Costa Rica 2021/2022
Into Costa Rica:San Jose
With COVID protocols and admin overcome, we have made it, and on Tuesday December 14th we finally arrived in the Costa Rican capital ready for what is planned to be a 7-week tour followed by a detour to California before we head home.
If the traffic on the way into the city is anything to go by, then San Jose is one heavily congested capital. It takes over an hour to inch our way through heaving, chugging giant trucks, buses belching fumes and huge numbers of less than pristine cars, from the airport to downtown San Jose.
Darkness falls during that hour, and brings with it just a hint of jet lag: it may be early evening here but with a 6-hour time difference our body clocks are already past midnight. A quick wander around the centre and a first Costa Rican meal follow, and the first “Tico” beer, Imperial, is promisingly pleasant – the beer here does enjoy a good reputation.
In truth we aren’t expecting miracles from San Jose, this is a city which housed only 70,000 inhabitants in 1948 but which has grown to over 2 million today, so undoubtedly much of it will be modern. Its history as a major coffee trading centre will though most likely provide at least one exciting culture to explore.
What San Jose lacks as a spectacle it more than makes up for in spirit: this is a city of colour and verve, bustling, vibrant and happy. Latino music is ever present, its rapid rhythms bursting from shops, doorways, apartments and bars. Lottery ticket sellers bark their repetitive sales spiel above the babble of the streets, unseen birds squawk parrot sounds from the trees, the traffic hums and every now and again sirens wail.
Everything seems to be in bright colours, whether it’s the jazzy clothing of the Ticos, garishly painted city buildings or the street art bringing blank walls to life, you can’t help but be dazzled by the brilliant colours. Mexico meets Africa meets Caribbean. And somehow those colours fit perfectly with these first impressions of Costa Rica, and of San Jose, for this is a lively, vibrant city where buzzing non-stop action stimulate the senses from dawn till dusk.
What San Jose can boast is some cavernous and beautiful churches, more than its fair share of themed museums and a collection of bustling markets where the decibel level seems to be yet another notch up from the buzzing streets. Markets are always a great way to feel the pulse of a city, doubly so when those markets are home to earthy, packed-to-the-rafters eateries.
The “Mercado Central” here is one such market and we just have to indulge in a plateful of the Tico national dish, gallo pinto, while the noise and the manic activity buzzes around us, and just about every other diner greets us with typically broad smiles and an eager welcome.
San Jose’s pride and joy, and its most majestic building, is not, as is commonplace worldwide, a royal or presidential establishment, but is the incredibly grand National Theatre, one of three large theatres in the centre. We take a guided tour around its opulent interior and marvel at its splendour, clearly this is a place where no expense was spared in its construction.
Fabulously wealthy coffee exporters backed the initial presidential budget for its creation, which, influenced by sorties to Europe and visits to grand theatres there, incorporated into the design, importation of huge quantities of marble and commissioning of artists, sculptors and architects from Italy, France and Greece.
This ambitious project went just a little over budget: in fact it ended up costing fifteen times the original estimate, forcing the Government to implement new taxes to fund its completion. It also overran timescales by 7 years. The legacy though is magnificent, a glorious, sumptuous theatre in the style of Europe’s finest.
San Jose’s vibrant atmosphere is so rewarding and so stimulating, but that atmosphere is its main attraction, and consequently two days here is probably sufficient. And so for us our next destination is the Pacific coast, nearly 4,000 feet lower and several degrees warmer.
Birds & Paradise:Our First 24 Hours in Quepos
“Ahhh I see”, he says as we explain our travel philosophies, “so you’re just a couple of retired travel bums like me”.
Oh, we like that. So much so that had we thought of it ourselves, we may well have been the “retired travel bums” instead of the “hungry travellers”! Like our good friends Terrie and Charles, this guy (sorry bud, we didn’t catch your name) is from Oregon, but spends a lot of time in Costa Rica and he gushes heaps of useful advice as we sip yet another cup of fabulous local coffee. Sometimes you just meet the right people.
As we hang around in the busy and sweaty bus station ready to make our way to the coast, we feel real excitement at where we are headed, yet have no inkling of what is about to unfold.
Our journey from San Jose to Quepos on the Pacific coast is a near four hour bus journey at a cost of just over £6 each, and not for the first time we find ourselves discussing the ridiculous cost of public transport back in England- we can’t even travel the five miles from our house to Canterbury for £6!
Costa Rica’s beauty unfolds before our eyes on the way: rolling green mountains punctuated by white water in deep gorges steadily give way to low lying landscapes bursting with vivid and lush greenery, the dramatic sweeps of the tree clad mountains gently calming to verdant expanses as we near the ocean.
We are greeted at Quepos by two things: firstly our beaming host Reymar who meets us at the bus station, and secondly a bout of tropical rain which has even the locals running for cover. Reymar is instantly engaging: full of advice and offers of help, including, for instance, “don’t use any taxi here, if you need lift, text me. I take you”. Wow. Sometimes you just meet the right people.
Our apartment is, to say the very least, quirky. Perched on the very edge of the green hillside and overlooking the marina and the Pacific, only the bedroom and bathroom are indoors: our kitchen, lounge, sofas, even the TV, are all on a sheltered terrace area sitting like a natural mountainside shelf high above the sea, and all are open to the elements outside the property. The bedroom frontage is entirely glazed, affording wonderful ocean views from our bed.
As the rain eases off we set off to explore Quepos, an instantly appealing, slightly ramshackle town with a reputation for being ever so slightly offbeat. Just 6 kilometres down the road is the renowned Manuel Antonio national park, with its incredible biodiversity, teeming wildlife, lush forests and pristine beaches. Quepos is the last Tico town before the hotels cluster around the park entrance, and according to Lonely Planet has managed to retain much of its Tico character. We really hope that proves to be accurate; it’s why we chose to stay here rather than in the more touristy section closer to the park entrance.
Respite from the rain is short lived and our first Quepos walk is curtailed as the heavens open once more, forcing us to take refuge in a rather cool bar with rather decent draught beer. Halfway down our first beer, the rain has become a raging tropical storm, with crashing thunder and unbelievably heavy rain which soon has the deep gutters of the street flowing in torrents. When we think it’s over, we dive into a supermarket to pick up provisions for the apartment, but by the time we’ve paid, the incredible rain has resumed in true tropical style: you can’t move an inch without getting drenched.
That cool bar is once again our refuge, but by the time it reaches three hours of storm and we are still stranded, we decide to take Reymar up on his offer of a lift. He arrives within minutes, eager to please, and is, to our surprise, properly animated as we climb in.
“I am glad you call, come quick”, he chirps, peering through the rain as he drives up the steep, potholed lane to home, “I have something to show you”. The reason for his excitement soon becomes clear: there are sloths in his garden, disturbed by the heavy rain.
What we see next is truly incredible, sloths are one of the animals we were really hoping to see on our treks in Costa Rica, though we know many visitors never get lucky, so to have this experience on our very first night in Quepos is simply awesome.
Take a look at what was in the garden….
The rain continues to pepper the tin roof of our lodge overnight, regularly interrupting sleep, but is gone by Saturday morning, which brings with it both hot sunshine and an intense humidity which is stifling and drenching in equal measure. Within 24 hours of arriving in this tropical area we have experienced hot sun, torrential rain, thunder, lightning and cloying humidity. Just how you would expect it to be in a country such as Costa Rica.
In fact, Quepos and this part of Costa Rica are exactly as you would picture a location such as this: the lush vegetation is textbook tropical, reminding us of pictures in childhood encyclopaedias. Dense, impenetrable forest starts immediately behind the last houses of the ramshackle town; shanty style housing fills the dry ground between creeks; the forest reclaims every piece of derelict ground – Mother Nature, rather than Mankind, runs the show here.
