February 13 - 20 -- Liberia and San Jose, Costa Rica

Costa Rica (Liberia and San Jose)

Liberia is just a dirty, dusty parking lot at a gas station. So there is little more I can say. Today was a border day and even though we had help from our campground host in San Jose, it took us 6 hours and 50 minutes to complete. It was not hot. It was not any more crowded than usual. It just takes that much time.

So by the time we got to Liberia, we were tired. The four staff fell asleep by 8:30. We awoke to rumbling tractor trailers and wind. We had a short travel briefing then we were off to Belen Trailer Park, one of our few campgrounds on the trip. Our group stopped at Monteverde for milk shakes to go. Bob and I wanted to get in early to check out some optional tours and touch base with the office and family as we had not had any phone contact since leaving the states. We were also anticipating good internet service.

We had been given a heads up that there was an uprising about to take place with the guests. The company had made a change in tours in San Jose and apparently the tour they dropped was the one that a few wanted to do. We were in the process of working on an optional tour but the group got pretty worked up before we could present anything. After several guests spoke their piece, LuAnn attempted to answer their concerns. The answer satisfied some but there were a few that are still upset. The ones that really wanted to go, headed off on their two free days.

Our stop is actually a suburb of San Jose, San Antonio de Belen. The park is very nice and we are glad to be here with services. We are also able to use our washing machine so we did many loads of clothing. A plus here is that with low humidity and wind, the clothes dry very quickly.

Our first day was free so we continued to do laundry, check for optional tours in future locations and touch base with Adventure and Tour Companies. Another thing we have been working on is rerouting the path when leaving Panama. This allows some new scenery using a brand new highway and avoids the Mountain of Death. Some say this is because of the number of people that have died in the past but others say it is because of the fog and color of the mountains. It is a very steep drive so either way it will be nice to avoid it.

Day 2 was a tour to Tortuquerro National Park where the turtles nest. Now before you get too excited you should know that the turtles are not there and won't be there until July through October. It takes 3 ½ hours to get there, 1 ½ hours on a boat then you have to return. So with the 1 ½ at the Muwamba Lodge and two meals, we spent 13 ½ hours on the tour. If we had overnighted there it would have been nice. Muwamba is in a nature area. We could have taken a few “soft” hikes, walked the beach and visited the frog, butterfly, iguana areas. As it was we were just tasting how nice it could be. They met us with a fruit drink and nice buffet. Then we rushed to tour the place because we had to beat low tide. One boat didn't make it and the guides had to use poles to push off the bottom of the river. The ride back over the mountain was just about the scariest thing I have ever endured. It was the thickest fog but the experienced driver didn't seem to let it bother him a bit. Trucks were pulling over, cars were stopped, there were rock slides but we kept going. We tried to wipe off the windows only to find out that they weren't steamed up it was the fog. I told the guide that I didn't even like roller coasters and he told me this was much scarier than any roller coaster.

The next day we toured again. This time we toured the city of San Jose then visited the Aerial Tram at the Rain Forest. We had lunch here also. San Jose is an area of volatile weather. By the time we reached the Aerial Tram it had started to rain. It rained and rained and rained. But we are hardy so we took the Tram Ride in the rain. Needless to say we were soaked by the time we got off. We tried to point out the benefits of visiting the rain forest in the rain but it was getting difficult. After the ride, 15 hardy souls took a walk in the rain forest. Now comes the time to get back on the bus. Our guide, Bernardo, told me we would have to break into two groups and that we would have to change buses as the road out was flooded. We took a shuttle to the road, walked across a hanging bridge then got on another shuttle in order to reach our bus. By this time we were truly soaked. Believe it or not, soaked as we were, we had a great time. We were buzzing with excitement.

Our third and last bus trip started the following morning at 8 am. Today's trip was full with a trip to the Doka Coffee Plantation (supplier to Starbucks), a visit to the Poas Volcano and tour of the La Paz Waterfalls. Doka went great. Good tour. Good shopping for t-shirts, coffee, coffee items and more. As we started for the volcano, the rain started as a fine mist. By the time we got there it had turned to a steady rain. We, the hardy, walked the 25 minutes in a now swirling rain to see the volcano. But alas no luck. The volcano was fogged in. So we returned to the bus to dry off a bit then bus over to La Paz. Now La Paz was the center of a 7.4 earthquake in January 2009. The road was closed for 7 months, the restaurant collapsed, the zoo animals were loose, the falls altered and the river shifted. This is the first tour TAM Travel has done with Adventure since the earthquake. The road is was scary. We could see where the road had just dropped off and they had carved a new road from the mountain. Huge drop-offs, steep, and hairpin turns. On one such turn, the driver dragged. In order to lift the front of the bus, all of us moved to the back of the bus. It worked and we moved off the turn and continued on our way. We were dropped off at the top only to find that we were eating in the now rebuilt restaurant at the bottom of the hill. Off we went into the rain. By the time we got there we were again soaked. The buffet was very nice. Several of us checked out the restrooms. They were beautiful and interesting. The handles were rocks with carved frogs. The faucet was a rock opening with a waterfall. Now this is not in the rain forest but the cloud forest. So of course there were hair dryers in each restroom. I convinced the guide to check out the women's room after I went into the men's room. The men's room was comparable to the women's except the urinal was a rock wall with river stone in the bottom. I convinced a few women to check it out.

Today we checked out the farmer's market next door. Wonderful papaya, melons, mangos and vegetables. We also ate something called a pasterio. A great little flaky pastry filled with shredded carrots, herbs, chicken and who knows what else.

Tomorrow we are off to the city market to find local treasures and experience a city bus.

Central Market

The Central Market is always fun. Several of us took a city bus for 350 colones which is about 75cents. The stopping point had changed from the church to an area close to the market. Luckily LuAnn started to recognize the market area and checked with the bus driver. All in broken Spanish and English. We got off searched for this funky place that Sue Hertz had introduced LuAnn to a few years ago. After several unsuccessful attempts we headed back to the market. LuAnn purchased a fisherman's vest for $11 US, a orange juice hand juicer and earrings (arretes for you Spanish speaking folks). We then met up with the others to head back only to find out that they had found the funky market. We begged for 1 more hour and were granted the time to shop. More t-shirts, earrings, drapes, shirts then back on the bus to find our way home. The most eventful thing was that as 8 – 10 of us are running for the bus, Tim fell. Looked as though it was a small scrape. Brian and Chris went back to the campground with him and while cleaning it discovered that it was quite deep and required stitches. They then taxi'd to two places before finding the hospital which had the ability to do stitches. The first place was only for scrapes and bandages – no stitches.