Home again

As I said previously, we’re not beach people so the one day in Quepos was enough for our “Taste of Costa Rica” tour. We went back to the city park and took a few more pictures (see previous post) and were on our way to San Jose by 11am. Since our flight left San Jose at 7:40am Saturday morning, we planned to turn our rental car in and spend our last night in an airport hotel. The Holiday Inn Express in this case. (Ken had made reservations on our previous ill-fated pass through San Jose.)

Our trip in was pretty uneventful – good paved roads, signage, and a non-obscure destination (the airport). Until the very end. We were heading east on CN-27 (the orange line at the lower left below) and needed to go north to link up with CA-1 (the magenta line below) which goes past the airport. Unless we wished to go into San Jose and come back out on CA-1. Not on your life.

So we dutifully followed the GPS to it’s first wrong connection to CA-1 – the first green spur below. We sorta figured it was wrong since all the traffic was staying on the main road, but what the hey. Sure enough, after some very bumpy dirt road we got to a place where there had once been access to CA-1. But now there was a big pile of dirt blocking it. If we were desperate and nuts enough, we could have gotten around it, but why bother, we had all afternoon and it was only 12:30. So we turned around and rejoined the main road.

As we drove along, we saw signs to the “aeropuerto” and were reassured even though the GPS was squawking at us to turn back and go the way we had just tried. That is, we were going fine until we missed a turn – saw the sign too late. We could have turned around but were in an exploring mood so just decided to follow the GPS again (it had a new route by this time). So we crossed over CA-1 heading north and followed another spur to a dead end. Then we turned around and followed another one we were sure wouldn’t connect (obstinacy is wonderful) and it dead ended, too.

By this time we were tired of the game and just decided to go toward Alajuela and take another main road out. So that’s what we did. The green line below shows our track from CN-27 to the hotel.

We arrived at the hotel a bit before 1pm – too early to check in – so we went over to the nearby Denny’s for a late lunch. An expensive late lunch. But what do you expect for a restaurant in an enclave of airport hotels?

The final chores of the day were to gas up the car and return it. Done. And with no notice paid to the dent in the passenger side door!!! Then shower and repack our bags to airline mode and take advantage of the hotel service to pay our exit taxes there. They charged $6 each for the service but it meant one less airport line tomorrow morning. Finally some pizza and beer for supper and an early night.

The following morning we were up at 5am and arrived at the airport by 5:40 – the recommended 2 hours ahead of time. And, as it turns out, far earlier than we needed to be there. The exit tax line was long – but we didn’t need to go through it. And the lines to check the bag and go through security were short. So lots of waiting time. Ken said he’s going to have to teach me about getting to the airport “just in time”. Hah!!

The flight back to Phoenix was uneventful but, since the car keys were in Ken’s stolen computer bag, we needed to take a taxi back to his house. Then pick up the spare keys and drive the truck back to the airport to pick up his car. Finally, the trip was over.

We had some bad times, but all-in-all, I would rate our Costa Rican trip as very good and I would be willing to do it again. But there is also so much more of the world to see that I don’t know when that would be.

Have fun and go see for yourselves.

Quepos–on the Pacific coast

We spent our last day in Costa Rica in Quepos on the Pacific coast. I wanted to experience a different milieu than the mountains we had been in. We figured a single day was enough since neither of us were beach people. We did plan on dipping our toes in the Pacific, however. That plan was dashed when we walked over to the city ocean front park. As far as we could see, the bank was lined with these huge boulders as a break wall. When I was younger I would have clambered over them down to the water, but now I wouldn’t. Neither would Ken. Here is the beach within 15 min of low tide (I checked later). The surfer waded through the waist deep channel and is climbing the rocks in the right picture.

The following morning we went out again for more pictures. This is 1 hr 44 min after high tide.

This is the street seen standing on the park embankment. The Hotel Sirena (our hotel) is the blue “S” near the center.

The original reason I had chosen Quepos was that it was near Manuel Antonio National Park. There are also some famous beaches there. But we chose not to drive over and instead walked around town a bit and generally relaxed. Good enough for me.

Selvatura Again

Once again it’s off to Selvatura at the crack of mid-morning on the 10:30 bus. We have tickets for the hanging bridge walk and the butterfly garden. Once we get up there, it’s not nearly as nice a day as yesterday – cool & drizzly. But we came prepared with jackets and a hat for me and off we went.

This excursion wasn’t as much fun as yesterday’s zip lining. First, it wasn’t a guided walk so all we could say was “Yep, there’s some greenery.” Pretty, but kind of the same after a while. Second, there were quite a few people on the walk and many of them delighted in making the hanging bridges bounce and swing. Annoying when you were trying to take pictures and insecure feeling in the best of cases. Finally, we had the paths between the bridges. These are paved in a type of open cinder block. Necessary to preserve the path and help with footing, but very uncomfortable to walk on. No danger of catching your foot – openings were only ~4” – but uncomfortable none the less.

 

Here I am trying to use my hand as a measure for these giant leaves. Looks like a philodendron to me!

 

 

A pretty view.

 

An amazing shot Ken took. This is a zip liner going by on the 1 km line we were on yesterday. You can see the bridge we are on in the movie in yesterday’s post.

After the walk (~1.5 hrs), we had lunch in the restaurant figuring we would do the butterfly garden afterwards. However, we had not counted on the huge tour buses that were there that day – we didn’t finish lunch until nearly 2pm. Since we wanted to catch the 3 pm shuttle back to the hotel, we decided to blow off the butterfly garden. The tickets were freebies anyway. So that’s what we did.

Hmm. This post has a whiney tone. I don’t mean for it to be that way. This was a good day, it just wasn’t as good as yesterday. And my body is sore.

Back at the hotel, we had some beer (free), checked our email, and relaxed a bit. Lonely Planet said Trio’s is owned by the same people as Sophia’s so we drove around to find it and to get some gas in preparation for tomorrow’s journey.

Trio’s was fabulous. That’s three for three good restaurants in Santa Elena.

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.