And it’s the natural sights which leave you awestruck. Every Costa Rica guide book and every piece of internet research eulogises the wildlife and biodiversity here, but nothing you read can really prepare you for the joy of seeing so many exotic species so easily and at such close quarters. Hummingbirds hover around our flowers, birds of prey and magnificent frigate birds circle overhead, we spy scarlet macaws and a scarlet-rumped tanager, all without leaving our lodge. A walk around Quepos brings pelicans, ibis, giant turkey-like birds at the water’s edge…and iguanas of different, shapes, colours and sizes, including this beast munching on mango…
This has been a pretty spectacular first 24 hours in Quepos. What an amazing place Costa Rica is; what an amazing trip this is shaping up to be.
Quepos And Manuel Antonio
A few random and unconnected facts. One: At the last official survey, there are 932 species of bird in Costa Rica – that’s more than the whole of the USA and Canada put together, pretty impressive for such a small country!
Two: Since we began travelling together in 2011, we’ve kept a record of every place outside GB where we’ve stayed at least one night; Quepos is number 144 and the first one ever that starts in the letter “Q”. Three: This place puts the “rain” in “rainforest”. Wow, when it rains here, it really means business, we can honestly say that in all our travels we have never seen anything like the torrential rain which falls over long sustained periods here. No wonder this place is so beautifully lush and green! And this, by the way, is the dry season.
Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, 6 kilometres down the road from Quepos, limits visitors per day to a maximum, not through COVID, but through a laudable desire to protect the ecology of this magnificent peninsula, actually one of a very large number of green philosophies in this enlightened country. The only way to enter the Park is by purchasing tickets on line at least 24 hours in advance – it’s about £14 per person per day – and with the entrance being at the point where the road ends, on a narrow strip of land before the peninsula opens out, it’s easy for the authorities to control.
Approaching the gates, past the last public beach and a motley collection of restaurants and stalls selling all manner of tat, is to run the gauntlet of bogus officials in bogus uniforms, telling you where you “must park” (mostly well short of the real entrance), that you “cannot enter without an official” or simply hawking their services as a guide. Fortunately we’ve done our homework, know the pitfalls, and also got Reymar to drive us to the gate, so we fall for none of it.
Apparently some of these guides are actually very good, but at least as many are charlatans, so the safest way is to get a recommendation and then pre-book on line or by phone. Once inside, make no mistake though – this place is an absolute paradise, and a dream for trekkers and nature lovers alike. Bounded by the Pacific on three sides, the dense, lush jungle is home to thousands of species, to entire colonies living up in the canopy, to mangrove swamps, and to several paradise beaches of soft sand and rolling surf. It’s a jaw dropping combination.
For our first hiking day at Manuel Antonio we choose to go unguided, though will definitely invest in a guide in order to enhance the experience, at some point. But even unguided it’s possible to have a field day with sightings: our first day’s hike brings deer, capuchin monkeys, howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys; iguanas; sloths; a couple of coati (pronounced kwarty and similar to a large racoon); beautiful butterflies, insects by the million and even hermit crabs of many shapes and sizes skulking around the beach.
It is a breathtaking, beautiful tropical paradise. As we unwind from our first day walking its trails, we can scarcely believe the sheer amount of exotic flora and fauna we’ve seen first hand. We really do have to pinch ourselves. After nearly six hours hiking and wildlife spotting we take a couple of quick cooling dips in the Pacific before wearily boarding the bus back to Quepos, where, hot and tired, the draught Imperial beer at El Gran Escape (great name, huh?) is even more refreshing than usual.
So refreshing in fact that we don’t really notice the ominous dark clouds gathering over the sea, and half way home the rain hammers down once again: we are utterly drenched by the time we’ve climbed the steep hill back to the lodge. This time the whole thing goes to another level: unbelievably, incredibly heavy rain, like we’ve honestly never seen, incessant lightning, giant thunder claps, absolutely non-stop and relentless for FIFTEEN HOURS. From 5pm till 8am, the rain sheets down and the storm rages. We don’t sleep much.
By morning there is standing water everywhere, Quepos is saturated and the run-offs cascade down the mountains with force and noise. Inside the bay the Pacific is turned brown by the muddy waters of the mangrove swamp. Reymar appears at our gate as we are preparing to head out, presenting us with two delicious green coconuts but really he’s come to check that we’re OK after the night’s storms.
“This is not normal”, he says, genuinely concerned, “normally rain like this only comes in winter and finishes in October. December is dry season. My mother says first time ever in December”.
Alberto greets us with a big outstretched hand and an equally big smile – but then big smiles are pretty commonplace in Costa Rica. Dog eared bird book in hand, his assistant Julio at the rudder, Alberto leads us off on our mangrove boat trip through the gentle waters of this remarkable area. There is something spiritually peaceful about gliding silently through the other worldly scenes of mangroves, and in this dense lush jungle, that peace is somehow even more serene.
Within minutes we spot a tiger heron, then a kingfisher darts across our path, sandpipers put on a dance display and hawks sail overhead. Alberto explains the ecological value of the swamp, details its evolution, shows us pictures in the book to put names to the birds which we see along the way. Magically, a giant osprey sits high in a treetop, staring at the waters below for signs of food.
The serenity of the slow passage through still waters is fabulous, even on this cloudy, squally day. “Normally, December we have hot sun every day, all day” says Alberto, “this time, December is past half way, and summer is not here. This is not usual”.
We guess it’s a little bit disappointing to have missed out so far on a typical glorious Costa Rica summer, but this area and this country are stunningly beautiful. It must be an absolute paradise when the sun shines. With another five days in Quepos and another six weeks in Costa Rica, we are certain to find that out for ourselves.
Manuel Antonio village lies just outside the park gates, and is a ramble of places to stay and places to eat and drink, a palm tree lined beach of golden sands and that wonderfully cool vibe of a laid back beach town. As we take brunch there this morning, looking out at the Pacific turned almost colourless by cloud as beach attendants pack up their equipment in the rain, the owner looks up at the darkening sky and turns his palms upwards.
“This is not usual”, he says. Yes, we’re getting the picture.
And then Wednesday dawns, day 6 in Quepos and Day 9 of the trip, and as we make our way back towards the park for another early start on the hiking trails, the sky clears, the Pacific turns blue, and by 8.30am there is real heat in the sun. Swamp mud makes popping sounds as the warmth breaks through the trees and birdsong is everywhere. Summer, it seems, is coming.
Quepos :Animal Magic & Other Stories
By the end of our second day in Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, we have covered every inch of its trails and hiked to every corner, and had many wonderful close encounters with amazing and exotic creatures. For our third day in the Park, we hire a guide to see if we can dig deeper and see things which our untrained eyes may have missed.
But first, that second unguided day is truly magical. It really is very hard to put into words the unbridled joy of seeing exotic wildlife at close quarters, and marvelling not just at this wonderful, environmentally conscious country, but also at the magnificence of nature. In fact, words really can’t do it justice, so we’ll let our photos do the talking:
Our guide, like the park itself, is named Manuel. As we expected, he has the sharpest eyes and ears, acute senses and real in-depth knowledge of the creatures in his territory, but in addition to this, Manuel’s ability to explain the history and evolution of this place is extraordinary. Which species are truly indigenous; which are introduced and how they came to be here; the position of everything in the food chain; those which are beneficial to the ecology, those which are a threat.
We learn which plants to eat if we ever get lost in the jungle, not to mention which plants, and animals, might kill us. We learn the diet of many creatures, and how the prey tries to avoid the predator: maybe a frog using camouflage, maybe monkeys which have a special call to warn of the presence of a snake, maybe the Jesus Christ Lizard, so named because it can run across water on its hind legs to make its escape.
Manuel is rightly proud of his country’s record on conservation and awareness, and in particular the education programmes designed to make each generation more savvy than the last, and is acutely aware of the delicate balance which enables tourism to fund conservation. And fund his living.
Our three days walking every inch of the trails in the Park have been absolutely stimulating. To be able to complete each of those three days with some time on one of the paradise beaches which are the stuff of dreams, swimming in the cooling Pacific and feeling the powder soft sand between our toes, has been just a perfect ending, each time.
