Costa Rica - Day 4 - Aqua Agua

Another early morning and we were on the road heading north...attempting to find the elusive Rio Celeste. We didn't have an exact location, just a small town pointed out to us by a local tour guide from Fortuna. The drive took us through rolling hill country, resemblant of Dr. Seuss' cartoon movie "The Lorax".

Following the map and the few road signs that existed we wound our way to a small town where we stopped and ate breakfast and attempted to ask for directions. She pointed us in the direction we had just come from and a several miles down the road AK spotted an elusive sign for a tour agency that offered tours to the mysterious river. We made a turn onto the nasty, rocky road, crossed the sketchiest bridge yet and headed through pineapple plantations in hopes that we were on the right track.

I spotted the shack of a tour agency on the side of the road and three of us got out of the car and hesitently knocked at the door - which swung open, revealing an empty room with a couple of touristy posters pinned up on the walls and nobody in sight. Great, now what? A local farmer across the way must have seen us and walked over to help and pointed us further up the horrible road...back in the car and on we drove. I mean, we had wanted an adventure.

At the top of a particulary nasty hill we found there was a sign which pointed at a small path and said "Arbol de la Paz" or tree of peace. We decided to check it out and walked into the thick vegetation and found the BIGGEST tree yet. I have yet to see Redwood trees, so I don't have a comparison but this tree stretched up to the heavens above and would have taken at least 8 people linking arms to reach around because of the gigantic root system.

Several miles further up the road we found the park entrance (a small barely labeled gate) to Parque Nacional Tenorio - the park where the infamous Rio Celeste was located. We negotiated for a tour guide (who only spoke Spanish) and the three of us + 2 others set off on a hike into the rainforest.

We were barely into the forest when the guide pointed out a humongous leaf cutter ant hill that supposidly extended like a 100 feet underground. We somehow learned (all of our Spanish skills are pretty weak) that their are quality control ants that sit at the entrances of the hill and only allow in leafs that are up to their standards...cute little engineer ants. :)

We hiked underneath the amazing canopy, on balance beam bridges over trickling streams, and made our way down to part of the river. Rio Celeste is famous because its waters turn the prettiest light blue due to the combining of a sulfurous river and another river that is rich in calcium carbonate. Because of the chemical content in the water it is not safe to swim in all areas, but we were allowed to swim in some of the more diluted parts.

The first part of the river we arrived at had several mini rapids and my first hot spring! I hung out on the bubbly hot water, slowly cooking myself while the boys once again spent some time playing around in the cold, blue stream waters.

As the group hiked further upstream, the cool waters became continuly more aqua in color and were a gorgeous contrast against the deep green of the jungle. We eventually came opon the spot where the two brown rivers mixed to form the brillant blue shade...sometimes chemistry can be kinda cool.

Along the hike, the guide pointed out interesting plants, identified bird calls, pointed out signs of larger life (like tusks marks in trees from boars) and just chatted. It always surprised me how much I can pick up and the 2 other members of our group would occasionally attempt to translate some of the knowledge when we were confused.

Coming upon some stairs on the extremely well maintained path we hiked up, and up, and up until we reached the viewpoint looking down over the valley of Tenorio National Park below. In the distance we could see Tenorio Volcano, which consists of a total of 4 volcanic peaks. It was a gorgeous, misty cloud & rainforest view!

We continued down the path and heard the rushing of the famous waterfall below us. The waterfall is not too significant in height, but it drops down into a pool of the light blue water AND its a perfect place to go swimming...I finally decided to jump on in the chilly water! Sometimes settings are so picturesque that they just don't seem real, and this was one of those places. The three of us soaked in the beauty as we played around in the waters, not wanting to hike on out of the park.

By this time the 3 of us were pretty starving, but decided to continue on to Santa Rosa National Park and stop at a local soda along the way...unfortunately, this was the one strip of road that we drove on the whole trip where the sodas were nonexistent. We tried to appease our stomachs with the most delicious pineapple ever and we ate so much that our mouths literally hurt from all of the acid.

