Many people have asked us why they should buy our book if they can read our blog for free. Just like Part 1, the book is very different from the blog. Here are a few of the differences between the two:

• Prologue: Picks up where the Prologue of Part 1 left off. It focuses primarily on the research we did as we planned for our journey and addresses the majority of the questions we were most frequently asked.
• Several new stories from the journey – And there are some really good ones!
• Many details have been added that were best left undisclosed while we were still on the journey (sometimes we didn’t want our parents worrying about us; sometimes we didn’t want to incriminate ourselves!)
• In Retrospect sections with great insights — so you can see the situation through the eyes of a newbie as we learn, while simultaneously seeing the same situation through the eyes of experience.
• Streamlined stories – some complained our posts were too long and detailed, the book is a condensed version they will enjoy more.
• Formatting is first person, through Christi’s eyes – Some complained they didn’t like the third person format, so they will enjoy the book more.
• Actual dates on each post. On the blog, the dates are not real time, which is a significant piece of information for anyone hoping to follow in our footsteps.
• All profits will go to our cruising fund. The more books we sell, the sooner you can start reading about our next journey! So, buy one and get all your friends to buy one, too!

People have also asked us why we broke the series up into four books instead of only three. We had very different experiences in each of the four world regions, so it was best for each region to have its own volume.

• In the South Pacific, Part 1, we spent most of our time in sparsely populated areas communing with nature. And we did a lot of rough sea time, learning about boating the hard way.
•  In Asia, Part 2, we were mostly in densely populated areas building cultural bridges. Our sea experiences were also different from the Pacific, with both our best and worst passages occurring in this region.

Christi got up with him and took him to the airport. She worked on blogs for a couple hours, took a bath, and otherwise puttered around until 0930. Sure that traffic must have cleared by then, she took the car to the town of Grasse, a mountain village north of Cannes that is the perfume capital of the world. Christi took the highway to the Cannes exit, but instead of heading south towards the beach, went north into the mountains.

Since she had gotten up so early, she was starving at this point. Right off the exit, she found a boulangerie/patisserie  (bread/dessert bakery). She ordered an individual size goat cheese quiche. She wonders if she got the right one, since it was loaded with bacon but didn’t taste much like goat cheese. She also ordered a pain du chocolate (chocolate croissant) and a beignet (donut). She sat in the car and scarfed them down before heading up the mountain.

The road was narrow and somewhat windy. She had read there were flower fields surrounding the town of Grasse, so she was surprised to see that it was completely built up along the road, with no fields to be seen anywhere. The buildings were an odd mix. Some were old, as in Medieval, some fairly new, as in probably the last few years. Commercial and residential properties were mixed, with a mechanic shop next to a private mansion. She noticed signs for three different perfumeries along the way.

The heart of Grasse looked medieval. In the center of town, there was a parking garage. She turned off the main road and headed towards the garage, but she missed the entrance. She found herself on a scary one way road back down the mountain. It had dangerously sharp switchbacks, obviously originally a horse trail, not a car trail. At a couple points the road split, in both cases, she made the wrong turn. The first time, turning around was easy because she came to a roundabout, but the second time, the road dead ended and she had to make 30 point U-turn to get out of the tight little alley.

The road ended near the bottom of the mountain. Sigh. She noticed a sign for one of the perfumeries that said it was close by and decided to go there instead of back up the hill. One, she didn’t want to drive that scary road down again and two, she really liked the name of the perfumery, Fragonard, because there is a Rococo-era (early 1700s) painter by the same name whose works she particularly likes.

The facility was new and modern looking, probably built in the 1960s or later. They had old equipment on display in the parking lot.

Inside, the woman at the front desk told her it would be a few minutes before the English speaker would be available to give her a tour, and invited her to look around their reception area. It was filled with displays showing the different flowers, leaves, woods, fruits, grasses, and so forth that scents are extracted from. The displays also showed which were grown locally, which were imported, and where they were imported from. A few display cabinets showed assorted bottles and boxes the bottles came in.

A few minutes later, the guide came out. She explained that the Fragonard Perfumery was founded in a building in the heart of Grasse in 1926, but their operation has grown so much that they have had to open two more factories, one here at the bottom of the hill and one in Eze, near Monaco. The perfumery was named after the artist, who was a native of Grasse that moved to Paris to pursue his art career as a young adult. The perfumery also owns a museum in Grasse that features Jean-Honore Fragonard’s work, along with a couple other Grasse native artists, Marguerite Gerard and Jean-Baptiste Mallet.

Perfume making actually originated in Grasse. Leather tanning required a lot of water, and since Grasse had a plentiful water supply, their primary industry was leather tanning, with a specialty in glove making. The process smelled bad, so in the 16^th century, the local craftsmen started using local made essences from flowers to scent the leather. Perfume making took off, becoming an industry of its own. The oldest perfumeries in Grasse were also tanneries, as well.

Today, Grasse is the most important perfume making area in the world with over 40 perfumeries. Most of the local factories produce the scents for brand names; the factories themselves are unheard of but their products are world renowned. They also produce food flavorings and scents for commercial products like soaps, shampoos, lotions, cleaning agents and so forth.

Most perfumes are a blend of over 200 scents, and it usually takes about two years of work to formulate a new scent. Perfume makers have a naturally gifted sense of smell. To become a perfume maker, 2 years of specialized schooling and 7 years of apprenticeship are required. Behind a counter there were shelving units after shelving units filled with bottles of essential oils.

Most flowers are distilled in much the same way as alcohol. She can’t remember how many kilos of flowers it takes to produce one liter of essential oil, but it was an ungodly number. The flowers are put into a distilling pot, and the pot is filled with water, then boiled dry. The steam is trapped into a cooling vat where the oil and water separate. The staggering number of flowers needed is why perfume is so expensive.

Some flowers are too fragile to boil. In the old days, they “cold pressed” them. They smeared animal fat on a tray and put flowers on the fat. Every day they changed the flowers until the fat had absorbed enough smell to be used as perfume. Then somehow alcohol is used to get the scent from the fat (she was unclear on how). Nowadays they use chemicals to extract the scent.

The guide explained which flowers are locally grown and which are imported, then went on to say that sometimes it was cheaper to import flowers than to use the locally grown ones. The perfumes produced in this factory are hand blended and hand packed.

She also was taken to a room where she was shown how soap was molded. They buy soap corns and add scent and color to them. Then they put them in a molding machine, which makes long tubes of soap. The tubes are sliced. The slices are put into another machine that stamps the slice into the perfect shape and embeds a design. The leftover scraps go back into the vat of soap to be molded, so nothing is wasted.

Then it was down to the showroom to smell some of the scents. The guide explained there are four categories of scents: Naturals, which use scents like apple, ginger and lemon; Fruities, which use scents like grapefruit, freesia and hyacinth; Florals, which use scents like lily, honeysuckle and rose; and Orientals, which have rose, musk and sandalwood. She had Christi smell their most popular seller of each category, as well as their top selling perfume of all time, a hybrid Fruity/Floral that smelled like green apple.

Explained the difference between perfume, eau de perfume  and cologne. The essential oil mixtures are the same, it is the amount of essential oil versus alcohol that is different. Perfumes have the most essential oil, so a little goes a long way. Cologne only has a small amount of essential oil, so you need a lot more and it doesn’t last all that long.

