Costa Rica Trip Part 4

We left off on the last post having arrived at Allegro Papagayo our beach side home for the last three days of our trip. We spent the remains of that afternoon playing with Calvin in the pool and catching some rays. The sun was a welcome change from the clouds and rain of Arenal.

The next morning I was on the beach before sunrise to see what I could see. I walked a mile or more down the beach. The only other people around were a couple of local guys casting nets for fish while their dog chased the small crabs that ran everywhere above the tide.

I photographed some interesting shells. The black sand beach made a perfect background to set off the strange shapes and colors. At one point the beach changed from flat smooth black sand to tumbled sharp black volcanic rocks. For some reason it was at this point that I started to see sea urchins washing in and out with the shifting water. I’m not sure why they were just here and no where else. They rolled and tumbled and slowly waved their spines. I’m no marine biologist so I can’t say anything too specific about them. These were mostly a maroon color with long spines that looked like porcupine quills. The underside had rows of bright blue spots. I could not find a decent photo of one in the internet. Too bad I don’t have my shots to show you.

I headed back toward the hotel and was shooting some flowering trees nearby when I heard someone running up behind me. It turned out to be my son. When I told him about the sea urchins, he of course wanted to see them. The tide was coming in so I was worried that they would be gone by the time we hiked all the way down there again, but we found a few that had not yet been sucked back out to the ocean.

After breakfast, we hit the pool again (my son would have stayed in the pool 24 hours a day if he could have). We found out that the resort offers a day trip where they take you by boat to a local town for some touristy type shopping and what not. Unfortunately it only ran one day a week and this was not that day. I was hankering to see something of the local area – all we had really seen so far were resorts and tourist attractions. So I got the bright idea to rent a car for the day (the rental place is at the hotel). So after lunch we took off for Playas del Coco.

We knew the area pretty well after yesterday’s experience so we had no trouble finding our way around. We rolled into town and parked at the beach. It was a weekend so the place was busy with locals and tourists. There was a soccer game across the street (just to liven things up a bit, a fight broke out among the players toward the end of the game). We played in the water a while (although the beach was not that great). We bought a couple of Copos from a guy with a push cart. Then we decided to walk up the street to hit some shops.

This is where things go bad for my photos. Normally on a family vacation I only take a point and shoot camera to take travel snaps, but this time I brought my SLR and lenses and filters and all that jazz – figuring I needed it in the rain forest and what not. Although I had told myself that I was never to let my camera bag out of my sight, without thinking I threw the bag into the car with our towels and beach bags and stuff, locked the car, and away we went.

When we came back, the car was still locked, but my camera bag with all my equipment in it and my tripod were gone. This was in broad daylight along a public beach in plain view of hundreds of people and within a hundred yards of a police station. I’m figuring someone had been watching us all along and had keys to the car so as not to look like they were breaking in and hit us as soon as we turned the corner of the street. So goodbye all my equipment (both the SLR and the point and shoot were in the bag) and it was the second to last day of our trip so goodbye to just about all the photos of our trip.

Demara stayed with Calvin at the car while Heather and I went over to the police station to make a report. This turned out to be like a scene from an old Bogart movie. It’s hot humid and toward the end of the afternoon. The police station is basically an empty room except for a desk along the back wall. The doors stand open to let in some air and a huge fan sets up a steady breeze across the room. The policeman is dressed in blue shirt and pants with his shirt unbuttoned to expose his white T-shirt. He speaks no English. We try to explain the situation to him. He is not impressed.

He gets up and we follow him out to the street where he spots someone he knows. They talk a while and then the new guy heads off around the corner. We stand around silent for a while. Then the policeman asks about our passports which of course we have left back at the hotel. He’s not happy about that. Soon a new guy shows up who can speak English and is going to act as our interpreter. The policeman starts asking questions (he likes to come back to that passport thing pretty often). His investigation consists of looking up and down the street and then telling us that there really isn’t anything he can do. We refuse to go away so with a sigh he brings us inside to fill out a report. I figure I’m going to need something if I have any hope of getting insurance to cover this loss.

