Zip Lining In the Cloud Forest

One of the things I really wanted to do in Costa Rica was to zip through the canopy. I had done some internet research prior to coming and settled on Selvatura Park as being within the cloud forest preserve, of a goodly duration, and not stressing adrenaline. Shortly after we had arrived yesterday, I had made arrangements at the hotel desk to be picked up this morning at 10:30 – no need for the crack of dawn, we’re retired! Here we are – geared up and ready for adventure.

We hiked up to our starting point, separated into Spanish and English speaking groups to receive our how-to and safety lecture, then were hooked up and away we went! Below, Ken’s heading down the wire, then I’m coming in for a landing and being unhooked by one of the guides.

There were 15 cables in ~4 groups (I don’t remember) with the longest cable being ~1 km. It was all great fun once I relaxed and trusted the braking system. We only had to brake ourselves via our gloves on the first couple of cables. After that, they used a rope and pulley system which you can kind of see in the above left picture. You just had to relax and enjoy the ride.

I was surprised by how secure I felt. While you could get up a good bit of speed on the longer lines, the initial acceleration was low. Not the dropping sensation I had feared. Which, of course, made sense if I had stopped to think about the physics of a hanging cable. Especially one that needed to be fairly taut. Only on the long line did I have a bit of disorientation. Then I only needed to fix my eyes on the horizon and everything was OK.

For those who want to get an idea of the sensation, here’s the movie a guide took with my camera while he was going down the 1 km line.

Going down the 1 km zip line in Selvatura Park, Costa Rica

By the time we finished the zip lining and had lunch, it was past 2pm. We had also bought tickets for the hanging bridge walk but decided to come back tomorrow for that. While waiting for the bus to take us back, a woman gave us her tickets to the Butterfly house so we have two things to do tomorrow. Looks like it will be a full day.

All in all, I had a great time and would thoroughly recommend Selvatura’s zip line experience. The only bad part about it was the sections we had to hike between the zip line groups.  These were mostly uphill and I was gasping and wheezing most of the time – I just couldn’t get any oxygen in. I felt a little sheepish since I was the only one doing this, but… I asked the guide about the altitude and he said 3 km (10,000 ft) but I later looked at the GPS map and it said ~5000 ft. Not that high, but I was still wheezing.

That night we went to Sophia’s for dinner. It’s located near El Olivo and we had noticed it last night. The food was excellent again.

Around Laguna de Arenal

The morning dawned gray and gloomy, but we weren’t. While waiting for Ken, I went out on our cabin’s porch and snapped a picture of Mt. Arenal. Or where Mt Arenal would be if the fog wasn’t so thick. I promise you, a volcano is there in the background.

14 minutes later, we were ready to head down for breakfast. I stopped to snap this picture from the same position as the previous one (see, I told you there was a volcano there) and we were on our way hoping the day would clear more and we would get a great view. Alas, it was not to be and this is the best view we had of Mt. Arenal. We hadn’t really expected much more, though, so weren’t too disappointed.

This was planned to be a leisurely driving day around Lake Arenal to Santa Elena where we would spend a couple of days. The route was 60+ miles of which the last 18+ would be dirt road. We hoped to see some good scenery.

We headed out a bit before 10am and made our first photo stop at the dam which created Lake Arenal. As you can see, it’s still cloudy and gloomy. Boat rides were being offered here, but we weren’t interested.

As we continued counter-clockwise around the lake (with surprisingly few good views of it), I was reading the description of this drive in Lonely Planet’s Guide to Costa Rica. The guide mentioned a bakery in Nuevo Arenal and gave it good reviews. At the rate we were going, we would be there a bit before 11am. We weren’t really hungry, but thought it would make a pleasant stop. And it did. But the pastries were tasteless. Pretty, but little flavor. The coffee was good, tho. Notice it’s much brighter here.

We continued around the lake with some good views but no place to pull over and take photos. Finally, at Quebrada we hit the expected dirt road and settled down for a bumpy ride. Sure glad we exchanged our previous vehicle for a newer one yesterday. Much better sprung.

About 4 miles on we saw a place to pull over so we did. There was a rough gate to a pasture there and we were able to walk over to the edge and finally photograph one of the lovely views we had been seeing all along.

