Tag Archives: Arenal Volcano

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Day 4 – Transition is Key (Or “The Way to Monteverde”)

Saying goodbye to Arenal (photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

As we are checking out of the hotel, we chat with Victor at the front desk. He is one of the staff members here who has been impossibly cordial and very welcoming. He has explained to us that Costa Rica is the perfect place to learn Spanish as they are essentially unaccented, sort of like what we might think of as Standard American English, or broadcaster speak (I tread lightly here). He also suggests a stop in a little town called Tilarán on our way to Monteverde where we can ride horses and take in more cataratas (waterfalls). Apparently, swimming in waterfalls is just something you do here. I’d like to think it’s as commonplace as eating breakfast.

We go into town to try and acquire a SIM card for our cell phones from ICE (pronounced ee-say), the phone service company that appears to service the majority of the country. The attempt proves futile, as the line of 6 0r 7 people doesn’t visibly budge for at least an hour. We will ultimately choose to embrace “Pura Vida!” and decide we can make it on our own, technology be damned (this luckily pans out for us, we have access to the hotel phone for cheap, in-country calls). But while Rob is waiting, I wander around the lobby of the little strip mall which has the bizarre mixture of cheap goods and a gym on the upper floor. This boy at a pet supply kiosk in front watches me pet a bunny sitting in a little cage. He suddenly pulls out a plastic bag of the weirdest looking items I’ve ever seen and seems to be trying to communicate with me while emphatically pointing to the bag. Luckily, a man standing nearby steps in to translate and explains that the strange little fuzzy wares the boy is pointing at are in fact, a type of fruit. Ever the adventurer, I get Rob to haggle for some, all the while mentally recounting warnings I’ve read about eating fruit in foreign countries. I later find out they are called mamón chino, a local name for fruit from the Rambutan tree. They are typically red, but we were sold a smaller, yellow wild variety. To eat one, you need to break open the shell with your teeth and suck on the fruit inside (they have large pits) which tastes like a tangy grape. They are fantastic.

We drive away from Arenal with fondness and apprehension soaking into our brains. The wildness of the rainforest quickly turns into peak after peak and valley after valley. The green of the vegetation here is vibrant, brighter than anything I recall seeing before. the drop-offs here are steeper than anywhere else we’ve visited – with hundreds of feet of open air enveloping either side of the car at times while we work our way down mountain roads. I soon learn that the signs reading “peligroso” are warning us about road hazards, and the admonishment of “despacio” is requesting us to proceed with caution. We pass through several small Costa Rican towns with churches and schools, and the sounds of everyday rural life. We hear music pouring out of one of the schools carrying a chorus of voices with it. I manage to wrangle Rob’s camera (a beautiful digital SLR) for a few minutes and indiscriminately take pictures out of the car window, with the false hope of producing nat geo quality masterpieces. While this doesn’t happen, there are a few interesting pictures of the clay hill sides and buildings.

Clay hillsides, drive to Monteverde (copyright: Robert Schuman 2011)

Guanacaste Province - roadside view (Copyright: Robert Schuman 2011)

We find signs for Viento Fresco once we reach Tilarán. We pull in and start chatting with a man named Orlando who will soon become our tour guide. We choose to hike down to the water falls and take horses back up. Orlando is quick to smile and has a great sense of humor. As they drive us down to the start of the path in a battered truck, a skinny golden dog starts chasing after, keeping pace with us. Cue the introduction of Paloma, who may in fact be our real guide for the next few hours. A battered old dog, with clouded vision in one eye, the battle scars of past bot-fly bites, Paloma is along with us along literally every step of our way, scrambling over flowing water and barking at the capuchin monkeys with great fervor.

Our trusty steed, Paloma (Copyright: Robert Schuman 2011)

Capuchin or "White-faced" monkey (Copyright: Robert Schuman 2011)

A toucanet, the smaller emerald hued cousin of the toucan, hops overhead while we start down towards the cataratas.  Orlando points out subtle signs of living things as we walk – the bright spots of the tiger beetle, the small earthen holes of mot mot nests, a few errant porcupine quills in the earth, trails of leaf cutter ants crossing overhead vines. At one point, he shows me a miniscule, unassuming plant with small compound leaves growing along the path. He lightly brushes the tips and they instantly fold into themselves which I am delighted by. I will end up seeing the same plant, Mimosa pudica, or “the sensitive plant,” several places again before journey’s end.