Christmas Eve brings with it the first day in a while where we’re not committed to an early start: it’s advisable to rise early if you want to catch the best of the wildlife and our Quepos story so far is one of early starts and early finishes, we haven’t exactly burnt the midnight oil! We’d planned a night hike for Christmas night but circumstances work against us and it gets called off, so note to selves to add it to the list for later.
On our first day here, there was a chirruping in our kitchen which we assumed was a cricket or similar. To our surprise it turned out to be a small gecko, we had no idea that geckos had such a loud call – and apparently it’s usually a male mating call. Why this fella thinks he’ll find a girlfriend by lurking behind our fridge is beyond us. Two days later, there’s two of them. Shows you how much we know about dating.
You know, one of the inescapable truths you regularly meet when travelling is inequality: it’s a regular feature of life across the world, however unpalatable it may be. Kolkata was one of our most extreme, but there have been others, and Quepos has its own ripped backsides too.
Towards the northern end of Quepos seafront, across the swirling creek on a rusting raft of a ferry, lies Isla Damas, tucked away on a lengthy peninsula and home to a shanty town housing the town’s less affluent. Corrugated houses line the back of the beach of hard sand and mangrove silt, some of the ramshackle houses surrounded by sandbags as protection against the rising tides.
The strand line is strewn with litter, coconut shells and palm debris, stray dogs lay on the sand or sniff amongst the flotsam, and several times the peace is shattered as young men drive pick-up trucks or motor bikes at breakneck speed along the sand, their own private racetrack. A man sleeps in a makeshift hammock tied between his home and a tree; a child wades barefoot through the deep puddles left by recent storms. As if to complete this desolate scene, a large flock of vultures descend to where a huge fish corpse rolls in the surf.
The community of Isla Damas looks directly from their corrugated shack houses across the bay to Quepos marina, where, just a mile away, private boats are moored and diners spend money in restaurants. Life was and ever will be thus, we guess. Like it or not.
With our time in Quepos drawing to a close, we award ourselves some beach time at Manuel Antonio after our exciting hikes and before we head to our next destination which will no doubt be equally demanding. The Pacific swirls in rip currents, the sun beats down and palm trees line each paradise beach, whilst strung along the seafront road are cool shaded restaurants serving exquisite fresh fish and amazing seafood.
Some guide books are not too complimentary about this village: we actually can’t fathom why that is. Yes it’s popular, yes there are plenty of American tourists, but we think it’s a great little beach town. When I take a comfort break at the end of a delicious fish lunch, I am followed into the Gents by one of the bogus officials in bogus uniform, who brazenly tries to sell me drugs without batting an eyelid. Of course, we know this is commonplace in parts of Costa Rica, but I have never previously thought of myself as looking remotely like a potential customer for dealers!
We leave Quepos on Day 14 of this trip. It’s been absolutely stunning, yet even more spectacular places are ahead. Next stop Monteverde.
Into The Cloud Forest: From The Sea To The Sky
Bidding farewell to Reymar is like saying goodbye to a friend, he has been one of the most helpful and sociable hosts we have ever had on our travels. As we pull out of Quepos bus station, we are very conscious of leaving the lovely high temperatures behind as we head towards the colder air of the mountains and cloud forests.
The bus journey from Quepos to Monteverde is a bit less comfortable than the earlier journey from San Jose, in fact it borders on gruelling by the end of the long day. First it’s three and a half hours along the Pacific coast to Puntarenas where, after a bit of shenanigan trying to find the correct bus stop, we board a second bus to climb from sea level to the village of Santa Elena, 4,360 feet higher.
This second phase takes another three and a half hours, in a bone-shaker of a bus rammed with ever changing passengers – we stop very regularly – in which the driver maxes the revs in the powerful motor in order to climb the mountain roads, often in first gear. It’s loud and it’s bumpy, it’s crowded and it’s cramped. But it’s exceptionally cheap!
In the end, we arrive in Santa Elena after dark and can feel the cooler mountain air straight away. The conjoined villages of Monteverde and Santa Elena form a strip of civilisation between two extensive cloud forests hugging the top of the lush green mountains. This is the point where, at the highest point of the continental tectonic divide, the dry salty air from the Pacific meets the warm wet winds of the Caribbean, forming dense wet clouds which hang above the forest in perpetuity.
The result is a rare genuine cloud forest, home to over 400 species of bird, 100 mammal types and 1200 amphibian and reptile species: there aren’t too many places like this on Earth. Precipitation forms and falls as persistent rain, which together with the presence of the cloud, soaks everything and creates the wondrous tropical sights of the cloud forest.
Water runs and drips from everything, moss grows rampant on every tree. Except, somewhat incongruously, the first of our two days hiking here is sunny, dry and warm. Of course the cloud is here, but lighter than usual and we walk in blue skies and bright sunshine for much of the day, following trails around the forest and crossing several lofty hanging bridges which sway beneath our feet as we walk.
It’s fascinating to study the giant trees and dense jungle like growth, but in truth the forest here is so dense that, by definition, views are limited. Fascinating, but limited in scope. After completing the trails we visit an amazing butterfly garden where we are able to study at closer quarters the beautiful species we’ve been seeing on our Costa Rica walks. One such is the giant blue morpho which drifts through the air like a sweet wrapper on the breeze, iridescent blue flashing bright in the shadows.
As if our first day wasn’t enough of a surprise, our second is even more sunny, and considerably warmer – we really didn’t expect this, we thought we’d be being drenched and wearing waterproofs throughout our time here. Instead, we’ve caught two rare days of summer in a cloud forest which receives 102 inches of rainfall per year and has only a handful of dry sunny days.
Watch the Coatis here….
Wildlife spotting is more difficult here than in Manuel Antonio; the forest is extremely dense and a high percentage of the fauna is nocturnal. We do catch some great sightings (tarantula, coati, giant bugs) but in comparison to MA the results here are modest. However the cable car journey up and over the highest point of the forest is spectacular, affording views to the conical Arenal volcano one way and back to the Pacific coast the other.
Santa Elena itself is a small community dominated by activities for visitors – there are adrenaline fuelled adventures like zip lining, rafting and canyoning available as well as hiking and horse riding, etc. Tour operators are everywhere and backpacker hostels and small lodge hotels like ours are dotted around the village. Evenings buzz as visitors return to discuss their day’s activities over a beer or two. We’ve experienced places like this before: village communities grown to service visitor activity, most recently in the Croatian lakes and in Paliokastro in Crete, where there was a similar convivial evening vibe as everyone unwinds by sharing their stories.
Wherever you stand in the small hilly centre of Santa Elena, you look up at the lush green mountainsides climbing up and away from the village in every direction – it’s a very relaxing feeling. So is sipping cold draught Imperial beer in Bar Amigos, the second decent bar of this trip after El Gran Escape in Quepos.
The abundant wildlife of Costa Rica includes a ridiculous number of amphibians, many of them with startling colours and characteristics. We took the following series of photographs on an evening visit to the “frog pond”, a specialist reserve in Santa Elena village:
On one level we feel we are leaving Monteverde and Santa Elena a little too soon, there are things we would have done here had we given ourselves more time. Our to do list for the rest of this trip is steadily growing as a result. Leaving here with tans topped up and without seeing a spot of rain, though, is a completely unexpected outcome.
La Fortuna:Lava Flows And Laughter
With mountains and volcanoes meaning a lack of decent roads, transport options from Monteverde to the Arenal region are limited, with the road option being long and laborious. Most travellers therefore take the route known locally as “jeep boat jeep”, although these days due to its popularity the “jeep” bits are by minibus.
A 90-minute ride along unmade roads which are really nothing more than farm tracks brings us to a muddy slope at the edge of Lake Arenal, where large white egrets hunt for fish and swallows swoop overhead. There is a regular stream of minibuses depositing travellers here, bringing enough people to fill several of the little boats, meaning a queue, and a wait, until our turn comes to board.
Chugging across the large lake is made special by the sights of the gigantic volcanoes around us: there are no less than 10 in this Central region, most of them dwarfed by the imposing Arenal. A second minibus brings us into the bustling and humid La Fortuna, a larger town than we anticipated and with a lovely green space right in the centre which is instantly clear to be the heartbeat of the town, so full is it of activity.