After tour, she walked over to the Bar and Snack next door for lunch. When she walked in, the waitress asked her if she wanted food or drinks. Christi replied food. The waitress then said “salad or sandwich?” Christi said salad. A few minutes later, out came the salad. It had no lettuce, but lots of hearts of palm, canned tuna chunks, ham, hard boiled eggs, tomato? It really wasn’t all that great, but it was large and inexpensive.

After lunch she decided to head back up to Grasse. She really wanted to see the world’s only perfume museum and the Fragonard art museum, and she thought it would be fun to explore the historic old town. She drove up the hill to the town center, ready to turn into the garage. However, before she made the turn, she saw a sign saying “garage full.” Still on the main road, she continued on, sure there would be another parking garage or some place to park on the street. There wasn’t.

She exited town. She started looking for places to turn around, but turning around was impossible on such a narrow, winding mountain road. She went on for many miles before finally getting to a suitable turn around spot. She knew she was well on her way back to Nice via the mountain road. She decided not to turn back. Parking was going to be a problem and she was feeling tired from being up so early.

The drive back was lovely. For a long, long way out of Grasse, the road was completely built up, looking similar to the road up to Grasse, an odd mix of eras and uses. But eventually, the construction thinned out and it became apparent when she was passing from one town to another. Even deeper into the trip, the towns seemed to go away altogether, replaced by large country estates barely visible from the road. Overall, it was a beautiful and pleasant drive, and she enjoyed the lovely forest.

She made it all the way back to Saint Laurent du Var with no problems, but got lost trying to find the hotel. She drove around town for a good twenty minutes, seeing parts of town she’d never seen before. Some were darling.

For dinner, she went to a place on the boardwalk called Le Bayside, which had an enticing prix-fixe menu. The first course was assiette d’antipasti du pays, which was a green salad topped with some fresh cheese slices, some parma ham slices, and an assortment of grilled vegetables: artichoke, bell pepper (capsicum) eggplant (aka aubergine, which was marinaded in vinegar and yummy) and garlic. It had an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. The main was two fillets of grilled loup fish (a light, flaky white fish), served with a creamy lemon-butter sauce and accompanied with rice and asparagus. For dessert, she had a  lemon meringue pie. All the food was excellent, particularly the salad.

• Prologue: How we formed the dream and the early planning stages.
• The entire 21 day passage from San Diego to Nuka Hiva has been re-written. At that point, the blog was in real time and we didn’t want people to worry about us. But the truth was that it was tough!
• Many new stories from the journey – And there are some really good ones!
• In Retrospect sections with great insights — so you can see the situation through the eyes of a newbie as we learn, while simultaneously seeing the same situation through the eyes of experience.
• Streamlined stories – some complained our posts were too long and detailed, and the book is a condensed version they will enjoy more.
• Formatting is first person, through Christi’s eyes – Some complained they didn’t like the third person format, so they will enjoy the book more.
• Actual dates on each post. On the blog, the dates are not real time, which is a significant piece of information for anyone hoping to follow in our footsteps.
• All profits will go to our cruising fund. The more books we sell, the sooner you can start reading about our next journey! So, buy one and get all your friends to buy one, too!

We had a different guide altogether this time. We followed him along a small trail, probably a horse trail, to a dry river bed. We bounced back and forth between the river and trail for a few minutes before coming to a dirt road. At one point, in the river bed, Christi got overly cocky and took what looked to be a small jump a little too fast. She wasn’t properly lined up, and wound up twisting over in mid air, with her and the ATV landing on the right side. While the jump was bigger than it looked, it was only a small jump, and she was fine. She dusted herself off and got back on the bike, this time using a little more caution.

The road took us uphill, paralleling the dry river most of the time. The road was a lot of fun on an ATV — decently maintained overall, but bumpy enough to give you a little jump here and there, with lots of twists and turns. It was dry and dusty, and our machines kicked up a tremendous amount of dust into the air as we rode. We can imagine this would be a terrible road for cars, though. The landscape was totally undeveloped the entire way up. The dense trees are all leafless and look like they are dead, but the underbrush is green. Down at the bottom, near the ranch, there wasn’t much underbrush, but as we climbed up the mountain, the underbrush became progressively thicker and there was more and more greenery. It was a scenic drive and we think this was a good choice for getting an up close view of the native flora.

After riding for quite a while, we turned off onto a small side road that ended a few hundreds yards later at a river with water. We got off our machines and walked around a little bit, enjoying the scenery. The river was calm and slowly meandering along. Our guide told us that at this time of the year they offer bird watching cruises where everyone has binoculars and watches the trees for the wide variety of native birds as the raft puts along. But in the summer, when the river is full and flowing fast, they do white water rafting trips. For both cruises, they take launch the rafts farther up the mountain and pick them up from this spot here.

On the other side of the river, a small herd of cattle were tranquilly grazing at the grass near the shore. Birds flew over head. Wait, they weren’t ordinary birds, they were vultures! What did they know about this spot that we didn’t? Vultures or not, it was still neat to see birds flying around. The trees near the water were Kelly green and vibrant, a stark contrast to the barren trees around them. The mountains in the background framed the whole scene. It was lovely.

After a few minutes, we climbed back on the machines and headed back. At first we followed the same road, but about half way down the mountain, we turned into the dry river bed and followed that the rest of the way down. The river bed is rocky and sandy, and oftentimes uneven ground, which is great fun on an ATV. We made it back without any more accidents.

Instead of taking us back in the big truck, someone took us back to town in a private car. We were covered from hear to toe in a thick layer of dust, and we couldn’t believe that he let us in his car! He dropped us off at a restaurant he likes in La Crucecita that he said had great tacos. The poor restaurant staff didn’t know what to think of us. Clearly, they don’t see many tourists, let alone tourists that look like un-bathed hobos. They let us come in and served us, but you know they probably thought twice about it.

Bruce ordered tacos cecina. Cecina means salted and dried meat, so we had no clue what would come out. It was prepared differently than anything we have ever had before. We are not sure, but we think the meat was also prepared like a stew and they carefully drained the liquid out, but there was still onions and other things to add flavor mixed in with the meat. It was served as just the meat mixture on soft corn tortillas. It was spicy and very good. We think it was pork, but we really don’t know. It could have been any kind of meat. Christi and Eric tried tlayudas for the first time, which turned out to be meat served in a giant crispy flour tortilla. We had ordered mixed meats, so there was chicken, cecina, sausage, ham, beef and cheese in the filling. It was also delicious.

After lunch, we started walking the streets looking for a produce market when Saul drove by. He recognized us right away and stopped to say hi. He asked if we wanted to go on a sightseeing tour of the greater Huatulco area. We said sure and hopped in the cab.

The first stop was a viewpoint of Bahia Santa Cruz, from hill where all the high end hotels and residences are. The first picture is inside the breakwater, the second is of the cruise ship dock/breakwater and the beach behind it. If you lay the two photos side by side, you can get the full idea of what the area looks like.

The next stop was another view point, called La Entrega, a few miles north of Bahia Santa Cruz. From the viewpoint, we could see into a three little bays, two to the south, including Bahia Santa Cruz (picture 1), and one to the north (picture 2).

We could also see right into a military base quietly tucked into a valley between a couple of hills. Saul said it is a fairly large base with a lot of personnel. Our the latest theory regarding the vast number of patrols is maybe they are simply keeping the local force in practice for whenever they need to be deployed for real. On a random side note, we have noticed the cactus are in bloom with an unusual looking brown flower. Christi is fascinated by it.

