. We ended up getting in around 2:30PM. We had saved quite a bit at the earlier hotels, so we splurged on this one (La Mansion Inn). This was the view from the hotel.
It ended up being this awesome place in the ass end of nowhere. After we settled in for a bit, we walked down to a private beach and went swimming. On the way back from the hotel, we got our first monkeys (white faced).
Then back to the hotel for pool time before showering up and trying to catch the sunset somewhere (yeah Pacific coast). Well, we found a nice outdoor restaurant with a great view, unfortunately it didn't actually capture the sun going into the ocean, but it was a spectacular sunset nonetheless.
The hotel had a tiny little bar called the bat cave. The comments on TripAdvisor.com were amusing, so we checked it out for a drink. It was scorching hot, they had a steam machine going, and you could tell the bartender was miserable also. But we had to do it to get some pictures. We definitely did NOT do the bat cave the following night though.
The next morning we took the car down to the entrance of Manuel Antonio and parked at the official lot. We walked into the park, which basically consisted of a number of spectacular beaches with trails between them and into the woods. The guides recommended hiring tour guides to maximize wildlife viewing, but Christine had had enough and was going to do the beach thing. I figured I would be able to crib off of others peoples discoveries, so I traipsed off into the park. I ended up walking every trail except for one that went to a waterfall which I was told was totally dried up as it was the end of the dry season. Manuel Antonio is reknowned for its monkeys. I had seen few monkeys since I got to Costa Rica, and for the first few hours, the trails were cold. I was starting to get a little annoyed, when I reached the end of the main trail (which was a solid 2 miles in). I had not taken any water, and I was walking pretty aggressively as I was impatient. I was paying very close attention to make sure that I didn't get dehydrated. All of a sudden the trail ended at this little concrete slab with a gorgeous overlook of yet another inlet, and there was a couple there that spoke a language I didn't recognize. More importantly, there was a little tribe of at least 6 white faced monkeys that were no further than 20 yards from us. We watched them play for the next half hour.
One monkey that I had heard (and heard of) a number of times during the trip was the Howler monkey. Let me tell you, they are aptly named. Their howl is incredibly loud. We heard it from the hotel in Manuel Antonio from at least a few miles away. Well, after 'feasting' on the white faced monkeys, literally a hundred yards away on my trip back down the same path I ran into a group of 3 people that were watching a group of howler monkeys. So, another half hour spent there watching the howlers. Unfortunately, I was never videoing when they howled, but it was AMAZINGLY loud from that close.
Finally I made it back to the car and then the drive to the hotel. Spent some time at the pool 'bar' reading and drinking foofroo(sp?) drinks before showering up for the final night. This time we asked at the desk for the best sunset place. Duly informed, we were off in the car, and they were right. Another outdoor deck overlooking the forest, and it had a great view of the ocean. A whole bunch of people were there to catch the same view. Had some snacks and drinks, then off to another restaurant for dinner before turning in. Next morning had to catch another puddle jumper flight at 9AM in order to make our 12:30PM return flight from San Jose. We did, and thus ends my adventure.
After looking in blogger some more, it looks like you can upload videos, so I will try and edit the dive video to make it smaller, and then upload it to the other entry (or maybe just a new entry all by its lonesome).
So, back to the same hotel I stayed at the first night. Very mellow night, then leisurely morning before checking out and heading out to the airport to pick up my traveling companion. We had rented an SUV and of course they tried to upgrade us, we said no, then they said they would give it to us for the same price. Nice. The nice thing is that the woman asked us our itinerary, and we gave her the first two destinations, Arenal Volcano and Monteverde, and she totally hooked us up with a map and step by step directions to get to Arenal. And let me tell you, the map I had wouldn't have gotten us anywhere near. Signs are nonexistent in Costa Rica once you get off the main highways. Oh, and the SUV was manual transmission, which is always a little exciting on vehicles that large. I offered to drive even though it was her rental. Once we got off the main drag into the mountains, I let her rip. Barely any lane dividers, and we got stuck behind a truck once for about 15 minutes. Otherwise, we made fantastic time, getting to our hotel (Hotel Campo Verde) in Arenal in maybe 1.5 hours instead of the recommended 2.5-3. Our hotel had a fantastic view of the volcano, as can be seen below.
.That is actually smoke from the volcano pouring out of the top.
