Matt and I enjoyed the last evening in Costa Rica at Mauna Loa Surf Resort by walking to the beach once more to take some photos and marvel at God's beauty. We also went to Sauer's love: Lola's Restaurant where he got a fruit smoothie and enjoyed it with fantastic views of the Pacific. At sunset we walked back to the resort for pizza (we were going to eat at Lola's but it was closed). The food at Mauna Loa was great! I got a Margarita Pizza and Sauer ordered a Hawaiian. It was a very thin crust and they also brought us spices, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese. During the meal, we also played a game of chess, which ended in a stalemate ha.
We would have liked to continue hanging out at the outdoor eating area, but the bugs were feisty. Thus, we walked over to the pool, which stays lit up at night, to stick our feet in and chat for a while before heading back to our cabina. There were many frogs hanging out at the pool.
After the pool we went back to the room to read a bit, watch movies, and enjoy the A/C. Sauer also took the opportunity to make fun of me (and deservedly so) because I have opted to not lift my arms for any reason because my shoulders, triceps, and upper back remain badly burned. (As I write this - noon of the next day I feel much, much better). I just hope that this will not be an issue when I begin hiking with a heavy pack on the 1st of June... So we set our alarms for 6:30 AM and hit the hay.
Side Note: Everyone native to Costa Rica is nice and helpful. I believe that I read somewhere that it is the happiest country in the world and I believe it. They may not have money or smooth roads, but dang they're happy. :)
Monday, May 30, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Boom, Toasted!
I (Austin) am burned to a crisp. Wow. Currently I am debating whether a cold shower would be good for me or too painful. I was able to buy some aloe vera lotion and that has helped some.
So, last night, the 27th (Saturday) Sauer and I just relaxed at our "cabina" at Las Avellanas for our last night in that location. We reheated buttered pasta for dinner and had some toasted bread along with coca-cola. A pretty good meal. We enjoyed pineapple all afternoon (we cut it ourselves) and this morning for breakfast. During dinner we watched an episode of The Office and did some reading. We've been reading a lot of the Bible, on this trip I have now read all of John, Nehemiah, Joshua, Song of Solomon, and Hosea. It's been a great trip for free time to read.
There was a thunderstorm last night that had some pretty loud thunder. Sauer was crying because of the loud noises and bright flashes... (not really)
This morning Sauer woke up naturally at about 6:30 AM and me at 7:45 AM. We enjoyed a little more time on the hammock, Sauer took a rain shower (showering with shower water while the rain comes through the screen-only shower ceiling), and we made scrambled eggs and buttered toast along with grape juice and pinapple.
We packed up for the 1,645th time to move to the "cabinas" next store at Mauna Loa Surf Resort where we again have our own cabins. Also, as we were moving out, I bumped our candle off the coffee table and, being glass, it broke. Cya $4. As we moved out, we knocked on our owner's cabin, Isabel, at 11:30 AM. She shouted out, "I am bathing, just leave the keys on the picnic table." Will do, Isabel.
Here is where we have stayed during this vacation:
May 16: Savat household
May 17: Tim Quinn's apartment
May 18: Hotel in Fort Lauderdale
May 19-21: Sleepers Sleep Cheaper Hostel in La Fortuna
May 22-23: Sleepers Sleep Cheaper Hostel in Monteverde
May 24-25: Hotel Guanacaste in Liberia
May 26-27: Las Avellanas in Playa Avellana (by Tamarindo)
May 28: Mauna Loa Surf Resort in Playa Avellana (by Tamarindo)
May 29: San Jose Airport / On the Plane to Fort Lauderdale
May 30: Savat Household
As you can see, it's been a lot of moving around. We are ready to be in our own beds in the air condition with friends and family :)
Speaking of air conditioning, our new room at Mauna Loa has it! The resort is bigger than Las Avellanas with about 10 "cabinas" (so Sauer and I have our own cabin), wireless, A/C, an outdoor pool, a rec area, and a restaurant. Also, comfy hammocks and chairs hang everywhere! Although we still would have liked to stay at Las Avellanas the third night as planned (Isabel overbooked and had us moved), we are okay with the new set-up.
Sauer just returned from the local store. We have been testing the Tican (slang for Costa Rican) beers. We've had Imperial, Bavaria, and Pilsen.
So we just reserved our full plans for tomorrow. We are getting picked up at 7:15 am by the owners friend (he charges less than taxis and is reliable) to take us to Tamarindo for $20. Then, we are taking a semi-private shuttle from Tamarindo to San Jose for $40/person. We were considering taking a more expensive taxi to Santa Cruz and then a public bus from Santa Cruz to San Jose, but it was too risky for only saving $20 each. So, for convenience, an air-conditioned ride, peace of mind, and safety, we elected to spend a tad more. So, we are leaving Tamarindo at about 8:15 AM for San Jose International Airport and should arrive by about 12:30 PM. We will then have about 12 hours to wait until our 1 AM flight to Fort Lauderdale. Do we have to go through customs in Fort Lauderdale? We then have 61 minutes to catch our flight to Chicago. We should arrive in Chicago at 7 AM. Then, we need to get to downtown Chicago to take a 3 PM Megabus to Minneapolis, which will arrive at about 11:30 PM on Monday, May 30th. WOW.
We'll keep you posted on our travels!!
Aust & Matt
So, last night, the 27th (Saturday) Sauer and I just relaxed at our "cabina" at Las Avellanas for our last night in that location. We reheated buttered pasta for dinner and had some toasted bread along with coca-cola. A pretty good meal. We enjoyed pineapple all afternoon (we cut it ourselves) and this morning for breakfast. During dinner we watched an episode of The Office and did some reading. We've been reading a lot of the Bible, on this trip I have now read all of John, Nehemiah, Joshua, Song of Solomon, and Hosea. It's been a great trip for free time to read.
There was a thunderstorm last night that had some pretty loud thunder. Sauer was crying because of the loud noises and bright flashes... (not really)
This morning Sauer woke up naturally at about 6:30 AM and me at 7:45 AM. We enjoyed a little more time on the hammock, Sauer took a rain shower (showering with shower water while the rain comes through the screen-only shower ceiling), and we made scrambled eggs and buttered toast along with grape juice and pinapple.
We packed up for the 1,645th time to move to the "cabinas" next store at Mauna Loa Surf Resort where we again have our own cabins. Also, as we were moving out, I bumped our candle off the coffee table and, being glass, it broke. Cya $4. As we moved out, we knocked on our owner's cabin, Isabel, at 11:30 AM. She shouted out, "I am bathing, just leave the keys on the picnic table." Will do, Isabel.
Here is where we have stayed during this vacation:
May 16: Savat household
May 17: Tim Quinn's apartment
May 18: Hotel in Fort Lauderdale
May 19-21: Sleepers Sleep Cheaper Hostel in La Fortuna
May 22-23: Sleepers Sleep Cheaper Hostel in Monteverde
May 24-25: Hotel Guanacaste in Liberia
May 26-27: Las Avellanas in Playa Avellana (by Tamarindo)
May 28: Mauna Loa Surf Resort in Playa Avellana (by Tamarindo)
May 29: San Jose Airport / On the Plane to Fort Lauderdale
May 30: Savat Household
As you can see, it's been a lot of moving around. We are ready to be in our own beds in the air condition with friends and family :)
Speaking of air conditioning, our new room at Mauna Loa has it! The resort is bigger than Las Avellanas with about 10 "cabinas" (so Sauer and I have our own cabin), wireless, A/C, an outdoor pool, a rec area, and a restaurant. Also, comfy hammocks and chairs hang everywhere! Although we still would have liked to stay at Las Avellanas the third night as planned (Isabel overbooked and had us moved), we are okay with the new set-up.
Sauer just returned from the local store. We have been testing the Tican (slang for Costa Rican) beers. We've had Imperial, Bavaria, and Pilsen.
So we just reserved our full plans for tomorrow. We are getting picked up at 7:15 am by the owners friend (he charges less than taxis and is reliable) to take us to Tamarindo for $20. Then, we are taking a semi-private shuttle from Tamarindo to San Jose for $40/person. We were considering taking a more expensive taxi to Santa Cruz and then a public bus from Santa Cruz to San Jose, but it was too risky for only saving $20 each. So, for convenience, an air-conditioned ride, peace of mind, and safety, we elected to spend a tad more. So, we are leaving Tamarindo at about 8:15 AM for San Jose International Airport and should arrive by about 12:30 PM. We will then have about 12 hours to wait until our 1 AM flight to Fort Lauderdale. Do we have to go through customs in Fort Lauderdale? We then have 61 minutes to catch our flight to Chicago. We should arrive in Chicago at 7 AM. Then, we need to get to downtown Chicago to take a 3 PM Megabus to Minneapolis, which will arrive at about 11:30 PM on Monday, May 30th. WOW.
We'll keep you posted on our travels!!
Aust & Matt
Two Words: Waterproof Sunscreen
So last night at about 10 our black bean experiment finally ended. After about 3 solid hours of cooking they were finally ready to eat. Overall they tasted better than I had assumed, but we are in no way professional chefs. We mixed it with some fancy chips called Picaronas, but we both agreed the food didn’t have much taste. At least we stuck with it to the end. We both just read and went to bed pretty early again.
This morning we finally had a chance to sleep in. I (Matt) was only able to sleep till 7 so I listened to a couple sermons until Austin got up around 9. I decided there is nothing better in the world than a shower with no roof. It’s like being out in the wilderness with the sun beating down on you, but there is still the luxury of hot water. Mom (Judy), please install this before I get home in a couple days. We made a good old American breakfast this morning consisting of scrambled eggs and toast with grape juice. Afterword we made our way to the beach via a mud path. It started out as gravel, but eventually turned to mud water that we had to wade in ankle-deep through to get to the beach. Then, to get across the park to sandy shores, we had to wade in waist-deep through an ocean water channel of sorts to get to the beach. It was kind of weird and we didn’t know what to do at first until some surfer pros waded through before us.
However, the beach here is awesome. There were more people there today, but it was still pretty open. Maybe a total of 50 people within view along the entire beach. There are shells all around and we had some fun with some crabs running away from the water. The ocean itself is gorgeous and it’s surprisingly very warm. We swam for a couple hours and then decided to walk along the beach. Eventually we found Lola’s, which is a little restaurant right on the beach. We are hopefully going there tomorrow for some fruit smoothies and lunch. We then just spent another hour or two lying on the beach and headed back to the villa for lunch. Just like yesterday was ate buttered noodles and toast, but we also added some pineapple for a variety.
We thoroughly put on 30 spf suntan lotion on before we left so we thought we would be fine for a couple hours of swimming. Either we bought fake suntan lotion or ours is not waterproof because we are both roasted. Aside from reading and relaxing we spent the afternoon and evening taking cold showers to try and cool down the sunburns. We will be taking it easy on the beach tomorrow if we even decide to get into the sun.
