Flying back to Germany
Manuel Antonio to San Jose by bus
National Park in Manuel Antonio
At night the family from San Francisco went to Quepos, the closest town and bought some bottles of wine for their traditional Thanksgiving and invited me to join them. We then had a superb dinner and very vital discussion about the political situation in the USA. The father was a Republican and huge fan of Ronald Reagan, while the daughter and her girlfriend where very active Democrats. Usually Americans are not very interested in political discussions at all, but this family was different in that case.
Back in San Jose
Kathryn was also heading for Manual Antonio and we shared a cap to get to the bus-Station. The place was cramped with people waiting for their busses and doing business and it reminded me of Thailand.
Upon our arrival in Manuel Antonio it was very easy to find accommodation just by walking around and I enjoyed a wonderful sunset at the beach before I joined Katharine and a family from San Francisco for a night out in the bar. The family from San Francisco was fascination for me, the father was gay, the daughter a lesbian, traveling with her girlfriend and the son, well, let’s put it that way: I did not see much of Kathryn during the rest of my stay in Manuel Antonio.
Orchid Garden, Santa Elena
After all the wild rainforest of the past days, it was time for a very special garden next to Santa Elena, the so called Orchid Garden. Like the name suggests, the garden is full of orchids, and contains more than 400 species including the national flower of Costa Rica, the “Guardia morada” and also the smallest known orchid species in the world. Abel once again was our guide and gave us an excellent tour and explaind a lot of things as he used to work in the Orchid Garden. The owner of the garden is one of the most famous and respected orchid-experts in the world. He discovered many of new species but he has never been to an university and learned all the stuff by himself.
We spend the rest of the day in the car on the way back to San Jose. At night we checked into the San Jose Backpackers again. There I met Kathryn, a girl from England who had been working in a hospital in Belize and was now traveling around Central America before going back to the United Kingdom. Like I always say: When you are on your own, you are never alone! Especially in hostels its easy to get in touch with fellow travelers and team up for a little trip.
The Rainforest of Monteverde
In the afternoon it was time for the cannyoning, which literally means “walking down waterfalls”. I wasn’t experienced in that kind of sport at all, but it was great fun from the very first minute. In the beginning I thought it would be scary to walk down a 35 meter high waterfall, attached to nothing more then a rope, but in the end I couldn’t get enough of it. I almost lost my glasses when I slipped on one of the waterfalls and got under the water stream, but my travel-mate Craig did an excellent job in finding them again. At the last waterfall, which is called the “Dragon Mouth, I slipped again, this time I bumped a rock, which was a very painful experience.
After the return to our Inn and a nice dinner Craig and I visited Selvatura again. It was already getting dark and started raining when we entered the walkway. We where the only people on the track and it was a very special experience. I couldn’t see much of the rainforest, sometimes I had no clue of where I was going or if I’m even on the track. The sound of raindrops, birds, monkeys, and all different kinds of animals was something I didn’t experience during the day and altogether created a completely different atmosphere then during the day.
Tamarindo to Monteverde
The roads towards Monteverde are all unpaved. The locals disapprove any improvements on the street, as this would bring in more tourists into the area. We had a view “picture stops and arrived at the little town of Sta. Elena, the starting point to all attractions of the region around lunchtime.
The town of Sta. Elena has been founded by Quaker families(some sort of religious group) immigrating to Costa Rica from the United States in 1951. They came to Costa Rica because, beside other considerations, the fact that the country does not have a standing army. Surprise! US-citizens that don’t like the idea of having an army, I bet those guys weren’t supporting the Republicans.
But even Quakers, somehow have to maker their living, so there is a dairy farm and associated cheese factory which now produce over a ton of cheese a day. And you get to see a lot of cows running around, which is bad for the environment, as cows like grass and don’t usually life in the rainforest.
Our first stop was at the Skywalk, we initially just wanted to visit the “Selvatura” Trek, which was recommended to us by a fellow traveler in La Fortuna. But after the guy at Skywalk offered us half-price (it’s always good to mention the competitor) we decided to do both of the treks. The Skywalk is a complex of suspended bridges, platforms and paths, built within the Cloud Forest. These allow the observation of flora and fauna from ground level all the way up to the top of the trees. That enabled us to explore the tops of the trees, a world which is very close but yet unknown to most. The lush green garden of mosses, ferns, flowers, and epiphytes growing thickly on every tree was very impressive. At the end of the door we even got to see some hummingbirds.
On our way back to Sta. Elena we stopped at a marvelous spot to listen the sound of birds and watch the fog rising from the rainforest. First we thought about camping, but due to the wet weather conditions we decided to have a look at an Inn which was promoted on a dirty little sign on the side of the road. On the way to the inn we had the chance to catch an amazing sunset with superb view of Vulcan Arenal. The Inn was indeed very remote. The water was supplied by their very own spring and the electricity was provided by an generator.
The guy who was in charge was very friendly and we met Chety, a tour guide and Abel, a biology student who was working on his final papers. Both where also staying at the Inn. Chety was from Los Angeles and running a small agency in Costa Rica, he offered us an unique canyoning tour the next day. We got it half price, as he was still training his stuff and we where the first tourists to try their equipment. The hut we stayed in where basic, but the view was amazing. It was even possible to watch the eruptions of Mount Arenal at night.
Fun at the Nicaraguan Border…
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.
Vernado Caves, La Fortuna
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.