Much of what you’re seeing is pasture land. Dairy and beef are big industries here. Another is coffee. We saw coffee planted on amazingly steep hillsides. I know coffee cannot be mechanically harvested, but I don’t see how the people could even handle those slopes! Naturally, there were no places to pull over to take any pictures of the plantings. When we finally found a place to pull over, the hillside with the coffee plants was pretty tame. But I took a photo anyway.

Finally we reached the Rustic Lodge in Santa Elena – our home for the next three nights.

It had been a good day with only a few “coulda, shoulda” moments which we conscientiously put aside since we couldn’t do anything about our previous day’s problems. As a final fillip, we were directed to the El Olivo Restaurant where we had an excellent supper.

Not one of the good days

Stiff and sore but another great morning cup of coffee. I had the “tipico” breakfast this morning – juice, fruit plate, rice & beans, fried plantain, eggs. I liked it very much. Don’t know what the fruit juice was – I asked but didn’t understand. It was a translucent white something. Tasty.

 

We said farewell to Turrialba and headed on our way - we had ~120 miles to drive today to the Mt. Arenal region. Based on the twisty-turny ride we had in, we figured it would be at least four hours putting us there mid-afternoon. I’m anticipating some great views. I like being a passenger rather than the driver.

Everything was going just fine, only a few wrong turns were made and we were almost past San Jose unscathed when the passenger side rear tire went flat. On a busy road. We drove on a little bit looking for a safe place to pull over and a couple of guys motioned us into a parking lot. A bunch of flurry and work later and Ken had changed the tire. I stood around being a princess and not paying much attention to anything.

On our way again. The Budget car rental place was only ~5 miles away and we wanted to trade vehicles since the current one vibrated terribly at any kind of speed. So we went over there to do so. That’s when we discovered that Ken’s computer bag was missing. In all that flurry getting the jack out and changing the tire, someone obviously walked off with his computer. Bummer. That cast a real pall on what had been a good day so far.

But there was nothing to be done about it so we continued on our way to our next stop – the Montaña De Fuego near La Fortuna. Made it there about 4:30pm under clouds and a light spatter of rain. We immediately went to the bar (where the wi-fi was), ordered a couple of cerveza’s (beers), and I set up an account for Ken on my computer. He needed to change some passwords as soon as possible.

As a suitable end to this day, our car was dented on the passenger side door as we were eating an overpriced so-so supper in the hotel restaurant. We had only driven down because it was pouring rain. Ah well, nothing to do but go forward.

Pacuare River rafting

After a late night getting to the Hotel Wagelia, we arose bright and early to a lovely warm and sunny day.  For breakfast, I had the Continental (cereal, juice, banana) & Ken had the Americano (eggs, ham, toast, juice, fruit plate). Very good coffee here.

Rio Loco’s (www.whiteh2o.com) picked us up at the hotel ~9am and we were off to the Rio Pacuare for 18 miles of white water rafting.

Here are a couple of shots of us going through one of the rapids toward the end of the trip. Ken almost went off the raft on this one. I’m amazed I managed to stay tight because I lost my seat several times before this.

These are two of our guides – ??? and Chalo during one of our stops. Fun people & excellent rafters. I enjoyed talking with them even though I couldn’t always understand what they said.

We got back to the hotel around 5:30 thoroughly exhausted. This was a great day. I don’t care that the river was low because it’s the dry season, it was just right for me.

Costa Rica. Finally.

It wasn’t without effort, but we finally ended up in Costa Rica. Originally we were supposed to leave yesterday, but when we were at the final check-in before boarding the plane, I was refused boarding because my passport expired too soon. Something totally unanticipated to us. I knew my passport expired on 2/14/2012, but we were going to be back in the USA by then so I didn’t think anything of it. But Costa Rica requires 90 days beyond the arrival? departure? date. And, while the ticketing process required us to enter our passport numbers and expiration, nothing was flagged there. The boarding agent explained that there were too many countries for US Airways to monitor. So why bother asking I wonder? (One of these days we will learn to read up on the country’s requirements at the State Department’s site!)

