Costa Rica-Jaco, La Fortuna/Arenal, Manuel Antonio

2/22/11  -  3/6/11
After all we've seen and experienced in our first 4 Central American countries we knew returning to the states would be shocking. What we didn't expect was to experience that shock a month early when we crossed the boarder into Costa Rica. Seldom was the need to speak Spanish, the high number of beggars, the millions of street side local stands selling homemade deliciousness, the buses stuffed to double capacity. Instead we were welcomed with English, charter buses (the new public bus system), grocery stores selling American granola bars. This is over exaggerating a bit as it's still evidently 3rd world as soon as you step foot out of a known touristy hot spot. It just seems (in comparison) that we're visiting Europe on "holiday". (I'm now writing this after being in CR 3 weeks and I'm happy to say there are many places just as remote as other countries.....we just started off on the main trail of travelers!).


We spent our first 3 days at the touristy surf town of Jaco along the western coast. It was mixed feelings. We longed for the towns where no tourists crossed our paths and we were forced to buy mysterious things from the grocery store. On the other hand, what a treat it was to walk into the HUGE and clean grocery store and find just about anything we'd been missing. After now being here a few weeks, we still run into: cold showers, water that smells so bad seeping from your bathroom that is wakes you up at night, wild animals roaming everywhere, lots of bugs in your room and shower, people who speak not a lick of English, lizards sharing your bed, and those perfect dirt road towns that still have the charm of not being taken over with tourists. Funny how much we miss these things!


After a few days adjusting to our newest country, Jeff and Nikki finally arrived! We picked them up at 1:30 in the morning on Saturday the 26th of February. I can't even begin to explain how exciting it was to have our first visitors! We played catchup until the wee hours of the morning and got a few hours of sleep. Our first stop with Jeff and Nikki was the town of La Fortuna. The ride itself (packed into a cab) was a blast. Our crazy driver kept us alert and educated us along way (including a stop for the most delicious mangoes we've had, our first sloth sighting, and proof that pineapples really do grown from the ground). La Fortuna is a developed town that sits at the base of one of the most beautiful volcanoes, Arenal. Unfortunately, our entire visit was cloudy and pouring rain on and off allowing no visibility of the volcano. However, the town was still beautiful and we didn't let it ruin our fun. We bunked up at the cute Italian hotel of Vagabondo (a favorite of Donna and I on our last trip). We spent a lot of time playing cards and drinking good Nicaraguan rum when the weather was particularly wild.


Our second day we signed up for a full day of hiking and adventure that started at 7am. After tracking down some howler monkeys on the way, we arrived at part 1 of the tour: caving. We put on our knee high rubber boots and started our trek through high waters into the caves. Groups of bats and enormous spiders lined the wet black rock anytime someone turned on a flashlight. We scaled slippery walls and jumped into deep but narrow holes trying not to scrape on the rock walls. I never before realized I had a fear of small spaces until that day. Being in a tight dark space is fine when you know there's a bigger room with more air on the other side. What starts the uneasiness is laying flat on our backs and pulling ourselves through a jagged cave wall that looked impossible to fit. Using one hand above our head to help pull ourselves along and the second hand to protect ourselves from shattering a facial bone on the un-leveled rock an inch above. Nik and I were particularly worried that Jeff wouldn't fit through one of the canals and kept voicing it to our tour guide who only laughed. From the tight crawl we joined the rest of our group all squished together in an even smaller room (where I was sure there wasn't enough air to go around). We got our bearings here before being told to crawl through another small hole. All the time knowing that by this point, we're are so far in that if rocks start to fall or the ground trembles.... we're doomed. After that initial fear went away......what a blast it was! The cave was amazing. Full of dark mysterious waters and flapping bat wings (many of us actually had bats hit us in the face in their run for cover). Our guide Luis showed us some amazing waterfalls and other gems deep in the cave.

