Category: 2018_001 Costa Rica Adventure

February 2

After a restless night’s sleep worrying about being stranded in the middle of nowhere things got a little worse this morning. It was so cloudy that we couldn’t  even see Lake Arenal, which is practically in our backyard. It looked like it was going to rain all day. Then we got an email from the shuttle company telling us that even though they dropped us off in Neuvo Arenal yesterday they won’t pick us back up here to go to Manuel Antonio next week. So we either have to first get to La Fortuna, which is about an hour away, or spend $270 to have a private driver pick us up here. We figured out that it’s actually a little less expensive to have the private driver as we’d otherwise have to go to La Fortuna the night before we leave as we can’t get there in time for the 7:30am shuttle. Since we’ve already paid for this place we didn’t want to pay another $150 for a hotel, plus the cost of a cab to get to La Fortuna on top of the cost of the shuttle from there to Manuel Antonio. It was almost a non-issue though as we were seriously considering bailing on this place altogether and moving to La Fortuna on Sunday. We just couldn’t see spending an entire week sitting around with no place to go.

But, once again, Daniel came to our rescue. After breakfast he came knocking on our door and told us that he arranged for a driver to take us sightseeing to all the places we thought we would miss. While we could go any day, we jumped at the chance to go today. Our driver, Stebano, picked us up at 9:30 for our private tour and we headed for La Fortuna. Just outside of the town we stopped at the Baldi Resort and Spa. This place was incredible. It probably costs a fortune to stay at the hotel but they have a special rate for people who only want to enjoy the thermal baths. It wasn’t cheap but it was worth it. There are about 30 different “hot tubs” but they are nothing like we’d ever seen before.  The place was gigantic and was set up like a rain forest. All the pools were different temperatures but our favorite was the one with a swim-up bar….big surprise, right? We had very expensive, but delicious Mai Tais after which we continued to lounge in the hot water. It was a ton of fun but since we had other things to do we only stayed about 2 hours.

Then we drove into La Fortuna for lunch. The weather was much clearer today so we got a great view of the volcano, which is the highest peak in Costa Rica. There is actually a line of 4 volcanoes running through Costa Rica into Nicaragua,  which is just to the north. It was a beautiful view.

Our next stop was at the Arenal waterfall. Stebano told us that it was a “little walk” to get to the waterfall but since we’d just had lunch we thought a walk was a good idea. Well, it wasn’t a walk so much as it was 500 steps!! We walked down on the way to the waterfall, but as they say, what goes down must come up (that’s not really what they say but you know what we mean). The trip down wasn’t bad and the waterfall was beautiful. The trip back up, though, was slow but steady. We actually only had to stop and rest a couple of times. Peter commented that all those years of carrying 50 pounds of beer and ice up and down the stairs at Wrigley came in handy as he did very well. We huffed and puffed a bit but made it to the  top without too much difficulty.

By this time it was after 3pm and we were tired from the climb so we decided to head back to la casa. We hadn’t yet seen any cool wildlife but on the trip back we saw a sloth on the side of the road as well as about 12 coati. Lynn was very excited because she thought they were monkeys but even though they have long tails like monkeys they’re actually part of the raccoon family. Not as exciting as monkeys but it was still pretty cool.

We got about half way home when Stebano suddenly stopped the van. He had seen a tourist boat and thought we might enjoy a ride on the lake. We were tired but since sitting in the boat was going to require no effort on our part we decided to take advantage of the clear weather to get another look at the volcano. The boat owner said that the mountain hadn’t been this visable in 3 weeks so we decided to go for it. We’re so glad we did because the lake and mountain were beautiful. There were just a few clouds obscuring the very top but otherwise the mountain was totally  visible. It’s still an active volcano but hasn’t erupted since 1969 so we felt pretty safe. After an hour on the lake we got back into the van for the last 30 minutes of the drive home. We made one last stop at the market before getting home just in time for a beautiful sunset.

It was a long 8-hour day but a ton of fun. After the stressful day we had yesterday this was exactly what we needed, especially Lynn who was feeling rather guilty for not researching the area better before booking the house.

We decided to stay put and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. We’ll see Stebano again on Monday when he takes us back to La Fortuna. We’re going to explore the town a little more and go kayaking on the river. Not sure yet what we’re doing over the weekend but we’ll figure something out. Still no luck uploading pictures but maybe our hosts will have an idea. They get back tomorrow and we look forward to meeting them. We’re so grateful for Daniel though; he was our hero today.