The boarding agent gave us the phone # for the Western Passport Agency in Tucson and said if we could get there first thing in the morning, we could likely make the Friday afternoon flight. So I called the passport agency, made an appointment for 9am Friday morning, then we rebooked for the Friday 1:14pm flight.

Back to Tempe.

We got up early Friday morning for the 112 mile drive, made it there by 8:40am, and were processed in by 9am (why the appointment? – it was first come first serve). I was approved for a while-you-wait Passport and got it around 10:10am. Back to Sky Harbor – driving a bit above the speed limit. Into long term parking, on the shuttle, and to the ticket line at ~12:25. Boarding starts at 12:44. Got the attention of an agent, showed her our ticket and got expedited. Whew! Then to security where we took the first class line and were through to the gate just before boarding started. Whew again! At last we could relax.

No problem getting through Costa Rican immigration/security but it took over an hour to get our rental car. No real reason for the delay, just extraordinary slowness on the part of the agent. We didn’t get out of Budget until 9pm. And were almost without GPS. Ken had bought a Costa Rica map, but I couldn’t get the unit to link up to the satellites. Until I thought of a previous hand-held GPS I once had and manually set the time. The satellites were immediately located. Whew yet again! We are on our way.

For about about 1.5 miles. Only to find out the main highway east was closed. So we get into a long line of traffic trying to get on I-CI-1 east while the GPS is squawking at us all the time. The freeway is closed at the next entry, too. Back to the side streets again. It took us over an hour to finally get past San Jose. And another hour over winding mountain roads to Turrialba and our hotel.

But, hey, we made it. We are in Costa Rica and will go rafting on the Pacuare tomorrow.

The Costa Rica Plan

The plan is set – at least the hotels and raft trip are booked – and we are flying out tomorrow. This is going to be a whirlwind, just touch a few highlights visit. Here’s the planned itinerary (match up the steps with the number by the beds to get the location):

1. Arrive in San Jose ~7:30pm then drive to a nearby B&B in Alajuela for the night.
2. First thing in the morning drive to Volcan Poás N.P. and hike around the rim. Then drive to Turrialba where we’ll spend 2 nights. Our Pacuare rubber raft trip is on Saturday.
3. Drive to Fortuna for one night for sightseeing around Volcan Arenal. It’s quiescent right now but should be quite scenic anyway.
4. Drive around Lake Arenal doing some sightseeing on our way to Santa Elena where we’ll spend 3 nights. Here’s where we’ll do some zip lining, canopy walks, and hikes in the Santa Elena and Monteverde cloud forest preserves.
5. Drive to Quepos for an afternoon on the beach and maybe the following morning in a rain forest preserve.
6. Finally, return to San Jose for the last night. Our plane back to Phoenix leaves at 7:40am.

Mexico Wrap Up and a New Plan

Just to be on the safe side, we’re declaring Mexico to be off limits for the next five years. Our tourist dollars will be spent elsewhere.

Not surprisingly, the Mexico consulate wasn’t much help. They just said that only the people at the Aduana (Customs) were authorized to deal with the problem. And since they were no help Monday, Ken decided not to pursue that path any more. The next step was to consult a lawyer versed in Mexican law. He was able to find one here in Phoenix and a couple of email exchanges led Ken to the conclusion that the fines ($2K-$7K) and the hassle factor far exceeded the monetary value of the Tahoe (~$5K). Ergo, one toasted Tahoe.

As far as his (our?) personal culpability, this is a civil matter and the civil authorities *may* pursue the matter for up to five years looking to seize any Mexican property he many own. (None.) As a practical matter, the lawyer said it was unlikely any issues would arise if we visited Mexico. But we decided why take the chance when there are so many other places in the world to see. Mexico will still be there later.

So. What to do now?  Costa Rica!

We’re flying into Costa Rica for 8 days – 1/26 to 2/4. Tentative plans are

1. a one day white water rafting trip on the Pacuare River out of Turrialba, then
2. stopping at Poás Volcano N.P. along the way to the Arenal Volcano N.P.
3. a day or so of sightseeing there and on the way to
4. Monteverde and Santa Elena for zip lining through the canopy and whatnot, then
5. down the Pacific coast to Quepos for a little beach time and maybe a canopy bridge walk at Rainmakers.
6. finally, back to San Jose and fly back to Tempe on 2/4

Details and a reality check TBD.