Not much happened after lunch. We spent a lot of time in the hammocks again and read/slept the rest of the afternoon. There was a group of howler monkeys next to our villa again. Hopefully they will stay quiet while we try and sleep tonight. Also there has been a constant battle against ants in our villa. I was bit twice within the first ten minutes here by a couple ants and we keep smashing them on our walls. That is one skill I will bring home with me from Costa Rica. For dinner we ate noodles and made up the rest of the black beans (We paid two dollars for them so we can’t just throw them away). The meals aren’t great, but they have been cheap and filling.
This is our last night in this villa and tomorrow we will be moving down the street to a different cabin. They have a pool and hopefully some better wifi!
Matt & Aust
This morning we finally had a chance to sleep in. I (Matt) was only able to sleep till 7 so I listened to a couple sermons until Austin got up around 9. I decided there is nothing better in the world than a shower with no roof. It’s like being out in the wilderness with the sun beating down on you, but there is still the luxury of hot water. Mom (Judy), please install this before I get home in a couple days. We made a good old American breakfast this morning consisting of scrambled eggs and toast with grape juice. Afterword we made our way to the beach via a mud path. It started out as gravel, but eventually turned to mud water that we had to wade in ankle-deep through to get to the beach. Then, to get across the park to sandy shores, we had to wade in waist-deep through an ocean water channel of sorts to get to the beach. It was kind of weird and we didn’t know what to do at first until some surfer pros waded through before us.
However, the beach here is awesome. There were more people there today, but it was still pretty open. Maybe a total of 50 people within view along the entire beach. There are shells all around and we had some fun with some crabs running away from the water. The ocean itself is gorgeous and it’s surprisingly very warm. We swam for a couple hours and then decided to walk along the beach. Eventually we found Lola’s, which is a little restaurant right on the beach. We are hopefully going there tomorrow for some fruit smoothies and lunch. We then just spent another hour or two lying on the beach and headed back to the villa for lunch. Just like yesterday was ate buttered noodles and toast, but we also added some pineapple for a variety.
We thoroughly put on 30 spf suntan lotion on before we left so we thought we would be fine for a couple hours of swimming. Either we bought fake suntan lotion or ours is not waterproof because we are both roasted. Aside from reading and relaxing we spent the afternoon and evening taking cold showers to try and cool down the sunburns. We will be taking it easy on the beach tomorrow if we even decide to get into the sun.
Not much happened after lunch. We spent a lot of time in the hammocks again and read/slept the rest of the afternoon. There was a group of howler monkeys next to our villa again. Hopefully they will stay quiet while we try and sleep tonight. Also there has been a constant battle against ants in our villa. I was bit twice within the first ten minutes here by a couple ants and we keep smashing them on our walls. That is one skill I will bring home with me from Costa Rica. For dinner we ate noodles and made up the rest of the black beans (We paid two dollars for them so we can’t just throw them away). The meals aren’t great, but they have been cheap and filling.
This is our last night in this villa and tomorrow we will be moving down the street to a different cabin. They have a pool and hopefully some better wifi!
Matt & Aust
Friday, May 27, 2011
Goober Madness
This post is from yesterday (the 26th) - haven't blogged for today yet.
Picking up where we left off. Our nights are always the most exciting parts of our days. Last night was more of the same. We spent the night eating up our “goober” brand PB & J’s (side note: why would you ever name food as goober? Does that sound appealing to anyone to say they are eating a goober? I will be pondering this question the rest of the trip). Our grand total for PB & J sandwiches has reached 12. I also have eaten 1,000 bananas (plus a few plantains) because they are dirt cheap. We also bought some off-brand granola bars and they taste as if they got their recipe a little off. They contained “prebioticos” which we had no idea what it was, but we are still alive. If you can’t already tell, I miss normal food. After dinner we spent the night reading/watching movies. There really wasn’t anything to do in Liberia outside of our hike in Rincon. Most of the time we find ourselves going to bed early so we can get up at 5/6 am to catch a bus. It gets dark at 6 here so I’m not complaining about the early nights. The less we go out at night, the less chance we have of getting robbed.
This morning we got up early again around 6:30 to catch a bus to Tamarindo and eventually to Las Avellanas Villas. We will have our own cabin near a secluded beach called Playa Avellana. Before the bus we headed to the bank again and took out some more colones (I feel like I have a whole in my wallet because it’s never full). We then headed to the bus stop and bought a ticket to Tamarindo for $2! In comparison the fee online for a tourist bus was $45 a person. Tamarindo also was only 87 Km away so we thought this would be a short trip. After getting hassled for taxis for about 40 minutes, we eventually got on our bus and headed for the beach.
We made it about 10 meters (I’m not sure how far that is either, but I thought I should try to use the lingo down here), when the bus stopped to pick up more people. This is not a good sign. We got going again so I thought this was a fluke. Wrong again. We stopped about 100 times in every tiny little city in between Liberia and Tamarindo. We would essentially drive in to the city and drive back out with a couple more people. A bus ride that would normally take about an hour lasted for 2.5 hours. We both agreed that it was still worth the money to take the public bus. At about 11 we finally made it to Tamarindo, but we had a slight problem figuring out where to get off the bus. We assumed there would be a bus station, but the driver just stopped in the middle of the gravel road and said this was the last stop. We were finally in Tamarindo.
After walking about 500 m, we found a taxi that would take us to our villas. However, we broke the cardinal rule of taxi riding by not setting a price before we got on. He also made us sign some sort of insurance waiver before we took off which made us somewhat nervous. (It took a really long time to fill out the form, since we had to give him our social security number, passport number, and home address…this was a joke from Austin Take it easy moms – we actually just had to give one of our names and sign it). He turned out to be a friendly guy with a not so friendly price. A 20 minute taxi ride to our destination cost $40. We will not be calling him back for our return trip. Anyways it is now 12 and we made it to Las Avellanas Villas. This is the “luxury” portion of our trip. I say that term loosely because we will still be eating spaghetti for almost every meal. Essentially these villas are in a plot of land that doesn’t resemble the rest of the countryside. The plants and trees were all planted in specific formations around the villas for added privacy. There are five cabins on the lot and we were given number five, the one farthest away. The villa itself is great. We finally have space to put our clothes and our own kitchen. The deck has two hammocks which are perfect for accomplishing nothing during the day. The shower is unique too in that there is no roof over the top of it. (Just a screen – so you could essentially take a shower in the rain). From the hammock, you really can’t see anything but tons of trees and plants that were planted by the owners, it’s beautiful. The place was designed by a famous Costa Rican architect and it seems like he thought of just about everything. That’s the best I can do for a description until you can see the video for yourself.
So after we checked in to our villa, we spent the next couple hours relaxing and settling in. We* took naps (*we = Matt)/read in the hammocks for a couple hours. We then headed to the store and bought some cheap pasta for the next few days. We somehow ended up killing all the power in our villa though and ate semi-cooked noodles. Not a problem though because after lunch we headed to the beach. The road there is a boardwalk (you literally walk on boards nailed to posts above the marsh) through the marshes, but we ended up on a secluded beach on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. There were probably 10 people there total, but it was also raining.
After the beach we ate more noodles (expect this to be a trend in the next couple blogs) and are now trying to cook up some black beans. Why black beans you say? I think we are asking ourselves the same question right now. Supposedly they need to soak for 2 hours and cook for 2 hours. Aside from cooking the beans all night, we are probably just going to read and watch some TV. (We would relax on the hammock at night since even those have a light directly above each of them in the ceiling – what an architect – but the bugs are vicious and frogs keep scaring Austin).
Tomorrow morning we plan on going back to hang on the beach and check out Lola’s, a local restaurant that should have epic fruit smoothies. Pura Vida!!
(side note: as I (Matt) am writing this note, there are howler monkeys screeching outside our villa. They are only a couple feet tall, but have a loud growl. I have been practicing my howler monkey call the past few days, and it’s improving. They were eating some sort of fruit in the trees right outside of our villa, and we got a good view of them. One of the momma howlers was carrying her baby on her back. It was a great experience and one that would never happen in Minnesota)
Picking up where we left off. Our nights are always the most exciting parts of our days. Last night was more of the same. We spent the night eating up our “goober” brand PB & J’s (side note: why would you ever name food as goober? Does that sound appealing to anyone to say they are eating a goober? I will be pondering this question the rest of the trip). Our grand total for PB & J sandwiches has reached 12. I also have eaten 1,000 bananas (plus a few plantains) because they are dirt cheap. We also bought some off-brand granola bars and they taste as if they got their recipe a little off. They contained “prebioticos” which we had no idea what it was, but we are still alive. If you can’t already tell, I miss normal food. After dinner we spent the night reading/watching movies. There really wasn’t anything to do in Liberia outside of our hike in Rincon. Most of the time we find ourselves going to bed early so we can get up at 5/6 am to catch a bus. It gets dark at 6 here so I’m not complaining about the early nights. The less we go out at night, the less chance we have of getting robbed.
This morning we got up early again around 6:30 to catch a bus to Tamarindo and eventually to Las Avellanas Villas. We will have our own cabin near a secluded beach called Playa Avellana. Before the bus we headed to the bank again and took out some more colones (I feel like I have a whole in my wallet because it’s never full). We then headed to the bus stop and bought a ticket to Tamarindo for $2! In comparison the fee online for a tourist bus was $45 a person. Tamarindo also was only 87 Km away so we thought this would be a short trip. After getting hassled for taxis for about 40 minutes, we eventually got on our bus and headed for the beach.
We made it about 10 meters (I’m not sure how far that is either, but I thought I should try to use the lingo down here), when the bus stopped to pick up more people. This is not a good sign. We got going again so I thought this was a fluke. Wrong again. We stopped about 100 times in every tiny little city in between Liberia and Tamarindo. We would essentially drive in to the city and drive back out with a couple more people. A bus ride that would normally take about an hour lasted for 2.5 hours. We both agreed that it was still worth the money to take the public bus. At about 11 we finally made it to Tamarindo, but we had a slight problem figuring out where to get off the bus. We assumed there would be a bus station, but the driver just stopped in the middle of the gravel road and said this was the last stop. We were finally in Tamarindo.
