Thursday 10 April 2008

9th Day - Vulcano Poas and back home

Next day we managed to see vulcano Poas, bought some souvenirs, left our car in a car rental company and finally took our flight back home.



On the way we met some coatis (pizotes). They just went out close to the road, exactly 11 of them and were waiting that someone will stop and give them some food haha


It was an amazing vacation, true adventure and the country is simply beautiful....but it woUldn't be me if I would't say in the end....frankly speaking after 9 days in Costa Rica...HASTA EL COÑ.. DE LOS BICHOS!!!! NOS VAMOS A CASA!!! :D


Wednesday 9 April 2008

8th Day: La ventana de los bichos

We spent 4 amazing days in Cahuita and it was time to go back. Our plan was to go back to San Jose, have a dinner and spend a night in a friend's house (CS) and the next day fly back to Madrid. On the way we planed to stop and see vulcano Poas (not active), which has an amazing lagune inside its crater, but it was too cloudy and on the entrance a guy told us that it's better to come next day.

We finally arrived to Sarah Joy and Julio's house near San Jose International airport, dropped our stuff and later went out with a bunch of people to a nice restaurant and had dinner. One thing I would like to mention about that day. It has a bit of a history:


1st -I always choose a side of a bed which has bigger space in front - a window, a bigger part of the room - never door or wall.
2nd - Sarah's house was kind of in a forest (it was an old banana plantation with a lot of trees and plants everywhere and a lot of mosquitos, insects, birds - you know, usual costarican stuff :-)

So, that night I chose door...and Juli's phrase was: "Joder, lo sé porqué has escogido la puerta, no quieres tumbarte en la ventana de los bichos, verdad? :D" (Shit, i know why you chose the door side of the bed, you don't want to sleep at the "insect" window, right? :D

Monday 7 April 2008

6th/7th Day - La ranita

Finally we left Tortuguero, picked up our car and were leading to the Caribbean coast, Cahuita!


We spent 4 days in the nice tropical hotel, drinking mojitos with it's boss, Domingo (from Madrid), discovering Cahuita national park - monkeys, snakes and racoons again without control haha


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRKFUIpO0YU



We noticed that on all Costa Rica guides, the first page picture is an amazing frog with red eyes, but we never managed to see it live.


Our fist night when we arrived to Cahuita, Luz ( our super barman girl who made best caipirinhas) said - oh, you haven't seen frogs yet? Let me find one for you.... and as easy as it looks, she went to the hotel pool where there were some plants with long leaves and brought us one :D

What an amazing creature! (I mean the frog, of course..haha)


Sunday 6 April 2008

5th Day - Tortuguero, natural paradise

And this is true...it is really a natural paradise. We went on a boat through the channels and saw birds and eagles in the sky, monkeys on the trees, crocodiles in the river. The whole country is like a zoo and it's amazing.



http://www.youtube.com/v/Ruc4Yu9fEcw

Saturday 5 April 2008

4th Day: Tortuguero

Next morning we took a map that hotel guy had drawn for us and took our way to Tortuguero. It is a place between a river lagune and a sea and the only way to get there is by boat. We had to find a pier where to leave a car and take a boat through the channels to the village.


This is a magnificant map, which actually says that you take road (pista) until it is finished and then you take a ground road (camino de cabras) which will lead you to Pavona. We didn't realize then, that all he said was true haha

So first we drove until the way was finished.



We drove and we drove and we drove through the forest and banana plantations, until the way became like this and in this moment we thought may be we are lost again and we have to go back...since the most touristic place in Costa Rica wouldn't have such a road..but soon we finally arrived to Pavona...which was, as you can see, a pefectly civilized, modern parking place for the tourists hahaha - Welcome to Costa Rica!

Anyway, we left our car, took a boat and went through the channels to the village....Pretty relaxed and enjoying the view, we suddenly have heard a "crackkkk""". The water level was so low, so the boat has scratched its bottom by the rock or tree...and the water started to get into the boat...Hmmmm...this was another unexpected adventure, too many for today haha

The guy who was driving the boat said we have to stop and wait for another boat to come and resque us, while we are waiting on a small piece of land surrounded by water. We took our bags out and waited for another boat.


By luck, there were some locals on that boat, very friendly ones, and they had a little fridge full of whiskey and beers...so as you can imagine, Juli immediately made new friends haha

In the end a boat has come to pick us up, crocodiles didnt eat us (don't laugh, in Costa Rica all rivers have crocodiles...not joking) and we arrived to Tortuguero.