Catch-22

Back in Tempe AZ now for the second time. We got back from El Paso at about four in the afternoon on Saturday and (almost) immediately dove into our computers to research the car permit process and anything else we might need to go to the interior of Mexico. Plus anything that might help us figure out how to get the Tahoe back. No luck on that score, but it was plenty easy to find out about the permit process we *should* have followed – if we had known about it.

We drove down to Deming NM Sunday night so we could get to the Aduana in Las Palomas at 9am Monday morning when they opened. We didn’t know how long it would take to clear everything up, but, given that it took nearly 5 hours to issue the citation, we figured it would be best to allow all day. Danny, Ken’s son-in-law, was going to come down to Deming Monday night, get his vehicle permitted Tuesday morning, and drive Ken down the 90 miles to where the car is impounded. All our research on the permitting turned up the nugget that I couldn’t drive Ken’s second car down because only immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings, children – with proof of relationship) can drive another person’s vehicle solo. Hence Danny. Once they were down there and starting on the anticipated paperwork there, I would turn around and head back to Tempe.

So we arrive at the Aduana in Los Palomas at ~9:15am and immediately walked into another situation where there was only a smattering of English among the employees. Something we did not anticipate at a border crossing where some Americanos might want to ask about things. (Deming has a lot of snowbirds in residence who cross the border for dental & eye care. I did during my RV days - that’s why I was somewhat familiar with Las Palomas. Although most of these are day trips and don’t involve customs.) Sigh.

So they rounded up someone with a smattering of English who said they (the Aduana) didn’t issue permits and we would need to go across the street to the Banjercito. Not totally unexpected since the Banjercito is the agency that issues the permits in the normal course of events. However. The Banjercito people (not much English there either) said we needed a permit back-dated to Friday (when the car was impounded) and they couldn’t do that. The Aduana people needed to do that. Back to the Aduana. No, they don’t issue permits. After a few more rounds of attempting to understand (and another person with a bit more English brought in and us asking “You mean we can never get our car back?!!” “Si.”) the suggestion was made that we needed a lawyer. And the nearest ones licensed for Mexican law were in Juarez. At that point we decided to just go back to Tempe. Once lawyers are brought in, you have to ask the question “Is it worth it?” At this point it’s probably cheaper to just abandon the car and its remaining contents.

Ken has gone to the Mexican Consulate here in Phoenix this morning to see if he can get any more information. There should be some bilingual people there who can at least skim the documents and maybe give us more information besides “You needed a permit to be driving there. You didn’t have one so your car was impounded.” We know that already. Frankly, he doesn’t expect much help there, though. Even though I can’t believe we’re the only people in the world who have made this mistake and that they need to invent new procedures to help us out.

The funny thing is, the officer at the check point was very courteous and helpful. Even if we couldn’t understand each other very well, there was no hint of pleasure on getting one over on us or any other smarmy nuance you can think of. These were just people doing their jobs. We had also formed the impression that there was a standard procedure we had to follow. He emphasized that if we couldn’t make it to Las Palomas Monday, we needed to call a certain number (in our paperwork) and say so. And that we had 10 business days to do whatever-it-was. He offered us soda and water and stopped a bus for us to get on. All that is what caught us by surprise at the Aduana yesterday. No one seemed to expect us, no one seemed to know what to do with us, and no one seemed to want to find a way to help us. And this was not a large place. Even if we had gone to the wrong department, everybody should be aware of everybody else, and, if they’re like most other people, have their noses in other departments’ business.

On the plus side, I found out that my smattering of Spanish was helpful in the ordinary things we needed. That’s because the “Learn Spanish in Your Car” CDs I was working with started with phrases about typical tourist stuff. Stuff I didn’t think we would be needing and certainly nothing to make casual conversation with. Stuff like “Where is the bus station?” “These are my suitcases.” “Is there a restaurant near here?”. My tenses were lacking (never got beyond present tense), my verb/pronoun agreement atrocious, and let’s not talk about masculine/feminine nouns. But I was able to make myself understood. And to understand.

And the bus we took from Nuevo Casas Grandes to Juarez was really quite comfortable, clean, and inexpensive. I would not hesitate to take another bus there.