Arenal volcano towers over La Fortuna, its near perfect pyramid shape forming a photogenic backdrop to the uphill main road through the town. The smaller volcano of Cerro Chatto is also visible, but it is Arenal which gives the town its character and identity. In fact it does more than that, having given La Fortuna its raison d’etre when the 1968 eruption destroyed three villages, sadly with 87 lives lost, after which the remaining population gravitated from the villages to the town, swelling its size.
That event in 1968 was the start of an eruptive cycle which lasted until 2010, since when Arenal has lain dormant – although at a towering 5,437 feet perhaps “lain” is the wrong word. Walking the trails around its lower slopes is exhilarating if a little tricky underfoot, as we catch glimpses of the stunning volcano through trees, mixed with clearer sightings from useful viewpoints.
Towards the end of the trails we circle Lake Los Patos which was created by the 1968 eruption, where we spot the somewhat bizarre boat-billed heron along the way.
La Fortuna teems with tour operators for the huge variety of activities on offer here, though we learn quickly that prices are steep and many of the activities can be reached independently. Our intention was to hire a car here to do just that, only to find that hire cars are scarce (it’s high season after all) and the only ones available are an eye watering 200 US dollars PER DAY. We politely decline.
Views of our neighbourhood …….
The attraction of the volcano, the beautiful scenery and the multiple activities have turned La Fortuna into what is now Costa Rica’s most visited destination, and right now at the turn of the year, the evidence is plain: it’s pretty busy here with a large number of visitors from the USA.
Talking of the turn of the year, New Years Eve brings even more vivacity to the town centre and its lovely central green space, as the locals and visitors join together to ring in what everyone hopes will be better times. It all creates a rather lovely atmosphere which reverberates with the incessant sexy rhythms of latino music.
Arenal may be dormant but volcanic activity certainly isn’t. Lava bubbles and rolls beneath the ground and the surrounding area is full of hot springs and warm rivers – some now incorporated into spa resorts and others with free public access. You can’t hide a river, after all. So it’s with a sense of fun that we shun the overpriced spa resorts and head out on foot to join the locals swimming and splashing in “El Salto” (the hole) just out of town.
Families and teenagers mingle with a handful of tourists like us, revelling in the sparkling waters and diving from rocks into the natural pool. It’s a great setting for a piece of old fashioned fun: the Rio Fortuna is mountain fresh rather than heated by volcano, adding to the sense of fun.
Although Arenal is boss and looms large over the town, the very top of the volcano is rarely visible, a result of gases released from volcanic vents mixing with the air and forming a constant swirling cloud around its summit. With clouds of precipitation also a regular feature of tropical climate, it’s a question of how much of the volcano will be hidden at any one time rather than whether you’ll catch a glimpse of its peak.
Yet unsurprisingly all the tour brochures and promotional material feature a pristine sky and a clearly visible summit. Michaela makes this point to Johnny Herrera at his bar one day:
“So Johnny”, she says over a glass of Imperial, “when do I get to see Arenal like this?”
“Hmmm”, muses Johnny, “how long you in La Fortuna?”
“Eight days altogether, we have five days left”.
“I think maybe you need to be in La Fortuna for two weeks”.
“And if we stay, we will definitely see the summit clearly?”
“No”, he says through mischievous smile, “but you will spend more money in my bar”.
Adventures & Adrenaline In La Fortuna
We’ve had some pretty amazing adrenaline adventures before – whitewater rafting, tombstone dives, even a bobsleigh run – and now La Fortuna goes into our history as a place where we have matched or even surpassed those thrills. Ever thought of coming down a mountain via zip wire? Nor had we, until the temptation was just too strong….
It’s on the Monday that whoever is in charge of La Fortuna weather throws a few switches and changes a few dials. Heavy cloud cover replaces bright sunshine, regular bouts of torrential rain flood the soakaways and send everyone running for shelter, and the imposing Arenal volcano disappears from view completely. The dripping humidity of preceding days is switched to zero and there is an unexpected freshness to the previously sultry air.
By Tuesday whoever’s in control really starts to get mischievous; cloying humidity is back with a vengeance but ridiculous rain and hot sun keep swapping places more quickly than we can get our waterproofs on and off. It’s fun. No it’s not, we’re soaked. Dry already. Oh whatever, we give up worrying!
Here’s two extreme examples of the view of Arenal in different weathers… slide the bar to view
Coffee has been a staple export from Costa Rica for a long time, creating massive wealth for some and underpaid exploited labour for others. Our tour of North Fields coffee farm just outside La Fortuna is fascinating and educational: we go there expecting to learn lots about the growing, harvesting and processing, which we do – but the examination of the techniques of how we serve our own coffee in our own home is equally surprising and informative.
We certainly didn’t know for instance that the caffeine content is increased in line with exposure to water – therefore espresso actually has a lower caffeine content than other coffees. Interestingly, the family at the “finca” (farm), in the business for four generations, were highly dismissive of the terms “organic” and “fair trade” on coffees sold in the West, stating that virtually all coffees from anywhere in the world are neither of those things, no matter what it says on the packet. It was just as fascinating to taste the coffee bean at its various stages of production, some of which were all but unpalatable.
North Fields finca also harvests cocoa and sugar cane, each of which are ingredients in the chocolate manufactured on site – the study of chocolate production was just as interesting as the coffee. When cocoa was originally discovered, the Aztecs lapped it up as a drink rather than the food we know today, soon discovering that sugar needed to be added to make it drinkable. They christened it “xocolatl”, from “xococ” meaning “bitter” and “atl” which means “water”.
There is a major bonus whilst we are at the finca – we’d had several toucan sightings in Costa Rica but none which had given a photo opportunity. Here though, one pair poses gloriously for Michaela to seize the shot she’s been hoping for…
La Catarata La Fortuna is a spectacular 70m waterfall a few kilometres out of town, where Rio Fortuna simply falls off a forested ridge into the gorge below. The natural turbulent pool created by the cascade is an exhilarating place for a swim in cold, swirling waters. Going downstream a few yards, it’s just as much fun to let the fast flowing currents carry our bodies through the picturesque gorge, grabbing rocks on the cliff face to regain control.
There’s an entry fee at Catarata, and a 560-step drop to the gorge, which means a 560-step climb back up after our exhausting time in the powerful waters. The whole experience – seeing the waterfall from the viewing platforms and swimming in those cold, surging waters – is absolutely well worth the entrance fee AND the climb.
And so to the adrenaline part…
We saw it in Monteverde but ran out of time, so the zip line in Arenal, a 20-minute ride out of town, with views of both the volcano and the lake from the mountain, was an absolute must. We were not disappointed: this was an adrenaline thrill up there with the best.
Ascending the mountain by cable car, the breathtaking views emerge, the lush jungle dropping further and further beneath us as we reach the highest point, the first platform, way, way above the world. A short 32 metre long wire serves as our nursery run, and then we’re on the first platform, looking along the zip wire nicknamed “Oh My God”, stretching impossibly high above the jungle valley to our next platform, 465 metres away.
“Oh My God” is the first of seven ziplines, totalling 2,742 metres in riding length and dropping over 170 metres from top to bottom. At times we are 210 metres – that’s 688 feet – above the ground. It truly feels like flying! It is unbelievably, unbelievably exciting: our hearts race, our senses rage, we let out whoops of delight. And when it’s over, when we’ve hurtled down all seven lines, we are wide eyed, pumped up, and wondering when we can do it again. It’s a fantastic, fantastic experience.
Michaela wore a Go Pro head camera. Watch the videos here and see some of what we saw….
After a day like today it’s hard to talk about much else; reliving the thrill is our main topic of conversation over beers and dinner tonight. You don’t have days like today too often.
For our final frolic in La Fortuna we venture out to another favourite spot for the locals, nicknamed “El Chollin”, a stretch of cascading river which is an attraction due to one distinguishing feature – the water is hot! Chollin was a cold water mountain river until the 1968 eruption, which left it literally boiling as it raced down the hillside. Now, 53 years later, it’s still very warm indeed, bursting from one of the many hot springs in this area.
