It rained a lot of the night last night. It was nice to feel so comfortable in our room, and to know we didn't have to go out in the rain. We had a decent breakfast in the hotel's dining room.
Today we drove to Tenorio Volcano National Park. We somehow missed the turnoff to the park and drove probably 11 kilometers further until we figured we'd better turn around.
What a nice drive it was to this park. Lots of beautiful countryside and many interesting birds. At the ranger station, we put on our rain gear and started off on the trail. It started pouring while we were on this trail. Then we got close to where the turnoff is to the waterfall. It was still pouring. The walk down to the waterfall is pretty steep, and I turned around halfway - Guillermo went on further. As I was coming back up, I ran into Fernando and Eva, who had been checking out another trail, and Fernando said, "No, you can't turn back now, you're almost there!". So, he convinced me to turn around and continue on down the trail. I got to where I could see the waterfall pretty good, and then decided to go back up. On the trail back to the ranger station, Fernando almost stepped on a green snake!!! I was behind them a ways, and I saw him make a move up ahead that I thought was a slip. I thought he had slipped in the mud. But he actually jumped because he almost stepped on it and the snake continued across the trail and we watched it slither into the trees. It was so beautiful. This trail was hard - it was fairly level (except for the part to the waterfall), but it was very muddy and the rain and the heat made for some fairly miserable conditions.
We drove slowly back to the Heliconias Lodge, looking at the beautiful birds that were around. In the late afternoon, Guillermo, Eva and Fernando decided to do one of the trails that had several canopy bridges and I decided not to go with them. But once they were gone, I just couldn't stand it, and I decided to do the trail also, but start from the end and go towards them. I walked for quite a while, but never came upon them. It was starting to get dark, so I decided to turn around. I got back to the room and they showed up probably 5 minutes later!!!
Dec. 15
It must have rained the entire night. Guillermo and I did not want to move in the morning, and we thought no one else would either, but Fernando had said that if we do the canopy trail again in the morning, he would be out at 6:30am. With all the rain, we figured he wouldn't be out and about, but sure enough, at 6:30am he and Eva were out there, ready to do the trail. So, after a while, Guillermo and I decided to do the trail also, but we would start at the end, and work our way towards them. We ran into them at the second canopy bridge. It was nice being on the trail this morning, because there wasn't any rain to speak of and that made it so much easier to observe things and look around. We made it back to the dining room just in time for breakfast.
We drove to San Jose today.
Right now, we are in San Jose - the capital of Costa Rica. We found this little internet cafe about a block from our hotel. When we got to San Jose, we headed straight for the Hampton Inn by the airport, where we have stayed once before. We thought it would be a good place to stay since it's right by the airport. Well, after inquiring about their price for a night's stay, we decided against staying there. $135 a night is a ridiculous amount to pay for a hotel in Costa Rica. So, we decided to drive into Alajuela and hope there'd be some hotels along the way. Well, there weren't any, so Eva got the Lonely Planet book out and found a few that we could check out. After driving around a little bit, Fernando parked the car and waited while Guillermo and Eva asked about some rooms at the 1915 Hotel, which LP recommended. We got the rooms, unloaded our stuff, and then put our car in a special parking area for guests. The people at the hotel were kind enough to offer to wash our clothes for us ('course we paid dearly for that) but we had lots of clothes, many that hadn't dried from being washed in Santa Rosa!!! More about that later. Anyway, that evening we looked up places to eat and found there was a pizza restaurant nearby, so we walked to it. When we got to the pizza place, we found that it was decorated nicely with Christmas lights, and after getting our food, knew that it was a pretty good place to eat! Tomorrow we fly to Panama!!!
December 16th
We got up fairly early and had a WONDERFUL breakfast in our hotel. That was some of the best French toast I've ever had!! After breakfast, we got our car out of its parking spot, drove around just a little bit looking for a place to get gas, and then we drove the car to the airport, where we unloaded our stuff. Then Guillermo and Fernando drove the car back to the rental place. When they got back, we checked in then went down to the gate for Air Panama. We waited there a while, and eventually a bus came to take us to the plane. The flight to David was so interesting!!! We got to see the coastline of Costa Rica, and we saw where the country changed to Panama. The only thing is that the noise of the plane was VERY loud. Other than that, it was a good flight.
The airport in David was small. We had to wait quite a while in a line to get processed to enter the country. When we finally got through, (and we were the last ones in line), we went straight to the rental car place to get a car. It took quite a while, because they couldn't find our reservation and the car we requested wasn't there. They gave us a "similar" model and we were off! It's always so nice getting into a nice clean rental car. We fix up our stuff in there as best we can and make ourselves comfortable. So, now we are on our way to Cerro Punta, but first we have to get through David! We got some decent directions from the rental car people, and their directions were good enough to get us out of the city. The drive to Cerro Punta was very nice with the temperature getting cooler the farther we got from David. We stopped in Volcan, and had lunch at a place called Fernando's Restaurant. Great food there!