We head west along the northernmost highway and we could occasionally see across the border and catch glimpses of Lago de Nicaragua. The northern highway is primarily a dirt road and we were stopped and questioned at several military checkpoints which I assume was because we were so close to the border.

By the time we reached Santa Rosa National Park we still had not passed any restaurants or stores and were really starting to wonder what we would do about a meal that night. We talked to the awesome ranger and he called up the kitchen that is located at the park for both park employees and researchers that are based there and thankfully they had prepared enough food that we could eat with everyone! They were even nice enough to offer a vegetarian meal for me...even though I was hugnry enough at this point that I would have eaten most anything!

Before dinner, we set up our tent in the campground and ran into a girl wearing a batdana!!! Ok, I'm kinda a caving dork at a TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia) caving festival they sell tie dyed bandanas with bats printed on them....and I know that they can't sell these just everywhere so I thought I had found a caver. The girl turned out not to be a caver, but a bat catcher which I suppose is almost as cool, and she was setting up a net to catch and identify bats in the area with. Of all the mammals in CR (and there are a ton of them!) over half of them are bats! So, this girl was down in Costa Rica working on a bat research project and as a caver I thought this was pretty cool!

By the time we were done eating dinner, the sun had already set and this meant both bugs and bats were out in force. We literally walked back to the tent not talking, squinting our eyes and swatting at what seemed to be a million bugs swarming around us. Rather than sit outside on the nice bench at our camping site, the 3 of us hopped in the tent, zipped it up as fast as possible, turned on our flashlights and started swatting at the bugs that had managed to make it in there. We stayed up for a while drinking in the tent, while listening to the night noises of the jungle and the hords of bats that kept ramming into our tent. It was pretty early when the three of us fell asleep in the muggy, but bug free tent all on top of our sleeping bags.

Costa Rica - Day 3 - Day of Fortuna

We woke up early and grabbed a typical Costa Rican breakfast of eggs, beans, toast, and of course delicious Costa Rican coffee. We found a local store that rented mountain bikes for ridiculously cheap and grabbed 3 of them and a sweet Costa Rica National Geographic Map (another one to add to my rather large map collection).


We asked for directions on how to bike to a local waterfall - La Fortuna Catarata and the three of us were off on the bikes, biking out of town. Of course we biked several miles past the turn off for the waterfall (there are conveniently zero road signs pointing us towards the big ass waterfall) and as conveniently these several extra miles were mostly uphill. Gravity was much appreciated on the ride back downhill and we managed to find the correct turnoff. Who would have guessed that this road was nearly vertical...yeah, my legs were not so prepared for the monstrous hills and I ended up walking up most of it. Lame.


By the time the three of us made it up the gargantuan hill (some of us much faster than others) we had all soaked through our shirts with sweat. We paid the entrance fee and hiked on down through the towering trees to the 75 meter tall waterfall. As hot as I had been from the bike ride, the water was freezing cold so rather than jump in I just stood close enough that I got pretty soaked by the mist spraying off of the waterfall.


Unlike me, the boys immediately stripped down and jumped on in. They managed to find the perfect diving rock and I caught some great shots of them jumping into the cold water. AK was also determined to swim as close to the waterfall as possible and I was positive he was going to get pushed under and drown in the crazy swirling undercurrents....yeah, swimming isn't really my thing. After the boys were done cooling off and playing around, we walked downstream and saw some really cool Costa Rican fish (yes, the fact that they are from CR makes them cooler).


The three of us jumped back on our bikes and joyfully rolled down the hill and back into downtown Fortuna. We returned the bikes, hopped in the car and began circumnavigating the Volcano. As we drove around it was interesting to see the volcano change from being covered in green vegetation to a dark black color with very apparent lava trails. The most recent significant eruption was in 1998, but the most destructive eruption was back in 1968 when the volcano completely destroyed the small town of Tabacon.


Although Arenal is probably the most famous of Costa Rica's volcanoes, it is very rare that one gets to actually see the top of the cone as it is normally shrouded in clouds. As we were circling the volcano, the clouds cleared away and we were given the full view of the volcano for probably 10 minutes, just enough time for us to all jump out of the car and get some photographic evidence of it.