Reluctantly the policeman takes my driver’s license in lieu of a passport and starts to get some papers out of his desk. He has to use carbon paper (actual carbon paper!) to get two copies. The fan threatens to blow the papers off his desk so he staples the sheets together. He methodically fills out the papers with the answers we give to occasional questions. In the meantime our interpreter keeps up a running conversation that eventually leads to a pitch for a time share resort. No wonder he speaks English.

Satisfied that everything is in order, the policeman bangs a couple of official looking stamps onto the forms, hands us one, and waves us out of his office. We hit the street just as dusk is falling. We stand around for a few minutes saying goodbye to our interpreter. He hands us a brochure for his resort before he leaves. So it is back to the hotel.

We pull into the hotel parking lot and realize that we have forgotten to refill the rental’s tank with gas. The nearest gas station is a half hour away back toward town. My wife and son go down to the pool while Heather and I head back out in the dark to get gas. I had heard horror stories about how bad the driving is in Costa Rica, but I didn’t seem to have any trouble. To be sure strict adherence to traffic laws like stopping at stop signs and passing only when safe is not practiced much, but everybody seem to take it in stride without any of the road rage type stuff you see around here. People are easy going down here.

One thing to look out for at night is people walking or riding bicycles along the road. This is how a lot of the population gets around. You must be constantly on the look out for people suddenly appearing in your headlights. Heather became the lookout for this sort of thing while I navigated the roadways - Bike! Swerve. People! Swerve. Dog! Swerve.

The gas station was pretty busy with lines on both sides of the pumps (full service of course). While we waited, I noticed a guy by the door of the station holding a large machine gun. I probably shouldn’t have, but I said something to Heather like “Hey look, a guy with a machine gun!” She made me roll up my window and lock my door.

Now during this whole excursion I had been trying to calculate in my head how much gas was going to cost us. It is sold in litres of course and valued in Colones. I was trying to convert this to how many gallons of gas I thought we would need compared to the few thousand I had left in my wallet. I was afraid we would not have enough to pay for the gas. I really did not want to have them fill up the tank and then not have the money to pay for it thus possibly upsetting machine gun man. So it was time to hunker down with the pump guy. To Heather’s chagrin I happily jumped out of the car and started babbling to the pump guy. I took out my wallet and showed him all my money and bringing to bear my vast knowledge of Spanish, amazingly we came to an understanding – fill it up but don’t go over what I’ve got in my hand. Fortunately the car was very fuel efficient and we got out of there with a few bucks to spare and the guys at the station had a good laugh over the crazy American tourist.

On our last free day, we took a boat ride over to a beach owned by the resort. It might seem odd to go to another beach when one was right outside our room, but this beach had white sand (real or trucked in?) and a snack bar for drinks and lunch. Being a Monday, there were only about eight guests versus three staff so we were waited on hand and foot. The staff brought drinks and fresh fruit to us while we lounged on the beach. We paddled kayaks around and floated in the surf on noodles. We built sand castles and watched monkeys in the trees. We spent most of the day just taking it easy and having fun. That night we shot pool in the club til they turned the lights off on us. Not bad.

Early the next morning we met a new driver to take us to the airport in the town of Liberia to go home. It was a short half hour ride, but another cab ride; another search for an ATM. We were out of cash and since the car rental agreement with our credit card information on it was in the stolen camera bag, we had canceled our one and only credit card. Among other things we needed to be able to pay a $26 per person “leaving the country” fee at the airport.

The airport at Liberia consists of a huge runway that can handle large planes and an assortment of metal buildings that pass for a terminal. There was the fee to be paid, customs forms to fill out, bags to check, etc. Get there way early. Again asking around is the only way to figure out where to go for all these things and even where to get on the plane. There are no ramps to the planes – passengers walk out onto the runway to board. You need to go through the security check point to reach the “gates” (there are only two) in a big open room filled with chairs that opens onto the tarmac. At least there is food and drink available here while you wait.