The next stop was yet another view point, called Mirador El Faro, a few more miles north. Actually, where we stopped is on the hill shown in the last picture, but just a little farther right than what you can see in the photo. There is a lighthouse here, though it looks like it may be defunct. Looking north, there wasn’t much more development. This must be the northern tip of Huatulco. Just like on the hill above Santa Cruz Bay, on this hill there are a few swanky looking complexes, some done, some under construction.

Next Saul took us south to Tangolunda Bay. We knew right away we had entered a super wealthy neighborhood, the Beverly Hills equivalent of Mexico. Before Saul said anything, we commented “El Barrio Rico” (the rich neighborhood) and he agreed. First he drove us by the high end hotels, golf course, and the exclusive shopping districts, then he took us up into the hills to see some of the giant custom mansions on large lots with spectacular views. We wondered to ourselves how many of these belong to American ex-pats.

After richville, Saul took us to one last viewpoint, but we can’t remember the name of it. It was just off the main highway, and it looked like there was a footpath that we could take down to a nice, but small, beach below. Down by the beach there are a few buildings, and it looks like the land on the top of the hill near where we stood has been graded into ready to build lots for people to build houses on.

Throughout the tour, we had chatted with Saul extensively, getting a lot of information about life in Mexico. Saul dropped us off at a large grocery store near the marina. The store had a good selection of food and we did some stocking up. Shortly after returning to Kosmos and unloading the groceries, we headed right back out for dinner with the crew of Gone Native. We walked to an outdoor restaurant (really more of a stand with a few plastic patio chairs and tables), close to La Crucecita. This restaurant serves basically one thing: al pastor style meat. From a distance, you would think it was a gyros or doner shop because the cook stands over a big hunk of meat on a vertical spit.

However, instead of being a big hunk of meat, it is really zillions of thinly sliced pieces of meat. There is a fire behind the spit and the meat rotates around the fire. Also, there is a pineapple stuck to the top of the spit. This style of cooking meat was brought to Mexico by Lebanese immigrants who were sheep herders, thus the name tacos al pastor.

We all sat down and ordered taco variations, such as with cheese or pineapple or other toppings, and whether on flour or corn tortillas. We were mesmerized by the chef’s skill with the knife as he effortlessly cut the meat and pineapple with amazing precision and speed. Our food was brought out within minutes. We had high expectations that it would be good, but the meat was beyond good. We have to say they are probably the best tacos we have ever had in our lives and some of the best meat we have had in our lives. The meat was super tender and it has a delicious glaze with a hint of pineapple. The salsa was also delicious. We all ordered seconds and someone even got thirds.

We had seen a lot of military on patrol all day, but tonight the number of troops on patrol were absolutely staggering. We watched truckload after truckload after truckload of soldiers drive up and down the streets, each officer with weapons pointed and looking ready to shoot with no provocation. And we are 100% sure it wasn’t the same few trucks just doing laps up and down the street. There were a ton of vehicles on the road. In fact, they accounted for most of the vehicles on the road. It was a little scary to see them and it made us wonder what the heck was going on. We suppose it is possible these patrols are simply regular training exercises, as we speculated earlier, but we’re feeling dubious about that theory right now. There were just too many of them, like more soldiers than the local base can hold. No, it felt like something really big was going on, like on the same magnitude as a meeting of all the top government officials. We never felt personally threatened, and as far as we can tell, none of the locals we have encountered seemed to be threatened by the forces of security around. But it seems as if the military is trying to seriously intimidate someone who was somewhere close.

It was just the two of us. We love it when we get private tours! At first we followed a main road that headed out of town, riding in traffic along with all the regular cars. We stopped at a gas station and filled up, then continued on. It was another gorgeous day. On the outskirts of town, the main road was lined mostly with small bungalow style houses on good size lots, but not too far out the landscape changed to mostly undeveloped.

We turned off onto a steep, winding dirt road that took us up a big hill to a radio tower on the top. The road was dry and dusty, and the wind only aggravated the dust. From the top, there was a stunning 360 degree views. Facing south we could see the town of San Juan del Sur and the bay. Facing north we could see Lake Nicaragua and its two volcanoes.

Right now it is the dry season, so the scenery was pretty brown. But in the rainy season, this area becomes a lush jungle with lots of monkeys and other wildlife around. Right now most of the wildlife has retreated inland where there is more food. The wind was really screaming up here.

The tour guide wanted to relax for a while and enjoy the view, but being as we were in a hurry to leave town, we insisted on moving on as soon as we were done snapping pictures. We hopped back on the ATVs and followed the main road back towards town. While still on the outskirts, we turned off on another dirt road that also winded up a hill. It wasn’t long before we came to a neighborhood of high end residential homes. Here the road suddenly was paved. Most were custom, but there were a couple small track home developments. We wonder if these are the ones we saw from the bay.

The upscale neighborhood came to an end. We knew exactly where the neighborhood boundary was when the road went back to being dirt. Beyond it, there was an agricultural area with quite a few cows. It looks like they also grow crops here, as well, but we couldn’t tell what kind. Beyond the farm, the land became mostly undeveloped, dotted here and there with an eclectic mix of houses and a few hotels. Just like in town, some of the houses were really nice, but most were small, average quality bungalows that were well maintained. We made a turn and a minute later came out at a pretty beach.

We think he said the beach is called Matilda’s, but Matilda’s isn’t listed as a real place in Lonely Planet, so we could be confused. It may have been Bahia Majagual. There were only a few people there and the guide said it is never crowded, so it is one of his favorite spots. Normally, the tour takes ½ hour break here so everyone can go for a swim, but we insisted on leaving as soon as we took photos. The guide was taken aback, saying he’s never had anyone in such a rush before. Didn’t we want to enjoy the scenery and give our behinds a break?

We hopped back on the ATV’s and followed a different road that headed southeast and paralleled the coast. We couldn’t see the water, though. From where we were, in the middle of a dense forest of mostly leafless trees, you’d never even realize the beach was so darn close. Actually, one species of tree was in full bloom, bursting with colorful flowers. We didn’t see very many of them, but every time we did, we appreciated the sharp color contrast.

This road was pretty bad. It was especially steep and bumpy, and was totally rutted out in some spots. We gingerly maneuvered our way down the road until we emerged at the popular surfing beach called Playa Madera. We mentioned that San Juan del Sur is a popular vacation destination for Nicaraguans, but it is also a popular destination for surfers, specifically for this particular beach, which apparently has awesome waves. Visually speaking, it looks almost the same as the last beach we were at, except there were a lot of people here, some surfing and some laying out.

The guide again tried to entice us to rest, but we were raring to go. We navigated down the bad road and made a turn onto a much better road. After a few minutes we came to the gate of a private community. The road became paved right at the gate. Our guide went to talk to the guard, and a minute later, the gate was opened and we made our way inside. We realized we were on the northwest side of the bay. The assessment that we initially made that the houses on this side looked to be expensive was right on. Every house in the community was custom built, and they were all the kind of thing you would see in Beverly Hills. Ralph had told us that most of the houses in here were second homes for wealthy Nicaraguans, and our guide confirmed it. Wow. It looks like the lots were all pre-graded with utilities already in, and thus are ready to build on. Less than half the lots actually have homes on them.

We stopped at an empty lot with a pretty view of the San Juan del Sur bay.

