Country #30: Costa Rica! (Part 2)

Thursday felt like a day on the Amazing Race. We were full out sprinting at one point, trying to get everything in. 

Our day was planned to the minute. We needed to book it to our guesthouse just outside of Rincon de la Vieja National Park in order to make it to the park entrance to hike before the park closed. We only had the one night in Rincon. My family's travel style has always been very much: travel hard, travel fast. It was a short trip, and we wanted to see and do as much as possible. There are pros and cons, but I often find that travel style suits me very well. There's so much to see and do and I want to see and do it all!

We woke up, gathered our still dripping wet laundry from the lines, and squished in our rental car, leaving beautiful and peaceful Potrero behind. After some very mild stress over the lack of gas stations, we were on our way. According to google maps, it's only two an a half hours, but our airbnb host advised us that it's often much longer than that given the condition of the roads. On our way, we drove on a 30 minute short stretch of the Pan-American Highway, a road that runs from the tippy top of Alaska to Patagonia, with a minor break between the Panama and Colombian borders. We decided to squeeze in a short roadtrip detour at the Llanos de Cortez Catarata, which was located off some nondescript turn right on the Pan-American Highway. 

We parked. At the entrance to the trail was a friendly older Tico couple with a stand. Mom bartered for a beautiful hand carved wooden bowl and we bought more cookies. We hiked a short way down and to a beautiful waterfall. The water poured wide over the top of a plateau and into a small pool. The catarata was packed with people hanging out and enjoying the pleasant weather and refreshing water. Naturally, we hopped right in.

We swam through the pool at the base and climbed along a small rock ridge to behind the waterfall. I always forget how loud and power water is. We jumped off the sharp rocks from (not too) high through the falls (while sputtering and trying to wipe bangs from our eyes) and into the pool.

Later, when we were reviewing the several hours of GoPro footage we had accumulated, we were surprised to find the swimming hole was crawling with fish. Every time the GoPro got dunked you can see us kicking our way through schools of fish. 

We even unknowingly took a few selfies with the fish!

After a few jumps through the falls, we swam out of the pool. There was a small old Tico grilling meat skewers on an impromptu bbq. A tiny sign hung via clothesline advertised 'carne asada'. We shared some chicken tacos fresh off the grill.

It was a wonderful stop, a beautiful waterfall, and a ton of fun. But, pressed for time, we didn't dilly dally. We hiked with purpose back to the car and were on our way again. 

Everyone told us how terrible the roads are in Costa Rica. But it's one of those things you don't really understand what people mean until you get there. And it's very surprising. For such a clean, safe country with pretty well developed tourist infrastructure, you would think the roads would be in better condition. My dad expertly drove around potholes on unpaved roads as we raced up the hills to get to Rincon de la Vieja.

Costa Rica has a ton of renewable energy! We passed some wind farms on the way to Rincon de la Vieja.

Fitting five fully grown adults in a tiny rental car is... cozy. Mom, Shannon, and I (the shortest) were squished in the back with our wet bag of laundry. Our last night in Potrero we decided to do a load of laundry at our airbnb. There was no dryer and the washer broke mid-load. The grey, soapy water wouldn't drain and all of our clothes were soaked. That's why my mom has a trash bag full of soaking wet clothes in her lap.

One time, my mom and sister and I shared a twin bed in a hotel in Rome. This is nothing.

We arrived at our guesthouse and these refreshing, fruity, delicious complementary drinks immediately appeared in our hands. They were sweet and with the first sip I felt instantly more relaxed. 

The Rinconcito Lodge was nestled in the mountains, surrounded by a bunch of green trees, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was just outside the southern entrance to the Rincon de la Vieja National Park, which from my understanding is a quieter entrance.

Zwillinge

The front desk guy gave us a quick spiel about the place in Spanish and I smiled and nodded along, pretending like I understood every word. We then rushed back to the car and sped off, skidding around corners with the gas pedal all the way down. We pulled up to a long shack at the edge of the park with sparse furniture and two friendly park rangers inside. There were a bunch of faded photographs in frames on the walls. We nodded along to more directions in Spanish, paid the park entrance fee, and off we went. The hike wasn't too strenuous. It was a flatish hike through some dense foliage.

