Pura Vida in Costa Rica

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The Costa Ricans, or Ticos as they call themselves, have a saying, Pura Vida, meaning Pure Life that you hear constantly as a greeting or to say something is cool and it’s a very worthy description of the country in general. It is a very vibrant place with so much to offer that you could easily spend many weeks here and not be bored. It’s also extremely easy to travel around because it’s a small country with a well developed tourist infrastructure and almost everyone speaks English - not so good for practicing our Spanish! It’s also not called Costa Rica or the Rich Coast for nothing, anything to do with tourists is very expensive, probably because they get sooooooo many American tourists who just pay. A lot of restaurants only have dollar prices on their menus, quite crazy really. Local buses and local restaurants are really good value though and the food is delicious.

We arrived on the 12th April and our first activity was to visit Volcano Poas, which is easy to get to from Alajuela, the town closest to the San Jose airport and where we stayed. The volcano was our second indication of how American-friendly the country is (after the proliferation of fast food outlets like Macky D’s, BK, KFC, Pizza Hut etc etc) because you can drive almost right up to the top where there is a huge parking lot and a hefty 600m walk to the viewpoint into the crater. Quite a difference from our first volcano experience in New Zealand where we had to do a 10 hour hike to get to the top of the volcano and back! It was still a very interesting place to visit though and they also had a short walk through the cloud forest for us. In the afternoon we again tried to get our photos developed onto a CD and after being told they could, we walked all the way back to the hostel, got the films, caught a bus back into town and were then told that actually the can’t. Not at all frustrating!!

The owner of our hostel Alajuela Tropical told us about the possibility of visiting another much less touristy volcano called Turrialba, where a guy has just opened a hostel on his farm. We decided it sounded good and the guy, Armando, came to fetch us from San Jose the next day ($10 each for a 6 hour journey - not too shabby). He was very keen to show us the Los Angeles cathedral, named after the patron Saint of Costa Rica. People walk from all over the country to visit the church and then they go from the back of the church to the altar walking on their knees. They also have a spring of holy water, which we drank from and it was lovely water indeed! The last part of the trip was in his father’s dodgy old 4x4 pickup and the road to the farm was really quite something. The name Hostel turned out to be a bit of an exaggeration cos basically we just got a room in is parent’s house. Most of the family lives around the farm and Armando’s mother has 13 real and 12 half brothers and sisters so it’s a pretty large family. (Her father remarried after his first wife died hence the half siblings). We were introduced to a number of them including Armando’s 20 year old brother and his 17 year old wife who have just had their first baby. Starting young, I guess that’s the only way of there being any hope of outdoing his grandfather!

The family was really lovely and it was another experience that we could not have had without speaking Spanish. They were really interested in everything about us, we are only the 2nd visitors from overseas that they have ever had and they really live out in the middle of nowhere. They were particularly interested in the types of cows that we have in england and south africa and were quite shocked that we really didn't know much beyond Aberdeen Angus, Jersey and Moo cows. There is no electricity so all cooking is done on a wood stove and shower water gets heated on the stove too and then you tip it over your head. All very rustic indeed and the food was unbelievably delicious. They really looked after us so well.

We went to bed at about 7 because by then it was dark and there really is nothing to do and the family gets up at 4am to start the farm work so they all go to bed early too. In the morning we were taken to meet all the animals including cows, horses, chickens, dogs and pigs all of whom had little babies running about. Makes sense then why our pork and chicken dinners tasted so fresh! We then started our walk up to the top of the volcano and we could also walk into the dormant crater. The non-dormant one is one of the most active in the country and so we could see all the smoke in the distance. We caught a lift part of the way back and then hiked across beautiful farmland to get back home. Definitely a more rewarding way of experiencing a volcano!

The next day we made our way to Volcano number 3 called Arenal near the town of La Fortuna. In the morning we hiked to the 70m waterfall nearby and swam in the pool at the bottom which was very refreshing. In the afternoon we went on a tour that included a walk in the national park at the foot of the very impressive volcano where we saw lots of toucans, then we went to a viewpoint around sunset where we could see some bits of red glowing lava tumbling down the side of the volcano. It was a bit cloudy but still super impressive. After that we went to Baldi thermal baths - not the best ones in the area but we got a deal to get in really cheaply with dinner included and the place was so empty beacuse it was midweek and low season, so we ended up having a great time. Some of the pools we literally had all to ourselves and the gardens around the pools are beautiful. It was an incredibly relaxing end to our busy day.

Next stop was Monteverde, famous for it’s cloud forests. To get there we had to take a combi bus, then a boat across lake Arenal and then another combi bus. The roads were not great and in total it took us nearly 4 hours to cover less than 40km. In the afternoon we did some canopying (swinging on a zip-line through the treetops of the cloud forest) and it included a surprise giant swing. It was really beautiful up there and great fun too, we also saw a pair of the famous and often elusive quetzal birds about 10m away from one of the tree platforms. Really lucky as they are stunningly beautiful birds.

In the morning we were up at 5.30 to visit the Monteverde cloud forest reserve. We caught the local bus there so we were there a good 45 minutes before any other tourists and while we were waiting for our guided walk we saw lots of howler monkeys playing in a tree. We then walked through the amazing forest for 4 hours and mostly thanks to our guide saw loads of birds and interesting plant-life, including 2 more quetzals, a trogon and lots of the sweetest little hummingbirds. We also saw a gigantic tarantula! We then walked to a nearby dairy and cheese factory where we had the most phenomenally scrumptious milkshakes imaginable. After a picnic lunch, including cheese of course, we went on a tour to visit a free trade coffee farm and see how the local cooperative processes the coffee. We were very privileged to visit the farm of Don Francisco who was one of the first people to start to farm coffee naturally in the area. He is now over 70 but still full of beans, excuse the pun, hehehehe. The farm is amazing because the coffee plants grow underneath some of the native trees and he also uses banana plants to provide shade and sugar cane to protect the coffee plants from the wind. It is so different to a plantation and he has even kept a pretty good strip of virgin forest intact so that the animals and birds still have a path to make their way from the pacific ocean to the highlands. Such a progressive thinker considering he started farming there 50 years ago. The whole process of going from coffee plant with a fruit to the roasted bean was very interesting and at the end we got to taste their dark and light blends as well as the natural blend where the whole fruit is roasted, not just the bean. Very good coffee. Nick also had another milkshake!

We have now just been in the beach town of Tamarindo for the last 2 days. It’s on the pacific coast and although quite touristy we really enjoyed it. After spending so much time in more way out places it is also a welcome change to go somewhere with some life! We both took our first surf lesson and Nick did really well, standing up a number of times. Kez wasn’t quite such a natural but she did have good fun and managed to stand up for about half a second once or twice. Much practice is needed! We also had a night out on the town last night and after only drinking 6 beers, Kez was horribly hungover this morning. Very sad indeed, we must be growing up!

Today we were at the beach for a couple of hours, Nick got some surf practicing in and Kez just lay there feeling sorry for herself. And then we caught a bus to Liberia because tomorrow we go from here to Nicaragua.

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Comments

[Jill Smith]

I'm very jealous about the amount of cheese involved in your travels. good work!