It’s all slightly surreal, wallowing in the strong currents of fast flowing water which feels artificially heated, so high is its temperature. It’s surreal, exciting, amusing and relaxing all in one go. A natural jacuzzi, if you like. As Michaela says as we lay in the water, “if a river is this hot then something very weird is going on underground here”.
And so our time has come to move on from La Fortuna, where we’ve had way more than a week’s worth of fun in our seven days. We head off now to somewhere very different- the Caribbean coastline, where we will encounter a different culture, different cuisine and different people. Cahuita here we come.
Eastwards To The Caribbean
The time has come to move on and bid farewell to La Fortuna and its imposing, looming volcano, and farewell to all of the great things that the Arenal area has to offer.
Our week in La Fortuna has been so full of experiences and activity that we’ve barely mentioned how settled we’ve felt here. This town may be a popular destination for visitors to Costa Rica, but for us it’s been just the right blend of plenty of options without being over cooked.
Recommendation wise, our favourite restaurants have been Snapper’s House with its fabulous seafood, a sumptuous family run Peruvian restaurant named Chifa La Familia Feliz, and a Mexican influenced place where the delicious food belies its dreadful name of Spec-Taco-Lar. Two bars ticked our “regular haunt” boxes: Nanku in the main street with reasonably priced cocktails and attentive friendly staff, and Fusion-Latino (Johnny Herrera’s place) where it’s fun to sit on the lofty bar chairs at the pavement counter, drinking beer and chatting to staff.
And the best La Fortuna coffee bar in this land of glorious coffee has to be Arabigos where the frapuccinos are something special.
After our less than enthralling bus journey from Quepos a couple of weeks ago, we take the “shuttle” option to make our way to Cahuita. Scheduled buses are very cheap, long distance taxis outrageously expensive, so the shuttles are an in between option, being 12-seater minibuses with no fixed timetable but a rough idea of which route runs on which day – as long as there are enough passengers.
It’s a bit like a DHL for humans as the shuttle network gels: we’re picked up from “home”, dropped off roughly half way at Guapiles bus station and loaded on to a second shuttle which has come from San Jose, where the three of us from our shuttle join nine other passengers. It’s also door to door, so there’s no messing around looking for our next digs.
Mountains give way to flat lands as we make our way eastwards across the country on what is effectively a continuous construction site as the Highway is undergoing a hefty upgrade all the way from capital to port. The colossal scale of Costa Rica’s fruit industry unfolds before us, not just in the mile after mile of plantation, nor in the constant stream of giant trucks moving in each direction, but even more in the quasi cityscapes of huge container yards, hundreds of containers stacked high amongst the lush greenery waiting for shipment. Many of the plantations display the famous “Del Monte” logo. The man from Del Monte obviously said “yes” an awful lot of times round here.
On the way we pass Siquirres, a town with an unfortunate claim to fame. Until a law change in 1949, this was the furthest point west that blacks from the Caribbean were allowed to travel, beyond here it was whites only. In the days of the railway, even the train staff would disembark and return to Limon whilst a white crew took over from this point on.
Our new base of Cahuita has a more palatable history, being the very point at which the first Afro-Caribbean settler, a certain William Smith, made his home in 1828 – his descendants apparently still live here. Cahuita also has a reputation of happily retaining a real laid back Caribbean vibe despite increasing tourist interest in this stretch of coast.
Wandering along Cahuita’s dirt roads – there is little asphalt here – really does bear out that reputation. We’ve not yet visited the West Indies, but Cahuita is exactly as we picture those islands, even down to the fact that every house seems to have a rocking chair on the wooden veranda – usually with some old guy or old lady contentedly rocking back and forth while the world passes by.
As first light creeps in through the windows of our new home on the edge of the Cahuita National Park, we are awakened by a thrilling dawn chorus with multiple bird calls usurped by the grating growls of the howler monkeys. Part of the troupe is moving through the trees right next to our house. Hummingbirds sip nectar from blooms right by the door and the yellow-tailed oropendola makes its unusual mechanical sounding call. It’s a wonderful waking soundtrack, a cacophony of jungle sounds right by the house.
Of course the animal world doesn’t know where the park boundary is, so the garden of our house, unusually large and private for an airbnb, is as good as a mini reserve, so much do we see without moving anywhere. Our first hike through the trails of the Cahuita park rather wonderfully adds a crocodile to our list of sightings, gliding stealthily through the waters of the creek.
Our first ever dip in the Caribbean Sea completes our first Cahuita hike, though the pounding waves put us on our guard – somersaulting Michaela into the water at one point, prompting her to say that the waves are far more dangerous than the zipline was!
One unmissable aspect of the culture shift is prices; from our first beer there is an obvious drop from the prices we’ve been paying elsewhere in Costa Rica. An Imperial beer here is 1,300 colones, whereas 4,000 has been a common price in previous towns, and, given that this is bottled beer we’re talking about and therefore exactly the same product, that’s a bit naughty.
And so our time on the Caribbean coast begins with beautiful sunshine, multiple exotic wildlife sightings, great hiking and some paradise beaches which could make the cover of any glossy brochure. And cheap beer. So far so good in Cahuita.
Spiders, Snakes & Reggae: Tales of the Caribbean
Cahuita village sits neatly on a small rounded headland jutting out into the Caribbean from the lush green jungle, with two very different beaches either side of its centre, Playa Negra and Playa Blanca. As the names would suggest, one consists of black volcanic sand, the other the pristine white sand of tropical paradise, the latter inside the national park. In between the two, rocky deposits of dead coral form a natural barrier.
After a couple of false starts we find some properly tasty Caribbean food, our enjoyment of which is enhanced by the live music of a local character nicknamed the “Latin Hendrix”. We’d actually read about this guy before we got here and he is at least as much fun as his reputation, although the moniker “Hendrix” is a bit misleading given that his repertoire is made up entirely of reggae and calypso.
Sixteen kilometres and a cheap bus ride south of Cahuita is the slightly larger town of Puerto Viejo, which is such an interesting place that we are entranced on our first visit. If Cahuita is where Tico meets Afro Caribbean, then Puerto Viejo is where Rasta meets the surf crowd. Long hanging dreadlocks vie with sun bleached blonds, locals sit beneath the trees while visitors soak up the sun, the men play dominoes while the boys ride the waves.
Puerto Viejo is just about as cool as you can imagine. Picture the tranquil nature of the typical Afro Caribbean and place it alongside the outlook of a surfing beach bum. The mix is a beautiful one where smiles rule and peace reigns; here it would be as easy to meet new friends as anywhere on Earth, whether it’s by supping booze in its reggae filled everything-is-cool bars or just chillin’ by a tree.
Pride in its history is as evident as the cool vibe itself, with memorials to the first settlers from Jamaica dotted all over town, alongside tributes to those who strove for the good of the community and battled for a better deal for black people. Stories of their time are told on boards in streets and on the walls of bars: the feeling here is that even now, Jamaica is the homeland. Indeed, Puerto Viejo did not exist at all until the original Jamaican settlers, a certain Ferdinand Patterson and his wife Josephine, built the first wooden house by the sea.
Their son Edwin was to become a man of great local influence, growing the Jamaican expat community, developing Puerto Viejo and establishing its churches. By pure good luck we find ourselves lunching at Tamara, a restaurant now run by descendants of the Pattersons, where the authentic Jamaican food is as delicious as anything we’ve eaten since arriving in Costa Rica over four weeks ago.
Puerto Viejo remained a largely inaccessible outpost until pioneering surfers found their way here in the late 1980s, followed later by backpackers and then by other paradise seekers. Its consequent hedonistic reputation has waned due to the pandemic, and now it is exactly what we’d hoped for from this part of our journey through Costa Rica, matching pretty much precisely our thoughts of what it might be like here.
Further south along the coast from Puerto Viejo lies Manzanillo, another place with a reputation for paradise beaches and great surfing. The paradise beach bit is definitely true, and though we can’t vouch for the surfing we can say that Manzanillo is very quiet to the point of being short on amenities, when compared to its two neighbours.
