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We stayed at Mi Casa Hostel in San Jose, bar one night in La Fortuna and it turned out to be a really nice place, just what we needed after stinky Cuba! San Jose, for any of you prosepective travellers, is very much like Birmingham, England...but smaller. We flew with TACA again and we fully recommend this airline, we think it's better than BA! Tom made two friends on the plane. A really nice, eccentric, old Cuban guy who had been in Mexico, Bolivia and Costa Rica for reasons he never divulged, and Ernesto, a trainee doctor from El Salvador who Tom introduced to Johnny Walker Red Label!
San Jose is definitely just a stop off point, not much to do or see, but nice enough nonetheless. We used it as such to visit Arenal and do 2 tours. The first we did was the famous '4 in 1' tour, a jam-packed day consisting of a coffee plantation tour, a visit to the active Poas volcano, La Paz waterfall gardens and a jungle cruise on the Saripiqui river. The
The beautiful game
Opposite our hostelcoffee plantation was ace, Tom wants to buy one! On the journey between the coffee plantation and Poas, we were lucky enough to see a three-toed sloth (just like walking into the living room Springy!) The volcano was unreal, very eerie, surrounded by cloudforest. The sulphur was still pouring out as the volcano had only erupted 3 months previously. At the waterfall gardens, there is a beautiful butterfly enclosure and hummingbird sanctuary as well as some spectacular waterfalls and George's favourite bit..the all you could eat buffet lunch!! The river boat ride was great, we managed to see iguanas, snake birds, howler monkeys and pouch bats. The views from the bus were great too, and after the great expense of the day (only 40 quid!) we managed to scrape together the 15p for a pasta dinner!
The other tour we booked was a day white water rafting down 30km of the Pacuare river. There were class 3 and 4 rapids and everything from the guides to the food to the other tourists were great. An unforgettable moment was swimming dwn the river between a 100 ft gorge in torrential rain with rainforest hanging over every side. We both
Poas Volcano
The biggest crater in the world got stupidly sunburnt (in the hour of sun that we had!) and the bus broke down AGAIN but even that couldn't put a downer on the day. We managed to get a free lift to La Fortuna, at the foot of one of the most active volcanoes in Costa Rica (Arenal) with a lunatic bus driver. It poured the entire time we were there, which prevented us from even seeing the volcano, let alone the lava. The Cerro Chato lodge was great and we would have stayed longer with Miguel and his family if it hadn't have been so miserable. Probably a lovely place in the sun though!
Our week in Costa Rica finished on a bit of a low point. We were misled and completely robbed at one of the nicest restaurants in San Jose (a Brazillian rodizio.) Nice food but cost us about 3 days living money! We woke up after this to watch England unfairly lose to Portugal. The less said about this the better! Would have been easier to live with had it not been for the Portuguese loud mouth staying in our hostel. Another of Tom's 'random friends' (an Israeli guy) recommended a
certain kind of nightclub, that he referred to as a 'candy shop' for most of the last day....needless to say we politely refused his offer! We also met THE most annoying man in the world on our last meal out. If you ever meet, Michael Crichton-Brown, please slap him before he has a chance to talk at you!
All in all, we loved Costa Rica and will definitely be coming back and recommend it to everyone. Next stop - Lima, Peru!
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Lynn Yates
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Fantastic
I want to go ! Fab pictures keep them coming, but only when you have time, can't wait for the Inca Trail pictures; hope you are watching Elaine. Make the most of it kids!