The infrastructure in Costa Rica, as we had already experienced, was not incredibly developed, and we also weren't in the most well worn area of the park. There were no bridges, just cables running above head height across wide, waist deep streams. The first few we crossed we tried to leapfrog on rocks across. The water rushed fast and cool. On the way back we were so soaked, we surrendered and just waded across.

We hiked with purpose to get to our destination at the end of the trail: natural hot springs.

While this hike was incredible, just thinking back on it makes me feel like I'm getting bitten again by hundreds of tiny midges. I know I tend to get bit a lot, but it still surprises me whenever I come home from trips with hundreds of bug bites. And the bugs were out in full force here. 

With only a short pause to admire a stream of leaf cutter ants, we made it to the hot springs in record time. We could smell the sulfur before we could see the pools. Multiple pools had been formed by dams of small rocks. The grey copper blue water in the pools was surprisingly clear. The water was shallow, but enough to submerge your whole body if you laid down. Tiny air bubbles rose from the soft, fine pebbles at the bottom of the pool like a carbonated drink. We climbed in the warm geothermal baths.

We soaked in the warm water, marinating in the geothermal sulfur smell, soothing our bug bites and relaxing in the early Costa Rican evening. We knew we had to make it back before the park closed, so we eventually climbed out, rinsed our feet in the stream, and pulled socks and shoes back on.

We had just started walking back, when out of nowhere a huge grey rain cloud rolled over and opened up. It began to pour and it did not stop for the rest of the night. The path turned to squelching mud and the streams we had crossed earlier had turned into rushing rivers. We gave up on the rock climbing across and just waded across the waist deep rushing water, shoes and socks and all.

We were about 3/4 of the way back when we saw the sign for a turnoff to another waterfall that we had skipped earlier to the time constraint. We were already soaking and already going to be back after dark, so when we saw the fork in the road we decided to take it. It was a short hike to a view of the falls, and a shorter but steeper hike down to the river itself. We hopped right in the refreshing water, rinsing off some of the hot springs sulfur smell.

We ran the rest of the way back to the car, accumulating more mud along the way.

This is even after the pouring rain rinsed off most of the mud

Muddy and dripping wet, we climbed in the car and drove back to Rinconcito Lodge. The lodge was lovely. The room we had was cozy for five people. It had a double bed and three twin beds squeezed in as an afterthought. All the beds had about three inches of space between them. The rooms were all little standalone lodges.

There were horses and dogs at the lodge, the latter of which barked through the night. 

There was nothing else around, so by default we had dinner at the lodge. The reception and restaurant were under a big open air structure, and it was very relaxing listening to the rain while we ate our spaghetti and drank our Imperial beers.

And our margaritas.

Even though it was pouring rain and gusting wind, we laid out our still wet laundry and our muddy, soaked hiking shoes to dry on the little patio outside our room.

One of the lodge dogs found it quite cozy!

We woke up and had the complimentary breakfast at the lodge.

Shannon made friends with the lodge dogs.

Once we were all showered, dry, and clothing rinsed of mud the next morning, we threw our suitcases back in the trunk of the car. Just as we were about to leave, Dad and Michael so graciously helped push this German guy out of his muddy parking spot, resulting in them being resplattered with a layer of mud.

And we were off again! It was New Year's Eve and we booked it to Monteverde, a tiny town perched in the mountains on the west side of the continental divide - but just barely. Again, we were severely time constrained. We needed to make it to Monteverde by the time our afternoon zip line tour started. We wound our way up the mountain on a gravely road that somehow got more sketchy to the mountain town of Monteverde. 

Monteverde reminded me a bit of Minca, Colombia. A really cute, small, eco, mountain town. Although Monteverde, perched in a cloud forest, was much colder than Minca. According to Wikipedia, I just found out that it was founded by Quaker pacifists in the 1950s, who still make up a decent proportion of the town's several hundred residents. Nearby town Santa Elena has almost 7,000 residents. At 4,600 feet above sea level in a misty, cool cloud forest it was quite the contrast from the warm, sunny Guanacaste coast. On the drive up we had a spectacular view of Guanacaste Bay.