The giant statue of Jesus was on a small peak just above where we were standing. His body was mostly completed, but he is still missing a head and half an arm. From there, we headed back down the hill and back to the ATV office. The tour normally lasts a solid 4 hours, but because we cut every stop short, we finished in only 3 hours. We really enjoyed it and are glad we delayed leaving this morning to do it. We were absolutely filthy, covered in a thick layer of dirt.

Renda and their friend Jorge had wanted to see Kosmos, so we went by the hotel to get them and bring them back to Kosmos with us. Ralph wound up driving all of us over to the Port Captain’s office. We can’t believe he let us in his car when we were so dirty. Eric checked out with the Port Captain, which only took a few minutes. Then we all piled into the water taxi and went over to Kosmos. We gave them the super quick tour and said our goodbyes. Kosmos was super filthy, so we were a little embarrassed as we walked them around the exterior. When we had arrived, she was already encrusted with salt from the rough passage. And in the few days we had been here, the wind had blown a thick layer of dust all over her.

We did a few last minute “get ready to go things”. One of them was rigging up the paravanes. Not going to make that mistake ever again! We have to say that getting ready to go is so much easier when you don’t have to deal with the dinghy. Getting the dinghy up and secured takes a lot of time. We were hesitant about leaving because the wind was absolutely screaming, still in the low 30’s. This bay is part of a wind tunnel from the Atlantic, and Ralph had assured us that once we had gone out a few miles, the wind would dissipate. At 1600, we finally pulled up anchor, which was again a little bit of a challenge. When we turned around and headed out, we were moving with the wind and were comfortably flying along.

As promised, once we had gotten around the corner, the wind died down. There was almost a visible line that we crossed where suddenly the wind was light and the seas were flat. It was kind of weird that it was such a sharp change. From there on out, it was a pleasant run. We saw dozens and dozens of dolphins frolicking in the water all the way around us. About a dozen were playing along the waterline, but many more were entertaining themselves further away from us. They are the spotted variety.

While we were getting ready, Eric had turned on the generator and started making water. Not too long after we were in the calm water, Eric noticed the salt concentration was going up on the AC water maker, so he turned it off and turned on the DC water maker, instead. All seemed to work fine with the DC system.

As it does in the tropics, the sun set at around 1800. It is a new moon tonight, so it is completely and totally pitch black outside right now. The conventional wisdom for this area is hug the coast for protection from the strong wind and ugly swells that are typical through here. But we were uncomfortable with being close to shore, knowing that we wouldn’t be able to see the little fishing pangas that don’t always show up on radar. We decided to move away from the coast. Given that the conditions were so mild, we still had a good ride. Even out so much farther than recommended, we still are running closer to shore than we normally like to.

We all piled into the van and met everyone else already inside. We were surprised to find out there were 5 staff for 5 only passengers. Two were to be in the raft with us, one was the van driver, one a rescue kayaker, and one a photographer who would be kayaking around us and taking photos.

Turrialba is supposed to have some of the best white water rafting in the entire world. So, we expected it to be a short drive over to the river. At first we were on a nicely paved road, and the scenery was much the same as we have seen the last couple of days. Here are a couple shots we took while driving.

The three of us were surprised at how far away from Turrialba we had driven when we finally turned off into a national park. The driver paid the entrance fee. Ah, we thought, we must be here now. But we weren’t. It was still a long drive over to the river, on a bad, windy dirt road that required us to drive slowly.

The nature reserve is beautiful, with thick, rich forest. At one point, one of the staff noticed a turtle in a pond off the side of the road and pointed him out. Being in the middle of the forest kind of makes you sad about the fact that so much of the forest in Costa Rica has been cut down and is now just plain grassland.

We finally pulled up to the river after a solid hour and a half of driving. The river looked to be pretty low, but we were assured there was still plenty of water for a good ride. The staff got the kayaks and rafts ready, then handed out helmets and paddles and did the safety lecture. The lecture was pretty dull until the guide said “if you fall out of the raft you could get trapped underneath it. If you do get trapped, this is what you need to do….” Christi perked right up at that. What? You can get trapped under the raft and drown? Christi resolved right then that she wasn’t going to fall out. Period.

While the raft was still safely onshore, we all piled in and practiced our strokes. The guide called out commands, such as “paddle forward” or “backward”, and we all responded with furious arm motions. Eric was in the front along with another passenger, Christi and Mike were in the middle, and the two staff were at the back. Confident we knew what we were doing, the guide pushed us off and into the calm, smooth water. Within a few seconds, we happened upon the first rapid, a small little guy. The guide went through the entire repertoire of commands, making sure we fully grasped what we were supposed to do when each command was called. We made it through the first rapid without anyone falling out, so we were off to a good start!

We drifted along for a couple minutes on the flat, calm water before coming to another rapid, this one bigger than the last. The instructions that the guide called out seemed a bit counter-intuitive. In the dinghy, we always try to take waves head on, but we took this rapid sideways. The orders were rapid fire, with him screaming “forward”, “backwards”, “forward” so fast that we could only get a paddle or two in before we had to switch directions. We got splashed with water and it was cold, much colder than Christi cared for. She reaffirmed her resolution to not fall out.

We paddled for about 2 ½ hours before we took a break. During the calm sections, we peacefully floated along, enjoying the mostly pristine scenery.

We passed by a couple of eco-tourist hotels totally in the middle of nowhere and went through an Indian reservation. Rather than using bridges to get over the river, the Indians use zip lines, which we found really interesting. We passed a number of pretty waterfalls. At one point we were ordered to paddle right into a waterfall, where Eric was completely and totally drenched. Our guide steered us into a waterfall a second time, this time targeting Christi for the drenching, but she was wise to the trick and managed to avoid getting directly under the waterfall. Here is Eric with the waterfall that drenched him in the background.

We saw several interesting animals, particularly birds. One kind of bird makes unusual looking tear shaped nests that actually hang off the tree branches, looking something like giant Christmas tree ornaments, and there were lots of them in the trees. Once in a while we’d paddle a little to straighten ourselves out, or to gain a little more momentum before hitting a rapid, but for the most part we just drifted.

As nice as drifting along was, the rapids are what made the trip thrilling. Sometimes we’d go for several minutes between rapids, sometimes they would come one right after another in succession. When going through a rapid, we almost always paddled vigorously. Some of the rapids were small, comparable to what we experienced in Bali (http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2008/02/05/whitewater-rafting-trip-in-ubud/). Most were medium sized, which gave us a rush without actually making us scared. And some were really big — category 3’s and one level 4. On those we often thought someone might fall out of the raft and a couple times thought the raft might completely flip. We’d be ordered to get as low as we could in the raft and everyone would duck for cover, while still simultaneously trying to paddle with all our might. We’d be doused with water coming up over the sides of the raft. But no one fell out and the only thing that went wrong was at one point Christi accidentally smacked Mike in the face with her paddle. He saw stars for a minute, but recovered just fine.

Here are some shots the photographer took of us on a rapid. The first is entering it, the second is in it, and the third is coming out of it.

And here are the photos of a different rapid. Once again shot one is about to go in, shot two is in it, and shot three is leaving it.