On the opposite side of the volcano is Parque Nacional Volcan Arenal and we paid the entry fee and drove on up the dirt road into the park. Once in the park, we hiked along the trails toward prime volcano viewing. The path led us through areas of high risk (at least this is what the signs warned) and the amount of sharp Igneous rocks significantly increased as we neared the volcano. Standing amongst the black rocks which formed from the most recent eruption in '98 we heard the deep rumbling of Arenal and saw what we could only assume were at least car sized boulders rolling down the volcanic slope (we were at least a mile away from the top of the volcano, which is relatively close to one that active).


When we turned our back on the volcano, Lake Arenal was visible from our perch on the igneous rocks. The Lake is damned and used for hydroelectric power in the area. The whole scenery in the area is one of the most surreal that I have encountered in my travels so far.


We hiked back on a different trail, surrounded by gigantic trees, tarzan vines to play on, and countless species of plants that I have never seen before. The trees seem to reach up forever into the canopies high above, and the rhythmic noises of the jungle kept our heads turning with hopes to spot an interesting animal around every corner.


After an early dinner at what we are pretty sure was the best restaurant in town we all grabbed some ice cream and chilled in the local town square. The clouds decided to clear from the volcano again and the scenery was amazing as local families took advantage of the parks green space - allowing their children to run around, playing tag and wearing off their energy - likely in hopes of an earlier bedtime.


Later that night, we attempted to drive closer to the Volcano in hopes of observing glowing orange lava flows, but we didn't have as much "fortuna" as we had earlier in the day with the sighting of the entire Volcanic cone. The clouds wrapped the volcano like a blanket and only the occasional snoring of the sleeping volcano could be heard.

Costa Rica - Day 2 - Dos Volcanoes!!!

So, we woke up early and after a crazy drive through rush hour in downtown San Jose where we dropped off Ivannia's roommate at his job and somehow managed to find the highway leading north out of the city...we were on our way to Volcan Poas! The road wound up the mountain and through coffee plantations with clear blue skies above and sunny, emerald mountains surrounding us. Volcan Poas is relatively close to San Jose, so it didn't take long before we had arrived at the Visitors Center.

We got out of the car, changed into some hiking clothes and set off on the extreme hike up the well paved road. The vegetation was deep green in color, the color that I have learned to associate with jungle and I absolutely love me some jungle! At the top of the small hill we came upon a viewing platform with about 10 others there max. Ivannia had warned us that it is rare to even see the volcano because cloud covering likes to hover right around the top of mountains, and so I had pictured Volcan Poas as a typical cone volcano that we would look on from a distance.

The site of Volcan Poas took my breath away. Rather than staring up at huge a volcanic cone, you looked directly down into the mouth of the volcano since at some point in the past the angry tectonics below had caused the entire cap to blow off! You could see the white, smoky steam emanating from the angry depths of the crater. Even though it would have been pretty easy to scramble down closer to the mouth, I was content with staying high above and not breathing in any deadly fumes.


After staring in awe at the volcanic mouth and taking obligatory pictures, the three of us set off on a "hike" through the jungle on a very well paved path. Along the hike we got to see the Volcanic Lagoon, a rather brave tiny bird, and a tasty looking mushroom that I debated sampling for lunch.
Leaving Volcan Poas, we set off down the road towards Fortuna. We stopped along the way at a small soda (what Costa Rican restaurants are called) where I had a couple bites of the chicken (I'm usually a vegetarian for those of you that don't know) that came along with the delicious beans, rice, and salad. Using my little Costa Rica map and directions from our 2 travel books we wound up and down the crazy mountainous roads through the jungle and over some rather fun, 1 way bridges.


We learned the ways of the road and before we knew it their appeared to be a large volcanic cone in the distance in front of us and we had arrived at Fortuna, a small town that sits at the base of Volcan Arenal - Costa Rica's most active volcano.


Arriving in town, we wandered around and found a hostel to stay at for a couple of nights. We spent the rest of the night wandering around town, drinking many Imperials, relaxing, and listening to the frequent rumbling eruptions of Arenal in the distance.