After walking about 500 m, we found a taxi that would take us to our villas. However, we broke the cardinal rule of taxi riding by not setting a price before we got on. He also made us sign some sort of insurance waiver before we took off which made us somewhat nervous. (It took a really long time to fill out the form, since we had to give him our social security number, passport number, and home address…this was a joke from Austin Take it easy moms – we actually just had to give one of our names and sign it). He turned out to be a friendly guy with a not so friendly price. A 20 minute taxi ride to our destination cost $40. We will not be calling him back for our return trip. Anyways it is now 12 and we made it to Las Avellanas Villas. This is the “luxury” portion of our trip. I say that term loosely because we will still be eating spaghetti for almost every meal. Essentially these villas are in a plot of land that doesn’t resemble the rest of the countryside. The plants and trees were all planted in specific formations around the villas for added privacy. There are five cabins on the lot and we were given number five, the one farthest away. The villa itself is great. We finally have space to put our clothes and our own kitchen. The deck has two hammocks which are perfect for accomplishing nothing during the day. The shower is unique too in that there is no roof over the top of it. (Just a screen – so you could essentially take a shower in the rain). From the hammock, you really can’t see anything but tons of trees and plants that were planted by the owners, it’s beautiful. The place was designed by a famous Costa Rican architect and it seems like he thought of just about everything. That’s the best I can do for a description until you can see the video for yourself.
So after we checked in to our villa, we spent the next couple hours relaxing and settling in. We* took naps (*we = Matt)/read in the hammocks for a couple hours. We then headed to the store and bought some cheap pasta for the next few days. We somehow ended up killing all the power in our villa though and ate semi-cooked noodles. Not a problem though because after lunch we headed to the beach. The road there is a boardwalk (you literally walk on boards nailed to posts above the marsh) through the marshes, but we ended up on a secluded beach on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. There were probably 10 people there total, but it was also raining.
After the beach we ate more noodles (expect this to be a trend in the next couple blogs) and are now trying to cook up some black beans. Why black beans you say? I think we are asking ourselves the same question right now. Supposedly they need to soak for 2 hours and cook for 2 hours. Aside from cooking the beans all night, we are probably just going to read and watch some TV. (We would relax on the hammock at night since even those have a light directly above each of them in the ceiling – what an architect – but the bugs are vicious and frogs keep scaring Austin).
Tomorrow morning we plan on going back to hang on the beach and check out Lola’s, a local restaurant that should have epic fruit smoothies. Pura Vida!!
(side note: as I (Matt) am writing this note, there are howler monkeys screeching outside our villa. They are only a couple feet tall, but have a loud growl. I have been practicing my howler monkey call the past few days, and it’s improving. They were eating some sort of fruit in the trees right outside of our villa, and we got a good view of them. One of the momma howlers was carrying her baby on her back. It was a great experience and one that would never happen in Minnesota)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Rincon De La Vieja
Tuesday evening, May 24th:
We decided to get some groceries at the local supermarket and withdraw money at the ATM (from Citi actually). Afterwards, Sauer and I spent some more time reading before dinner.
For dinner we went to the hostel's restaurant because we heard the food is decent and the price is cheap. We both got a tender loin, and with mine I got fried onions, rice, and a salad. With his, Sauer got sauce, fries, and a salad. Each meal was tasty, quite filling, and only about $7. We also had a $2 Imperial (Costa Rica's beer) to celebrate my birthday.
After dinner, Sauer and I planned our hike for the following morning by paying for $20 round trip transportation (about an hour each way). We headed off to bed early, each of us laying down by about 8:30. We've gotten into the habit of watching parts of a movie each night, where he watches on my iPod and I use the small red laptop. We're currently both watching The Green Mile, which neither of us have seen.
Wednesday, May 25th:
We got up at about 6:00 for our 7:00 AM truck to Rincon de la Vieja where we were planning to hike. The bus consisted of a standard small SUV, with two extra sideways-turned seats in the very back. So it fit five comfortably and two uncomfortably. Since Sauer and I were the last in the truck, we sat in the back. You either had to lean forward and look up or lean back and look down. It was a very uncomfortable ride.
What's annoying is that this 1-hour ride was probably 15-20 miles away from the hostel, but since the roads are so terrible, the driver averages 15-20 miles per hour. Yeah.
We got to the park at about 8:10 AM and prepared for hiking. Here were our options:
1. Hike to the Rincon Crater. 16 km round trip, takes about 8 hours.
2. Hike to Cataratas la Congreja, a beautiful waterfall. (http://www.google.co.cr/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/33248373_4e2782d800.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/80462338%40N00/page2/&usg=__YAFytr4zG3Fbyipp6Ps0asJvQU8=&h=375&w=500&sz=63&hl=es&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=xMMYXNXfAYAJwM:&tbnh=115&tbnw=153&ei=cpHdTeiYAs2Ctgej-4W5Dw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcataratas%2Bde%2Bla%2Bcongreja%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D409%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=123&vpy=115&dur=318&hovh=180&hovw=240&tx=141&ty=88&sqi=2&page=1&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0) 10 km round trip. Takes about 5 hours.
3. Do Las Pailas. A 3 km tour of volcanic activity such as mud pots. 2 hours.
We selected options 2 and 3. In hindsight, it was the right decision. After stopping along the way for tri-pod photos, we arrived at the waterfall by about 11:15 AM. Along the way, the hike is quite interesting because you pass through different types of terrain, between rainforest and dry savannah/desert. We saw white-faced monkeys, some small pig/boar-like creatures, millions of ants, and some pretty birds.
Then, finally, we reached the waterfall! It was incredible!!! Hopefully you have already clicked on the link above... if not, please do so immediately. The waterfall is very secluded and contains beautiful, crystal-clear water. So, after asking many people about the safety of the water, we swam in it! It was cold, but quite refreshing.
When we were about to leave (we were alone that whole time) another group of four Americans came to go for a dip. We also had lunch at the waterfall, and boy, I have never and likely will never eat lunch at such a pretty setting.
As soon as we started to hike back, it started to rain...hard. It was pouring. For the first 2 km, we jogged through the desert-like landscape as water flooded the traditional path. I basically skipped from bank to bank of this new, small rain "river" to keep from stepping in the water or the deep wilderness. Didn't matter, we both got drenched immediately. It was crazy.
We made it back to the information center at the entrance of the park at about 1:00 PM, very wet. After sitting for 15-20 minutes, Sauer and I opted for Option 3 (above) to see some volcanic activity before our ride left at 4 PM. The hike was pretty fun, and we finally got to see the third type of monkey: The Howler. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REPoVfN-Ij4 We also saw some mud pots and bubbles made from volcanic activity, where the mud/water pools can reach 224 degrees F. We finished the hike at about 3:00 PM, had a second lunch (again consisting of PB&J, a banana, and a granola bar). This time we brought a liter of peach juice that we had drank at the waterfall.
We left at about 4:00 PM and made it back before 5:00 PM. We're now just hanging out for the evening until we catch a bus to Tamarindo in the morning (our hostel is by Playa Avellana so we may have to taxi from Tamarindo if there is no bus).
Maybe tonight is a good time for a Coke...
Aust & Matt
We decided to get some groceries at the local supermarket and withdraw money at the ATM (from Citi actually). Afterwards, Sauer and I spent some more time reading before dinner.
For dinner we went to the hostel's restaurant because we heard the food is decent and the price is cheap. We both got a tender loin, and with mine I got fried onions, rice, and a salad. With his, Sauer got sauce, fries, and a salad. Each meal was tasty, quite filling, and only about $7. We also had a $2 Imperial (Costa Rica's beer) to celebrate my birthday.
After dinner, Sauer and I planned our hike for the following morning by paying for $20 round trip transportation (about an hour each way). We headed off to bed early, each of us laying down by about 8:30. We've gotten into the habit of watching parts of a movie each night, where he watches on my iPod and I use the small red laptop. We're currently both watching The Green Mile, which neither of us have seen.
Wednesday, May 25th:
We got up at about 6:00 for our 7:00 AM truck to Rincon de la Vieja where we were planning to hike. The bus consisted of a standard small SUV, with two extra sideways-turned seats in the very back. So it fit five comfortably and two uncomfortably. Since Sauer and I were the last in the truck, we sat in the back. You either had to lean forward and look up or lean back and look down. It was a very uncomfortable ride.
What's annoying is that this 1-hour ride was probably 15-20 miles away from the hostel, but since the roads are so terrible, the driver averages 15-20 miles per hour. Yeah.
We got to the park at about 8:10 AM and prepared for hiking. Here were our options:
1. Hike to the Rincon Crater. 16 km round trip, takes about 8 hours.
2. Hike to Cataratas la Congreja, a beautiful waterfall. (http://www.google.co.cr/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/33248373_4e2782d800.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/80462338%40N00/page2/&usg=__YAFytr4zG3Fbyipp6Ps0asJvQU8=&h=375&w=500&sz=63&hl=es&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=xMMYXNXfAYAJwM:&tbnh=115&tbnw=153&ei=cpHdTeiYAs2Ctgej-4W5Dw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcataratas%2Bde%2Bla%2Bcongreja%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D409%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=123&vpy=115&dur=318&hovh=180&hovw=240&tx=141&ty=88&sqi=2&page=1&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0) 10 km round trip. Takes about 5 hours.
3. Do Las Pailas. A 3 km tour of volcanic activity such as mud pots. 2 hours.
We selected options 2 and 3. In hindsight, it was the right decision. After stopping along the way for tri-pod photos, we arrived at the waterfall by about 11:15 AM. Along the way, the hike is quite interesting because you pass through different types of terrain, between rainforest and dry savannah/desert. We saw white-faced monkeys, some small pig/boar-like creatures, millions of ants, and some pretty birds.
Then, finally, we reached the waterfall! It was incredible!!! Hopefully you have already clicked on the link above... if not, please do so immediately. The waterfall is very secluded and contains beautiful, crystal-clear water. So, after asking many people about the safety of the water, we swam in it! It was cold, but quite refreshing.
When we were about to leave (we were alone that whole time) another group of four Americans came to go for a dip. We also had lunch at the waterfall, and boy, I have never and likely will never eat lunch at such a pretty setting.
As soon as we started to hike back, it started to rain...hard. It was pouring. For the first 2 km, we jogged through the desert-like landscape as water flooded the traditional path. I basically skipped from bank to bank of this new, small rain "river" to keep from stepping in the water or the deep wilderness. Didn't matter, we both got drenched immediately. It was crazy.
We made it back to the information center at the entrance of the park at about 1:00 PM, very wet. After sitting for 15-20 minutes, Sauer and I opted for Option 3 (above) to see some volcanic activity before our ride left at 4 PM. The hike was pretty fun, and we finally got to see the third type of monkey: The Howler. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REPoVfN-Ij4 We also saw some mud pots and bubbles made from volcanic activity, where the mud/water pools can reach 224 degrees F. We finished the hike at about 3:00 PM, had a second lunch (again consisting of PB&J, a banana, and a granola bar). This time we brought a liter of peach juice that we had drank at the waterfall.
We left at about 4:00 PM and made it back before 5:00 PM. We're now just hanging out for the evening until we catch a bus to Tamarindo in the morning (our hostel is by Playa Avellana so we may have to taxi from Tamarindo if there is no bus).
Maybe tonight is a good time for a Coke...
