What an incredible trip!!
This may be the most relaxing vacation I have ever taken.
Which is not to say we didn't do a lot.
Day 1: Late night arrival + visiting friends
Jonnie and Patricia were kind enough to both host me and pick me up from the airport! What a treat.
The flight went well (got some knitting and watching intense documentaries in) and it was great to see friendly faces and catch up a bit.
We talked until nearly 2am, then called it a night (after a reminder not to flush any toilet paper) and I snuggled into their guest room.
Day 2: Traditional breakfast + exploring San Jose
In the morning Patricia introduced me to traditional Costa Rican breakfast - including pinto gallo (which I had with every breakfast I purchased in Costa Rica - and what she told me was true, each one was a little different!)
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| Patricia and Jonnie's kitchen with our delicious breakfast on the counter |
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| Traditional Costa Rican breakfast - so tasty!! |
Then Jonnie took me downtown to meet up with Janna.
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| Photo in front of a bakery across the street from my hotel, courtesy of another tourist :) |
After checking into our awesome hotel, we decided to fight off jet lag by getting out and about.
Immediately Janna realized her camera wasn't working properly - and we discovered there was a camera shop around the corner from our hotel! They agreed to try and fix it even though it isn't a brand they carry so we left it and traipsed off again.
The National Theater is in a cool building with a lovely lobby. Apparently there are more cool paintings and things but we just enjoyed the lobby since we didn't have tickets and tour times didn't line up well.
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| Money Making Machine! |
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| These were all over! but not all covered with birds... |
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| Maybe better at night lit up, but fun to see in the daylight, too! |
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| Yummy burrito y papas fritas (French fries ;) |
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| The first of many delicious drinks I got in Costa Rica - not even sure what this was, but so yummy! |
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| Embarrassingly, it took us awhile to realize this has English writing, too... |
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| Sculpture outside |
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| I love swings so much :) |
Ending the night leisurely eating dinner on our hotel's roof was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.
Day 3: Tiny plane + water time
Checking out of our hotel turned into a nail-biter - we had booked a ride to the airport for our domestic flight south, the driver was more than 30-min late! Then we hit major traffic. And as we sailed past the domestic terminal I told the driver in broken Spanish that we were on a domestic flight - so we had to go around a huge round about to go back.
Running into the terminal we prayed that they would make an exception for the time cut-off for checking in (they did!) and had to be weighed with our luggage before being handed reusable boarding passes (so cool!!)
As is so often the case, we rushed and panicked .... and then just sat and waited .... and waited.
The flight was cool.
We flew in a plane with about 12 seats and we sat right behind the pilots (yes, I was nervous when the put the plane in autopilot through clouds and did their paperwork!) but seeing the country from this vantage was impressive
Don't worry - I wasn't so worried that I couldn't get a little knitting in on the flight ;)
It's a good thing we set up a ride from the airport in advance. This small airport is literally in the jungle, a grass runway chopped between trees. And on the drive to 'town' we forded a stream (reminded me of being in Madagascar!) - definitely needed the SUV and four-wheel drive :)
We checked into our hotel, got debriefed for our tour the next day, stopped by the grocery store and struck out to find dinner and some beach time.
On our way to the restaurant we walked along the main road (including going over this cool bridge! and needing some directions from others wandering along the trail - glad they stopped us from unnecessarily scaling a mountain in our flip flops :)
The food continued to be wonderful and the views were pretty great, too!
After eating we walked back along the beach - what a delightful choice!
Since the sun sets early and we had an early departure, we called it an early night.
Day 4: The jungle!
I think everyone in town was headed to the beach in the morning - either to take a tour or to help others take a tour. There were food trucks on the beach, tour guides, boat captains, and tons of tourists (but mysteriously no one hawking cheap souvenirs... so refreshing!)
We had a little over an hour boat ride over to the Corcovado National Park. It was already 99 degrees, so the breeze off the water was very welcome.
They have very strict requirements for what you can and cannot bring into the park (no food, no plastic/disposable water bottles) which help keep this place so clean and natural.
We started our jungle wander (which ended up being more than a 28,000 steps day!) and pretty quickly found "the fastest animal in the jungle" aka a sleeping sloth ;)
We found many more sleeping animals - and also got really lucky with some rare daytime encounters with nocturnal animals like this hungry tapir
Very cool experience, definitely recommend!!
Day 5: Boats and buses + miscommunication
Another early morning trip to the beach, this time with all our luggage to catch a boat up the river to Sierpe
Having my hair in braids turned out to be a service / act of compassion to anyone sitting near me - and I enjoyed the wind whipping past without tangling my hair :D
It was a beautiful day, with lovely scenery and fun fellow passengers. I don't know if these boys were related, or just helping out, but it was fun to watch them - and capture one of my favorite kind of pictures, pictures of people taking pictures!
We were definitely in a new place after getting off the boat! Found new flora and fauna to enjoy
And broke the rule we had been given - not to let our bags out of our sight. We had them with us when we got in the taxi (aka Tourismo bus) but as more and more people got on, they told us they were going to put our luggage in a truck and more people in the van and we'd get our bags back in Palmer. The truck also had the officially recognized taxi sticker, so we decided we'd have faith that all would work out {spoiler alert, it did!}
Once we got to Palmer I was able to ask about bus tickets completely in Spanish - woot! and we got cash from the ATM, got our tickets and had time to order some food from a Soda across the street from the bus stop (and use a bathroom that didn't lock - good times!)
