Homebeach - San Jose to La Fortuna

18th of November
One of my major "life-goals" was to visit six continents before I turn 25 , which in my case meant 13th of December 2003. Till 2002 I had traveled four continents, so there where still two left. I visited South Africa in May/June 2003, but I wasn't sure if I would make it to South America the same year, but things worked out for me, and after heavy searching on the Internet, my original task was Brazil or Chile, I got a very cheap flight to Costa Rica only a week prior to my targeted departure. So I once again packed my backpack and left good old Europe, with a stop-over in Madrid and Miami. Fortunately my flight from Miami to San Jose was cancelled and I got a free night at a Crown Plaza in Miami, which was much better then arriving in San Jose at 2 am in the morning, without pre-arranged accommodation. I'm getting more and more un-organized.

19th of November
My original airline was Iberia, but due to the changes in Miami, I had to board an American Airline plane in Miami. There I got to meet Craig, a guy from Florida, who was planning to rent a car and invited me to team up. We had kind of the same plans, which meant no plans at all. So not having to spend a lot of my valuable time on the bus and instead travel and explore the country more independently I agreed immediately.

We picked up the car and headed towards to the city. Our first stop was "Costa Rica Backpackers" but it did take some time till got there. Street signs are rare in San José and streets can change from normal street to one-way within one intersection.

The "Costa Rica Backpackers" was a very comfortable place and provided free internet access, a swimming pool and a large TV screen with international channels etc.

20th of November
On our first official day we planed to climb up Volcano Poas, but due to the clouds there we decided to skip it and go straight to La Fortuna, a village north of San Jose. The streets in Costa Rica, even the main roads are in very bad conditions and when we where on the road to La Fortuna people started to wave at us. When we stopped and asked what was going on we where told that the street was washed away and that we had to use another way.

On the way back we found a little dirty street sign that said "Canopy Tour and horseback-riding". We drove down the unpaved road and stopped at a little restaurant for lunch. It turned out that the restaurant owners where also running the canopy tour. So our first adventure was already underway! The Canopy tour was very funny, it did not look very save at all, but after all, its "No risk no fun!

For those who don't know "Canopy", platforms up in the trees are connected by steel ropes, you then slide from one platform to the other, its very fast, so you don't really get to see the wildlife, its more a adrenalin-kick then exploring.

After the Canopy we went horseback-riding for about an hour or so. In the beginning my horse didn't like me at all, and stopped on several occasions, but we made a pretty good team in the end.

After we finished the tour we went all the way to La Fortuna. We kept looking for the Volcano, but the picture in the Lonely Planet was older and the Vulcano had changed its shape and height over the past years so we didn't figure out where it was until we reached La Fortuna. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast, which offered an excellent view of the Volcano. The owner also offered us tours that we could book there, and we opted for the visit of "Vernado" caves in the morning and a hike around the volcano in the afternoon, combined with a visit of the hot springs.

21nd of November
Despite a breathtaking view of the volcano the previous day and even more interesting, lava eruptions at night, the fierily mountain was in clouds when we started our tour to the Vernado caves. It took us about an hour in a small bus on a bumpy road to reach the caves and start exploring. The owner of the hostel joined us, after we convinced him that he should try the stuff he was promoting.

It was a very small group of just four people and the tour guide, which was good as we could explore more remote parts of the cave. The tour was basically three hours of crawling and sometimes swimming in pitch black muddy water. I got scratches all over feet, but it was well worth it. The caves, dating back over 7 million years, are the direct result of water currents penetrating and passing through the surrounding limestone rocks.
The structure of the tunnels varies tremendously with some displaying ceilings of nearly 20 feet in height, while others requiring that you slide through like a serpent. Within the caves we could find five thousand year old rock formations, such as the "papaya" which is a vertical formation formed by the union of two different rock types; the name is derived from it's shape, which you guessed it, looks just like a papaya.

Another interesting formation was the "coral", a huge white masterpiece of time and mother earth. Throughout the caves water in continually flows along the floor of the caves, at times a few feet high. The caves contain four different species of bats and numerous types of spiders, many of which are endemic to the area.

In the afternoon we joined a hiking group to explore the area around Mount Arenal. Unfortunately I don't have a huge knowledge of plants and animals, so I let the pictures speak for themselves. But we saw all kinds of plants, birds and monkeys that call the rainforest home. We ended the day with dinner and a soak at the Tabacon Hot Springs Resort, and we got the unique opportunity to see the red glow of the volcano's molten lava from the relaxing thermal waters.

22rd of November
I'm a huge fan of waterfalls, and there was no chance I was going to miss the La Fortuna Waterfall, a huge waterfall about 5 kilometers away from La Fortuna.

The rest of the day was driving on bumpy roads, as we tried to reach the Nicaraguan Border. We passed through an unspoiled landscape sometimes interrupted by small villages and fruit plantages. It took us about six hours to get from La Fortuna the to the Panamericana, the main "highway" that runs trough the entire country and on to panama. But calling it a highway is a bit misleading compared to western standards, as this road contains potholes up to the size of a small car - no kidding.

The Nicaraguan border was one of the "highlights" of the day. It turned out that crossing the border and getting the passport stamped wasn't that easy at all. We "left" Costa Rica and approached a building which we thought was the Immigration office for Nicaragua. As soon as we left the car we where surrounded by people. One guy was holding Nicaraguan Money right into my face and said "You need changing money, Costa Rica money and Dollar no good in Nicaragua!". Another guy was a bit more fluent in English and we asked where we could get our passport stamped. He showed us the way to an office, which already had a very long line of people waiting for their passports to be stamped. Craig asked if we could bribe (bestechen for the Germans) someone, so we could get "on the fast lane". The guy walked away, talked to some people returned with a police officer. Six other people also showed up and it seemed like they where all working together as they where whispering to each other and with the police officer in Spanish. Yep - these are the moments you wish to understand that stupid language..

The police-officer looked at us and took us into the immigration office. Craig tried to give him some money, but he declined. He gave a sign to the immigration officer and told us to walk up to a desk. The immigration officer seemed quite pissed and it was a bit awkward to surpass all the people who where already waiting. But we got a stamp into our passport! Unfortunately it turned out that it wasn't the one we needed to get to Nicaragua. Instead those people had talked us into immigration into Costa Rica again. The police officer walked away, but the group of six people stayed with us.

If you think that it would have been the right time to start running, we felt the same way! But we where told that we had get the Nicaraguan stamp too so we could re-enter Costa Rica. Fist they wanted both of us to come with them and let the police-officer, who had "helped us" with the immigration office to watch our rental car, but we declined that, deeming it too risky to get the car stolen or something. So I stayed with the car and Craig started walking towards the border with some of the guys. One of them stayed with me at the car. But Craig returned soon and said that he would need more money, about 30 Dollars to get the stamp. As it did start do sound more and more complicated, we simply decided to try and leave this weird place. Luckily we could easily re-enter Costa Rican soil and we left the place as fast as we could. We drove about 80 kilometers south to a city called Liberia and stayed in a small hotel. Later I found out that it would have been much easier to enter Nicaragua and the cost would have been somewhere around five dollars.