Aust & Matt
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Liberia, Costa Rica
Last Night (Monday, May 23):
Sauer and I napped after our all-day excursion to Monteverde. We then cooked up some pasta, shared a liter of peach juice, and had a baguette. We were able to chat some more with the 4 gals and 1 guy from the UK traveling through Central America. A few of them have been traveling for 7 months now. We also met a Canadian (Toronto) couple also traveling after having graduated from college. It's always fun to chat with other travelers in hostels, since we all have the same mission: to frugally travel.
We spoke to the owner's wife/gf regarding how to get to Liberia the next day. Her news made us a bit nervous: there's only one way - take a public bus to Chomes (doesn't exist on the map) and then transfer to a bus headed for Liberia. The first bus was to leave at 6 AM. Wow. A bit intimidating, since we previously had only dealt with bus shuttles (such as from San Jose to Arenal, and Arenal to Monteverde).
After dinner I was able to read some Charles Spurgeon: Prayer & Spritual Warfare and he may be my current favorite writer. He has a very big view of God and the promises of the Bible. After showering one last time, Sauer and I packed up some of our stuff and headed off to bed.
We set the alarm for 4:45 AM. This is always scary, at least for me (Austin), since our alarm is from our watch that we bought at the airport and has a quiet beep alarm. But, it hasn't failed us yet...
Tuesday, May 24, 2011:
We woke up at about 4:30 and decided to stay up until the alarm went off (why risk it). We packed up our things and left the hostel to walk about 5 minutes to the bus stop/station. After purchasing a $2 ticket for a 2 hour bus ride to Chomes, we boarded the bus. The UK group was with us also. The first ride was fine, since we were able to nap on and off along the windy mountain roads. We were nervous, however, since Chomes appeared to be the 5th stop and was supposed to happen at about 2 hours on the dot. After about 2 hours, 15 minutes, the bus finally came to an actual cross-road, the first one, and it was a highway. The driver turned around and said "Nicaragua, Liberia, (and he said a few more)" so we hopped off and grabbed our bags. We spotted a cement slab where a few others were standing on the highway and made sure that the bus we were taking to Liberia would pick us up here. No more than 5 seconds later, the Liberia bus came. How great! Although the timing was great, Sauer and I both had to use the restroom but simply did not have time. Oh well, we'd better hold it for two more hours! This bus was only $2 more. Ha! Instead of taking a $40 or $50 bus directly, we essentially went directly and only paid $4. What a deal.
The second bus was running from about 8AM to 10AM, so it started getting hot on the bus, and we both started sweating pretty badly. But, we made it to Liberia, the final stop. We actually walked to our hostel in a matter of minutes and checked into our rooms by 1030AM. Went very smoothly.
Once we'd checked into our hostel, we both took cold showers. (There's only one dial on most showers - who needs warm water in such a hot country?)
Our place is called Hotel Guanacaste but functions like a hostel. It actually has pretty bad approval ratings on hostelworld (68%) but we think that this is because people expect a hotel, not a hostel. It's not too bad. It has a couple of courtyards, a restaurant/bar connected to it, free towels, iguanas everywhere, a fan in the room, and we only have to share the bathroom with one other bedroom. For only $9 a night, I'm not complaining. (Although, I have killed about 75 ants crawling across our wall... I think I've killed the entire group).
It is sooooo hot! According to weather.com, it is 88 but feels like 95 degrees. After Sauer and I bought some groceries and withdrew more money, we decided to just chill for the rest of the day (It's only 2:30 PM).
The reason we came to Liberia was to hike at the Rincon National Park and since the park is only open 7 to 4, we didn't have time to go there today, since we're 10 or 20 km away. We will be there all day tomorrow, however, where we will hike to the crater of a volcano and a waterfall that is well known as a very beautiful swimming hole.
Back to reading, catch you later!
Austin & Matt
Sauer and I napped after our all-day excursion to Monteverde. We then cooked up some pasta, shared a liter of peach juice, and had a baguette. We were able to chat some more with the 4 gals and 1 guy from the UK traveling through Central America. A few of them have been traveling for 7 months now. We also met a Canadian (Toronto) couple also traveling after having graduated from college. It's always fun to chat with other travelers in hostels, since we all have the same mission: to frugally travel.
We spoke to the owner's wife/gf regarding how to get to Liberia the next day. Her news made us a bit nervous: there's only one way - take a public bus to Chomes (doesn't exist on the map) and then transfer to a bus headed for Liberia. The first bus was to leave at 6 AM. Wow. A bit intimidating, since we previously had only dealt with bus shuttles (such as from San Jose to Arenal, and Arenal to Monteverde).
After dinner I was able to read some Charles Spurgeon: Prayer & Spritual Warfare and he may be my current favorite writer. He has a very big view of God and the promises of the Bible. After showering one last time, Sauer and I packed up some of our stuff and headed off to bed.
We set the alarm for 4:45 AM. This is always scary, at least for me (Austin), since our alarm is from our watch that we bought at the airport and has a quiet beep alarm. But, it hasn't failed us yet...
Tuesday, May 24, 2011:
We woke up at about 4:30 and decided to stay up until the alarm went off (why risk it). We packed up our things and left the hostel to walk about 5 minutes to the bus stop/station. After purchasing a $2 ticket for a 2 hour bus ride to Chomes, we boarded the bus. The UK group was with us also. The first ride was fine, since we were able to nap on and off along the windy mountain roads. We were nervous, however, since Chomes appeared to be the 5th stop and was supposed to happen at about 2 hours on the dot. After about 2 hours, 15 minutes, the bus finally came to an actual cross-road, the first one, and it was a highway. The driver turned around and said "Nicaragua, Liberia, (and he said a few more)" so we hopped off and grabbed our bags. We spotted a cement slab where a few others were standing on the highway and made sure that the bus we were taking to Liberia would pick us up here. No more than 5 seconds later, the Liberia bus came. How great! Although the timing was great, Sauer and I both had to use the restroom but simply did not have time. Oh well, we'd better hold it for two more hours! This bus was only $2 more. Ha! Instead of taking a $40 or $50 bus directly, we essentially went directly and only paid $4. What a deal.
The second bus was running from about 8AM to 10AM, so it started getting hot on the bus, and we both started sweating pretty badly. But, we made it to Liberia, the final stop. We actually walked to our hostel in a matter of minutes and checked into our rooms by 1030AM. Went very smoothly.
Once we'd checked into our hostel, we both took cold showers. (There's only one dial on most showers - who needs warm water in such a hot country?)
Our place is called Hotel Guanacaste but functions like a hostel. It actually has pretty bad approval ratings on hostelworld (68%) but we think that this is because people expect a hotel, not a hostel. It's not too bad. It has a couple of courtyards, a restaurant/bar connected to it, free towels, iguanas everywhere, a fan in the room, and we only have to share the bathroom with one other bedroom. For only $9 a night, I'm not complaining. (Although, I have killed about 75 ants crawling across our wall... I think I've killed the entire group).
It is sooooo hot! According to weather.com, it is 88 but feels like 95 degrees. After Sauer and I bought some groceries and withdrew more money, we decided to just chill for the rest of the day (It's only 2:30 PM).
The reason we came to Liberia was to hike at the Rincon National Park and since the park is only open 7 to 4, we didn't have time to go there today, since we're 10 or 20 km away. We will be there all day tomorrow, however, where we will hike to the crater of a volcano and a waterfall that is well known as a very beautiful swimming hole.
Back to reading, catch you later!
Austin & Matt
Monday, May 23, 2011
Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve
Hi all, Austin here.
Today, on Monday, May 23 in Monteverde, Costa Rica, Matt and I took a school bus turned town bus (but still used as a school bus) about 5km to Monteverde at 7:30 this morning. After a good night's rest (I started watching the Godfather for the first time last night) we had breakfast consisting of pineapple, banana, watermelon, milk + granola, a slice of bread, and scrambled eggs. This is Mauricio's brother's hostel, so all the rules and regs are the same, including the breakfast menu.
After arriving at Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve (http://www.monteverdeinfo.com/monteverdes-cloud-forests.html) we got a map and advice on two hikes, a 3-hour hike and a 2-hour hike. This was our only plan for the day, so we opted for both.
Being in the forest alone is phenomenal. Whenever you want, you simply stop walking, keep quiet, and listen. The forest is full of animals making noises and communicating. It's stunning. Today, we saw three quetzals, a wild cat, a slug, two caterpillars, a crab (very rare), a vine snake, vulchers, many birds, and homo sapiens.
I did bring my tripod today so that Sauer and I could take photos with both of us in the frame since no one would be around to take photos for us. It worked wonderfully.
The first trail took us 3.5 hours since we stopped many times to search and listen for animals. Ty - I killed two horseflies in one swat today, you're welcome. The middle stretch went through a damp, low-land kind of marsh which brought few animals and many bugs! After the marsh, we continued up to an outlook very high in the mountain with a great view of Monteverde. After finishing our firsh hike of 3.5 hours, we stopped back at the park entrance to have lunch and visit the gift shop.
So, yesterday we purchased four HUGE bananas and had two of them yesterday, and were eating the other two for lunch at the park. A ranger walked over to us and informed us that these were not bananas, but plantains. He said that you are only supposed to eat them if the plantain has been fried first. Great. We did notice that they were harder to peel and didn't taste as good, but we figured we had gotten a bad batch. To our defense, the sign said "platanos" which is one of two words used for "banana". The ranger also told us that it causes and itchy stomach and sometimes diarrhea ha. Uh oh. We feel good so far.
The second hike was on a smaller path and included more ups and downs. We needed to go quicker on this one, since we sought to catch the 2 PM bus back to our hostel. The bugs were worse on this hike, and of course, we didn't have our bug spray. Bad plan.
We just got dropped off at the hostel, went to grab some groceries for dinner (juice, pasta, pasta sauce, and bananas - not plantains). After we speak with the hostel owner regarding our next bus (tomorrow morning from Monteverde to Liberia) we will take the night easy and read/watch a movie.
Hasta Luego!
Austin + Matt
Today, on Monday, May 23 in Monteverde, Costa Rica, Matt and I took a school bus turned town bus (but still used as a school bus) about 5km to Monteverde at 7:30 this morning. After a good night's rest (I started watching the Godfather for the first time last night) we had breakfast consisting of pineapple, banana, watermelon, milk + granola, a slice of bread, and scrambled eggs. This is Mauricio's brother's hostel, so all the rules and regs are the same, including the breakfast menu.
After arriving at Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve (http://www.monteverdeinfo.com/monteverdes-cloud-forests.html) we got a map and advice on two hikes, a 3-hour hike and a 2-hour hike. This was our only plan for the day, so we opted for both.
Being in the forest alone is phenomenal. Whenever you want, you simply stop walking, keep quiet, and listen. The forest is full of animals making noises and communicating. It's stunning. Today, we saw three quetzals, a wild cat, a slug, two caterpillars, a crab (very rare), a vine snake, vulchers, many birds, and homo sapiens.