Our trip home was relatively uneventful except that my car keys were also in the stolen camera bag which meant that when we got back to the Rochester airport, we would not be able to drive home. Sooooo, while in Atlanta we called my cousin who oddly enough was visiting NY from her home in North Carolina and staying at our house. She and her son got our spare keys and met us at the airport at midnight. Hokey smokes.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time and would go back again in a minute if we could afford it (as long as I hang on to my camera bag). Six days were not enough to see even a fraction of all the cool stuff there. Do go if you ever get a chance. Just remember to be flexible.

MDW

Costa Rica Trip Part 3

 

Before we went on this trip to Costa Rica, I looked into the money situation – what the local currency is like, the USD exchange rate, where can I get money while in country, etc. Costa Rica uses the Colon. When we left home the exchange was around 518 Colones to the dollar. While we were there the rate went up to something around 580.

Everything I read said that there was no need to change your money; everyone would be happy to take American dollars. This turned out to be mostly true, but personally I always like to use local currency whenever I can when traveling. It eliminates the hassles of doing math in my head to make conversions when items aren’t priced in dollars like when I’m buying a Copo (a concoction of shaved ice, fruit flavoring, and condensed and powdered milk) from a guy with push cart on the street. It also makes me feel a little more “immersed” in the country rather than just staying in my own little American bubble looking out the window as things pass by. I think too that it is appreciated by the locals - I made an effort to meet them on their own terms something along the lines of making an effort to speak the language.

I tried to get Colones before we left – no dice. We contacted several banks in the area and only one could even lay their hands on Colones, but we needed an account there or else forget about it. So we went with a small amount of USD and an ATM card. The idea being that once in country, ATMs are everywhere and you can get both USD and Colones out of them; don’t carry a lot of cash, just get it as you need it.

This was good advice in general. The ATMs worked well and by waiting to exchange money we were able to take advantage of the changes in the exchange rate albeit by accident. The only problem was that ATMs are not always easy to find. Things may be different in more urban areas, but I never saw an ATM that wasn’t inside a bank building – none in businesses and none in the lobbies of the two resorts where we stayed. This meant we needed to get to a bank to get money and without a rental car (if you ever go to Arenal be sure to get a car) that meant we needed a taxi to take us there.

So we got into the country late at night after a long day of travelling and after buying food at airports and tipping drivers and stuff we are down to about $50. The first thing we wanted to do was go to the rain forest so we talked to the guy at the lobby about getting a taxi to the Arenal Volcano National Park. He said it would cost $40 USD for a guy to take us there and then return later in the day to pick us up. No problem, we had $50 so we get the guy to take a detour into town on the way back where we will get more money. Problem, we got to the park entrance and found out that it will cost us $30 to get in. We ended up borrowing the entrance fee off of Roberto, our taxi driver! Sheesh.

The rain forest was fantastic. If you have ever been to one of those butterfly house things where they have a big glass room filled with butterflies and tropical plants (there is a nice one in Ontario near Niagara Falls) then you know sort of what it was like only this was better. Butterflies were everywhere – big ones, small ones, blue ones, green ones, even clear ones. There were lizards and snakes and bright colored grasshoppers. We spotted one brilliant yellow snake curled up on a big leaf and took some close up pictures. When we looked it up it turned out to be an eyelash pit viper – very venomous – fortunately not very aggressive.

The vegetation was very dense. As is my wont, I tried to get off the trail and wander around a bit, but without a machete it was almost impossible so we stuck to the trail. We walked to an old lava flow. I had hoped to see some still flowing lava, but nothing was happening at the moment and they have closed off trails that lead to more active areas higher up since some tourists got killed a few years back.

It is a rain forest so it rained. We got soaked. You just need to understand that is the way it is and not worry about it. It was warm and the sun came out once in a while so it wasn’t all that bad. It is all part of the experience.