Plus we got some fresh fruit from a guy selling snacks to those waiting for the bus.
After riding along up into the mountains for a few hours, we approached our stop in San Gerardo de Dota and the bus slowed down.... but kept right on going past where we thought we should stop. So, Janna pushed the button for the bus to stop. Nothing. I stood up with panic on my face. The driver looked back and realized he had forgotten.
So, we stopped on the side of the highway - with no shoulder - and I told the driver "Necesitamos sus maletas". He looked at me like I was crazy and I realized I told him we needed his bag from under the bus, not our bags, oops!
He got our bags and told us to be careful before driving away.
We cautiously crossed the highway and walked back up about 3/4 a kilometer to where we should have been dropped off. Thankfully cars were pretty loud and we were able to get out of their way.
Then we started our 4 kilometer walk down to our cabin. We had emailed with our host and confirmed the walk was safe and let them know we planned to walk and about what time we anticipated getting off the bus, but since we had no service we couldn't give them an update and just started walking down the steep, winding road. 1.5 hours later – after taking pictures and breaks and just enjoying the cooler mountain air – we made it to what we assumed was our cabin.
Being the designated Spanish speaker, I had the job of going to talk to whoever was watching TV we could hear through the open cabin door. It was a teenage boy who said nothing, just walked away when I asked if this was the Quetzal Cabins we were going to be staying in. Thankfully an older gentleman came over shortly, and he asked me in rapid Spanish how we got there. I told him we walked down the road {"Caminamos por la calle"} and if I got the jist, he told me they had sent a car to meet us at the bus stop - which apparently had been waiting the whole time, but since we passed the stop, we didn't connect.
Despite the miscommunication, we made it, and were shown into our cabin nearby and told where we could go for dinner.
We opted for traditional dinners with fruit juice - yum!
And were able to get some great information from the owners about birding tours and a taxi driver to take us to a waterfall hike.
Day 6: Waterfalls (or Cataratas)
Again my Spanish was put to the test - and failed! When I called about a ride the driver put his wife on the phone who spoke English and we got everything set up.
Despite getting passed off on the phone, I did have a great chat in Spanish with our friendly taxi driver on our way down to start our hike. And was able to coordinate pick up time and location. I will say, it made me a little nervous to hand over the full fare since we didn't have enough cash with us to get another taxi back up if he didn't come back for us...
As we walked away from his truck he told me "Siempre a la derecha en la excusion" and with gestures and assurances we acknowledged that we would always stay to the right on the hike. Then, the very first right would have taken us down to a fish hatchery - so the whole way we made jokes about "every right but this one, right?" any time we did go to the left :)
But boy was this hike worth it! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:
And we had enough time to also get some lunch at a gorgeous open air restaurant
Plus we met a local artist who was very happy when we bought some of his work and asked to take a picture with him and his work
Felo did come back for us. It was so fun to tell him a little about our adventures - and so nice not to hike 7 kilometers back up to our cabin after the hike to the Cataratas!
We ended the night with some pizza from a super friendly guy who make delicious food!
Day 7: Birds! + Bus
One of the coolest experiences was going on a birding tour early our last morning.
When we got in the car Alex and I had some good chats - he asked where we were from (Utah and Boston) and he said that Boston gets a lot of snow. And I told him that actually Utah generally gets more snow than Boston, which surprised him. So then I explained that it depends what part of Utah, that the north has mountains like where we were right then that are much colder than the south of Utah (which he was more familiar with) and I told him that other parts of Massachusetts also get more snow than Boston. ALL IN SPANISH!!! I was so proud of myself :)
But when Alex asked if our tour should be in English or Spanish, I said English. I had just about maxed out my vocab, and don't now more than 'pajero' in relation to birds!
We were lucky to see quite a few kinds of birds. Of course, we wanted to see one of the most colorful birds - the Quetzal but it was also so great to see many birds and with someone who loves them so much - I love other people's passion!
Hiring a personal guide was also a great choice - instead of being in a big group trying to share one telescope or pair of binoculars Janna and I nearly always got to see whatever Alex got in the sights. Including some great videos of the male quetzal working on building a nest in a tree.
Alex was a great tour guide, and he was also willing to be our taxi driver up to the bus stop - and he knew what time and which bus line was going to be coming next. So helpful!
He was right, almost to the minute, about when the bus would come!
We had enough cash to get on the bus, but they didn't have change, but we were able to join the full bus standing in the aisle. Turns out having short arms doesn't help in these situations. Both Janna and I had to regularly change which arm was holding on because our arms would fall asleep. Sigh.
But we did get a seat for the last little bit of the ride, and made it back to San Jose in one piece with all our belongings.
We took an Uber over to our hotel, had enough time to grab some lunch before check-in and were grateful they stored our bags so we didn't have to haul them with us.
After a little rest we went downtown for some souvenir shopping.
Back at the hotel we ended the night sitting by the pool for a bit - reading and knitting before calling it an early night before our last early morning.
Day 8: Headed home
Our trip to the airport this time was super fast! No traffic at 4:30am for us - so we had plenty of time to wander and get some breakfast at the airport while waiting for our flight. And wish we had more time in this beautiful country!
What a beautiful, exciting adventure!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I really enjoyed it :)
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