I did bring my tripod today so that Sauer and I could take photos with both of us in the frame since no one would be around to take photos for us. It worked wonderfully.
The first trail took us 3.5 hours since we stopped many times to search and listen for animals. Ty - I killed two horseflies in one swat today, you're welcome. The middle stretch went through a damp, low-land kind of marsh which brought few animals and many bugs! After the marsh, we continued up to an outlook very high in the mountain with a great view of Monteverde. After finishing our firsh hike of 3.5 hours, we stopped back at the park entrance to have lunch and visit the gift shop.
So, yesterday we purchased four HUGE bananas and had two of them yesterday, and were eating the other two for lunch at the park. A ranger walked over to us and informed us that these were not bananas, but plantains. He said that you are only supposed to eat them if the plantain has been fried first. Great. We did notice that they were harder to peel and didn't taste as good, but we figured we had gotten a bad batch. To our defense, the sign said "platanos" which is one of two words used for "banana". The ranger also told us that it causes and itchy stomach and sometimes diarrhea ha. Uh oh. We feel good so far.
The second hike was on a smaller path and included more ups and downs. We needed to go quicker on this one, since we sought to catch the 2 PM bus back to our hostel. The bugs were worse on this hike, and of course, we didn't have our bug spray. Bad plan.
We just got dropped off at the hostel, went to grab some groceries for dinner (juice, pasta, pasta sauce, and bananas - not plantains). After we speak with the hostel owner regarding our next bus (tomorrow morning from Monteverde to Liberia) we will take the night easy and read/watch a movie.
Hasta Luego!
Austin + Matt
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Adios Mauricio!
6:00 AM - El Salto
8:30 AM - Sky Trek + Sky Tram Zip Line Tour
2:30 PM - Jeep Boat Jeep
We started off Sunday, May 22nd by getting up at 5:45 AM using our airport-purchased watch/timer/alarm with the hopes of doing "El Salto" which is a free rope-swing 10 minutes from our hostel where the locals hang out. We were doing it so early because we could not go after our Sky Trek + Sky Tram Zip because we would be leaving for Monteverde. Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iS0DGtgw88
However, we didn't end up jumping. It had been raining the previous 12 hours so the water was running pretty heavy. Also, there were no locals there (obviously) so we didn't chance the safe and unsafe areas of the water in terms of rocks beneath. I was thinking of going and was actually holding the rope ready to go and just prayed for wisdom on whether or not to jump. Just as I opened my eyes, Sauer showed me a guy in the woods staring at us. So we left. It was still a nice morning walk to start our day.
At 8:30ish we were picked up to go on a Sky Trek Zip Line Tour for $76. The ride was once again very bumpy (far worse than US dirt roads) and we arrived by 9:15. From there we got our gear (yes mom, we wore helmets too) and headed up what is called their Sky Tram. (Side Note: All of this takes place in full view of the volcano and among Costa Rica jungle.) The Sky Tram is a gondola-style ride to the top of the mountain, through the trees. Beautiful. We actually saw spider monkeys climbing trees! One of the employees told us that he's been riding the Sky Tram for five months and had never seen them. Once we reached the top, we enjoyed freshly squeezed mango juice and prepared for zip-lining.
There are eight zip lines. The first two are about 30 feet and are for practice. The last one is about 50 feet and is for the photographer to get a snapshot of each zip-liner. That leaves 5. I would say each was over 1200 feet long with the longest being almost a mile. You get up to 47 mph during the fastest zip line. It is a HUGE adrenaline rush. They picked Sauer, then me, to go first on the first long zip line across the jungle (300+ feet above the ground). Essentially you ride through about 30 feet through the jungle and then the zip-line stays level while the jungle becomes a steep valley and you find yourself dangling very high in the air.
They teach you (I, Austin, should have listened) to lean far back and to keep your legs bent and knees up. On the second long zip line, I leaned forward for a while to get better views. This caused the wind to catch my chest, turn my on the zip line which caused friction on the line and ultimately slowed me down. I stopped short by about 30 feet from the ending platform, while most flew into the platform and took advantage of the smooth breaking system they have. So, as taught, I had to embarrassingly turn my back to the platform and pull myself to the platform. Luckily, i had gone second so no one really saw my failure. It also happened to an 85-pound girl and a pretty big guy, except those two failed in front of the 20-person group :) Needless to say, after this, I exhibited perfect zip line form.
Actual zip line we did, for real:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzPMUO-TRts
After the ride back from Sky Trek, we collected our already-packed (we did so at 7 AM) bags and had about 1.5 hours before the Jeep Boat Jeep. First we went to the bank to withdraw some cash, then went to the supermarket for more water. Afterwords, we again chatted with Mauricio (hostel owner, who already is Sauer's FB friend) and both ate two ham + cheese sandwiches to eat our previously purchased groceries (back when we figured we would be staying there for 5 days, not 3). We gave Mauricio chocolate covered cashews that we had purchased at the Sky Trek gift shop (while I ate chocolate covered pineapple and Sauer ate chocolate covered coffee beans). Mauricio was very grateful. To return the favor, he gave us chips and rice and chicken (even though we were already full) which tasted great. Then the Jeep Boat Jeep guys arrived. We said goodbye to Mauricio and headed off!
We took a 30 minute car ride (in a tourism van with 6 others) to Lake Arenal (which is a man-made lake that produces 45% of Costa Rica's power through hydro). We took a boat across the lake and hopped in a tourism van for 2 hours to Monteverde. Thus, Jeep Boat Jeep, get it? The ride was pretty rough but we made it. At the Sleepers Sleep Easy Hostel owned by Mauricio's brother, we have a great view and nicer room (with warm showers!) all for the same price. For the third time, we saw the older german woman who is traveling around the world for a year (she's staying in our hostel) and we saw the five-some family at the grocery store that had been in our Desafio Mambo Combo trip from Arenal. Crazy.
We bought some juice, bananas, water, and jam and are preparing for our all-day hike at the Monteverde cloud forest tomorrow. Goodnight!
Austin & Matt
ppl we see
8:30 AM - Sky Trek + Sky Tram Zip Line Tour
2:30 PM - Jeep Boat Jeep
We started off Sunday, May 22nd by getting up at 5:45 AM using our airport-purchased watch/timer/alarm with the hopes of doing "El Salto" which is a free rope-swing 10 minutes from our hostel where the locals hang out. We were doing it so early because we could not go after our Sky Trek + Sky Tram Zip because we would be leaving for Monteverde. Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iS0DGtgw88
However, we didn't end up jumping. It had been raining the previous 12 hours so the water was running pretty heavy. Also, there were no locals there (obviously) so we didn't chance the safe and unsafe areas of the water in terms of rocks beneath. I was thinking of going and was actually holding the rope ready to go and just prayed for wisdom on whether or not to jump. Just as I opened my eyes, Sauer showed me a guy in the woods staring at us. So we left. It was still a nice morning walk to start our day.
At 8:30ish we were picked up to go on a Sky Trek Zip Line Tour for $76. The ride was once again very bumpy (far worse than US dirt roads) and we arrived by 9:15. From there we got our gear (yes mom, we wore helmets too) and headed up what is called their Sky Tram. (Side Note: All of this takes place in full view of the volcano and among Costa Rica jungle.) The Sky Tram is a gondola-style ride to the top of the mountain, through the trees. Beautiful. We actually saw spider monkeys climbing trees! One of the employees told us that he's been riding the Sky Tram for five months and had never seen them. Once we reached the top, we enjoyed freshly squeezed mango juice and prepared for zip-lining.
There are eight zip lines. The first two are about 30 feet and are for practice. The last one is about 50 feet and is for the photographer to get a snapshot of each zip-liner. That leaves 5. I would say each was over 1200 feet long with the longest being almost a mile. You get up to 47 mph during the fastest zip line. It is a HUGE adrenaline rush. They picked Sauer, then me, to go first on the first long zip line across the jungle (300+ feet above the ground). Essentially you ride through about 30 feet through the jungle and then the zip-line stays level while the jungle becomes a steep valley and you find yourself dangling very high in the air.
They teach you (I, Austin, should have listened) to lean far back and to keep your legs bent and knees up. On the second long zip line, I leaned forward for a while to get better views. This caused the wind to catch my chest, turn my on the zip line which caused friction on the line and ultimately slowed me down. I stopped short by about 30 feet from the ending platform, while most flew into the platform and took advantage of the smooth breaking system they have. So, as taught, I had to embarrassingly turn my back to the platform and pull myself to the platform. Luckily, i had gone second so no one really saw my failure. It also happened to an 85-pound girl and a pretty big guy, except those two failed in front of the 20-person group :) Needless to say, after this, I exhibited perfect zip line form.
Actual zip line we did, for real:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzPMUO-TRts
After the ride back from Sky Trek, we collected our already-packed (we did so at 7 AM) bags and had about 1.5 hours before the Jeep Boat Jeep. First we went to the bank to withdraw some cash, then went to the supermarket for more water. Afterwords, we again chatted with Mauricio (hostel owner, who already is Sauer's FB friend) and both ate two ham + cheese sandwiches to eat our previously purchased groceries (back when we figured we would be staying there for 5 days, not 3). We gave Mauricio chocolate covered cashews that we had purchased at the Sky Trek gift shop (while I ate chocolate covered pineapple and Sauer ate chocolate covered coffee beans). Mauricio was very grateful. To return the favor, he gave us chips and rice and chicken (even though we were already full) which tasted great. Then the Jeep Boat Jeep guys arrived. We said goodbye to Mauricio and headed off!
We took a 30 minute car ride (in a tourism van with 6 others) to Lake Arenal (which is a man-made lake that produces 45% of Costa Rica's power through hydro). We took a boat across the lake and hopped in a tourism van for 2 hours to Monteverde. Thus, Jeep Boat Jeep, get it? The ride was pretty rough but we made it. At the Sleepers Sleep Easy Hostel owned by Mauricio's brother, we have a great view and nicer room (with warm showers!) all for the same price. For the third time, we saw the older german woman who is traveling around the world for a year (she's staying in our hostel) and we saw the five-some family at the grocery store that had been in our Desafio Mambo Combo trip from Arenal. Crazy.
We bought some juice, bananas, water, and jam and are preparing for our all-day hike at the Monteverde cloud forest tomorrow. Goodnight!
Austin & Matt
ppl we see
PURA VIDA!
Pura vida!
