In search of a dream - Costa Rica

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NOTE: MORE PICTURES TO FOLLOW!

Montezuma

The drive to Innz’s long time dreams (swimming in the waterfalls that is), turns out to be an experience in itself -it’s a 7 hour trip and we need to get the car across a channel on a ferry - we show up and get hassled by a local who promises to get us on the next ferry (which incidentally only takes 25 cars on) - putting our trust in him, we end up on the smallest possible water “vehicle” we ve ever seen and poor Heenz has to actually get out of the car and walk as a “pedestrian” as a car is only allowed on with the driver! The ferry is full of screaming kids, so 2 hours later when we finally arrive on dry land (not so dry either anymore as its chopping down with another tropical downpour), we are happy to be back in the delightful comfort of our lovely Toyota Yaris. Our friend Glorious Precious Smith is finally not blipping like a mad woman thinking we have drowned our car, and heads us into the direction of the next paradise.

Its Heenz’ turn to drive and she gets unlucky again as we are hit a massive storm just as it gets dark - the road is unpaved with of a lot of pot holes, winding along the coastal hills, its pouring buckets and we cant see anything over half a meter away - literally crawling at 5mph, trying to follow the turns in the road according to the GPS and screaming at the frogs that are jumping across the road! FINALLY we arrive and happy to find ourselves in what again looks like a tiny one sandy road village (would you really believe we now prefer small little villages to any semi large resorts with nice hotels???? What is happening to us??). Carrying our bags from the car to the hotel (a distance of 20 metres) has us completely dripping with rain water and we look like we have just entered the wet t-shirt competition. We have an early night and pray for the rain to stop the next day.

Morning comes….halleluiah! Its sunny! We ask our hotel reception to confirm our directions to the waterfalls and she warns us that it may be a bit dangerous today given the amount of rain last night - you need to walk along the river bank upstream for about half an hour, climbing over boulders and walking through water - would this really stop us???? PLEASE!!

So off we go, and the fun begins. We start walking along the “well marked” (apparently) trek along the river and within 2 minutes we are hopelessly lost (ie we are still on the river but it looks like there is nowhere to go!). We spot 2 girls ahead of us, climbing along the hill and decide to follow them (they are carrying a guide book with them so they must know where they are going!). Off we go, climbing muddy jungle river banks, slipping into mud (boys don’t get excited!), holding onto anything possible - tree branches, roots, leaves, stones, air - you get the gist! Sorry mums! As we continue up and down the muddy slides, we lose sight of the river and realize we must be going the wrong way - do we turn back? Yeah right! We persevere, get a few bruises along the way, sweat half of our weight off (hooray!), step on every single bug, get stung by every mosquito around and Innz is pretty sure Heenz is about to kill and bury her in the woods for this stupid waterfall idea. Since you all know we are now safe and sound, we wont bore you with any further details as we of course finally make it to the most amazing waterfalls. There is noone there (as yet) and we are actually slightly puzzled as to where we end up as there are meant to be 3 separate waterfalls and this surely looks like the last one of them (also the best of course). We are overjoyed to find a 4m ledge to jump off (tested for safety by a sweet 50 year old American guy who showed up there with his son) and screaming with fear and joy, we both go in! WOO HOO! We exhaust ourselves for the next hour, jumping off the ledge, swinging on a jump rope and trying to outswim the water falling into the next waterfall of 40m - not somewhere we want to be! Innz is happy as can be and thinks she now stands a chance of staying alive and not being buried here by Heenz who is thankful to Innz’s perseverance to actually get to the waterfalls!

For people who know us, the next part will come as no surprise. Innz remembers that the directions she got to get to the final waterfalls involved climbing a pass on the left bank whereby we were definitely on the right side of that mud slide! Something does not add up! Shortly we discover a blue rope hanging of a 75 degree angle hill, which seems to lead to some sort of a pass. Not thinking it through (for the fear of chickening out), we do the Tarzan jumps over the river, swinging our bag over to each other and finally reach the other side. We are now about to attempt rock climbing without any gear and only wearing our bikinis…actually its more like climbing tree roots with the aim of a rotten robe - fun fun fun! We cant get enough of adrenalin!

