Let’s do a quick tour, shall we, so that we can relive the highlights and maybe move into activities that aren’t 6 months past.
Started our escapades in lovely san jose… where we stayed at a wacky little place run by an eccentric artist who paper maches EVERYTHING and had lots of, let’s say, “colorful” artwork covering near every inch of the rooms. Right smack in a cool little neighborhood in san jose is mayra’s Cinco Hormigas Rojas (five red ants) oasis… pretty cheap, mayra makes breakfast boxes for you and has tea and coffee always flowing. The place is its own little ecological refuge, packed with trees and flowers and consequently birds and bats that mayra feeds bananas. Truly the weirdest and coolest place to stay. You’d never know you were in the dirty city. Even a great place to eat across the street (Café Mundo) if you feel like leaving the jungle for a bite and a glass of wine. Ok.. enough tour guide talk… NEXT…
After exploring the promenade in San Jose and getting caught in a ridiculous rain storm (gracias, 50 colon ponchos), we left early the next morning for Tortuguero. Our kickass guide Jacky was legit and fun, and we pretty much had her all to ourselves except for a drunk couple from Florida. We discovered plaintain chips with lime somewhere along the way, boated through another ridonkulous rainstorm and arrived at Turtle Beach Lodge. We saw five – count em FIVE huge sea turtles that night! About 3 were heading back to the ocean from the shore, one coming in from the surf, and one we got to mosey right up to and watch her lay eggs. So cool! They are huge!
The next morning our drunk Floridians were too hung to join the 5am boat ride, so we got Jacky and our awesome boat driver Manuelito all to ourselves and we tore up those waterways and found all kinds of crazy creatures.
Oh lord just realized that if I do this day-by-day I’ll never sleep and anyone who reads this will probably bail out quick. So… a recapitulation, if you will:
LA FORTUNA / VOLCAN ARENAL
-stayed in a hostel in la fortuna and hit the waterfall first day… swam around in the ferocious water at the base of the falls
-cabbed to the lava side of the volcano that night and got a spectacular view of lava rocks flying and tumbling down the volcano. You’d see a biggish red blob leap out of the top, hit the side of the volcano and break up into littler red spots that sprinkled down and down and down until the red glow fades. Kinda like fireworks… kinda… but 100 percent natural and really effin cool.
-hiked around the lava side the next day, where the lava rocks were still popping but don’t look red during the day, just like smokey boulders and rocks tumbling and grumbling down the volcano. Still very rad.
-hit up the hot springs at the tabacon resort afterward, soaked our asses off…
MONTEVERDE
-first thing on the agenda was to get on some zip lines… went to EXTREMO (no joke – that’s what it was called) and hiked and zipped on some monster zip lines. Some were about 2000 feet long. and I think we all about crapped our pants with fear and joy on this tarzan swing thing that has a teeny tiny but crap-enducing free-fall at the start. In the words of one of our zip-mates “Puta Mierda!”
-oh gosh… we discovered an amazing African drum band called Sege. So much energy and an interesting blend of individuals, but the best one is the guy with the horsehead hat. Trust me.
-after another splendid breakfast of café negro and gallo pinto, took a cool hike in the cloud forest at the Santa Elena Reserve. It’s one of the most unique places you’ll see – plants on plants on plants, in a misty and quiet forest, feels almost magical. Not a lot of wildlife, but so many cool plants and a really peaceful and different scene. Do it. We did meet a pig later. His name was Charlie and he is a saino, but tame. You can pet him.
-learned about coffee and saw a mess of howler monkeys up the road by Café Monteverde… bought postcards at Bromelias and ate lunch at Stellas’ Bakery. Good times.
Took a super long and uber bumpy busride back to san jose. If I haven’t mentioned it before the roads to/from/around monteverde are god awful. You could walk faster than the bus can go with all the rocks and potholes. But at least you won’t break an ankle.
Rented a car and head to the beach! We had been aiming on checking out Jaco, but upon the advice of an older couple we met at the most-beautiful-café-ever-to-be-built-anywhere-on-the-face-of-the-earth (look it up in the guinness book) we passed up jaco and the druggy tourist trap it’s turned into and found a completely empty beach called Esterilla, stayed at the Pelican, had the beach to ourselves, played in the water, ran on the beach, gathered sand dollars, swung in hammocks, watched the sunset, killed mosquitos, drank some beers and played some pool.
MANUEL ANTONIO
Next day cruised to Manuel Antonio and after some trial and error found an air conditioned and bug-free suite. Nicest place we stayed, but it was worth it. After a lightning storm chased us off the beach, we came upon an entire tribe of squirrel monkeys. Cutest damn things you’ll ever see. Millions of them. Trillions maybe. Ok.. but a lot. And real close to us. Then it really poured and we took shelter at our room. Petie and I saw a lightning bolt strike literally across the street (and it was not a big street, my friends) from us. When the lightning stopped, we grabbed our suits and went back to the beach and body surfed in the wild water while the tourists were hiding from the rain.
Hiked all around manuel Antonio the next day, saw capuchins, sloth, wild pig/deer/rabbit creature (later found out it was an agouti), a little crocodile, crabs, and great views.
DOMINICAL
We rounded out our adventures with a trip to Dominical – a mellow little surf town to the south a bit. Never did make it to a disco, which was very disappointing to this sucker for a latin beat, but we did get a surf in… or at least, I got pounded by muddy waves on the board that pete and I shared. Monkey caught some stuff, and had fun until the rains really pushed the mud and junk into the surf. Dominical is a sweet place to surf, but we just picked the wrong time of day to go along with a rainstorm. But still, we surfed! Job well done.
after another day of exploration and cruising in the teeny tiny Jimny, we had to say our goodbyes to the beachy goodness and catch that plane back to reality...