We took a side trail that turned out to be longer than we expected so we got back to the parking lot about 40 minutes later than we agreed, but Roberto was there waiting for us. Hey, we owed him money. He drove us into the town of Fortuna to find an ATM. I took out 100,000 Colones – it was difficult to make myself enter such a large number on the key pad. It came out in 5000 Colon bills which at the time was equivalent to a bit over $8 US.

We went back to the resort and hit the pool for what remained of the afternoon. The women caught some sun in between clouds and my son and I played in the pool while hummingbirds whizzed around us. I spotted some monkeys in the trees nearby and we went over to watch them for a while. By six-ish the sun was setting so we headed back to the room to clean up for dinner. We hung all our wet hiking clothes and bathing suits out on the porch to dry – they were still just as wet in the morning because of the incredible humidity. We eventually had to pay for laundry service to get them dry.

If we had known the lay of the land ahead of time – everything is miles away from everything else – we would have rented a car and driven out to a local restaurant, but the resort food wasn’t bad and spending an evening sitting in the open air overlooking the forest wasn’t exactly torture.

After another night of torrential rain we woke up to a grey misty day. We decided it would be a good day to go to a hot springs. We took a taxi over to Baldi Hot Springs. There is another one nearby called Tabacon that is a bit more upscale, but maybe not as “fun”. We bought our day pass at our resort and got a discount. Baldi is a whole hotel/spa/hot springs complex with bunches of pools at various temperatures (anywhere from 96 to 152 F) scattered over the landscaped grounds, swim up bars, and even some very fast water slides. We spent an entire afternoon just sort of lounging about.

On our third day it was time to pack up and head out for a few days on the beach along Golfo de Papagayo on the pacific side. It is a about a six hour drive from Arenal to the Allegro Papagayo resort. Another car ride and another weird travel experience. Our driver this time was Estaban who, like Roberto, spoke very little English, but was happy to shoot the breeze with me anyway using lots of hand waving and what little Spanish I could muster. About 40 minutes into the ride we realized that Calvin had left his backpack containing all his toys and games back at the hotel. So it was “regreso” for us – Estaban didn’t seem to mind.

Bag in hand we headed back out onto the road. We made it all the way through the town of Liberia and were getting close to our destination when Estaban realized that he did not know how to get to our hotel. We stopped at a couple resorts and they directed us to some other resorts; none the right one, I broke out the maps that I had brought with me and started adding my two cents, and Estaban took to stopping anytime we saw anyone near the road and asked for directions. Eventually we found our way to the right place after a nice scenic tour of the area.

We stayed at the Allegro Papagayo, an all inclusive resort on the coast - more pools, swim up bars, and open air dining along with a black sand beach right outside our room and plenty of hot sunshine. The rain forest was great, but it was nice to dry out a bit.

More about that when I wrap things up in the next post and I will tell the sad tale of what happened to all my nice photos.

MDW

Costa Rica Trip Part 2

When we last left our intrepid travelers they were finally on their way to Costa Rica after a loooooong delay.

We flew from Rochester to NY (JFK) and from there to Atlanta to catch a flight to Costa Rica. Just to add a final dig to the whole deal we were on the runway in line for take-off when the pilot informed us that we were getting out of line and going back to the gate. It seems that a passenger had noticed something dangling from one of the wings and it needed to be checked out by ground crews. Happily it turned out to be just a bit of excess rubber seal that had not been trimmed off. They fixed it up and gave us the A-OK. So it was back in line and we finally hit the air another hour late.

We arrived in San Jose just before mid-night Costa Rica time. (Costa Rica is in the central time zone and they don’t do daylight savings so they are in effect two hours earlier than we are in Rochester.) I can not tell you anything about the San Jose airport. It was just a blur. We filled out all our customs paperwork on the plane, we touched down, the terminal seemed dark and empty except around the knot of people from our flight, some more bag scanning, a customs guy checked our paperwork and quickly banged some stamps on our passports and we were flung out into the parking lot where we were swarmed by tour guides and cabbies. Fortunately we spotted Heather in the crowd (she seemed pretty happy to see us!) and we met up with the guys we had hired ahead of time to take us on a two and a half hour drive into the mountains to reach our hotel at the foot of the Arenal volcano.