We dropped our bags off at the drafty airbnb we stayed at. The host was American, her husband Tico, and her three little children half-Tico. 

"The drinking age is 18 here," she winked at Shannon, Michael, and I when we were checking in. My mom laughed. "They can all legally drink in the United States!" "No way," she stared incredulously at the three of us.

We only had moments to spare before our ziplining excursion van picked us up. We were transported to the outskirts of Monteverde. It was a little rainy, but we were told the weather had improved significantly from that morning. We were harnessed and helmet-ed.

The helmets in particular looked super cool

The hooked our carabiners to the zip lines and off we went, whizzing above and through the mossy green cloud forests and it was a blast. Lots of ziplining footage made it into the GoPro compilation.

I didn't really know what to expect, but it turned out to be a ton of fun. There were lines and lines of zip lines. At one point they hook you into a belay and they just literally drop you, which was a thrill. 

In total it was 2.2 miles of ziplines, including one 1km zipline where you zip superman style way high above the tree canopy. Everyone else in my family managed to look so elegant doing the superman zipline, whereas I looked like a kitten whose mother had picked it up from the nape of its neck and was dragging it around. 

At one point, Mom, Dad, and I got separated from Shannon and Michael. There was one leg of the zipline where you disconnect your carabiner from the continuous line and you get in a little jeep buggy that bumps and jostles through the mud up a steep hill to connect you to the next line. Shannon and Michael had gone in the jeep ahead of us. There was a nice Italian couple behind us who were going to be in our jeep. "¿Podemos esperar a nuestros niños?" the wife asked the driver. He shrugged. A few minutes later two very large adult men came around the corner and climbed into the jeep with their parents.

 "Ninos?" the driver muttered under his breath incredulously and sighed. It was four fully grown adults in the front seat and four in the back. Boy did that jeep struggle. It groaned and spun mud out from the back wheels the whole way up the hill. I wasn't sure we were going to make it. I tried my best to contain my laughter.

The last leg of the zip line course is what they call the Tarzan Swing. (Which I recorded on our GoPro for posterity in an incredibly unflattering selfie video). You walk on to a narrow, unsupported platform that sways wildly with every breath of a breeze. 

Once you reach the end of the platform, two dudes who take some questionable enjoyment out of shoving people off a glorified gang plank hook you into a carabiner, tell you to bend your knees, and push you off to a 45 meter free fall before you have time to process what is happening.

I am not afraid of heights, yet when my Converse were clinging to the edge, every cell in my body liquefied and screamed at me do not jump. And I did anyway. It's almost unpleasant, the free fall sensation, when your stomach situates itself in your throat. The rope catches you and you swing like a propelled pendulum to an equally unpleasant height where you fall from again until you gradually lose to inertia and swing pitifully less far back and forth until they fully lower you to the ground. My harness wiggled uncomfortably and by the time I was lowered enough for the guys on the ground to catch me I was spinning uncontrollably with one leg bent under my armpit and the other locked straight. 

"Do you want to do it again?" they asked sadistically at the bottom, grinning. 

"No, thank you," I laughed nervously.

By the recommendation of our aribnb host, we had dinner at an Italian joint tucked on the outskirts of Monteverde. One side of the restaurant was big glass windows, which looked out into the lush, green forest. To get to the restaurant we crossed a bridge that had been wiped out in mudslides and only recently reopened. This part of Monteverde had been cut off for some time after the last storm.

We had a delicious pasta, pizza, and wine New Years Eve dinner.

We then went for a walk in the damp and chilly mountain town. Monteverde is a very hilly town and we walked from where we were staying to the town center. It was a very peaceful and quaint town, with the little buildings' windows lit up against the hills. It was dark and drizzly. Unsurprisingly, I did not bring warm enough clothes. Michael didn't even bring a jacket (but that's even less unsurprising). 

no te metas con nosotros

We went to get dessert and drinks at a restaurant which is one of the top ten most bizarre restaurants in the world, according to Trip Advisor. The multi-floor restaurant is built around this giant tree, with spiral staircases winding around the trunk and branches. It was lit by purple, green, and blue lights. It was windy inside, too. We ordered two chocolate-y desserts, two beers, and a margarita, and passed them in rotation around the table.