We said this phrase probably 100 times today. Directly translated it means “pure life”, and people say it in pretty much any occasion. For example, we finished paying for groceries and they said pura vida. I feel like we are still learning exactly what pura vida means as we spend more time in Costa Rica. Today we got up and did the MAMBO COMBO with a company called Desafio (it was just as awesome as the name implies). We started the day with canyoning through four different waterfalls and walking along/through a river. We were picked up at 7 am by Victor and took a four-wheel drive truck through the most bumpy, windy road in the countryside to reach the canyons. All of the houses we passed by seemed so primitive because they still used open fires to cook and lived 6 ft off the ground. Eventually we got to the canyons and they started us off “easy” with a 20 ft waterfall. No big deal for us experts. Disclaimer: for all parents reading this blog, there were trained employees with us otherwise we might not be living right now to write this. The first waterfall wasn’t to nerve racking but the second one was 110 ft high. Our guide as we are going down tells us to let go of the rope. Somehow that is supposed to make it more “fun”. The final one was 220 ft high and more of a zipline than a canyon. Overall it was a great adrenaline rush. Not as terrifying as I thought it would be, but it was a blast. After that we headed to the restaurant and had our second breakfast of the day with a traditional Costa Rican dish called gallito (forgot how to spell it). Essentially they eat rice and beans with everything and its called gallito. Their salsa was epic as well. Side note: we met a couple from Minneapolis on the Mambo Combo and one of them actually works at Ecolab. Small world huh?
River Dam Story – we’ll show you photos. They dammed the river and then released all the water as we sat in the river’s path 15 feet downstream. It was so powerful!
After breakfast we headed to the river to go rafting. I was more nervous for this part because the water in the canyons wasn’t all that deep. However, If I fall out of a raft, I will be doggy paddling my way to certain death. The rapids were only class 2-3 (which I still have no idea what that means). We had an excellent leader for these too. His name was Jacob and he was the most sarcastic/genuinely nice person I have ever met. He showed us how to paddle correctly in the beginning, and laughed at our inability to paddle throughout the entire way down. We all jumped in at a calm point on the way down and somehow Austin got sucked downstream. He claims that he swam into the current and it led him downstream, but I’m not convinced. No worries though because we rescued him just before we went down another rapid. It ended up being a great time for us. The class 3 rapids weren’t too dangerous, and I would definitely go again in the future.
Another random side note: our tour guide said that there were a ton of fish in the river and the most common one is like a piranha. Great. But the good news is that they only eat plants. Also we saw our first alligators today, but in another river. Danger is lurking around every corner.
After the Mambo Combo we just decided to hang out around the hostel. It ended up being great because we were able to talk to the owner, Maruicio, for quite some time. He was a great help to us during the entire stay here and he knows a lot about the area. He said that he is trying hard to learn English, and he has a lot of friends who practice with him on Facebook. He is a tico which means native Costa Rican here, and he has lived his entire life in this country. Him and his brother own hostels in Arenal and Monteverde where we are going. He is just an all-around genuine guy and we will definitely miss this hostel as we head out tomorrow to Monteverde. Random side note #3: sloths are called perezosos in Spanish which directly translates to lazy. Austin was also curious how sloths are not extinct because it would seem that they would move to slow to defend themselves. Apparently they can be very vicious if provoked. They lie on their backs and claw at predators when they are in danger. Of course this theory needs to be tested so look for a future blog post about how this turns out.
Our quest continues for a Quetzal (google it) and monkeys tomorrow as we head to a zipline tour and the Monteverde Forest Reserve. Hasta luego!
Matt & Austin
We said this phrase probably 100 times today. Directly translated it means “pure life”, and people say it in pretty much any occasion. For example, we finished paying for groceries and they said pura vida. I feel like we are still learning exactly what pura vida means as we spend more time in Costa Rica. Today we got up and did the MAMBO COMBO with a company called Desafio (it was just as awesome as the name implies). We started the day with canyoning through four different waterfalls and walking along/through a river. We were picked up at 7 am by Victor and took a four-wheel drive truck through the most bumpy, windy road in the countryside to reach the canyons. All of the houses we passed by seemed so primitive because they still used open fires to cook and lived 6 ft off the ground. Eventually we got to the canyons and they started us off “easy” with a 20 ft waterfall. No big deal for us experts. Disclaimer: for all parents reading this blog, there were trained employees with us otherwise we might not be living right now to write this. The first waterfall wasn’t to nerve racking but the second one was 110 ft high. Our guide as we are going down tells us to let go of the rope. Somehow that is supposed to make it more “fun”. The final one was 220 ft high and more of a zipline than a canyon. Overall it was a great adrenaline rush. Not as terrifying as I thought it would be, but it was a blast. After that we headed to the restaurant and had our second breakfast of the day with a traditional Costa Rican dish called gallito (forgot how to spell it). Essentially they eat rice and beans with everything and its called gallito. Their salsa was epic as well. Side note: we met a couple from Minneapolis on the Mambo Combo and one of them actually works at Ecolab. Small world huh?
River Dam Story – we’ll show you photos. They dammed the river and then released all the water as we sat in the river’s path 15 feet downstream. It was so powerful!
After breakfast we headed to the river to go rafting. I was more nervous for this part because the water in the canyons wasn’t all that deep. However, If I fall out of a raft, I will be doggy paddling my way to certain death. The rapids were only class 2-3 (which I still have no idea what that means). We had an excellent leader for these too. His name was Jacob and he was the most sarcastic/genuinely nice person I have ever met. He showed us how to paddle correctly in the beginning, and laughed at our inability to paddle throughout the entire way down. We all jumped in at a calm point on the way down and somehow Austin got sucked downstream. He claims that he swam into the current and it led him downstream, but I’m not convinced. No worries though because we rescued him just before we went down another rapid. It ended up being a great time for us. The class 3 rapids weren’t too dangerous, and I would definitely go again in the future.
Another random side note: our tour guide said that there were a ton of fish in the river and the most common one is like a piranha. Great. But the good news is that they only eat plants. Also we saw our first alligators today, but in another river. Danger is lurking around every corner.
After the Mambo Combo we just decided to hang out around the hostel. It ended up being great because we were able to talk to the owner, Maruicio, for quite some time. He was a great help to us during the entire stay here and he knows a lot about the area. He said that he is trying hard to learn English, and he has a lot of friends who practice with him on Facebook. He is a tico which means native Costa Rican here, and he has lived his entire life in this country. Him and his brother own hostels in Arenal and Monteverde where we are going. He is just an all-around genuine guy and we will definitely miss this hostel as we head out tomorrow to Monteverde. Random side note #3: sloths are called perezosos in Spanish which directly translates to lazy. Austin was also curious how sloths are not extinct because it would seem that they would move to slow to defend themselves. Apparently they can be very vicious if provoked. They lie on their backs and claw at predators when they are in danger. Of course this theory needs to be tested so look for a future blog post about how this turns out.
Our quest continues for a Quetzal (google it) and monkeys tomorrow as we head to a zipline tour and the Monteverde Forest Reserve. Hasta luego!
Matt & Austin
Friday, May 20, 2011
Heaven on Earth
What a day, what a day.
After sleeping well for 9-10 hours in just boxers, without even sheets, with a fan on high, we were ready to start the day.
We had a delicious breakfast served to us by our 'amable' owner, Mauricio which included banana, watermelon, pineapple, and grain & milk. Really, it wasn't cereal. Too rough for that. It was grain a milk. Pretty good for $9/person/night to have free breakfast. We thought that was it when he came back with scrambled eggs and bread!
To prove his "amable"-ness, we left and forgot to lock or even shut our door, so he shut and locked it for us. (Don't worry, all of our stuff is locked shut in a bag that is locked to a bedpost. But still, we did make the mistake of forgetting to lock up.
As we said in a previous post, we went for comfort and security and convenience and peace-of-mind so we selected tours that includes transportation (they pick you up from the hostel).
Spur-of-the-moment, that morning, we opted to participate in a guided Suspended Bridge Tour near the Arenal Volcano. It was $40 and went from 930 to 130. Sauer and I were the only people on the tour! Thus, it was very personal (just us and one very knowledgeable guide) and we hiked for about 3 hours across long suspended bridges in the Costa Rican canopy looking at nature's finest. We got great views of the volcano and of the Arenal Lake. During the tour, we saw a Toucan, some poisonous frogs (blue jeans frog), a walking tree, some type of wild cat (extremely rare to see), and two venomous snakes.
The snakes were less than 1 foot long and likely weighed less than a pound, but Franklin, our guide, made it clear to us that a bite from this snake could kill us. Good to know. Both snakes that we saw were hiding on branches merely a foot or two off of the trail.
Franklin had a good eye and ear for nature, where most of the stuff he pointed out we would have missed.
Thinking about Franklin: On the 20 minute bus ride he would check out women and make unnecessary remarks. Then, we get out into nature and God's beauty and his character seemed entirely different. He was like a child doing his favorite hobby.
We returned at 130 and then needed to run some errands before our 300 tour and hot springs. We went to the grocery store and bought some meat and cheese, a HUGE tub of water, bread, frosted flakes (Zucaritas), and bananas. Bananas are 7 cents each!! We then went to the bank to withdraw 120,000 colones ($240).
We then paid off our owner Mauricio for the tour that he set up for us and the five days of staying at his hostel. At 3 we got on a bus with 8 others to visit a hiking trail at the base of the Arenal Vocano. We actually had Franklin again as our tour guide and saw volcanic rocks, got a good view of the volcano, and learned more about nature while strengthening our calf muscles.
After the hike, we took a bus to the Baldi Hot Springs. We were a little down because we had read over and over to go to the Tabacon Hot Springs, not Baldi, but it was $85 more. (The $85 difference is the price difference for three hours at the springs, so we figured there's no way it's worth that much more). BALDI WAS INCREDIBLE. ALL AROUND. I actually couldn't have dreamt of a better resort with unlimited resources. http://www.baldihotsprings.cr/
To start with, it is naturally heated water in roughly 15 pools and swimming areas at varying temperatures, from ridiculously hot (we couldn't even stick our feet in for more than 5 seconds) to cold. Essentially, a very hot waterfalls cascades at the top and trickles down towards the hotel lobby and swim-up bars at the bottom where cooler water is. Keep in mind, this place is probably 50 yards wide and 200 yards long. Each individual pool is surrounded by actual vegetation and wildlife.
We first went to the tour-included buffet which was phenomenal. Unlimited, great-tasting food and drink. Afterwords, we went straight for the water slides. I was told the middle slide was the fastest. It had a sign next to it that said that the company was in no-way liable for any injuries... The first time I went down (it's a quick right, then a quick left, then a huge drop) I was sitting face-forward like normal and outside of my control I was spun backwards just before the pitched-black mega-drop that I had never been down before. I was scared for my life. But oh, it was worth it. The lifeguards even encouraged us to go down backwards lying down on one of those short, fast-drop slides. We did, it was awesome.
Side note: This resort was practically empty. Almost no people were in most pools. It's not peak tourism season in Costa Rica now.
Sauer and I also hiked to the top of the Baldi resort, where the fake waterfall and hottest water was. They have tiled, stone recliners in the pools so you can lay there and watch the waterfall. I remember just praising God for blessing us with this evening. We returned home safely and I write this.