Climbing up, we follow yet another “well marked” trek - well, we actually do seem to be going in the right direction for once! We pass another couple of small waterfalls in which we pretend to be mermaids, there is noone around, not a single sound apart from the jungle and falling water and we are in true paradise. Finally reaching waterfalls number 1, we try to get all the other tourists there to go along the path that we have just taken but all seem to think that we are insane or that its too difficult to do! CHICKENS!!

Walking out of the waterfalls we inch along the edge of the water again holding on to trees and rocks with our fingernails (which are now really strong!). Eventually we get to a beautiful spot and pretend to be bikini models (well Innz more than Heenz) as we pose for a couple of photos!

Given all the adrenaline that morning we decide to relax in the afternoon and spend some time swimming in our hotels twin sister resort hotel! God bless the internet for helping us find this hotel! The resort is lovely but soon enough we are bored again and head back into town for another early night - there is not much to do here in the evenings!

Given how much we enjoyed the waterfalls, we are encouraged by our heroics the next day to try and find some waterfalls that are not mentioned in any of the guide books! The directions given to us are:

“These spectacular falls are a true paradise, and usually no one will be there when you visit. To find them drive towards Tambor and look for a wooden corral (what is that?) on the left side of the street and a house across on the other side. There is a sign that says Cascada on the left but at the moment its laying on the ground so you won’t see it (that’s helpful!). Go through the gate, drive down a very bad road (only 4WD can make it). Go through two more gates and at the large tree take the right fork. Follow the path down.”

Well would you believe that our sense of direction actually meant that we found these falls. Or rather, we find the turn off which we take and attempt to drive down in our faithful Toyota Yaris. After hitting the side post and almost taking off the bumper we pretty soon realize that whilst we love our car, we may have to walk. We do try a little further, but wheels soon start free spinning in the mud and as soon as we manage to get out of the first ditch, we abandon the car and decide to trek on for a while. We pass some really scary cows as we wander through fields that seem to have no civilization at all until we finally hear the sounds of the water falling and follow it down to the elusive waterfalls. There is no one else there and a jump rope that is higher and scarier than the one the previous day! You only live once so we go right ahead and jump in! Thankful that there were no broken bones we relax in the pools soaking in nature at its best and thoroughly enjoy ourselves. The best things in life can be free!!

Tamarindo

After spending the morning at the waterfalls, we head in the direction of Tamarindo. Our Gloria must be offended with us by now as it sends us on a 90km road that is unpaved (to be polite) and we don’t think should be allowed for a non 4WD’s, especially given the last few days’ downpours! We pass some scary mudslides and mud holes but thankfully manage not to get stuck anywhere - we really don’t think we would have been able to push the car out if we did!! After a long and painful (cant feel our bottoms!) ride, we finally arrive in Tamarindo.

Well what can we say? By this time, Costa Rica has taken its toll on us! We spend the weekend in Tamarindo where all the nightlife is and apparently famous for its surfing beaches. Unfortunately due to the rainy season we had a couple of days of bad weather and bad waves so were unable to take more surf lessons and become the pros that we were hoping! (This may also have something to do with the pathetic hangover that we suffer after three vodka tonics! - what has happened to us?). Our one night out involves going out for a yummy dinner and then heading to the local Monkey Bar, the Friday night hang out (located at the Best Western Villas - need I say more?). The place is heaving with very young gringos and is a cattle market so after our pathetic attempt to fit in, ie sitting by ourselves and not talking to anyone, we leave and stumble home!

Monday sees us driving from Tamarindo to San Jose to catch our flight to Guatemala City! This is the start of the nightmare journey…..more to follow in the next installment.

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