(Jeff squeezing through a small rock wall)

After caving the rain was still pouring down with fury! What a shame that we've had absolutely beautiful clear sunny skies the entire 2 months and it wouldn't stop raining for our visitors! These things just add to the excitement though huh? Our next stop was hiking Volcano Arenal. With all the rain the last few days the river (which we hiked for hours) was rushing pretty strong. At some points it was a challenge to see with the strong showers as we tried not to bust it on slippery rocks along the way. Nikki was a trouper for continuing hours of hiking in the crazy strong rain after her shoulder came out of socket!!! Still not sure how she managed to go on! After quite a bit of hiking Luis took us to a beautiful waterfall where he gave us all mud facials so we would look radiant at our next stop, the natural hot springs.

(mud facials)

This well kept secret was something I hadn't had the privilege of visiting on my last trip. There are plently of man-made springs in the area but so different from what Luis showed us tucked back in the jungle. When the volcano first erupted in the 50's the waters heated up from the hot rock beneath and has remained that way. We got to the springs well after sunset so we soaked in peaceful darkness. We had the place almost to ourselves and we hopped from pool to pool testing out the different temperatures of each. Luis showed us an underwater cave in one pool and a rock slide that went 60-70 feet at another part. The last part of our long day was dinner with our small group at a local place in town. Jeff showed them how a college grad drinks a beer didn't ya Jeff?


Our final day in La Fortuna we woke to more pouring rain. We decided spending the day outside was still our first choice so we headed to the Baldi hot springs. If you get a second, google this place. It's amazing. There are 20 some different pools of all temperatures surrounded by lush and tropical jungle. It's what I would imagine the Garden of Eden looked liked. We spend the entire day lazily moving from one pool of paradise to the next as the rained poured down on and off. We made sure to spend sufficient time at the pool with the craziest water slides we've ever been on. These wouldn't be legit in the states. They were super tall, fast and certainly didn't follow any sort of regulations as they shot you down hundreds of feet and slammed you around like a rag-doll. Pure joy!

(cait,jeff,nik)

(Adam on the slide)

(jungle paths at Baldi Hot Springs)

(Baldi)

(the cute couple who came to visit!)

By day four, we'd had enough of the rain and jumped a shuttle to Manuel Antonio beach and national park in the southern Pacific. Along the way we got to pull over and see Crocodile Bridge where `12-15ft long monsters hangout waiting for something tasty to swim close enough to eat. We did not kayak here.

In Manuel Antonio, the weather behaved itself! We spent long days on the beach attempting to surf and making sure Jeff and Nikki returned to work with a beautiful tan. (Bad sunburn does eventually turn to tan...). When we weren't at the beach we were hitting the mercado in the nearest town for cooking supplies, photographing the sloths and monkeys in the jungle around our hotel, having sunset picnics and playing cards by the pool, and visiting every Happy Hour in the 2 mile radius. Our final full day in Manuel Antonio was very memorable. We hiked along in the national park spotting numerous sloths, monkeys, tropical birds and other animals.....trying to get within earshot of the groups that had sprung for a tour guide. We finished up our hike on one of the park's white sand beaches and pulled out the makings for our picnic. Within minutes, a family of raccoons and a handful of monkeys were within petting distance eager to share our goodies. We played naive to the "do not feed the animal signs" and gave our monkey friends pieces of ripe banana. They were quite gracious. The human-like animals ate right in front of us cupping the tasty snack in their little hands and chomping with their mouths wide open. From then on (by 100% fault of our own) we had to have two people by our things at all times to fight off the forest animals. Other tourists weren't so lucky. We saw a raccoon fight with a lady for her chips (raccoon won), a monkey throwing coconuts at sunbathers down below, and a fight between a lady and a monkey (lady got so mad she smacked the monkey in the face...no lie). Many others lost their lunches to the cute but fearless creatures that day.

(hungry monkey)

(roof of El Avion)

(Jeff riding in a wave)

(Jeff and Adam scoping out a good one)

(our sloth friend at the hotel)

(a giant iguana who loved hanging out under Jeff's chair)

(monkey eating a stolen banana)

(hidden beach in Manuel Antonio Park)

(posing iguana)

(happy hour)

(Jeff in the wet jungle)

Early on the morning of the 6th after 8 full days, we had to say a sad goodbye to our buddies. We hated for them to leave but were happy to have made so many memories :) We're looking forward to our next visitors in a week! Weather looks perfect and the jungles and beaches are waiting patiently for us....