We found out quickly that the rapids can be deceiving. Sometimes we’d approach one that looked small, but turned out to be a biggy, and other times a rapid would look huge and really be a piece of cake. The steering continued to be counter-intuitive as the guide navigated us around hazards he knew were in the water but we couldn’t see from the angle we were at. We frequently looked back to see rocks and other obstacles in the middle of the rapid we’d just come down that we hadn’t seen from the other side. Twice we went through amazingly tight passes, so tight we doubted we could clear it. Often, it looked like we were going to crash into the giant boulders on the sides of the river, but our guide was really good and actual contact with the rocks was pretty rare. The few times we did crash into rocks or caught the bottom of the raft on a rock or other obstacle, the rugged little rubber raft would just bounce and slide right off of it with no problems. Why isn’t our dinghy as durable?

During the whole ride, the safety kayaker was always close to us. He was in one of the smallest kayaks we have ever seen – very fast and super maneuverable. Every time we were drifting, he would practice his tricks, doing Eskimo rolls, flinging himself out of the water and catching air, etc. He effortlessly glided down the rapids, making them look easy. He was so good and absolutely fascinating to watch. Christi went through a kayaking phase once and could truly appreciate how much skill his tricks required.

We stopped for lunch on a sandy beach. The staff flipped over the raft and used it as a table. Right then, it started to rain. The staff went to work preparing the food while the clients rested. They are skilled at chopping, too! We watched as they made a tuna salad with cucumber, made fresh guacamole, and sliced up mangos. They laid it out on the table with beans, cheese, tortillas, bread and lunch meat, trying hard to keep the food dry with the rain. We like this photo of the staff making lunch because it gives you a good sense of the setting.

The clients were all wet and cold. Christi’s hands were numb and she found a warm rock to defrost her hands on while lunch was being prepared. Mike and one of the other passengers were already starting to feel sore from all the paddling. As soon as the food was ready, we ate quickly and were back on the water within a half hour. This time we switched seats, with Mike and Christi in front and Eric and the other guy in the middle. We were all paddling with the opposite arm now, too. Within a couple minutes everyone agreed that the front seat is more thrilling, kind of like being in the front car of a roller coaster, but that the middle seat is more comfortable, particularly in the rapids. In the middle you can brace yourself against the raft better than you can in the front. Also, you don’t get nearly as much water splashed on you in the middle. And, most importantly, you can hear the commands a lot better in the middle seat than you can in the front seat.

The second part of the trip had significantly less rapids than the first part did, and most of them were small rapids, though there were a few doozies that came out of nowhere. The second half we actually paddled quite a lot in the calm sections to keep our speed up. As we were quietly paddling during an especially long stretch of flat water, Mike commented that he felt like we were in Apocalypse Now and was braced for the arrows to start shooting at us.

At one point we came to an area with a rocky cliff overhanging the river. The staff asked if anyone wanted to climb up to the top of the ledge and jump into the river. Only Mike volunteered. He hesitantly climbed up to the top of the 20 foot ledge and quickly jumped off, making a big splash as he entered the water.

Instead of retrieving him up right away, the staff let him float down the river for a little ways. He floated under a waterfall, which was neat. Mike said it was fun and was surprised at how strong the current was and how fast he moved down the river.

After a few minutes, they loaded him back into the raft and shortly thereafter, we found ourselves in a town. Within a couple more minutes, we had pulled over to something along the lines of a rugged boat launch where the van was waiting. We had done a total of 18 miles, most of it before lunch. The second part of the paddle only lasted about an hour, which was fine. Mike and the other sore guy were glad about. They mumbled something about being eager to get back to their hotels to take some vitamin I. Christi was really cold and eager to get into dry clothes. The men all hoisted the raft up the ramp and over to the van. The crew went about loading and securing the rest of the gear while the guests went inside a bathroom in a bar to change into dry clothes.

It was a long drive back. Right after we were dropped off at our hotel, we found a near by restaurant and had dinner, then went back to the hotel and crashed. We were all really tired.

Christi took a deep breath and waited for the signal. They said go and nudged her a little. She thought “This is insane”, and suddenly she was in the air, screaming at the top of her lungs as she initially swung down towards the ground, then went flying up towards the highest branches of the trees surrounding us. She clutched onto the rope for dear life, praying it didn’t break right then. The staff had a hard time getting her slowed down and stopped. She kept flying back and forth for much longer than most everyone else. Finally, they got her stopped and unhooked.

Then it was Eric’s turn. Out of nowhere, the wind picked up and it started to drizzle a little bit just as he was getting harnessed in. When he jumped, he let out a loud yell that resembled George’s scream from “George of the Jungle”. It was a bit garbled because he had a hard time overriding the instinctual scream that rumbled up from his gut. But most everyone in the group knew what he was attempting and it got a laugh from the spectators. As the staff grabbed at his feet to try to get him to slow down, they yanked one of his shoes off and it went flying into the jungle behind us. That got another laugh from the crowd.

Then it was Mike’s turn. And it right then, the drizzle turned to real rain. Of course, the rain didn’t affect anything. Here is Mike looking contemplatively at the rest of us below.

Mike jumped off the platform and quietly swung away until the staff stopped and retrieved him. Here he is swinging happily.

Christi and Eric were surprised that he didn’t make a peep. Mike tried to look on the ground for Eric’s shoe, but trying to focus on the ground was making him a little nauseous, so he abandoned the effort. Once Mike was down, the group was herded over to the next zip line, the longest one yet. Eric hung back and waited as a couple of the staff members went searching for his lost shoe. Fortunately, they found it. When they picked it up, they found a small frog inside it and showed it to Eric. Check out the cool colors.

We all really liked the Tarzan swing. We thought it was an awesome change of pace. There were four more zip lines, two of them being the longest runs of all at 984 feet (300 meters) and 1410 feet (430 meters). On those two, the runs were so long that you couldn’t see the ending platform from the starting platform. You just jumped off, hoping that there really was an ending platform somewhere out there. On those two runs, we also got to incredibly fast speeds. They were awesome! All in all, the adventure park was a fun experience and we are all eager to go again. Here is Eric nearing the end of the longest run of all.

We took off our harnesses and piled into the bus. On the way back to the hotel, the bus driver spotted some Howler monkeys in the trees and pulled over so we could watch them. There were at least four of them, and they were the most active Christi has seen yet. They were all jumping from branch to branch and climbing up and down the trunk. We got really good looks at them and enjoyed watching them. But, again, they weren’t howling.

When the bus dropped us off, we checked out of hotel and got lunch in downtown La Fortuna. Then we headed southwest towards the town of Turrialba, which is pretty close to San Jose. We decided not to go back through San Jose and instead took the mountain roads around the big city. The clerk at the hotel had assured us it would be faster and easier to avoid San Jose and its traffic. We estimated the drive would take 4 hours. We left La Fortuna at 1400, figuring we would arrive in Turrialba at about sunset. Once again, Eric was driving by instinct and sense of direction instead of using a detailed map. His instincts had been spot on yesterday and the day before, but today they weren’t quite as sharp. We made a few wrong turns that combined cost us quite a bit of time. At one point, we were driving along towards what we thought was a connecting highway. When the highway didn’t materialize, we turned around and drove back about ½ hour, only to find out we had turned around just a mile or two shy of the highway. So we lost a full hour with that detour.

At another point in time, we noticed that we were being followed by a truck full of late teen boys, so we pulled over at a store to let them pass. They parked behind us. We killed time by asking the locals outside the store for directions and chatting with them for a few minutes, asking them if they knew the boys who were following us. The boys eventually drove off.

