Postcards from Escazu: November 2010

We left at 9:00am on Saturday morning for Manuel Antonio National Park. We headed Southeast out of Escazu with an initial destination of Aserri because that is what Google Directions told Brian to do.

The trip to Manuel Antonio took 11 hours. As you can see by the map of the new highway we only needed to hop on the highway 27 in Escazu then jump on 34 to Quepos. I am not going to assign blame, but the drive home was 3 hours. Map of new highway

The problem was we were trying to use the new highway which we did not find that day. Most roads are not labeled and the majority of the towns had no signs to identify them. It was a crazy drive that took us into cloud forests and steep terrain with limited visibility and speeds from 0 to 30 mph. This was off road type driving where Brian had to get out and push Robert's Elantra out of mud on one of the mountainsides in the dark. The streets aren't lit, mainly because they are in the jungle and on the side of a mountain. Later when the roads improved, we dodged pot holes ranging from a frying pan to the size of a Mini Cooper at 50 mph, steered around a fallen tree, and traveled through many, many, many, small unmarked towns. We met up with Robert and Yorleny around 2:30pm (after driving around lost for 5 hours) at a fried chicken place in St. Ignacio which is 35 km from home to start basically over with the drive to Quepos. We arrived in Queopos at our hotel Si Como No around 8:00pm. We went to the El Avion for dinner. It was very cool full of moody lighting and good fish plates. We went back to the hotel and went to sleep. We rose early and had breakfast in the Rico Tico restaurant at the hotel.

Then it was off to Manuel Antonio National Park. When we arrived at the park we saw a group of white faced Capuchin climbing the porch rail of a building. We parked, paid our 2000 colones and headed for the boats to lift us over to the park entrance.

But when we arrived, we learned that the entrance was now only an exit and that we needed to go back across and find the entrance.

We found the entrance and bought a ticket and went in the park. We saw 2 sloths, a slew of monkeys, and other neat stuff.

I learned a lot about Costa and Costa Ricans.

I learned that Costa Rican towns have a central square that has a park and a church in it. The churches are generally quite large and colorful. I also learned that there is a bus system that has stops on roads that are unlit and looked bombed out, but sure enough there are people waiting at the stops. It came to my attention that one of the big past times here is to stand outside of the home, or in the street and watch cars and people go by.

I will post more tomorrow about our trip.

We just returned from a trip to Arenal. Arenal is a volcano. You can read about the volcano here.
It is also a tourist destination for the wonderful hot springs caused by the volcanic activity.
You can see some images here.

We traveled by way of taxi and a 20 minute flight on Nature Air. Our six seater plane landed in the Fortuna area on land converted to a single plane air strip by the property owner who charges $7 US per person for the privilege of using his air field.

Landing Strip

We were picked up from the air strip by Gabriel who drove us up the steep 20 minute winding road to the lodge through the rain. When we arrived we couldn't even see the volcano because of the clouds and rain, but it cleared off for 2 beautifully sunny warm days.

We stayed at the Arenal Lodge. We were in the Chalets with large floor to ceiling windows that faced the lake and the volcano. While the lodge had wonderful views and fair accommodations the lodging experience left something to be desired.

We were greeted by Jonathan who was very polite and helpful. We walked in the rain from our chalet on the hill to the dining hall. The restaurant had nice views also, but it had a national park lunchroom quality to it.

We ordered Imperial beer and the waiter came back and told us they were out of Imperial beer. (This is kind of like running out of Budweiser, as it is one of the only native beers in Costa Rica.) We ordered tequila shots and the waiter "forgot" to bring them. There was a decent pool table and cues in the bar area. The bartender made a delicious Pina Colada. He also was good friends with the McCaws that lived on the property which we met by chance outside of our room toward the back of the property.

This hotel was rustic! The room had no coffee but it had a coffee pot just to torment us. After repeated calls to the desk over the course of our stay, we were told on the final day that they were out of coffee for the rooms. Our room lost electricity several times a day which caused us to have a blinking clock and continuously reset the room safe. We asked the desk for wake up calls and they "forgot" to call us. The only clock we had that we were sure worked was in our camera. The shower was a dribble shower, though it was warm. The room had insects in it and no air conditioning. (But, we were used to the temperatures because the house we rent in Escazu also has no air conditioning). The beds were nice with plenty of pillows and the maid was very good. She even made us towel animals and other towel art.

We booked all of our tours through the hotel's travel person Stephania. She was very helpful and friendly.

Our first outing took place on the first night we were in Arenal. We booked a dinner and an evening of hot springs at Eco-Thermales-Hot-Springs. This was a great way to start the trip. The drinks are on the honor system and made from fresh fruits (no mixes) and the dinner was delicious, fresh and understated. The lockers and bathrooms were clean. We took a taxi to and from the event that was booked through sunset tours.

Day 2:

I woke up with the sun at 5:30am. Eight am feels like 10:30am in brightness. Brian and I did the lodge's nature walk through the jungle. We visited their butterfly house. It seemed abandoned by the butterflies. The hike was nice. At one point we thought we wouldn't make it back in time to catch our shuttle for the next event, but we were fine.

Our first major excursion was to the Sky Trek. That was a blast. We had a group of about 10 people and the 2 guides. It was mainly couples about our same age (30-40). The experience was amazing. I would do it again today. I went first!

Brian landing

For our second excursion we went to a different hot springs. We went to Tabacon. The scale was larger, more of a production than the other hot springs, more crowded, and the staff was snooty and relatively unhelpful. Our ride forgot to come get us. He was to be there at 9:30pm. We waited 30 minutes accounting for "Tico Time" and then called the hotel. They located him and had him retrieve us as the hot springs were shutting off their lights. We were very annoyed because we could have stayed in the springs longer instead of sitting and waiting for a ride that wasn't coming. It was especially annoying since we had just had a dinner served by an angry and pissy waiter. This was the first problem we had with Sunset Tours, but it wouldn't be the last.

The next morning we had a scheduled pick up at 7:30am by Sunset Tours to pick us up at the hotel and to take us to the Hanging Bridges Tour for a very quick 3 mile trek and then straight to the airport from the bridges to catch our plane back to San Jose. This was planned and time carefully by Stephania and confirmed. The way it played out was this: The bus was 30 minutes late in picking us up at the hotel. This insult occurred after the front desk forgot the wake up call and luckily we woke up without it. We ate a very quick breakfast just to wait on the late bus. When he arrived we hopped on board and made the 20 minute ride down to the main road. We were feeling better and we even saw a family of Coati's on the way down. Then the driver unexpectedly pulled over and parked the bus on the side of the road by the lake and entrance to the road leading to the hanging bridges. After several "es no problema's" from the driver we asked him in our dictionary Spanish to explain why we were parking and not continuing to the bridges. He explained that he wasn't the one that would be taking us to the tour, that another bus was going to drive us down the mile road to the hanging bridges. So, we waited and waited and waited......I took off down the road and Brian did this:

But, our other bus came and we were off to the hanging bridges with another couple. The tour apologized, sort of, and managed to put the rest of our itinerary back together. We did our hanging bridges tour on fast forward. It was nice though and we were able to see a small eyelash viper (barely) and some howler monkeys. Here is a better image of the viper from another website.

Before SkyTrek

At the Observatory Hotel

Snap Shot from our Lodge Dining

Me and a Coati

Before Bridges Hike

Bridges Hike

Brian self portrait

Look closely for the eye of the pit viper. It is framed by two very green leaves center frame and the snake is mostly visible on the left side of the center twig. They are hard to see and very poisonous.