El Paso, TX. Huh!?!

How did we end up here? Can you say “Learning experience”?

We had a leisurely start to the day yesterday – showering, eating a heavy breakfast assuming a late or no stop for lunch, and stopping at WalMart to pick up a few forgotten odds and ends. We got in line and ended up crossing the border into Agua Prieta around 9:15am. Topmost on our mind at that point was that we had forgotten to fill the tank on the US side and had better find a gas station before leaving Agua Prieta. The US border agent stopped us and chatted a bit then sent us on to the Mexican agents. We were going to ask them where to find a gas station, but they just waved us on through. We were surprised they didn’t ask to see our passports or car insurance, but, hey, what do we know?

We found our Pemex station on the outskirts of Agua Prieta, filled up, and were on our way east on Mexico-2. The drive was pretty boring at first except for the fun of trying to figure out what the road signs meant. Then we got into the mountains and the drive became both more nervous making and more beautiful. Nervous making both because the roads are narrower than current standard US roads and there were essentially no shoulders and no guard rails. Beautiful because the desert mountains are and the air was so clear you could see a long way. We tried taking a panorama photo at one spot, but the depth is just lost in the photograph.

View looking north off Mex-2 a bit west of the Sonora-Chihuahua border

We made it through the mountains and turned south on Mex-10 at Janos. We figured we’d stop to fuel up the car and ourselves in Nuevo Casas Grandes in 32 miles.

How things change! About 13 miles below Janos we came to a check point and pulled in. The lady asked for our vehicle permit and Ken gave her our insurance papers. That wasn’t what she wanted. Apparently, when we crossed in Agua Prieta we were supposed to have our vehicle inspected and gotten a temporary vehicle import permit. If you are going to the interior of Mexico some variable x number of miles beyond the border, you need one of those. In all the checking Ken did with AAA and various other agencies, the insurance was mentioned but not the permit requirement. And all Ken’s previous driving trips to Mexico had been within the “frontier” zone where no permit was necessary.

The upshot was that our vehicle was impounded. We needed to go to back to the border (the nearest one was Palomas/Columus NM), pay the fines, and get the necessary permits before we could get the Tahoe back. And the office was only open M-F from 9-6. We gleaned all this with them only speaking a few words of English and us speaking only a few words of Spanish. Plus the help of a big Spanish-English dictionary we had brought along. The language barrier meant I couldn’t ask (or probably understand) so I don’t know why it took so long, but we didn’t finish all the paperwork until sometime after 4pm.

When we finally understood that we couldn’t just turn around and take the car back to the US, the plan had been that we would take a bus up to Palomas, cross over into Columbus, and have Ken’s son-in-law drive down to pick us up and take us back to Tempe. And then we’d come back down Monday to try to get the Tahoe back. We had earlier established that a bus would be going up at ~4pm and would stop across the street from the inspection station. Indeed, it did. While we were still trying to get all the paperwork signed.

So the next suggestion was that they would stop a southbound bus for us at the inspection station and it would take us to Nuevo Casas Grandes where we could catch another bus up to Palomas. Which is what we did. I couldn’t (and still can’t) figure out why we couldn’t catch the next northbound bus to Palomas there, but I didn’t know how to ask that either.

Of course, when we got to Nuevo Casas Grandes, the next bus to Palomas from that operator was at 2am. Luckily, there was another bus station right next door with a bus leaving soon. Too soon. It pulled out as we dragged our suitcases over. But we were able to buy tickets for the one leaving at 7pm. Two hours to kill. I asked about nearby restaurants and had a very tasty bowl of Camerones Especial. Lots of shrimp in a clear tomato/chile based broth with lots of cilantro. Muy Bueno.

Back to the bus station to wait for our bus. Which turned out to be the one to Juarez with a stop at Polomas on the way. We verified that with the bus driver and got on. A couple of times along the way (including stopping across from the inspection station) he asked us for our destination and we said Palomas and settled back with our eyes closed. It seemed to be taking a long time but we really couldn’t remember the distance and had neglected to ask about the arrival time. Finally, the bus driver asked about our destination again and when we said Palomas, he said we had passed that a long time ago and were coming into Juarez. That certainly explained the duration! I guess we were supposed to ring the bell and tell him to stop. But it was after dark and we hadn’t a clue where we were so we didn’t. At least that’s what I think was supposed to happen.