While we took completely different roads today than we did yesterday, on the whole, today’s drive was quite similar to yesterday’s – lots of undeveloped land, some farms, some residences, and a few small, non-descript towns. Just like the rest of the country, the quality of housing varied drastically. For part of the drive we were on fairly straight roads, but a big chunk of drive time was spent on steep, winding mountain roads. Fortunately, there was no fog, though it was cloudy and did rain on and off for most of the afternoon. This is a nice picture we got of the countryside.

It got dark while we were on some of the windiest of the mountain roads. While it made navigation a little harder, driving at night was fine. The highways don’t have sidewalks, and there are often pedestrians walking on the roads. One of the reasons why they warn tourists not to drive at night is because of the potential hazards with hard to see pedestrians. There were, indeed, people walking on the road after dark, but they were careful to stay off to the side of the road. At around 2000, we finally pulled into Turrialba.

Like Heredia, the streets are one way with visible signs, but the streets aren’t as logically organized in a nice grid as Heredia. Because the streets were difficult to navigate, we had a hard time finding the hotel. We looped around downtown several times before finally figuring out where the hotel was, and more importantly, how to get to it via the one way street system. We got to see a lot of town as we drove and it reminds us a lot of Heredia. The buildings are all packed in close together, and are mostly older, but well maintained, and 1 – 3 stories tall. There are bars on every window and door, though there isn’t as much extreme stuff, like razor wire, as in Heredia. Also, there seems to be less residential mixed in and amongst the commercial here. Pretty much everything in town was already closed. We suppose it is safe to say this isn’t a wild party town! Something that struck us as odd is that there are a lot of shoe stores in this little town. You’d think we were in Italy with all the shoes.

Once we got to the hotel, we dropped off our stuff. The clerk at the hotel told us to take our car over to a nearby fenced parking lot with a 24 hour security guard. There was a truck in the parking lot with livestock, which we found amusing. We walked around in search of a restaurant for dinner. We hadn’t noticed much as we drove, so we pretty much settled for the first place we came across that was open, a small bakery. We scarfed down some empenadas (meat stuffed in a puff pastry) and headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow was going to be another active day with an early morning start, and we needed our sleep.

At 0730, we headed over to the little restaurant on the hotel grounds where we were served Gallo Pinto, the traditional Tico breakfast of two scrambled eggs accompanied with a big mound of rice and beans mixed together, a piece of cheese, and a piece of pan fried ripe plantain. Butterflies flitted about while we ate. It was almost surreal.

Yesterday, we booked a zip line canopy tour for this morning. At 0930, a van picked us up and took us to their facility on the slopes of the volcano just outside of downtown La Fortuna. We stepped off the bus onto a covered patio where several staff members were waiting with harnesses and leather gloves we were told were the brakes. The three of us were amongst the first to be strapped in, and we waited while everyone else in the rather large group was harnessed in.

Then we were marched over to a little zip line set up just a few feet above the ground, basically two cables strung between two trees. A staff person demonstrated how to do it. Let the staff person clip your harness to a pulley on one of the cables, sit back almost like you are in a chair, and hold the other cable with the leather hand break to control your speed. The demonstrator glided effortlessly across the cable and showed everyone how to stop. Then each one of us did a practice run, which went quite smoothly. Even though we were close enough to the ground that we could stop and stand up, it still was a thrill to go flying down the cable. Stopping was a piece of cake. Here is Christi on the practice run.

As we came off the practice run, we were loaded into a truck. We were lucky because we were one of the first to do the practice run, so we got a seat on one of the benches inside the truck’s bed. The people who were at the tail end of the practice run were strapped into benches on the outside of the truck bed. Many staff members also strapped themselves onto the exterior benches. We were surprised by the number of staff that went up with us.

The little truck was so loaded down with people that we couldn’t believe it was capable of moving at all, let alone climbing a hill. We were surprised when we saw how steep the road was, and shocked at how far we climbed up this steep mountain road. Every time we caught a glimpse of the view below, La Fortuna was smaller and the countryside around it more sweeping. After what seemed like forever, we finally made it to the end of the road and everyone piled out. Did we mention that we were really high up?

We all marched up a set of stairs probably equivalent to a 2 ½ story climb, which led to a large platform. We all stood in line on the platform and watched a staff person hook himself to the line and go zipping off. When he was safely landed and unhooked at the other side, another staff person hooked on and zipped off, and so on until only one staff member was left on the platform with us

Then he started allowing the clients to go, carefully hooking each person in and reviewing the procedure before sending each person on their way. Once again, they only allowed one person to be on the cable at a time, and it seemed to take a long time for the clients to get unhooked from the cable on the other side, which was making the line move slowly. We somehow managed to be the very last ones in line, and it was getting to be a very long wait. We were starting to think that if things continue to progress this slowly, this wasn’t going to be all that much fun.

Finally, it was Eric’s turn. He was hooked in, went flying down the line, and landed at the small platform on the other side. Flying is probably the right word, because it did kind of feel like flying. It was a tad bit scary to be so high up in the trees, but with the two cables and the harness, he knew it was safe. It was definitely a rush. Then Mike went. Here he is nearing the platform at the end of the first run.

Christi was the very last to go. She was one of the many who had a hard time getting herself unhooked from the cable on the other side. She was really stuck, and to get her unhooked, the staff member had to actually pick her up and hold her up in the air by a few inches as he unhooked. Now she knows first hand why the line was moving so slow.

As soon as we unhooked from the first cable, we were immediately attached to another cable and sent on our way again. Here is a photo of each of us on the second run. Christi is first, just launching off the platform. Eric is second, in the middle of the run. Mike is last, at the end of the run just before stopping.

There turned out to be a total of 10 runs before we got to the “Tarzan Swing”. Each run was progressively longer, steeper, faster and more thrilling. Initially, we were completely surrounded by dense forest and couldn’t see how far it was down to the ground below. But after the third or fourth run, we came out from the forest and found ourselves above a cleared field that was a long, long, long way down, which added to the thrill.

Another thing that added to the excitement was the sound of the pulley moving along on the cables. The faster we went, the louder, more high pitched, and fervent the whine became. We never had to wait for more than 3 or 4 minutes, so we never lost the momentum of the excitement, and it just kept getting more and more fun.

The first run was 98 feet (30 meters) long and took about 5 seconds. The longest run before the Tarzan swing was 640 feet (190 meters) long and we’re not sure how long it lasted. It seemed like a long time, though! They definitely were smart about warming people up. After doing the shorter runs in the dense trees, we never hesitated to go on the long runs with nothing but air below us. Had we started on a longer run, we may have had doubts, and if we started with the longest run, Christi probably would have chickened out.

At a couple of the platforms, we saw cool looking birds. One was hanging out in a tree. Another one was gracefully gliding through the air right at our eye level. How crazy is it to be eye level with the gliding birds!

We found stopping was not nearly as easy when you are really zooming along at very high speeds. Christi had an especially hard time with stopping, frequently making contact with the tree at the end. She never “crashed”, but usually hit the tree with her feet and bounced back off of it while the staff member grabbed at her to help interrupt the momentum.

Since Christi was last, after she went, the staff person would zip in right behind her, then cut to the head of the line, and zip over to the next empty platform, ready and waiting for when the group started to come through.

Just as the zip lines were starting to lose their novelty, we came to the Tarzan swing. Here we had to stop and wait in line again. By the time we arrived, more than half the group had already gone, so the line wasn’t very long. At first, we couldn’t see much. We watched as someone walked out to the edge of a platform, was handed a rope to hold on to with her hands, then was also harnessed to the rope. Then they pushed her off the platform and she screamed like crazy. Christi’s stomach did a flip flop listening to the scream.