Talk with you soon.

February 1

The Costa Rican adventure continues. Today was Peter’s birthday and while he didn’t get his free birthday breakfast at Denny’s, he got one at the hotel, so he was okay with that. At the advice of a friend who lived in Costa Rica for several years, we didn’t rent a car but plan to take a shuttle to the two places we plan to visit…Neuvo Arenal and Quepos. The ride to Neuvo was very nice as we got to see quite a bit of the countryside. After the first hour we understood why Allison advised against the car as the road got pretty rough the further, we went into the hills. After about 3 hours and a rest stop, we were dropped off at a hotel from which we would have to make our own way to our Airbnb house. Our host is in Cuba until the 3rd, so he arranged for someone to pick us up. That part went fine, and the house is on a beautiful piece of property with a gorgeous view of Lake Arenal. The problem is that we are in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE with no way to get around. The town appears to be about a block long with a couple of markets and clothing stores but not much else. We thought we might be able to walk to town, but the house is about a ten-minute drive up a long, steep hill so walking is a non-starter. Daniel was a gigantic help getting a taxi for us to get to town to buy groceries. He only has a motorcycle, so he asked one of the workers at the market to take us home. Daniel doesn’t speak any English, but Peter speaks a little Spanish, so they were able to communicate fairly well. He showed us around the grounds; there’s a ton of land and several buildings. We have access to a tiny pool that’s right outside our door, a hot tub, and a sauna.

The house itself is decent size with 2 bedrooms and a bath. It has a kitchen, but it took almost an hour to heat up a pot of water to cook pasta.  There are only a couple of small lamps in the house so once the sun goes down it’s pretty dark. The other problem is that while the house has WIFI, the connection is so bad we can’t actually get anything to pull up on the tablets. The phone is a little better so that’s how we’re writing this post. Uploading pictures is absolutely not going to happen unless we can find a restaurant with good WIFI.

With all that said, the view is stunning, and we have a huge deck to sit and watch the sunset over the lake. It was quite a stressful afternoon, so we enjoyed sitting out there with a drink while the sun went down.

We’re not sure how we’re going to do any of the tourist things we want to do, and we’ll probably spend a fortune in taxis for the week we’re here but that’s a problem for tomorrow.

January 31

Hola from Liberia Costa Rica. After two uneventful flights, we landed in Liberia mid-afternoon. The first adventure, or should we say misadventure, came when Lynn missed the last stair on the way down to the immigration area. In her defense, all the stairs were white tile except for the last one which was black tile….the exact same color as the floor. Thinking it was the floor, she was totally unprepared for another step. She landed ON HER KNEES (ouch) in a perfect kneeling position. It was actually quite graceful. The good news is that while her knees are a bit sore, there doesn’t appear to be any serious damage….not even a little limp.

The next adventure was figuring out the money. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve had to deal with anything other than Euro, which is pretty simple, so it took about several minutes with a calculator to figure out the conversion. Turns out it’s very similar to the conversion Lynn dealt with when she lived in Italy before the Euro. The Italian Lira, or mil, as they called it had bills in the thousands. That’s also the case with the Colon. We got about $175 from the ATM and got 20,000 colon. We finally figured out there are about 600 colon per dollar. It will take some getting used to but we should be fine in a day or so.

Our third adventure today was taking the bus into Liberia. We’re staying at the Hilton Garden Inn at the airport and the only way to get “downtown” was either the city bus for $1.60 for the two of us or a $20 cab ride. Obviously we choose the bus. It was actually very easy and we didn’t have any difficulty at all. There’s really not much in Liberia so we walked around for a little while then had some dinner…our first authentic Costa Rican dinner. Peter had what amounted to a tomato and lettuce sandwich on toast with a thin slice of chicken in there someplace. Lynn’s dinner was way more interesting a piece of chicken in a delicious broth, rice and some cold pasta. It was quite good.

After taking the bus back to the hotel we stopped for happy hour at the hotel bar before heading up to the beautiful, upgraded one bedroom suite. Lynn has diamond status at Hilton so we usually score some good upgrades.

Since we were up at 3:30am (eastern) it will probably be an early night. Tomorrow we’re taking a shuttle to Neuvo Arenal where we’ll spend a week. Talk with you from the mountains.

Love us….

January 31

Heading to Liberia. Talk with you soon.