Friday 4 April 2008

3rd Day: Way to Tortuguero or How to get lost with GPS

Fist day in the morning we went to Canopy tour. What is canopy? Check the pics! :D Adrenaline and adventure in the heart of a beautiful nature haha


Finally we left Fornuna to Tortuguero. Long way was expecting us, 200km and 4 hours drive...those roads! :D Anyway, we set up our GPS and were leading the main road. Next village on our map was Chiles, so on the cross road we saw Los chiles and went that way. Going further and further, GPS was telling me we are going somewhere to the north, but I didn't trust Costarican GPS, of course!:D After 1 hour we started to worry, since the village was supposed to be much closer. We stoped near a gas station and asked again - Chiles? Yeah, Los Chiles, said a guy, you are going the right way. GPS was going mad and I saw a big water spot on the screen. Juli, i said, what is this? It is telling me we are going to some kind of a Pacifican golf or smth....? Mi amor, he said, this is Nicaragua lake, I am afraid hahahaha

What has actually happened? Very simple, in Costa Rica there are 2 places, Chiles and Los Chiles (on the border with Nicaragua). We turned back and next days discovered there are a lot of villages in Costa Rica with the same name :-DDDD

Anyway, afterwards we got lost again, went through the forest, mixed the way and finally didn't get to Tortuguero that night and slept in a small city on the way :-D

Thursday 3 April 2008

2nd Day (part 2) - more waterfalls :-)

We arrived to Fortuna and were wondering what to do before going to see Vulcano at night. The hotel guy drew a map for us with a route proposal. The plan looked like this: We go to see a waterfall, then we go to the thermal bath and then at night, we go see Vulcano. The plan was accepted!

This is a magic map, with Vulcano, waterfall and the road :-))

To reach waterfall we had to go down steps in the forest. It was kind of fun....was not fun going up afterwards, we almost died haha

Waterfall was beautiful, we took 1,000 pics and went up....ohhhh...those stairs :-)

Next point - thermal baths.

Imagine several pools with hot thermal water, with a bar in the middle where you can have some mojitos sitting on the chair in the water and around all those palm trees, flowers and small waterfalls. Very nice place...but it looked too much touristic for us, ords of american tourists (gringos) were invading it...unfortunately :-)

So finally, the most important thing which is left to do was to see vulcano at night. We drove for about 20 minutes on the impossible way (camino de cabras) and finally arrived to the point where we had to see vulcano. But...as i mentioned before...it was too cloudy to see it and we didn't. The funny thing was that afterwards the hotel guy told us that majority of people who come to Fortuna want to see vulcano (of course), because it's main touristic attraction...BUT actually there are very very few days when you can actually see it...but you don't know about this fact, until you arrive there..haha

Anyway, I post a picture here...from the internet of course :DD

2nd Day: Going to Vulcano!!

Costa Rica is an amazing place. Besides animals and forests it has Vulcanos! Unfortunately it has clouds that sometimes don't let you see vulcanos, but this is another story :-)

We had breakfast included in our hotel rate, so Juli was full of energy imagining an omelette with bacon or smth like that. For those who don't know, Juli doesn't eat any vegetables (besides potato & beans) and any fruits, never ever. So as you can imagine...our breakfast was...only fruits haha

We took a picture with Inti while waiting for the car rent company agent. We rented a 4x4 car to travel across Costa Rica and this was an intelligent choice, since in Costa Rica good road is such a rare thing as a crocodile in park Güell let's say :-))

We went directly to Fortuna, where we were supposed to see vulcano Arenal. It is an active vulcano which is actually spitting lava...cool huh?

On the way we saw this amazing waterfall and took pictures, of course! :-)))

Wednesday 2 April 2008

1st Day - First tips

After long 14-hours trip (Barcelona-Madrid-San Jose de Costa Rica) we were ready to use first tips that we got from Inti: Not to go to San Jose (it's dangerous) and not to take any taxi, only official orange one (otherwise it's dangerous)....yeah i know, sounds like a funny start :-D

Anyway, we arrived to the hotel, met Inti, discussed next day plan . We went to bed, a bit dizzy, it is 7 hours difference in time between Europe and Central America, so our bodies didn't know what to do anymore - to sleep or to wake up, since it was 12pm in Costa Rica and 7 am in Spain haha

Tuesday 1 April 2008

Costa Rica - Welcome to the jungle!

We just spent a week in a jungle..yeah, i am not joking :D

In two words Costa Rica is a natural paradise. Imagine you drive your car through this country and around you see tropical forests, virgin nature, animals come out of the forest on the road. You stop the car, go a bit deeper into the forest and immediately you see monkeys, raccoons, snakes, crabs, crocodile in the river and this kind of stuff. It's like a zoo, but without boundaries. Shoking at the first sight, but you get used to it :D

If you are curious to know details, don't be lazy and read!!! :D