After a couple more people, we were close enough to see over the edge of the platform. The ground was a long way below the platform edge, far enough that a fall would result in at least every limb being broken in multiple places. Three or four staff were waiting on the ground directly below the rope, and much of the rest of our group was watching intently from off to the side. As soon as the person jumped, he was swinging wildly through the trees. The momentum was taking him very high up into the air, almost as high as the platform, as he went back and forth. He screamed a few obscenities as he registered the shock of not being on solid ground anymore. After a couple passes, the staff started grabbing at him to slow him down. Once he was slowed down enough, they took hold of him, stopped him, and unhooked him. It looked so intense. Wow. And we thought the zip lines were a rush!

To be continued…

The guide pointed out a small fern that curls up when you touch it. Of course, we can’t remember what it is called now. When we were in Tahiti, we went on a tour where the guide had pointed out that same plant to us, mentioning that it was an introduced species, not indigenous to Tahiti. Now we know where it came from. We also spotted the plant in Tonga, too. The guide also showed us a species of elephant ear plant with the biggest leaves we have ever seen.

Here is a shot of Eric and Christi near the end of the hike, when we were on higher ground than we were in the group shot.

Once we were done with the hike, we headed to a view point to watch the lava flow. Again, the guide suddenly told the driver to pull over. This time it was to see Howler Monkeys in the trees. There were three of them, we think, but unfortunately, we didn’t get a good look at any of them. They weren’t howling, so Mike and the rest of the group missed out on hearing that haunting, tortured cry they make. We got back in the bus and went down a very bumpy dirt road. We bounced around so much that our guide joked it was a free full body massage. These must be the kinds of roads Lonely Planet warns about. We pulled over again to look at a toucan perched elegantly in a tree. They really do have gigantic beaks, just like the Fruit Loops character. He flew away shortly after we spotted him. We also saw some wild turkeys running around.

We came to a section of the road where there were quite a few buses congregated off to the side and many tourists milling about. This must be the best spot to watch the lava flow from in town since it looked like every tour group in the area was here. We were near the base of the volcano, in a scenic spot with a river in front of us and lush, green forest all around us. The cloud cover was still there, but it only covered the peak. It was close to sunset when we all clambered out of the bus and took our place amongst the other tourists.

Where we stood was probably pretty comparable in distance to where we had been positioned the night we watched the volcano in Stromboli from aboard Kosmos http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2008/12/02/passage-from-lipari-to-rome/. We had been impressed with the view that night, and had high expectations for a comparable show tonight. At first we couldn’t see anything. The guide pointed out occasional small patches of what looked like dust being kicked up near the peak and explained those were the lava rocks tumbling down the hill. As it got darker, the lava rocks became increasingly visible, glowing redder and redder as the sky went from dusky to almost pitch black. Since the peak was covered, we couldn’t see the eruptions and the lava shooting up into the air, which is the best part. Nor did the clouds turn vibrantly orange like they did in Stromboli. But, every few minutes we would see a small trickle of red rocks rolling down the mountain, becoming less and less bright the farther down they went. Oftentimes, bigger rocks would break into smaller pieces as they bounced their way down the hill. There were two streams that the lava rocks seemed to follow, but only once did the lava flow down both streams at the same time, indicating that was the only really big eruption that took place. The eruptions were generally about 3 – 5 minutes apart, but we never actually heard any rumbling, which we thought was odd. We were told that we were lucky to be able to see as much as we did. Often, the whole volcano is socked in with fog and spectators can’t see anything at all.

Mike was really impressed and thought it was a super cool experience. Of course, this is the first time he has seen an erupting volcano in person. Eric and Christi are jaded now. They thought it was a dud. Stromboli had much more impressive lava flow, with lots and lots of lava running down the mountain in multiple streams with every eruption, even the little ones. All we got here was a few rocks with each eruption. And in Stromboli we could hear some of the rumbling, which makes the whole experience feel so much more dramatic and powerful. And of course, we thought Stromboli was a total letdown compared to our life changing experience on the rim of Mt. Yasur in Vanuatu http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2007/11/09/active-volcanoes-and-the-john-frum-sing-along/.

After only a few minutes of watching the volcano in the dark, we were whisked away for the next part of our tour – the Tabacon hot springs. The bus took the bumpy road back to the main road, and a few minutes later we filed into a crowded gift shop and waited for the guide to buy us tickets. The line was long. This was obviously a popular place. At about 1900, we finally had our tickets in hand and could enter. The grounds are gorgeous. We immediately fell in love with it. There is a natural hot water river that flows down from the volcano, and the spa has sculpted their grounds into a series of hot water pools fed by the river. The landscape is full of beautiful ornamental plants that are thriving and verdant, giving you a sense that each and every pool is a secluded paradise of its very own. The various pools are separated by little waterfalls, and some of the pools are accessed by small footbridges going over the waterfalls. It looks like the Garden of Eden. Of course, our camera battery died, so we have no photos of it.

The pools themselves are a mix of man made and natural, with part of the pools natural formations, but completed with man made materials. So, part of the pool will have a concrete bottom, and part of it will be gravel and/or sand. The water is a delightful temperature, like a Jacuzzi, but too hot to sit in for more than a few minutes at a time. Most of the pools are shallow, somewhere between ankle deep and thigh deep.

In most of the pools, you can sit underneath the waterfall. The amount of force from the waterfall is shocking, especially because they really are quite small. Most of the waterfalls exert so much pressure that the water pushes you into the pool, and it takes a tremendous amount of energy to actually keep yourself perched under the stream of water. Eric and Mike had contests to see who could stay closest to and longest under the more forceful falls. A couple of the waterfalls were easier to sit under. Under those, it felt like several angry masseuses were all massaging you as hard as they could at once. It was really nice. All of us sat under one in particular for a long time, enjoying the back & shoulder massage. One waterfall even had a big ledge that went underneath the waterfall, so you could completely pull your body behind the stream of water and simply watch it tumble past you without it actually touching you. Oddly enough, watching the water run was almost hypnotic.

The waterfalls all make misty, steamy air, and if you sit anywhere near them in the pool, as you breathe in, it is like being in a steam room, only better. You can actually feel your pores opening up. Being under that one waterfall definitely was like being in a small steam room. But, if steamy air isn’t your thing, you could move to the far end of the pool and breathe in regular night air, sweetly scented by all the pretty flowers.

We bounced from pool to pool, spending a few minutes in each one. We hit every hot pool in the complex at least once, and we made multiple visits to our favorites. There is also a cold pool on site that is not fed by the river, which Mike went into but Christi and Eric passed on. Mike said it is cooler than the others but not cold. After about 40 minutes, we felt pretty cooked and moved on to the man made swimming pool. The swimming pool is also not fed by the river. The water in it was temperate and comfortable, just right for hanging out in for a long period of time. There is a single waterslide attached to the pool, and we all gave the waterslide a few goes, which was really fun. We probably looked silly next to all the little kids using the slide, too.

At 0830, we were supposed to eat dinner at the spa’s buffet. At 0800, we decided we were starved, so we got cleaned up and went to dinner early. It was a nice buffet. At 0915 we were picked up and delivered back to the hotel, where we slept very well after such a relaxing hot bath and massage. It was a good day, indeed!