This mousse was cocoa-y perfection

On our walk back to our airbnb we saw a few fireworks, bursting over the lit mountain homes, low in the foggy sky. We then fell asleep around midnight New York time, as the wind whipped around the airbnb.

Feliz año de nuevo de Monteverde, Costa Rica 2018! #partyhard #fiestadura

The next morning we woke up and went to a local breakfast place that served pastries, breakfast plates of beans, rice, and cheese, and coffee in chipped mugs. It had a very authentic, homey feel.

On New Years Day we bought an entrance ticket to the Monteverde cloud forest and opted to explore it ourselves sans guide so we could go at our own pace and not have to pretend to listen to someone. I loved the Monteverde cloud forest hike. It was incredibly calm, peaceful, and quiet. The air smelled so clean. 

On the mildly swaying and surprisingly long hanging bridges, you could look down over the dense canopy. Part of the hike was on a damp and mossy concrete path through the damp and mossy trees. It was green and lush and dense and overgrown and soft. We kept our eyes out for sloths, and very likely saw some without knowing.

We hiked over a mile and a half of trails and green hanging bridges. The hanging bridges, besides being super instagrammable, are a great way to navigate the dense flora. The bridges went over and through the new and old growth Costa Rican cloud forest. It's allegedly teeming with wildlife, too.

After we were done with our hike through the cloud forest we drove a little further past to where the main road turned to dirt. We didn't have time to make it to Volcan Arenal, one of the sights that makes it to the top of every Costa Rica 'must sees'. On a rumor we heard that you could see Volcan Arenal across the lake from a vantage point in Monteverde. With some guidance from our airbnb host we were able to find it! It was insanely windy on the peak, but we could look out across the lake and mountains and see the base of one of Costa Rica's active volcanoes.

One of the best meals we had was at a tiny, hole-in-the-wall, one-woman-show restaurant in Monteverde. It was across the street from a former grocery store-turned-souvenir-market and was mostly outdoors. I got a chicken, rice, and chimichurri plate. It was delicious and really cheap.

We then left Monteverde and drove back down the mountain.

Along the way we saw a family of little monkeys climbing on the power lines. There was even a little baby monkey!

We drove to San Jose from Monteverde on New Year's Day. Most Costa Ricans travel from elsewhere in the country back to San Jose on this day, so they had opened up the contraflow lane to ease traffic on the two lane freeway back to the city. It was unsettling, but traffic was significantly lessened as a result. As we came into the city, a huge glowing full moon hung low above the city lights. 

Ahhh, San Jose. (Fun fact! Both my parents are from San Jose, California!) There are very, very few places in the world I dislike. I wouldn't even say I disliked San Jose, more that I was unimpressed by it. Everyone told us to skip San Jose, and I hate when everyone is right. Granted, we were only there for a short time, but we ran into quite a few minor tribulations while we were there.

There was the creepy airbnb. The guy who tried to scam us. The desperation meal that made us sick to our stomachs. 

We had trouble finding the airbnb. When we finally did, we dropped our bags off and went searching for food in the dark, eerily empty city. 

We found some sort of central strip with a few more people and a bunch of closed shops and restaurants. We followed every glowing beacon of hope advertising "pollo" or "arroz" or "comida" only to find that it, too, was not open on New Year's Day. We attempted to ask a few people for directions to the nearest RostiPollos or any open restaurants, but they pointed us in the direction of closed restaurants or didn't know.

While we were deliberating, a short, tan man aggressively walked up to us. "Hey guys, are you from America too?" Alarm bells started going off. I had just read about this situation the day before we left for Costa Rica, on Reddit of all places. It warned of a scam that I didn't quite understand, endemic to San Jose, when someone would pretend to be an American who had his belongings stolen and just needed food or some other minor form of help in an effort to get a larger payout later. 