After a dinner across the road at some lame steakhouse which was WAY too expensive for the quality (even for Costa Rica), we headed out to the other side of the volcano to try and see the lava at night. After off roading for about a half hour (SO happy we had an SUV), we reached a spot where a bunch of people were hanging out. And while we drove over, at one point we got a great profile shot of lava splattering out of the mountain. Unfortunately, we only saw the lava 3 or 4 times, and it was really far away.
The next morning we woke up real early and got picked up to go canyoneering. Basically, we were going to hike into the woods and then do 5 rappels, 4 of them down waterfalls. I had never done real rappelling before, so I was looking forward to it.
The first rappel was the longest, unfortunately. I went down somewhat tentatively, only getting to about 6 yards at a stretch. I wish we had save the big one for last, as I was ready to do some long descents by the end, but it was still a blast.
They provided us a basic lunch and then brought us back to the hotel. That afternoon we had signed up for the 1 to 5PM stint at the Eco Termales hot springs, a very 'exclusive' (limited to 100 people) set of 4 successfully hotter springs that were fed by the volcano. The setting was gorgeous and when we got there around 1:30, we were the 3rd and 4th people there. We had the place to ourselves for another hour before a large group of high schoolers from North Carolina showed up. While it was no longer quite as exclusive, at least it was good eye candy.
We eschewed going back to catch another lava viewing, which was really surprising because usually I'm the first one to do whatever is necessary to maximize viewing opportunities, vacation opportunities, picture stuff, etc.
The next morning we went to do the final Arenal excursion to see the Fortuna waterfall. This required a rather long descent of maybe 1 mile to the base of the waterfall, with numerous views of the waterfall along the way. When we got to the bottom, the waterfall pool was pretty much empty. We set up various photo ops, and then I had to do my usual diving thing. The first dive was very minor, and while I was in the water, I researched the second dive, which was off a much smaller rock. There were some rocks underwater, so I had to feel them with my feet to make sure they weren't doing the optical illusion thing and were really close to the surface. After confirming my landing spot, I climbed the rock, had to take off my tevas because the rocks were so narrow and slippery, then climbed the rock to get set. I was on a very narrow perch, and then once the video was running, went to do the dive. As I pushed off, my foot slipped and I landed very short of my intended spot. I quickly put my hands in front of me to protect my body, and fortunately I was still able to push off the sand/rocks without a potentially nasty injury.
Long climb back up the mountain, then back to the hotel to shower and check out by noon before heading off to Monteverde Cloud Forest National Park. This was going to involve driving around Lake Arenal and was supposed to take around 4 hours. I drove again, and we made the park in record time, just over 2 hours (or something like that). Basically well more than an hour under the recommended time. This was an interesting trip. After rounding the lake, we veered southward away from the lake. At one point the road forked to the left and we went straight. A hundred yards later, some guy stopped us in the street and basically explained how the way to Monteverde was back the other way at the fork. He had a turn by turn map that he wanted to sell us for 4 bucks. Well, always ready to support the locals, we purchased the map. It ended up being useful if only to monitor our progress. But 20 yards after we went back and took the other fork, the road disappeared and we went offroading. At times, the road was TERRIBLE and I had to drop to around 5 miles per hour. But for the most part I was able to continue to be pretty aggressive, passing lamer drivers at will. Fortunately Christine didn't have a problem with my driving. It would have sucked having to slow down or be less aggressive, because we had a long road to go.
After finally getting there and settling into our hotel (Hotel Arco Iris), we signed up for a night tour. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading, sunning, I went for a walk around the town triangle (really, the town was a single paved triangle surrounded by dirt roads). Finally, we got picked up for the night tour, got equipped with lanterns, and went walking. We saw a lot of sleeping birds, bugs, a sloth, and at one point, he enticed a tarantula out of its burrow. Boy, was that thing HUGE.
Next morning we had signed up for a zipline tour with Selvatura. I had also done the zipline tour at Tortuguero. Fortunately I did it in this order, because I would have
been VERY disappointed in the Tortuguero one after this one. There were twice as many ziplines, and the views were spectacular. At one point, we had to do a 700 yard line. It was so long that we had to go in pairs to have enough wait to reach the other end. This was great as it allowed me to take video and still footage of the traverse, because the guys wouldn't let me take a hand off the lines for doing video. Christine took anchor and did all the braking. This shot shows another pair about halfway across the traverse.
The highlight of the zipline tour was actually the Tarzan swing. I had done a tiny Tarzan swing at Tortuguero, basically swinging between two platforms like 10 yards apart. Whoopee. I was the first one to, which ended up being great because I had no expectations. They hooked me up from the platform, and there was no platform on the other end. He tells me to grab the rope, and then says jump. I look at him a little dumbfounded, then jump off. I process to drop maybe 30 yards and swing out into open space and REALLY high. I definitely shouted in surprise. TOTALLY cool. Swung back and forth a bunch of times before I shed enough speed that they could wrangle me in. Then sat and watched while everyone else did it before moving on.