Arenal is north of San Jose. Here is a link to a simple map of Costa Rica and here is a link to some information about the volcano on the website of our hotel the Arenal Springs Resort.

We didn’t get to see much of the countryside along the way – only what our bleary eyes could make out in the beam of our headlights as the road twisted and turned up into the mountains. By the time we reached the resort and started to check in, we had been traveling for better than twenty-four hours – lugging bags, killing time in airports, dozing on airplanes – but we had made it. We were finally in Costa Rica at the foot of a volcano surrounded by rain forest!

The rooms at Arenal are not in one building. There are bungalows scattered over the grounds. Guests can walk between the rooms and the main lobby and restaurant or they can take golf cart rides provided by the friendly staff. We walked unless it was raining.

Despite going to bed at like 3AM, I got up a little before 6, threw on some clothes, grabbed by camera bag, and headed out the door.

Tip: Costa Rica is near the equator. If you live closer to the poles like I do, you get used to the seasonal changes in the length of the day. During the winter in Rochester it may be dark by 5 or 5:30 but in the summer, especially with daylight savings time added in, it may stay light until 9 or better. In Costa Rica it is dark by 6:30 ish year round and the sun comes up 12 hours after it goes down.

It had rained off and on through the “night” and it was still overcast with a bit of a mist. The first thing I looked for was the volcano. Well, I could see the lower slopes at least. The peak was shrouded in thick clouds and would actually stay that way all three days we visited. It is the rainy season after all. The next thing I noticed – hummingbirds. There were hummingbirds everywhere you looked – buzzing around the flowers outside the room, stopping to eye anyone wearing colorful clothing, sitting in the tree branches – everywhere. Amazing.

I wandered around the grounds for a while snapping pics of the flowers and sometimes the volcano whenever there was a tear in the clouds. A stream ran under the road leading into the resort. I was very tempted to jump down into it, but it was covered in vegatation so thick that I could not see the water except where it passed under the road. Everything was wet from the rain and mist. I didn’t come dressed for a major expedition so I passed on it for now. I went back to the room and sat on the porch in a big rocking chair watching the hummingbirds and working on a crossword puzzle until the rest of the group was up and about.

Tip: Suppose you stay at a resort in the U.S. In your room you will find tons of printed materials describing the services and amenities of the hotel, schedules of activities, maps, and advertisements for local restaurants and businesses. Everything is spelled out for you so that you can operate pretty much independently. That is not the way it worked in Costa Rica. There were never printed materials anywhere. Things work on a word of mouth system here. If you want to know something, you need to ask. It is a very social kind of atmosphere. You quickly get used to striking up a conversation (depending on how good your Spanish is) with everyone you meet everywhere – hotel staff, taxi drivers, people on the street, shop owners. This is how things get done. We missed out on some things the first couple of days until we caught on.

Once we were all ready we headed up to the hotel restaurant for a free breakfast. This was a real breakfast – not just muffins and coffee. There was always a guy at a grill ready to cook eggs to order (we became buddies pretty quick), pancakes (these were just for tourists, I don’t think Ticos (Costa Ricans) quite understand pancakes), plenty of fresh fruit and juices, and several local type breakfast foods that tend to feature beans and rice.

The restaurant (like every one we ate at everywhere) has no walls so we could enjoy unobstructed views and breathe in the tropical breezes.

Tip: Everything I read before going on this trip warned about the bugs. They said to be sure to take gallons of the most powerful repellents allowable by law. Well, maybe it was the time of year or the places we happen to visit, but we never had a problem with bugs and never once did we apply any repellent. Buildings always are open to the air – no bugs. We hiked in the rain forest – no bugs. I can get bit by more mosquitoes and gnats in ten minutes on my deck then we did in a week in Costa Rica!

Well, this post is getting long so I think I’ll quit for now. Next up – a trip to a lava field, an exciting walk in the rain forest, and some more travel problems.

MDW