Welcome to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

Continued from two days ago”¦ We took a moment to take in the surroundings. While the outside of the bay looked almost desolate, the inside is quite built up. Just like on the outside, there seem to be a lot of trees that all look dead at the moment, with very little greenery. Directly in front of us was a nice beach lined with thatched roof buildings that we would bet are restaurants. The hills above are mostly built up, as well. It looked to be primarily residential. Most of the homes are unique, but we could see a couple of track housing developments. The tightly packed track homes with their identical roofs almost looked like a scar on the hillside. On the southeast side (our right) there was a commercial looking port building and boat yard. To the northwest side (our left), there were expensive looking houses and several mid-rise concrete buildings under construction. The top of the hill had something weird at the top of it. Eric pulled the binoculars out and saw that it is a half built statue, probably of Jesus.

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In the bay there were Continue reading

White Water Rafting in Turrialba

Today we were up early and back at the bakery for breakfast. The white water rafting company was supposed to pick us up at 0830 in front of the hotel, so at 0825, we were outside and waiting. Every time a vehicle came around the corner, particularly a truck, we all thought “Oh, that must be them”, but invariably it wasn’t. At 0845, a van rounded the corner that had a big inflatable raft already inflated strapped to the roof. OK, this has to be them.

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.

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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 Continue reading

The Canopy Zip Lines

The morning greeted us with soft sunlight filtering through the early morning mist and the songs of several kinds of birds. We opened the sliding glass doors, taking in the air scented with tropical flowers, the temperate climate, and the stunning landscape around us. It was absolutely perfect.

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.

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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.

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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 Continue reading

The Drive to Heredia – Part 2

Continued from yesterday”¦ Not too long after we had checked the GPS, the road finally shifted to be both up and down, and while we had plenty of uphill stretches of road, we slowly but surely were losing altitude overall.

At about 1630, we rounded a bend a saw a huge city below. This must be San Jose. The road quickly descended and dropped us into the heart of the city. This was where we got totally confused. Lonely Planet has 4 detailed maps of San Jose, each of a different neighborhood, and we had a hard time finding the map we were on and figuring out how it connects with the map of where we were going to. Part of the reason we couldn’t figure out what map we were on was that we couldn’t find a street sign anywhere. Eventually, we managed to get oriented and had a vague idea of where we needed to go.

At one point, while the light was red, some street performers ran out into the intersection and juggled what looked like bowling pins until the light turned green. That was definitely amusing.

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We found the right street and followed it. It happened to be Continue reading

The Drive to Heredia

We were up early yet again this morning, doing all the last minute get ready stuff for today’s big trip inland. We had a large, eclectic breakfast made up of the odds and ends that were still left in the refrigerator when we shut it off.

At 0830, Tim arrived. We showed him how to run the generator and what the normal water level is in the bilge. He took us to shore. Our car was supposed to be delivered to us at Land and Sea at 0900. At 0940, the car finally arrived and by 1000 the paperwork was done and we were on the road. Our rental car is a little Suzuki Alto, powered by what we are sure is two hamsters on a wheel under the hood. We have our doubts it can make it up Costa Rica’s mountainous landscape.

We checked at two different places for maps, and neither had one. Sigh. We had to work off the maps in Lonely Planet, which are small and only have details for selected areas. Today’s plan was to drive to Heredia, just north of the capital city, San Jose. Judging from the map, we had estimated it would be a 4 hour drive. Katie and Tim told it would be closer to 6. It actually took 8.

To get out of Golfito, you can take an unpaved road over the mountains, or you can take a nicely paved road south to the end of the mountain range, then head inland and back north. We opted for Continue reading