On the way out of town, we did a quick drive up and down some of the more prominent streets to at least get a glimpse of this supposedly great city. As in most towns in Latin America, there is a large town square near a big church, but we didn’t see anything else that looked particularly historic or noteworthy. Heredia looks like an average town. We were literally the only car on the road. Ticos (Costa Ricans) must not like to go out early on Sunday mornings.

There is a two lane highway that connects Heredia to the airport. We found the road and headed out of town. On the outskirts of Heredia there were quite a few very nice, American suburb style homes on big lots. We also drove by a few track home developments in gated communities. As we traveled on, the rest of the road was an odd mix of residential and commercial/industrial. There were some really nice homes next to some scary looking industrial buildings that you would suspect might ooze toxic waste out of them. But, hey, maybe the house was there first.

We made it to the airport at 0615. We suppose that on weekdays during rush hour, traffic along this road is probably bumper to bumper, hence the 40 minute time estimate. The airport looks like every other major airport. We retrieved Mike and were quickly back on the road, heading northwest along a main highway. Mike brought us a new camera, which we are really excited about. We had looked all over Panama, but hadn’t been able to find a suitable water resistant model. Yay! No more blurry pictures!

Beyond the airport it is mostly industrial, then the farther you go the more residential it becomes. Gradually, it changes to a mix of residences and farms, and eventually becomes mostly undeveloped land with some farms and residences here and there. And, of course, we passed through a few small towns along the way. Once out of the industrial area, it is a scenic drive with lots of greenery. The forest areas are thick and lush. The cleared areas are fields of rolling hills with Kelly green grass. There was just a touch of fog, and the early morning light was hazy and soft, so in the cleared sections, it looked like England. Actually, it was quite foggy out, but somehow the fog level was always above our line of sight and we generally had a clear view of the road. The road is very nice and well maintained and it was a lovely drive. We still didn’t have a map and were driving by guesstimation.

We had estimated the drive to La Fortuna would take 5 or 6 hours, so we were pleased when we pulled into downtown La Fortuna at about 0900. La Fortuna is another small, but spread out town, kind of like Golfito. Our hotel was a few miles beyond downtown. We were all instantly charmed by the hotel as soon as we saw it. It is a cluster of adorable little cabins with pretty tropical landscape, lots of exotic birds flitting about, and horses grazing on the grassy areas. We knew we’d likely be turned away, but we figured we may as well ask if we could check in early. The clerk said no problem. By 0930, we were in our cabin, enjoying the stunning view of the volcano across the road, and perusing all the tourist brochures we had picked up in the lobby to figure out what we were going to do while we were here.

The reason we had chosen this particular town is because Volcano Arenal is ranked as one of the most active volcanoes in the world. According to Lonely Planet, you can sit in your hotel room at night and watch the lava flow down the mountain. We were disappointed to find out that used to be true, but two years ago the lava flow had shifted direction and now goes down the opposite side of the mountain. Oh well. It is still a pretty view, even without the lava flow. The tip of it was completely enshrouded in clouds, and as the morning went on, we watched the cloud cover slowly burn away until almost the entire peak was visible.

The clear view of the peak only lasted a few minutes, then the cloud cover came right back. By 1100, we had all our tourist activities lined up. The first thing on the agenda was lunch. We headed a little further out of town to a restaurant the hotel clerk had recommended. We all got casado plates. This time the side dishes were black beans, rice, a green salad, half a hard boiled egg, a piece of locally made cheese and a ripe fried plantain. We all got batidos for our beverages. We drank a lot of batidos in Panama, but we forgot to mention them. Batidos are basically what we call smoothies — fresh fruit blended up with sugar and milk (though you can get water instead of milk). Most restaurants have a big variety of fruits to choose from, such as pineapple, mango, papaya, etc, and some even offer mixed fruit batidos.

After lunch we joined a tour group. A small bus picked us up from the hotel and took us to a national park at the base of the volcano, not very far from the restaurant we had lunch at. As we were driving along, the tour guide suddenly told the bus driver to pull over. The tour guide had spotted a pack of coatis at the side of the road, and quickly ushered us out of the bus to get a look at them. It looked like there were nine of them in the pack, and they were not afraid of us. They seemed happy to pose for pictures.

The guide told us these were definitely females because the females live in packs with their young and the males are loners. He went on to tell us that Coatis eat just about everything and that they were sticking around in hopes we would feed them. Feeding them is illegal, but some people still do. Interestingly, Coatis are not nocturnal like most of the rest of the raccoon family.

After a few minutes of fawning over the adorable little creatures, we piled back in the bus and in a few minutes arrived at the preserve. The parking lot we were dropped off in has a stunning view of the volcano and everyone stopped for photos before we started on the hike. While we were snapping away, the tour guide explained that Volcano Arenal was dormant until the July 1968. When it suddenly erupted, it wiped out a three towns around its base. Since then, the volcano has been consistently active, spewing and sputtering from one of three different craters. Which crater it spews from seems to shift every few years, hence the reason for the change in views from la Fortuna. Over the last 10 years the volcano has become less active, with less lava flow.

He also pointed out some craters in the ground near the parking lot and told us that the craters created by giant volcanic rocks that hit the ground during the 1968 eruption. Once we were done snapping photos, we set off down one of the many hiking trail. Our guide was excellent. He stopped and pointed out many of the trees, bushes and flowers that are indigenous to the area, telling us various information about each, such what they are used for. Some of the trees were so huge they were almost unreal, and they formed a canopy overhead that filtered out most of the sunlight. We saw several trees that had the cactus that looks like hair living on the branches. He also pointed out birds, animals, and assorted other critters in the forest and told us about them. Here is Mike, Christi and most of the tour group on the trail.

One of the species he dwelled on was the leaf cutter ants. When we saw them in Panama, we thought they were interesting, but after watching the demonstration of the ant’s strength, we now think they are amazing. Leaf cutters are definitely at the larger end of the ant spectrum in terms of overall size, but their heads are absolutely enormous, totally disproportional to the rest of their body. They also have mandibles that can carry a tremendous amount of weight in proportion to their own body weight. The guide picked up an ant and a stick. He got the ant to grab the stick with its mandibles and we watched in amazement as the ant held on to the stick for a long time. The stick was incredibly large and heavy for such a little guy, but he held on! We forget exactly how much weight he said they could hold, but it was an impressive number.

Our guide also pointed out a termite nest. As we mentioned, in our Indian River Nature Preserve post, termites sometimes build large nests inside living trees. The workers go out and consume cellulose, then come back to the nest and regurgitate the cellulose to feed the rest of the colony. Different species of termites get cellulose from different plants, but as we all know, dead wood is a common food source. The workers get in and out of the tree nest via a shallow tunnel dug under the tree bark. Interestingly, the termites have undeveloped eyes and are essentially blind, but they can sense light and don’t like it. Our guide figured out where the termite trail was and scratched off some of the bark, exposing the line of termites in transit. The termites went crazy, running for cover. The guide said that the termites were already at work building a new covered tunnel and within minutes would be done rerouting their trail and back to regular work. Likewise, if the nest somehow gets a hole in it, the colony will immediately repair it so the termites are back in the dark. Then the guide picked up a few of the fleeing termites and ate them. He tried to convince us all to taste one, too, but there was only one taker in the group, who said it didn’t really have much taste.

Amazingly enough, our guide spotted… to be continued..