There is lots of farmland around Cerro Punta.
After lunch, we drove on through several cute little towns and when we got to Guadalupe, we pulled in to the Los Quetzales Lodge. After checking in with them (and we're not staying at this actual place, we are staying in a cabin that is further up the road) we drove back to Cerro Punta and went grocery shopping. They told us when we checked in that the car we had would not be good to drive to the cabin with and that we would need to be taken up in one of their vehicles. And their policy is to do 2 drives per day for guests - one drive up to the cabin and one drive back to the cabin. So, this meant that we would need to arrive at our cabin with all the food we would need for 3 full days. Hence, our trip to the grocery store! We spent quite a bit of time in that store, having to figure out what we would have for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day and trying to remember ALL the ingredients for each meal. Once we had all our groceries, we drove back to the lodge, parked our car away and while the guys loaded up the vehicle that would take us to our cabin, Eva and I went with an employee up to the kitchen to get fruits, vegetable and some meat. (The stores around here don't sell any produce to speak of because everyone has their own garden or farm and can grow their own food!) It was kind of hard trying to pick out what we'd need for 3 days. We packed potatoes, tomatoes, onion, eggs, garlic, 4 pork chops, watermelon, oranges, bananas, etc. We put that last box in the car and were off!
The road WAS very rough up to the cabins. Our car would have had a very hard time doing it. Our cabin looked so nice when we pulled up to it. We unpacked our stuff, chose our rooms inside and fixed up places for the kitchen stuff. Our refrigerator in this cabin was an ice chest!!! Our guide for our stay here brought in wood for the wood-burning stove, and left us with lots of lanterns to use when it got dark.
The first night here was not as easy as the subsequent nights, because most of the lanterns the guy left with us didn't work too well, and that left us with only a few good ones. So, while fixing dinner, the good ones had to be by the kitchen and that didn't leave much light anywhere else. I believe for dinner we had Spaghetti carbonara with wine. Also, by the time we finished cooking and washing the dishes there really wasn't much hot water to speak of. So, by the time we took our showers, the water wasn't hot - it wasn't ice cold either, which was good, but since the cabin itself was a little chilly, the coolish water made the shower a little uncomfortable. The beds were so comfortable here and they had nice warm comforters. From our bedrooms, you could hear the sounds of a rushing creek nearby and that was just lovely.
December 17
We celebrated our 32nd anniversary in our cabin today! :-)
Our guide came early in the morning, to drive us up to some other cabins where they had hummingbird feeders set up. We had a nice time watching all those beautiful hummingbirds!! From there, we walked slowly up the road, where we thought we'd run into the people our guide needed to drive back down to Guadalupe. We never did run into them, but we stopped and watched birds for quite a while at our turn-around point. Then we walked back down to our cabin.
On a trail by our cabin
Our cabin outside
Our cabin inside
This is another cabin that looked interesting.
There were so many beautiful hummingbirds.
Our evening was so much more comfortable this evening. The guide brought us two huge gas lanterns, and refilled the gas for the hot water. The two gas lanterns made so much more light! For dinner this evening, we had pork chops and wine!! After dinner, we sat around the wood stove (which always took Guillermo and Fernando lots of work to get going) and read books and Eva and I worked on a crossword puzzle. The shower this evening was lovely.
December 18
Our guide came for us again in the morning and today we did a waterfall trail. Wow, by the time we were done with this trail, it seemed like it was more an agility course than anything else. Many portions of this trail were muddy and quite steep, with lots of sections having huge steps down or up. We also crossed rivers several times, on rocks and on logs. The scenery along the trail was quite beautiful, and we saw a few birds, but most of the time, we more had to pay attention to where and how we were walking.
This is how a lot of the trail looked. Muddy and steep.
There were a lot of bridges to cross.
A view to Cerro Punta from the trail
We also visited Finca Dracula, which is an orchid farm. It was beautiful there.
These dogs just loved Guillermo as they kept hanging around him.
This orchid grows its flower out the BOTTOM of the pot.
Trying to identify an interesting bird.
There is a section of the Quetzales Trail called La Loma de los Lamentos and it really was a tough spot on the trail. That part of the trail was steep and really did make you want to sit down and lament about how much you were suffering!
It's probably there always like it is over here on a Sunday...Nothing to do, and it's quite nice that way...Andy
ReplyDelete