Advertisement
Published: July 25th 2012
Zarcero
Beautiful hedges lining the path to the main church.Dear Blog Readers,
We were excited to move up through the highlands of Costa Rica and on towards the Caribbean coast. Before getting there though, we stopped in La Fortuna, famous for being in the shadow of one of the most active volcanoes on our trip, Volcan Arenal. The journey from San Jose is a 5 hour stretch but if you fancy a beautiful spot for some lunch and to break up the journey then we can fully recommend Zarcero. A little town whose centrally located church has a magnificent pathway where a toparist has gone mad with the garden shears and crafted out some phenomenal hedges! Well worth a look!
Once in La Fortuna, we arrived at Gringo Pete's, probably the cheapest place to stay in Costa Rica! Don't be expecting anything fancy - in the rooms or the service! Our 'double' room is a bunk bed, and the width of the room is exactly 185cm wide - I know because when I lay in the bed, my head and feet touch either wall perfectly. I think prison cells are slightly bigger? Luckily the other 'gringos' staying there make up for it with a nice atmosphere. The tours
Canopy Tour
Laura bombing it down the zipwire. offered at the hostel are much cheaper than the touts in town so it's well worth checking them out. The afternoon was dogged by the clockwork torrential downpours. Arenal stayed in clouded mystery but the town seemed nice at night and we went to some bars and watched the basketball.
We saved ourselves $10 each by booking through Gringo Pete's for the EcoGlide Canopy Tour. Canopy Tours are very popular in Costa Rica and they have started springing up in the other countries that we've been to. It basically involves hurtling through the canopy of the rainforest on a zipline. The EcoGlide one was one of the best around, especially in La Fortuna, as it has were about 15 ziplines and a tarzan swing! Annoyingly, we got stuck behind about 30 school kids on a trip but the teachers with them had been on loads of the canopy tours and assured us that this one was the best. The longer ziplines came out of the forest and gave spectacular views of the surrounding area. The Tarzan Swing was simply sensational. We were so lucky with the weather as most of the afternoon it was raining. Expertly dodging the rain,
Canopy Tour 3
Only a glove to break with! we went out for a nice 2km walk out of town and found a great swimming hole underneath a bridge with some great rock jumps and another tarzan swing! Not quite as adreneline fueled as the EcoGlide one, but very fun nonetheless!
Another lazy morning, we went out into the town to see if we could finally get a glimpse of Arenal but no luck! Laura bought a beautiful box from a man selling his stuff from a small shop behind the church who was really friendly. We'd planned on celebrating our 5th anniversary in style an splashed out on the Baldi Hot Springs with the buffet dinner. The drinks there are ridiculously expensive so buy them in the supermarket beforehand and sneak them in your bag! There are plenty of quiet places to enjoy a drink there secretly! The place was probably the poshest place we have ever been. It's a palace of 25 different baths varying in temperature and size. You can go from freezing cold to volcanically hot, sauna to steam room and waterfall to water slide. The water slides are fantastic - I don't think they could be legal at home. Laura came down one
Shithead
The pungent smelling dog that ruined Laura's Cahuita experience. I thought he was great. of them and popped out the end upside-down flying in the air with both parts of her bikini down by her ankles.
As we made our way through the baths, we reached the pinnacle of the hot springs which is a fantastic stone sculpture with water pouring out of the top and falling into one of the hottest pools in the place. The fiery temperature was replicated at the summit of Arenal which we could now see bellowing with steam as we relaxed in the pool. Now Laura had recovered from the 'Disasterous Chicken Burrito Of Matagalpa' as it is now known; I've never seen her so ravenous for the buffet to open. We were pretty much the first ones in! It was here that it was clear Laura and I had different translations for the word 'buffet'. For her, buffet means chocolate fondue, however, for anybody in my family, buffet means challenge. As I paced myself like a pro, Laura zipped through and was at the fondue before I could get my fourth plate full. The selection of tea was superb - most of them we'd never heard of! Did you know you can get a Prince of
The Diana
Almost mandatory for all our trips now. Pete will be proud. Wales tea?
Our first stop on the Caribbean coast was a town called Cahuita and arrived just as it was getting dark. We found a hostel next door to the bus station which was fine and we had a short walk around the couple of streets that make up the town. I can only presume that their patron saint is Bob Marley as posters of him are everywhere and if you can't see him then you can hear him from every single bar blasting out his reggae tunes through their speakers. It's bizarre!
We were woken in the morning by mangos crashing onto the corregated iron roofs of the hostel. I suppose it's better than the usual car horns and loud speakers. We walked slightly out of town to Playa Negra but were followed the whole way there by the hostel owner's dog. Laura's love of dogs has already been talked about in these blogs numerous times and her ability to attract felines in the most random of places never ceases to amaze me. They must sense her hatred. She'd affectionately called this particularly dog - 'Shithead' due to it's pungent aroma. We had a little dip in
Alice
See! It was fate! the sea but the currents were really strong and the rains were coming in so we started walking back. Shithead had accosted some other tourists on the beach who seemed furious that we'd brought him to the beach with us
like we had a choice! We met a pair of British twins in the evening staying at the hostel who seemingly hated each other. Bizarre.
Our idyllic fantasy of white sand, crystal blue water and baking sunlight hadn't exactly materialized on our first day here so we had our fingers crossed that our luck would change! In the morning, we were lucky because we were able to have a quick stroll down the beautiful Playa Blanca before getting a bus to Puerto Viejo. The town was much livelier than Cahuita and because the weather had improved, the beaches looked stunningly picturesque. We got a hostel one the main road with potentially the worst kitchen we've had so far (it rivalled the one in La Ceiba which had one spoon and one plate). As we went out for lunch, we bumped into Charlie and Harry who travelled with us through El Salvador and into Nicaragua and watched the football with
Baywatch Gone Wrong
You never see them wearing goggles in Baywatch. them!
The following day was one to remember for all the right reasons. As I woke up, I had an email waiting for me and found out that my niece, Alice, had been born during the night! I was straight onto Skype and manage to see her adorable sleeping face and had a mix of emotions -disappointed not to have been there, homesick but excited and jubilant at becoming an Uncle again! The weather was perfect so we hired some bikes and went for a bike ride along the road adjacent to the beach. It was the best bike ride I've ever been on. As fate would have it, about 20 minutes into the ride, we noticed a restaurant on the side of the road whose name...you guessed it...was Alice!
We went about 6km before turning off into Punta Uva. Wow! The beach was just incredible! Everything that we could have asked for and exactly as you would expect from a postcard. We stayed for a couple of hours then headed another 5km along the road to Manzanillo which was much quieter and a nice place to have lunch. I've never felt more manly than cutting open a
Palm Tree
Climbing a palm tree is way harder than it looks! fresh mango and eating it off my penknife. We spent the rest of the day at Punta Uva and checked out the surfers at Playa Cocles. We had a nice walk around town at sunset and decided to treat ourselves to a fancy meal to celebrate Alice being born. It was easily one of the best days of the entire trip and was the perfect way to end our time in Costa Rica. Our next Caribbean destination would be on the other side of the border into Panama,
Tink and Laura
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 13; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0271s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Ah, the Caribbean life!
Fresh mango is the way to go. You are living a large life. We enjoyed our zip line while in Costa Rica.