Other Thoughts:
1. Tomorrow we are doing something called the "Mambo Combo" through the Desafio company which includes canyoning and river rafting.
2. The REI underwear and zip-off, dry-fit shorts are keeping us cool and doing a great job.
3. It really hasn't rained here yet, a little surprising for us. We keep bringing our raincoats on the travels and they never seem needed.
4. We ran into same woman that we rode bus with to Arenal, the German gal traveling around the world in a year. Always good to see old friends.
5. There's a woman that went on today's tour with us that is staying at our hostel. She's probably 45, traveling alone, and seemed generally unhappy/sour for the entire trip. Maybe because she wore jeans on the hike, but we're really not sure.
6. Although our plan is to stay at this hostel for four more nights including the night that I write this, we may only stay two more nights and actually head to Monteverde (we were going to visit it anyways) because Mauricio's brother owns a hostel there. This would make it easier to hike in Monteverde as we desire to do.
7. Girls just moved into our pod - now we have to share the bathroom :(. It's weird, at 10 at night they decided to wander the streets of this town (we don't even have dirt rodes, it's like loose stone rodes)... I just wouldn't feel comfortable doing that in a foreign place, but it always seems like women travel more than men and women are okay doing this sort of thing. Braver or riskier? I don't know.
Quick Notes on Things I forgot:
1. On the sketchy drive from Alajuela (and Denny's) to Arenal, we saw a body on the road from a car accident with a motorcyclist.
2. When we entered our hostel room, Sauer and I both questioned, "Where are our blankets?" After about 15 minutes, we realized that this was because of the always hot temperature. Live and learn.
After sleeping well for 9-10 hours in just boxers, without even sheets, with a fan on high, we were ready to start the day.
We had a delicious breakfast served to us by our 'amable' owner, Mauricio which included banana, watermelon, pineapple, and grain & milk. Really, it wasn't cereal. Too rough for that. It was grain a milk. Pretty good for $9/person/night to have free breakfast. We thought that was it when he came back with scrambled eggs and bread!
To prove his "amable"-ness, we left and forgot to lock or even shut our door, so he shut and locked it for us. (Don't worry, all of our stuff is locked shut in a bag that is locked to a bedpost. But still, we did make the mistake of forgetting to lock up.
As we said in a previous post, we went for comfort and security and convenience and peace-of-mind so we selected tours that includes transportation (they pick you up from the hostel).
Spur-of-the-moment, that morning, we opted to participate in a guided Suspended Bridge Tour near the Arenal Volcano. It was $40 and went from 930 to 130. Sauer and I were the only people on the tour! Thus, it was very personal (just us and one very knowledgeable guide) and we hiked for about 3 hours across long suspended bridges in the Costa Rican canopy looking at nature's finest. We got great views of the volcano and of the Arenal Lake. During the tour, we saw a Toucan, some poisonous frogs (blue jeans frog), a walking tree, some type of wild cat (extremely rare to see), and two venomous snakes.
The snakes were less than 1 foot long and likely weighed less than a pound, but Franklin, our guide, made it clear to us that a bite from this snake could kill us. Good to know. Both snakes that we saw were hiding on branches merely a foot or two off of the trail.
Franklin had a good eye and ear for nature, where most of the stuff he pointed out we would have missed.
Thinking about Franklin: On the 20 minute bus ride he would check out women and make unnecessary remarks. Then, we get out into nature and God's beauty and his character seemed entirely different. He was like a child doing his favorite hobby.
We returned at 130 and then needed to run some errands before our 300 tour and hot springs. We went to the grocery store and bought some meat and cheese, a HUGE tub of water, bread, frosted flakes (Zucaritas), and bananas. Bananas are 7 cents each!! We then went to the bank to withdraw 120,000 colones ($240).
We then paid off our owner Mauricio for the tour that he set up for us and the five days of staying at his hostel. At 3 we got on a bus with 8 others to visit a hiking trail at the base of the Arenal Vocano. We actually had Franklin again as our tour guide and saw volcanic rocks, got a good view of the volcano, and learned more about nature while strengthening our calf muscles.
After the hike, we took a bus to the Baldi Hot Springs. We were a little down because we had read over and over to go to the Tabacon Hot Springs, not Baldi, but it was $85 more. (The $85 difference is the price difference for three hours at the springs, so we figured there's no way it's worth that much more). BALDI WAS INCREDIBLE. ALL AROUND. I actually couldn't have dreamt of a better resort with unlimited resources. http://www.baldihotsprings.cr/
To start with, it is naturally heated water in roughly 15 pools and swimming areas at varying temperatures, from ridiculously hot (we couldn't even stick our feet in for more than 5 seconds) to cold. Essentially, a very hot waterfalls cascades at the top and trickles down towards the hotel lobby and swim-up bars at the bottom where cooler water is. Keep in mind, this place is probably 50 yards wide and 200 yards long. Each individual pool is surrounded by actual vegetation and wildlife.
We first went to the tour-included buffet which was phenomenal. Unlimited, great-tasting food and drink. Afterwords, we went straight for the water slides. I was told the middle slide was the fastest. It had a sign next to it that said that the company was in no-way liable for any injuries... The first time I went down (it's a quick right, then a quick left, then a huge drop) I was sitting face-forward like normal and outside of my control I was spun backwards just before the pitched-black mega-drop that I had never been down before. I was scared for my life. But oh, it was worth it. The lifeguards even encouraged us to go down backwards lying down on one of those short, fast-drop slides. We did, it was awesome.
Side note: This resort was practically empty. Almost no people were in most pools. It's not peak tourism season in Costa Rica now.
Sauer and I also hiked to the top of the Baldi resort, where the fake waterfall and hottest water was. They have tiled, stone recliners in the pools so you can lay there and watch the waterfall. I remember just praising God for blessing us with this evening. We returned home safely and I write this.
Other Thoughts:
1. Tomorrow we are doing something called the "Mambo Combo" through the Desafio company which includes canyoning and river rafting.
2. The REI underwear and zip-off, dry-fit shorts are keeping us cool and doing a great job.
3. It really hasn't rained here yet, a little surprising for us. We keep bringing our raincoats on the travels and they never seem needed.
4. We ran into same woman that we rode bus with to Arenal, the German gal traveling around the world in a year. Always good to see old friends.
5. There's a woman that went on today's tour with us that is staying at our hostel. She's probably 45, traveling alone, and seemed generally unhappy/sour for the entire trip. Maybe because she wore jeans on the hike, but we're really not sure.
6. Although our plan is to stay at this hostel for four more nights including the night that I write this, we may only stay two more nights and actually head to Monteverde (we were going to visit it anyways) because Mauricio's brother owns a hostel there. This would make it easier to hike in Monteverde as we desire to do.
7. Girls just moved into our pod - now we have to share the bathroom :(. It's weird, at 10 at night they decided to wander the streets of this town (we don't even have dirt rodes, it's like loose stone rodes)... I just wouldn't feel comfortable doing that in a foreign place, but it always seems like women travel more than men and women are okay doing this sort of thing. Braver or riskier? I don't know.
Quick Notes on Things I forgot:
1. On the sketchy drive from Alajuela (and Denny's) to Arenal, we saw a body on the road from a car accident with a motorcyclist.
2. When we entered our hostel room, Sauer and I both questioned, "Where are our blankets?" After about 15 minutes, we realized that this was because of the always hot temperature. Live and learn.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
I Sweat As I Write This
(AUSTIN)We MADE IT! We are in La Fortuna, Costa Rica!!
Day Start:
We got up at 7:45 from the Fort LAuderdale Holiday Inn to shower, catch a continental breakfast (we´re still giddy over this fact) and we hopped on the airport shuttle to catch our 10:52 flight. As if the pilot knew that 10:50 was too early yet a 10:55 departure was too late. The flight went smoothly with the exception of one thing: people loved standing around in the aisles. I cannot explain it. It was very annoying. I would say that on average 4-5 people were standing and chatting to their friends while in the aisles of the plane. Awesome. So we landed smoothly, FINALLY bought a watch (neither of us have one haha) for $20, and went through customs.... which wasn´t very thorough.
Had we not been through the harassing Europe thing with drivers trying to control dumb Americans, we would have gotten on an unsafe taxi. Our goal was to take the orange taxi, but as we exited the airport it was like we were bread thrown into a group of New York pigeons. We stayed focused and got with a licensed, orange-taxi-driver. We needed to take a taxi, which ended up costing $2, to get to a local Holiday Inn Express where the Shuttle Bus (Interbus Company) would be picking us up at 3:00 PM.
Funny currency story:
$1 equals 493 colones. Yeah. So when withdrawing colones from the ATM, we triple-checked to be sure that we wanted to withdraw 30,000 colones. Ha.
We arrived at the Holiday Inn Express at 12:30 and had two and a half hours until our bus would come pick us up at 3:00PM to bring us to Arenal. We look behind us, hey there´s a Denny´s! We ate there, putting up a $35 bill which will likely be our most expensive meal of the trip. We agreed that if we got the big burgers that we would skip dinner. That´s what we did!
We hopped on the Interbus at about 2:45 and headed out. There was a male bus driver, us, and 8 women. It was a very bumpy ride, very curvy ride, a somewhat-dangerous ride, but we made it. I spoke to a woman from Germany who spent the last year traveling around the world by herself. Costa Rica was her final location. We arrived at our hostel at about 6:30 PM to the entire 8 or so member family hanging out in the driveway. A little intimidating.
They are very kind and helpful. We even can use the computer I use not and can store items in the fridge (which is great when it´s always 80 to 90 degrees). We just bought about 6 gallons of water from the local market and put it in their fridge :)
We had some stress trying to determine where to go and visit over the next five days, as this hostel serves as our base camp. Finally, we decided to go all out and go for more expensive all-day trips that cost between $50 and $150 each rather than risk our necks on public and unreliable transport.
Man, I am sweating so much right now! Whew. Our room has three beds, and somehow a hole in our ceiling that is covered by the external roof 10 feet higher. Hard to explain. We can lock our rooms, we like the owners, and we have our own room.
Tomorrow we will head to the bank, the market, and the tourist places (we think the owner is only selling the activities where he will get a royalty). At 3:00PM to 9:30 PM we are going on a guided tour of Arenal National Park and the Baldi Hot Springs for $50. Catch you tomorrow!
Aust & Matt
Day Start:
We got up at 7:45 from the Fort LAuderdale Holiday Inn to shower, catch a continental breakfast (we´re still giddy over this fact) and we hopped on the airport shuttle to catch our 10:52 flight. As if the pilot knew that 10:50 was too early yet a 10:55 departure was too late. The flight went smoothly with the exception of one thing: people loved standing around in the aisles. I cannot explain it. It was very annoying. I would say that on average 4-5 people were standing and chatting to their friends while in the aisles of the plane. Awesome. So we landed smoothly, FINALLY bought a watch (neither of us have one haha) for $20, and went through customs.... which wasn´t very thorough.