Luckily there was a wonderful young lady with more than a smattering of English who volunteered to guide us through the Juarez bus station to the buses to the border. By that time we decided we really wanted a taxi so she guided us there. And we were directed to a taxi that would take us to a border crossing. Unfortunately (and surprisingly to us since it was a border city) he only had a smattering of English. He did say $40 fare and then gave us a choice of three crossings. We had no idea which one to choose but settled on the downtown one. We got there, zipped through surprisingly easy – no inspection, no nothing – wandered around a bit, found another taxi, and asked him to take us to a decent hotel. We settled on an a hotel near the airport since we had decided to fly back to Phoenix from El Paso and checked in about 11:30pm Arizona time. I was fried.

So that’s why we are in El Paso, Texas. Our flight leaves this afternoon and we should be back in Tempe around 4pm. Then tomorrow we’ll take another car and drive the 5+ hours back to Deming NM (~30 north of the border) to stay the night and go down to Palomas Monday morning to do the paperwork dance and retrieve the Tahoe. We’re assuming it’s going to take a while so we’ll probably spend another night down there because I don’t trust myself driving back at night when I’m so tired. That would get us back to Tempe sometime Tuesday afternoon. If all goes well.

In any case, the trip as planned is down the tubes. We’ll regroup when we get back to Tempe with both vehicles and, after some significant sleep for me at least, decide what we want to do with our remaining time. Ken has another house guest coming in on Feb 6 so we must be back in Tempe by then.

On the up side, it’s sunny and no snow. And we were looking for some adventure.

[Update: Sometimes things work for the best even if it doesn’t seem like it at the time. Looking at a map and remembering the view out the bus windows, I think the Palomas bus stop would have dropped us off at a crossroads about 25 miles south of Las Palomas. In the dark. So I’m glad we went on to Juarez. I’ve been in Las Palomas before during my RVing days and had been surprised by the lack of lights out the bus windows. I’m sure we never went there.]

And the trip is on!

I left Lansing for Tempe this past Tuesday with the idea that we would be attending a play put on by the Phoenix Theater Company – The Marvelous Wonderettes – on Wednesday night and then head south on Thursday. When I got into Phoenix, however, Ken insisted the play was Thursday night and we were leaving Friday. Things then turned into a real comedy of (timing) errors. The play tickets were for Wednesday night so we thought we just had an extra day to prepare. Then this morning over coffee we were discussing the first couple of legs and I mentioned that the longest one between Chihuahua and Saltillo was Sunday. Ken was sure it wasn’t – but it had to be if Douglas was Friday night and Chihuahua was Saturday night! He then checked the hotel reservations he had made and they were all made as if we were leaving Thursday.

So, rather than change all the reservations, we did. It was a bit frantic running around doing laundry, updating the Garmin GPS, and doing shopping I thought I had all day for. (I brought the computer mouse but forgot the UBS adapter so now I own another mouse.) Plus Ken dropped the Tahoe off this morning at the auto shop because the check engine came on and we didn’t have a car! But everything all came together and we left Tempe around 1:30pm in the Tahoe. (A wire to the oxygen sensor was loose.)

Packed and ready to go!

The trip down to Douglas was pretty uneventful. We arrived at the Gadsden Hotel a bit after 5pm, checked in, and rushed outside to take some pictures. The outside is nothing remarkable but the lobby is quite amazing! This hotel was built in 1907, burned down in 1928, and rebuilt in 1929. The stained glass windows are original Tiffany and the column capitols are gold leaf. The rooms are certainly not modern, but good enough for one night.

Other tidbits of interest about the Gadsden is that Pancho Villa rode his horse up the grand staircase, “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” was filmed here, and past guests included Eleanor Roosevelt, Lee Marvin, and Shelly Winters. It’s kind of neat.

1st route change

Ken’s friend in Querétaro and the State Department have both given warning about Zacatecas – our planned third night on the way down. Despite evidence to the contrary, we are concerned about safety so we decided to dog-leg over to the east and stop at Saltillo for that night. Just a few more miles on the road.