We’re chatting outside a ramshackle ticket agent when we first meet the guy known locally as “Boa”, a nickname he apparently earned when as a very small child he would pick up snakes and lizards with his bare hands and bring them home to show his parents. He now has a degree in biology, a qualification in ecotourism and works as a guide around Cahuita. He’s just about as animated and restless as a lizard, too.
“First”, he says, on our night hike, “take a bite of the lemon”.
It is, of course, so sour that we pull faces.
“Now”, says Boa, “peel this bean – we call it miracle bean – then suck all of the pulp off the stone. Next”, he says, when we’re ready, “take another bite of the lemon”.
Fascinatingly, if predictably, the lemon tastes as sweet as an orange. Boa explains that the “miracle bean” is a blocker, blocking off your tastebuds for both sour and bitter and leaving only sweet detectable. This is fine until a bit later when we go to Coco’s Bar and the damned “miracle bean” has made our beer taste like 7-Up!
Boa though is a brilliant night hike guide, taking us with boyish enthusiasm into a world of insects, snakes, giant grasshoppers, tree frogs, caiman, tarantula and all manner of other nocturnal surprises. We are left thinking how we must walk past a million unseen creatures every time we go out at night. It really is a revelation of a hike.
Dog tired after a day hosting cruise ship visitors in Limon and then night hiking with us, Boa still finds time to join us for a beer or two and talk us through everything we’ve seen – his love of wildlife and of the world around him is totally infectious as well as impressively well informed. He thumbs through the text books, compares his photographs, promising to share all of his photos via WhatsApp.
As if all this wasn’t enough to endear him to us, he signs off by introducing us to a local tipple – a delicious coconut rum with an almost milky consistency……….
And so we come to the end of this section of our Costa Rica tour, though we’re not finished with the Caribbean just yet, our next journey promises to be a little different as we head northwards up this amazing and beautiful coastline. Somehow we’ve managed to spend seven days in one of the wettest parts of a tropical country and avoid the rain – the only rain we’ve had at all has been overnight, with some glorious hot dry days in between as an unexpected bonus.
The snakes we saw with Boa weren’t our only snake sightings in Cahuita, as a cunningly camouflaged vine snake was pointed out to us in the national park too, on one of our own walks along the trail.
One night here in Cahuita, as we lay in bed talking about all we’d seen and done today, something was slightly different. It took us a few minutes to realise that the flickering shadow on the ceiling was actually a bat circling our room.
Ah the joys of the jungle…
Tortuguero: Beyond Roads
Two of Cahuita’s most colourful characters are downtown on our last night in the village, firstly the “Latin Hendrix” who is again strumming his guitar and wisecracking in Luisa restaurant, seemingly amusing himself as much as anyone else, like all good performers. Our other new friend Boa, meanwhile, is in Coco’s Bar and has obviously had more than enough booze already, his normally darting eyes unfocussed and his walk decidedly unsteady.
We chat for a while, kind of, until a waiter tells Boa that it’s time for him to go home, and by his actions it’s clear that Boa is intending to ride his motor bike home despite being too drunk to walk.
“Boa”, I say, a while later, “you’re not seriously riding home?”.
“No” he says.
We are mightily relieved, until to our horror he finishes his sentence:
“No. I don’t need to drive, my Honda knows the way home”.
Oh My God, he means it. With some trepidation we text him the following day: he replies full of cheer. Welcome to Costa Rica, where drunk driving is the norm.
Our new base is the village of Tortuguero (literal translation: Turtle catcher) the first of three brief stops on the next stage of our Costa Rica tour. In truth our main reason for coming here is the unusual journey to get here in the first place, as there are no roads to Tortuguero and, apart from a small airstrip for light aircraft, the only way to get here is by water. This close-up map shows its unusual setting on a tiny strip of land between the Caribbean and the inland waterway:-
The journey matches our expectations, the first bit by road, then a three-and-a-half hour boat ride through a network of jungle rivers, lakes and lagoons, linked by man made canal channels just inside the coastline. Sometimes through narrow passages between draping palms, sometimes in wide waterways, our boat streaks through the water, slaloming around boughs of trees and floating logs.
At one point our “driver” slows down, spins the boat around to come alongside a huge crocodile sliding into the water. Along the way we spy many water birds and waders, and are amused by the fact that in this deepest jungle, directional signs and even gas stations exist to service the many boats using these stretches.
Tortuguero, within a stone’s throw of the Nicaragua border, is a real outpost. Originally a den for illegal loggers and illegal turtle fishermen, a complete about-turn has made it a destination for ecotourism and conservation where the turtle species in particular are given special protection. However in reality it is a rather strange mix now: the tiny village is a melange of hostels, lodges, cafes and souvenir stalls, and we’re not altogether convinced that sending throbbing bass rhythms out across the water will do nocturnal creatures much of a favour.
The village seems to have as many weird artworks as it does buildings: odd statues, turtles carved from rock or wood, large pieces of rusting machinery, and, perhaps strangest of all, a myriad of recycled satellite dishes variously decorated, used for everything from shop signs and tour adverts to depictions of wildlife.
Tortuguero beach remains, despite the years of poaching, a major turtle nesting ground for four different species, although we’re not here in the nesting season and consequently don’t get to see the village’s major attraction. Protection and conservation of the turtles suffered a major setback, and tragedy, in 2013. A young local named Jairo Mora Sandoval, a staunch environmentalist and instigator of protective sanctuaries for turtles, was murdered by poachers one night whilst patrolling the turtle breeding ground on beaches just south of here. His influence hasn’t been forgotten; his legacy is the many reserves.
On our only full day in Tortuguero we cross the river on the “Pereferiqua” shuttle boat and climb to the top of Cerro Tortuguero, the highest point on the Caribbean coast, for an almost aerial view of the unusual land- and seascapes here. And unusual is the right word as we look out across the network of waterways, the thin fingers of land, and the rolling waves of the Caribbean.
Tortuguero village fronts on to the river rather than the sea despite the extensive strand of dark coloured sand and the picture perfect rolling surf of the Caribbean – in part no doubt because the sea is unforgiving here with its potentially deadly mix of rip currents, sharks and barracuda. Plus, sit at the riverside restaurants and you bask in balmy heat, sit on the beach and you face the fresher sea breeze. There is something about the Tortuguero area which feels more like Asia than the Americas, this remote outpost village reminding us very much of northern Malaysia.
Coco Loco is the appropriate name for a gorgeous cocktail invented at Cafe Bambu here, where the rum and local spirit Flor Caña are poured with orange juice and crushed ice into a freshly opened coconut still full of the coconut milk – and then you drink the delicious mix straight from the fruit. It’s almost as delicious as the rich and spicy Caribbean meal at the amusingly named El Patio which completes our time here: we’re ending our 9-day Caribbean culinary adventure on a high.
We leave this coast having witnessed rain only during night hours, pretty incredible given the significant annual rainfall here: Tortuguero is actually within Costa Rica’s wettest region. Caribbean vibe has been great, Caribbean food an absolute revelation. And so on to the next experience…
Cartago:In The Shadow Of Irazu
Our arrangements for the journey from Tortuguero to our next base are a bit on the sketchy side. The instructions are to be down at the riverside at 8.30am and ask for Kendall, who will take us in his boat to the nearest point where the road meets the river, at La Pavona one hour’s ride away, where we are to ask for a man named Robert, who will drive us to San Jose. After that we have to find the bus to Cartago.
At precisely 8.30 a man in a blue polo shirt approaches us saying “La Pavona?”. He isn’t Kendall but he knows which is our boat. Later, as the boat berths on the muddy shingle at La Pavona, a guy helps to pull the boat ashore. “Robert?” we ask, and he points to a guy waving an orange sash and smiling. Well, that was all rather easy.
The trip in the low slung boat through the jungle rivers is…errr…interesting. All twelve passenger seats are taken, each passenger has a backpack to add to the weight, and animated discussions leave us with the distinct impression that the “driver” wasn’t expecting a full load.