The guy had just a vague enough accent and his spiel sounded painfully rehearsed. Recalling what I read, I took a step back from the rest of my family members to keep an eye on their back pockets while the guy continued on with his sob story.

Luckily my Dad caught on. "We're looking to find food, too," he cut him off. "We'll let you know if we find any." 

"Hey man," the guy started, as we turned to walk away. 

Just then a couple of policemen walked by, and the guy disappeared. We went up and asked the policemen if there was anywhere to get food. 

"Do you like chicken?" the friendly police officers asked us, happy to help.

"Yes!" we replied enthusiastically, relieved, hungry. The police officers led us to KFC. We thanked them, pretended it was just what we were looking for, and arrogant in our ability to find other open food, continued our search, eschewing American food in Costa Rica. 

New Years Day is a huge family oriented holiday in Costa Rica. That meant that the only other open thing in San Jose on New Years Day was... Taco Bell. The last time I had Taco Bell I was a sophomore in college and I made the mistake of looking up the nutrition information for a bean and cheese burrito. 

Defeated, we ordered. "Solo quiero un burrito con frijoles y queso por favor."

"Los burritos tienen papas," the confused teenager manning the cash register told me.

We each repeated those sentences back at each other multiple times.

"Esta bien," I replied, finally, exasperated. I like potatoes just fine.

What I got was a limp, soggy tortilla filled with three tater tots swimming in diarrhea-like refried beans. 

And some nacho queso

We walked around for a little bit to explore the quiet city night, stopping only for some ice cream. We walked back to our airbnb, located at the fringes of what the host told us was an unsafe neighborhood. The airbnb looked kinda sketchy and was in a building that didn't look residential, but it was fine.

It always amazes me how much the stuff you pack expands over the course of a trip. We packed and reorganized to get ready for our travel day. We threw away like seven pairs of shoes we had wrecked over the course of the trip. 

What I've learned more and more is that it's really the experience you have in a place, which makes sense. Needless to say, our short trip to San Jose left a lot to be desired. 

We flew home, with an 8 hour Nerts filled layover in Guadalajara, Mexico. 

So, some last thoughts. It's hard to sum up an epic, whirlwind vacation in Costa Rica in a few words. Even though the toughest question is always, "What was your favorite part?" I asked my family anyway. Here are their answers in order of who replied to my email: 

Shannon

"I LOVED the waterfalls and surfing we did at the beach. I also loved the place we stayed in when we were near the coast, it felt like we were locals because we were far away from the tourists. Monteverde was also so epic, and I loved the Tarzan swing and the video of Kelly swinging is hilarious."

Katrina

"The roads were incredibly raw. Driving on them was exhausting. The fact that we went surfing at a beach with crocodiles and there were no signs warning us was crazy! The difference between being on the coast or in the mountains and feeling safe, then heading to the capitol city and dad gets offered a hooker by a pimp. And the police officer who was showing us the best chicken restaurant and it ended up being KFC."

Scott

"We had two great occasions to watch the sunset, once at that bar at the beach we went to twice, once and one at Tamarindo. It was great, it brings back memories of our time in Santorini. I love to body surf, the first day body surfing was great with the little shack to get drinks. Also, the chicken joint in Monteverde was a cool little place, and the Italian place we went to for dinner. I loved when we walked to the hot springs when it rained on us, it was such a memorable family hike. And the place we stayed at. Talk about remote, but that place was incredible."

Michael

"The outdoor treehouse was sick. Ziplining was obviously my favorite, probably because of the endorphins. Surfing was a blast, I remember exhaustion mostly, especially when we were next to a crocodile den. My favorite day was the day we went scuba diving in the morning and then chilled for the rest of the day. I remember waking up early sucked, but flopping around in the cold water was great. I remember how fundamentally exhausted I was to my core going in and out of the water and zooming through, enjoying the sun, going home to eat something. Going for a swim when got home. My second favorite was the zipline."

Kelly

"I loved snorkeling, walking around Monteverde, the place we stayed in Rincon de la Vieja, any time it rained, drinking margaritas while watching the sun set in Potrero, and traveling with my family."