Had we not been through the harassing Europe thing with drivers trying to control dumb Americans, we would have gotten on an unsafe taxi. Our goal was to take the orange taxi, but as we exited the airport it was like we were bread thrown into a group of New York pigeons. We stayed focused and got with a licensed, orange-taxi-driver. We needed to take a taxi, which ended up costing $2, to get to a local Holiday Inn Express where the Shuttle Bus (Interbus Company) would be picking us up at 3:00 PM.
Funny currency story:
$1 equals 493 colones. Yeah. So when withdrawing colones from the ATM, we triple-checked to be sure that we wanted to withdraw 30,000 colones. Ha.
We arrived at the Holiday Inn Express at 12:30 and had two and a half hours until our bus would come pick us up at 3:00PM to bring us to Arenal. We look behind us, hey there´s a Denny´s! We ate there, putting up a $35 bill which will likely be our most expensive meal of the trip. We agreed that if we got the big burgers that we would skip dinner. That´s what we did!
We hopped on the Interbus at about 2:45 and headed out. There was a male bus driver, us, and 8 women. It was a very bumpy ride, very curvy ride, a somewhat-dangerous ride, but we made it. I spoke to a woman from Germany who spent the last year traveling around the world by herself. Costa Rica was her final location. We arrived at our hostel at about 6:30 PM to the entire 8 or so member family hanging out in the driveway. A little intimidating.
They are very kind and helpful. We even can use the computer I use not and can store items in the fridge (which is great when it´s always 80 to 90 degrees). We just bought about 6 gallons of water from the local market and put it in their fridge :)
We had some stress trying to determine where to go and visit over the next five days, as this hostel serves as our base camp. Finally, we decided to go all out and go for more expensive all-day trips that cost between $50 and $150 each rather than risk our necks on public and unreliable transport.
Man, I am sweating so much right now! Whew. Our room has three beds, and somehow a hole in our ceiling that is covered by the external roof 10 feet higher. Hard to explain. We can lock our rooms, we like the owners, and we have our own room.
Tomorrow we will head to the bank, the market, and the tourist places (we think the owner is only selling the activities where he will get a royalty). At 3:00PM to 9:30 PM we are going on a guided tour of Arenal National Park and the Baldi Hot Springs for $50. Catch you tomorrow!
Aust & Matt
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Stress Level Maximum
(MATT) The entire day has been full of stress and anxiety, but I think we are finally on our way out of Chicago. We started the day off bright and early at 10:30 am (Nothing like 11 hours of sleep to get the body grooving). Our original plans were to get some of our hairs cut and take a tour of downtown Chicago/a local art museum. We decided instead (thankfully) to contact our first hostel in Alajuela, Costa Rica to make sure we could get there at 1 am. We tried for a couple hours to call their number in Costa Rica, but apparently we didn’t learn the international calling skills in college. Nevertheless Austin finally had the idea to call through Skype. This was our first chance to try out our Spanish skills. Apparently they also speak English at this hostel and my Spanish skills still need some improvement. Anyways we talked with the hostel over the phone and we had everything lined up perfectly for our arrival at 1 am. We took the bus/”L” metro to the airport on our way to Costa Rica…or so we thought.
Alright so here is where things get interesting/stressful/challenging/panic-attack filled. We get to Spirit Airlines 3 hours before our flight and check in to find that our flight is delayed 2 hours due to weather. This makes sense because we could barely see the top of Trump Tower this morning in Chicago, but it wasn’t what we wanted to hear. After some discussing we got our flight moved to this evening. We will stay the night in Fort Lauderdale and leave Florida at 10:52 am on the 20th. Not too big of a deal because we bought travel insurance right? Well wrong because the fine print says travel insurance doesn’t cover “weather related delays”. What exactly does travel insurance cover? I will leave that one for you to imagine (maybe surprise unicorn landings, fairy dustings, or freak black hole appearances). From this point on we are scrambling to try and cancel/change our hostels and buses. Thanks to some family friends (Anne/Dawn THANK YOU!!) we were able to cancel our hostel with a small fee and find out other hostel/hotel information. After many phone calls and time spent on Austin’s droid, we finally have everything figured out. We are only losing about 4 hours of total time and around $50 in non-refundable fees. Not too bad for everything that happened today. God willing we will be writing next in Costa Rica!!
(AUSTIN) The flight from Spirit went pretty smoothly and we arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 12:30. We met a guy named Josh next to us and had a good time socializing with him. He bought us each a Bud Light (not cheap on an airplane) and we chatted during the flight. Sauer and I also planned some day trips by studying the Costa Rica book that we brought…So upon landing we called the hotel that we had made reservations with – they didn’t have them. Also, the free airport shuttle promised to us doesn’t run midnight to 5:00 AM. Perfect. We took a $26 taxi ride to the same hotel anyways and they had space for us. Although we’ll only spend about 7 total hours here, it’s pretty nice (two double beds and complementary breakfast) for only $82. We’re heading back to the airport at 8:30 AM and enjoying some cooling MAX A/C before heading to hot Costa Rica. We still haven’t checked the Costa Rica forecast…maybe we will tomorrow. Love you all!
Matt & Austin
Alright so here is where things get interesting/stressful/challenging/panic-attack filled. We get to Spirit Airlines 3 hours before our flight and check in to find that our flight is delayed 2 hours due to weather. This makes sense because we could barely see the top of Trump Tower this morning in Chicago, but it wasn’t what we wanted to hear. After some discussing we got our flight moved to this evening. We will stay the night in Fort Lauderdale and leave Florida at 10:52 am on the 20th. Not too big of a deal because we bought travel insurance right? Well wrong because the fine print says travel insurance doesn’t cover “weather related delays”. What exactly does travel insurance cover? I will leave that one for you to imagine (maybe surprise unicorn landings, fairy dustings, or freak black hole appearances). From this point on we are scrambling to try and cancel/change our hostels and buses. Thanks to some family friends (Anne/Dawn THANK YOU!!) we were able to cancel our hostel with a small fee and find out other hostel/hotel information. After many phone calls and time spent on Austin’s droid, we finally have everything figured out. We are only losing about 4 hours of total time and around $50 in non-refundable fees. Not too bad for everything that happened today. God willing we will be writing next in Costa Rica!!
(AUSTIN) The flight from Spirit went pretty smoothly and we arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 12:30. We met a guy named Josh next to us and had a good time socializing with him. He bought us each a Bud Light (not cheap on an airplane) and we chatted during the flight. Sauer and I also planned some day trips by studying the Costa Rica book that we brought…So upon landing we called the hotel that we had made reservations with – they didn’t have them. Also, the free airport shuttle promised to us doesn’t run midnight to 5:00 AM. Perfect. We took a $26 taxi ride to the same hotel anyways and they had space for us. Although we’ll only spend about 7 total hours here, it’s pretty nice (two double beds and complementary breakfast) for only $82. We’re heading back to the airport at 8:30 AM and enjoying some cooling MAX A/C before heading to hot Costa Rica. We still haven’t checked the Costa Rica forecast…maybe we will tomorrow. Love you all!
Matt & Austin
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Day 1: Off to Chicago
This ride to the Chicago area was much more enjoyable than the one almost 18 months ago. I am excited and not nervous. I know who I will be traveling with an have a general gameplan for my time abroad. I will not be gone from family and friends for 5+ months.
The night before we left was chaotic. As an example, Dawn Savat stayed up until midnight to help us pack. Yeah. Sauer and I went to bed at 1:30 and woke up, already exhausted at 5:30 to head for the Megabus that was leaving from Mpls to Chicago at 7:00.
The inflatable neck-pillows were lifesavers. Sauer and I dozed in and out for most of the trip. I was able to read Jonah, and Hosea. What stuck out to me was that regardless of human sin, God's will is ultimately (not always immediately or initially) fulfilled. We brushed through details on Costa Rica, chatted, and I listened to half a sermon by Driscoll. Something about riding in a smooth bus with huge windows and jammin' to music was great today. The bus stopped at Milwaukee and Miller Park before heading to Chicago.
We failed at orienteering in Chi-town when we arrived at 3:00. Tim had given us some directions on a 45-minute trek across Chicago before he could meet us after his conference call meeting. We took a wrong turn and ended up waiting for him on the Frankling Street Bridge for twenty minutes. The wind really does make it feel much colder. I was very grateful for the sweatshirt and jeans I wore on the first day.
Tim picked us up in the mini-van and drove us through downtown Chicago and through the Hyde Park neighborhood where Obama's house is. Yes, it's guarded by the Secret Service. After parking near Tim's apartment and dropping off our stuff, we walked through the lake street neighborhood and grabbed Chicago-style pizza at Panino's! I'm not making this up.
It's now 9 PM and we're comparing record-quality music to CD music quality. Bedtime couldn't come soon enough... we're exhausted! Tomorrow Sauer and I will venture off on our own while Tim works. Our flight is at 6:20 PM so we'll try to be at the airport by 3ish.
Adios!
Aust + Matt
The night before we left was chaotic. As an example, Dawn Savat stayed up until midnight to help us pack. Yeah. Sauer and I went to bed at 1:30 and woke up, already exhausted at 5:30 to head for the Megabus that was leaving from Mpls to Chicago at 7:00.
The inflatable neck-pillows were lifesavers. Sauer and I dozed in and out for most of the trip. I was able to read Jonah, and Hosea. What stuck out to me was that regardless of human sin, God's will is ultimately (not always immediately or initially) fulfilled. We brushed through details on Costa Rica, chatted, and I listened to half a sermon by Driscoll. Something about riding in a smooth bus with huge windows and jammin' to music was great today. The bus stopped at Milwaukee and Miller Park before heading to Chicago.
We failed at orienteering in Chi-town when we arrived at 3:00. Tim had given us some directions on a 45-minute trek across Chicago before he could meet us after his conference call meeting. We took a wrong turn and ended up waiting for him on the Frankling Street Bridge for twenty minutes. The wind really does make it feel much colder. I was very grateful for the sweatshirt and jeans I wore on the first day.
Tim picked us up in the mini-van and drove us through downtown Chicago and through the Hyde Park neighborhood where Obama's house is. Yes, it's guarded by the Secret Service. After parking near Tim's apartment and dropping off our stuff, we walked through the lake street neighborhood and grabbed Chicago-style pizza at Panino's! I'm not making this up.
It's now 9 PM and we're comparing record-quality music to CD music quality. Bedtime couldn't come soon enough... we're exhausted! Tomorrow Sauer and I will venture off on our own while Tim works. Our flight is at 6:20 PM so we'll try to be at the airport by 3ish.
Adios!
Aust + Matt
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