On our trip to get to Tortuguero the other day, with only a handful of passengers, we had slalomed and tilted our way around obstacles and bends in a way that had us clinging to the sides. There is certainly none of that today, as the “driver” has to slow right down to negotiate such things, even cutting the engine to cross the wake of other boats and taking it very steady in places where the river was at low level and flowing quickly. He is evidently very conscious of the heavy load. Knowing he is so wary is actually way more scary than the slaloming and tilting of the first journey. And no, there aren’t any life jackets on board.
Alighting from the bus in the city of Cartago, we can instantly feel the difference in temperature, the air is fresh despite bright sunshine. We are 4,700 feet higher now and by evening there is a mountain chill which we haven’t felt since Santa Elena several weeks ago.
Cartago, described in the guide books as “a dull functional city with only two sights of note”, was Costa Rica’s capital for 250 years until usurped by San Jose after a bloody battle in 1823. Our first sortie into the city reinforces that guide book opinion as we find little of interest and even less to excite the tastebuds, in fact the only restaurants we spot are of the chain and fast food variety, or are hidden behind clamped shut roller shutters. Unbelievably, we end up with a bowl of pasta in a Pizza Hut – absolutely unheard of!!
If Cartago does have only two noteworthy sights then they are both pretty impressive, particularly the Basilica de Los Angeles, Costa Rica’s most important religious site. This imposing white building, beautiful both inside and out, is the final destination for pilgrims from across the country and further afield, many completing the section from San Jose on foot and the final few hundred yards on hands and knees.
According to legend the Basilica was built on the site of the discovery of a black madonna – La Negrita – which, despite several attempts to move it, would keep mysteriously returning to the same location, enough of a divine sign for the church to be built on the spot. La Negrita has subsequently remained unharmed through earthquakes, wars, volcanic eruptions and everything else thrown in her direction.
The second site is known locally as “Las Ruinas” and is right in the city centre adjacent to Plaza Mayor. These “ruins” are the exterior walls of what would have been a sizeable church, now surrounding a beautifully kept garden which is a haven of peace in the heart of a noisy city. Except these aren’t really ruins at all – the truth is that construction of the church has never been completed, with multiple attempts since the first one in 1575 each being thwarted by earthquakes. The last attempt was finally abandoned in 1910.
During daylight hours, the walls are majestic and the gardens peaceful and tidy. By night the whole incomplete structure appears more eerie- little wonder then that local folklore speaks of the ghost of a headless monk roaming the grounds on misty nights.
So why have we headed to a city with a reputation for being dull? Well, partly because we wanted our Costa Rica experience to include seeing ordinary life in an ordinary place, and partly to use it as a launch pad to visit the mighty Irazu volcano.
Cartago’s biggest redeeming feature is probably its location, for each time you get tired of the sight of retail shops and fast food outlets, you just gaze up above the concrete and suck up the mountain views. Lofty mountains scrape the clouds on all sides of the city and pose in reflective glory rather than loom with menace. Amongst these majestic sights is Irazu, Costa Rica’s largest and highest active volcano, goading all-comers to take the trouble to come and see her power.
Despite being easily visible, it’s 31km by road from the city centre, such is the winding nature of the continuously steep journey. We arrange a ride to the park entrance and then hike the rest of the way, to a level above and looking down into the two giant craters within this mighty volcano.
The sights are absolutely breathtaking, not least because we are so completely above the clouds, looking down on not just these colossal craters but on the day’s entire cloud cover. With no exaggeration, we are above all of the clouds. Only blue sky is above. Unfortunately for us today, the water levels in the principal crater are too low to see the famed turquoise lake, but the views nevertheless are absolutely magnificent.
Climbing to the Irazu summit, 3,427 metres (over 11,000 feet) above sea level, the air is cold, the wind biting when it blows, yet the sun’s rays are powerful. We suppose that being 3,427 metres up and this close to the equator, it’s probably the closest we’ve ever been to the sun, on foot anyway, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that our faces get just a little bit singed despite the cold.
Even up here the vegetation is still lush; very different from the tropical scenes we’ve got used to, but colourful and varied and sometimes in crazily oversized form. Hummingbirds, ever present throughout our five weeks in Costa Rica, are still around, even up here, darting between blooms.
As the bus ambles back down the steep roadways, it seems an age before we drop below the cloud cover. Workers wrapped in heavy clothing toil in the fields full of thriving vegetable plants in this fertile volcanic soil, trailers laden with onions and potatoes move slowly downhill, children in overcoats run around school playgrounds. Just a short time later we are in the hot afternoon sun of central Cartago.
Evenings are chilly here though, even in the city, as the mountain air blows cold winds through the grids of streets. We have in the end found decent restaurants, though not many, Cartago wouldn’t in our book win any foodie awards.
Inside Cartago’s coolest restaurant…….
There’s not much else to do here; it’s time to move on to our next destination.
Lakes & Mountains Of The Central Highlands
Two things which are a regular aspect of our travel but haven’t yet featured in Costa Rica, each come into play on our journey from Cartago to Atenas: a train journey, and a hire car.
The rail service here is extremely limited, with just two short lines heading out of San Jose in different directions, one of which is, handily, to Cartago. Once the transport of fruit started to switch from rail to road, the railways steadily fell into disrepair and each time an earthquake wreaked havoc, another section was abandoned. Some modest investment has recently enabled purchase of old stock from Spain and new stock from China (not Derby, sadly) and there is talk of old routes being resurrected.
And now, for the first time in over five weeks in Costa Rica, we have the freedom afforded by a hire car, though in all our experience of hiring and driving in different countries, we’ve never been given anything like this before…
Our new base of Atenas has a claim to a world best, stating very boldly anywhere you care to look, that National Geographic named this one small town as having the best climate of any place anywhere in the world. Well, as far as the Nat Geographic part of the claim is concerned, they apparently never made any such such statement, but somebody somewhere came up with it so we’re expecting something pleasant.
And as we drive our hired beast the relatively short distance from the depot to Atenas, there is certainly perceptible change, and we see examples of parched grasses in a country where everything else has been the lush green of the tropics. This sudden change is apparently due to a phenomenon known as a “rain shadow” where an area which receives sunlight from directly overhead is also protected from moist air by a mountain range: precisely what we have here.
Costa Rica’s roads have more than their fair share of potholes, and, away from the main highways, some ridiculously steep hairpins and narrow lanes with deep rain gulleys on either side. In this big pick up truck, it’s fun but it gets just a bit scary in places.
One such drive brings us to Sarchi, a small town which like Atenas owes its existence to its position on the old “oxcart route”. Unlike other trade routes such as the Silk Route, this one is named after the vehicles which carried the commodity, rather than the commodity itself – which was, of course, coffee, on its way from the mountain “fincas” to the Pacific port at Puntarenas.
The oxcarts themselves are beautifully painted wooden items – originally a suitable size to be drawn by two oxen, but now available to the tourist in every size from fridge magnet to full replicas. In the centre of Sarchi is what is apparently the world’s largest version, in pride of place on the central square.
Atenas, our base, is a really pleasant little town, like all other Costa Rican towns arranged in a grid of streets around a communal green space. After a succession of airbnb apartments and houses, we are in a hotel here, but one in an incredible position, way up on a mountainside above the town with superb panoramic views. Its position is fantastic and slightly unreal, hanging off the edge of the mountain so that there is nothing beneath the balconies. The drive up to the hotel is though just another assault on the senses!
Unlike the other volcanoes we’ve visited on this trip, Poas is very recently active, its latest eruption having been in 2019. Poas still emits dangerous levels of toxic gases and showers of ash, so all visits to its rim are limited to 20 minutes and involve the donning of hard hats. Within the crater lies a spectacular turquoise lake, and ash fields of graded shades of grey, way below the viewpoint in the massive crater.
Our views of all this are almost dreamlike, the lake emerging from and disappearing behind cloud cover like rock stars in dry ice – teasing glimpses of something magical for just a moment. A photo opportunity, if you’re quick enough.