After finishing the tour, back to the hotel to shower and check out. We were off to Manual Antonio national Park, down on the Pacific coast. 10 minutes into the trip out of Monteverde, we could see the Pacific beckoning to us. I drove again and made excellent time. They had projected between 4 and 5 hours to get there. We made in just under 2.5 hours. It was a solid hour of 4 wheeling again before we finally got to a paved road. I was fortunate to not get stuck behind any cars for any length of time. That was probably the benefit of such a crappy conditioned road, in that cars were going so slowly it was easy to quickly pass them even though the sightlines wouldn't have allowed it on a paved road. It was a pleasure to finally get out to the main highway and not have my teeth continually shaking. This main highway included two one lane bridges where traffic stacked up on either side while the other side went across. We waited less than 10 minutes at each bridge, although we found out later at the hotel that depending on the time of day, you can wait for more than an hour at each bridge. I guess that was one of the reasons the estimate for the transit time was so large. We ended up getting in around 2:30PM. We had saved quite a bit at the earlier hotels, so we splurged on this one (La Mansion Inn). This was the view from the hotel.
It ended up being this awesome place in the ass end of nowhere. After we settled in for a bit, we walked down to a private beach and went swimming. On the way back from the hotel, we got our first monkeys (white faced).
Then back to the hotel for pool time before showering up and trying to catch the sunset somewhere (yeah Pacific coast). Well, we found a nice outdoor restaurant with a great view, unfortunately it didn't actually capture the sun going into the ocean, but it was a spectacular sunset nonetheless.
The hotel had a tiny little bar called the bat cave. The comments on TripAdvisor.com were amusing, so we checked it out for a drink. It was scorching hot, they had a steam machine going, and you could tell the bartender was miserable also. But we had to do it to get some pictures. We definitely did NOT do the bat cave the following night though.
The next morning we took the car down to the entrance of Manuel Antonio and parked at the official lot. We walked into the park, which basically consisted of a number of spectacular beaches with trails between them and into the woods. The guides recommended hiring tour guides to maximize wildlife viewing, but Christine had had enough and was going to do the beach thing. I figured I would be able to crib off of others peoples discoveries, so I traipsed off into the park. I ended up walking every trail except for one that went to a waterfall which I was told was totally dried up as it was the end of the dry season. Manuel Antonio is reknowned for its monkeys. I had seen few monkeys since I got to Costa Rica, and for the first few hours, the trails were cold. I was starting to get a little annoyed, when I reached the end of the main trail (which was a solid 2 miles in). I had not taken any water, and I was walking pretty aggressively as I was impatient. I was paying very close attention to make sure that I didn't get dehydrated. All of a sudden the trail ended at this little concrete slab with a gorgeous overlook of yet another inlet, and there was a couple there that spoke a language I didn't recognize. More importantly, there was a little tribe of at least 6 white faced monkeys that were no further than 20 yards from us. We watched them play for the next half hour.
One monkey that I had heard (and heard of) a number of times during the trip was the Howler monkey. Let me tell you, they are aptly named. Their howl is incredibly loud. We heard it from the hotel in Manuel Antonio from at least a few miles away. Well, after 'feasting' on the white faced monkeys, literally a hundred yards away on my trip back down the same path I ran into a group of 3 people that were watching a group of howler monkeys. So, another half hour spent there watching the howlers. Unfortunately, I was never videoing when they howled, but it was AMAZINGLY loud from that close.
Finally I made it back to the car and then the drive to the hotel. Spent some time at the pool 'bar' reading and drinking foofroo(sp?) drinks before showering up for the final night. This time we asked at the desk for the best sunset place. Duly informed, we were off in the car, and they were right. Another outdoor deck overlooking the forest, and it had a great view of the ocean. A whole bunch of people were there to catch the same view. Had some snacks and drinks, then off to another restaurant for dinner before turning in. Next morning had to catch another puddle jumper flight at 9AM in order to make our 12:30PM return flight from San Jose. We did, and thus ends my adventure.
After looking in blogger some more, it looks like you can upload videos, so I will try and edit the dive video to make it smaller, and then upload it to the other entry (or maybe just a new entry all by its lonesome).
posted by Alex de Frondeville at 9:34 PM
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