The ash covered slopes beneath Poas are fertile ground, particularly for coffee plantations and strawberry fields. The strawberries are beautifully sweet and juicy; coffee shrubs stripe the steep hillsides like Chianti vineyards. It is in part actually Starbucks country, the largest of the fincas, Hacienda Alsacia, having been acquired by them in 2013 and now producing not just large quantities of coffee but also educating other farmers in how to increase yield and improve their living standards. At least that’s what Starbucks told us.
Atenas brings to a close our run of short stays as we head next to the northern Pacific coast for a slightly longer stay.
Potrero: To The Lonely Sea And The Sky
We’re sitting in the balmy breeze beneath the swaying palm trees on Sunday evening when we first hear news of the eruption, some seven days after the event. It seems that Turrialba, one of Costa Rica’s more active volcanoes, experienced its most violent eruption since 2011 last Monday and deposited significant amounts of volcanic ash over areas which we have travelled through since then – yet we only learn of it now! Not sure how we missed that.
Choosing our location for this last full week of our Costa Rica tour hasn’t been completely straightforward; the northern Pacific coast has a fairly high number of over developed resorts, which we were keen to avoid as we search for a relaxing location for our chill time after all the activity of the last few weeks.
Research brings us to Potrero, not as yet overtaken by development but with easy access to the gorgeous beaches which are of course the very reason this Guanacaste coast has become so sought after. And here in Potrero, instead of any high rise, there are cows grazing while chickens scurry, dogs lay panting in the shade, monkey troupes swing from tree to tree, and we inhale the scent of parched grass and dust. A hundred yards away the Pacific rolls gently in. It’s roughly five whole minutes before we know this is our kind of place.
Development hasn’t quite reached here yet, though according to our hugely accommodating hosts Lee-Anne and Marty, this will change soon, with work about to start on construction of a large marina at the southern end of the bay which is likely to bring significant changes over the next five years or so. But for now Potrero remains an agricultural village with a handful of restaurants and beach bars and a selection of beaches – no less than three within walking distance – which just invite lazy days.
In fact the entire coastline of the Guanacaste region is adorned with a string of gorgeous beaches covering many miles; this is the driest, hottest part of the country, with not a drop of rain between December and May. South of Potrero, the beach villages of Playa Flamingo and Brasilito (“little Brazil”) are only a little more developed than Potrero itself, with nothing like the level of development we’d feared. Brasilito, and its second beach Playa Conchal, is in fact a delightful little place.
Tico families love a day at the beach, and boy do they know how to enjoy it. It’s so amusing to watch them as they bring what looks like roughly half of their entire household with them: picnic hampers, cool boxes, tables and chairs, tents, inflatables, changes of clothes…and giant speakers for the music. They bring so much that a handcart service exists whereby “beach porters” are on hand to ferry each family’s belongings from the car park to the sand….
Taking a drive a bit further south along the coast, we take in one of those resorts with a reputation for being more developed, Tamarindo, and whilst it is indeed more of a holiday spot than either Potrero or Brasilito, it’s definitely not full of high rise. Tourist spot and beach town it may be, but the gigantic and gorgeous golden beach which stretches right around the bay backed all the way by nodding palm trees, is more than spectacular, and Tamarindo itself is just so welcoming.
Surfers ride the crashing pure white rollers, and the run of inviting bars along the beachfront road just call out to us to stay here and work our way through a bar crawl. Maybe some other time. We’ve heard some American visitors refer to the Guanacaste coast as Costa Rica’s answer to Hawaii; it isn’t hard to see why at Tamarindo, and as we scoff fish tacos at a beach bar with our toes in the soft sand and the roar of the Pacific in our ears, surfers gliding in on the waves and cool music gently playing, it simply feels wonderful.
Our one major excursion away from the coast is what will most likely be the last volcano of this trip – Rincon de la Vieja, which translates as “old woman’s nook” apparently, no further comment on that! Without doubt the liveliest of the volcanoes we’ve visited here, pools of water and “pots” of mud bubble and boil as sulphur fumes fill the air and clouds of hot steam drift through the trees.
It’s too dangerous to visit the principal crater here, but further down the hillside water from the hot springs is captured in a series of nine pools of varying temperature, the hottest of which we can only withstand for a matter of seconds. For the most part though, wallowing in the warm/hot water, plastering ourselves in volcanic mud and washing it off in the cold river, all makes a very pleasing experience in this rustic, rural setting.
And so our lazy week in this hot and dry region closes and we prepare to take our final drive away from Potrero via the crazy road known by locals as the “Monkey Trail”. Only passable during dry season, but saving a 40km detour, it’s incredible that this route, twice fording a river and rambling trail-like through the forests, is a proper, signposted route to the coast. It was a bit of a shock to drive it the first time, but it’s remarkable what you can get accustomed to.
Our next, and final, destination in Costa Rica is the city of Alajuela, where – hopefully!! – we will complete the paperwork, and the COVID test, to permit our entry into the USA.
Hallelujahs In Alajuel
Including a break for lunch it takes about five hours to drive across country from the coast to Alajuela – it’s good advice when travelling Costa Rica’s roads to allow plenty of extra time, these roads are slow and there are regular delays. Alajuela, the country’s second city yet within easy reach of the capital, is our last port of call here, mostly for convenience as we are now close to both the airport and the COVID testing facility which is needed for entry in to the USA. Along with a fair pile of paperwork.
A wander around Alajuela city centre takes in the cathedral, the adjoining green square and Plaza Juan Santamaria, named after the local hero who fought off the insurgent William Walker in the Filibuster War in the 1850s. Walker, leader of a mercenary army acting on instruction of the American president, was seeking to take control of most of Central America with the intention of absorbing the whole region into the USA. After a successful attack on Nicaragua, opposition led by Santamaria forced a withdrawal, so protecting Costa Rica’s sovereignty. A son of Alajuela, he remains a national hero to this day.
There is much activity in and around the two squares on this hot Sunday afternoon, with music much in evidence virtually everywhere. Alajuela feels pleasingly lively.
Rick’s Bar, close to our hotel, is one such place, music spilling out into the street even in the afternoon, so after dark we start our evening here, after waiting to be let in through the chained entrance as is not uncommon in Costa Rica bars. We are half way down our first beer when she walks in – tall and elegant and dressed in tartan mini dress and thigh length boots, her flamboyant walk almost a strut as she turns heads throughout the bar. You can’t miss her, so showy is her catwalk style arrival.
She greets everyone, she is clearly well known, obviously a Rick’s regular. As she returns from the bar to her table, I catch her eye, and only at that point do we realise that we shouldn’t be referring to him as “she”. Over the next half hour or so the atmosphere grows like a rock gig right before the band takes the stage, with so many outrageous outfits coming in through the door that we feel as if we’ve drifted into the set of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” video.
Googling later, we find that Rick’s describes itself as a “gay and lesbian bar which is also straight friendly”. It’s brilliant. We already know that Costa Rica is liberal and inclusive but it’s huge fun to see such freedom and a privilege to be part of it.
Behind the green square which remains full of life both human and avian throughout our stay, sits the cathedral, notable mostly for its slightly weird dome with its strangely dull exterior of corrugated sheeting which is transformed into something special when viewed from inside. The startlingly yellow stained glass windows of floral design capture the sunlight and cast golden hues onto the icons below – quite a stunning visual effect.
By Monday our focus is on the COVID test, and we have to admit that nerves start to jangle as we make our way to the appointed place. Then it’s all over in an unceremonious flash, negative results received within twenty minutes of testing followed by successful online check-in. It’s down to paperwork now, after which I will, all being well, be seeing my daughter for the first time in over four years, hence the hallelujahs in Alajuela!
As our time in this wonderful country comes to a close after seven weeks, we indulge in one last Costa Rican obsession, cafe chorreado, the slightly odd at-table filtering system being a regular sight in city cafes.
One last beer at Rick’s? Closed Monday and Tuesday. Just think, we could have missed that whole experience simply through accident of timing. We seem to get lucky quite often.