Costa Rica Tiger Beetle (Copyright: Robert Schuman 2011)

 We travel to all the waterfalls in succession and then slip in to swim for the second time on our vacation. I have heard and read complaints about the water being cold here but for someone who grew up swimming in the Gulf of Maine, it is warm enough.

Rainbow Falls - Viento Fresco Cataratas (Copyright: Robert Schuman 2011)

Viento Fresco Waterfalls (Copyright: Robert Schuman 2011)

The skies have been darkening overhead and when we start to change into dry clothes,  it starts raining torentially. Orlando decides the ferocity of the lightning that has hitchhiked in with the rain warrants waiting a few minutes before starting back.  With the horses tied up restlessly nearby, we seek cover in a little corregated tin-roofed shelter at the top of the hill. As the tormenta (spanish for storm) quietly rages on, I sit back and listen to Robert and Orlando practice the art of communicating with language barriers – hand gestures, and quizzical looks abound. We do find out however more about Orlando’s family – the fact that the waterfalls sit on his family’s farm land (across the valley, we can see the sheets of plastic tarping overlaying the rows and rows of tomatoes to protect them from the massive amount of moisture during the wet season), and that his wife is a Nicaraugan immigrant who has been living in Costa Rica since the age of four or five when her father brought her here. After a level of comfort sets in, he also sheepishly admits Victor, the desk clerk at Arenal Parasio who suggested we visit this series of cataratas, is, in fact, his son. He seems wary of casually divulging the fact lest tourists suspect the recommendation is a nepotistic one.  We find it amusing, and ardently assure him we are having the time of our life.

Robert and I on Tico ponies (Copyright: Robert Schuman 2011)

The lightning takes some time to die down and almost 45 minutes pass before we are able to mount the little Tico ponies waiting for us (“Tico” is a casual term describing Costa Rican natives – people and horse alike). Orlando gives me the best raincoat and we set off back towards the stables and his family’s restaurant. We know nothing about riding, so Orlando follows carefully behind and keeps the ponies treading ahead with a practiced hand. The rain is still coming down, and I can barely see ahead of me. When the ponies sense they’re getting closer to home, they quicken the pace until we are trotting (or galloping? ), and my teeth feel like their being shaken out of my head. I have a long way to go before I become an adept horsewoman.

As Rob and I are changing into dry clothes, we hear Orlando and his wife having a slightly heated argument, a reminder that family life is about the same everywhere. However, things seem to abate quickly  and we sit with beer and hot chocolate to have a final chat with Orlando and sign the guest book after browsing entries from all over the world.

We head out on pitch black, unpaved roads towards Monteverde. The roads have been kept in rough shape intentionally as a supposed deterrent of excessive tourism and development. We arrive at our next stop, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Lodge where we will stay for two nights, and quickly settle in.

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Day 3 – Welcome to the Jungle (Or “We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat”)

Volcán Arenal - a clear view (photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

This is an early day for us. The volcano is in full breathtaking view, in contrast to most of  the day before. The volcano had been shrouded with mist a good portion of the time, sometimes confusing the casual viewer into believing there really was no volcano at all.

We catch breakfast at 6:30. We are slated to go out on a “Safari Float Tour” – we have a voucher from the company we booked with, and are expecting a very tourist-centric experience which hardly turns out to be the case. Our shuttle stops at another local hotel to pick up Dustin and Emily, two newlyweds from Colorado on their honeymoon in Costa Rica. We all chat on the ride over to the  Peñas Blancas River where our experience will begin. We find out more about our guide Jamie (pronounced Hi-may). He has a family in a nearby town and has two little girls – one three-year old, and one kindergartener-aged. He has worked for various touring companies in the area (as most of the guides will allude to over the rest of our trip as well. It seems there is fidelity to an industry, but not always to a specific company), but likes this particular job as he has more opportunity to interact and chat with the people he’s guiding as compared to more intense activities like white water rafting. He often times works six days a week, and can at times be slated for a 10 hour day. Tourism is considered quite the opportunity in the region, but is only a realistic option for those that are bilingual in the country, a percentage he estimates at around 50%.

"Gallery" forest on either side of the Peñas Blancas River (photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

We reach the banks of the river and pour out of the van into the early morning stickiness. Jamie and Antonio, the driver, pull a thick rubber raft from the backseat and begin inflating it. We don life jackets and push off moments after arriving. I grin at Antonio who is looking on from the shore, and the corners of his mouth respond in kind, confirming a smile is indeed a universal language. Jamie is able to control the raft with little assistance and begins to explain why the area is of interest. He points out the large trees whose root systems hold the banks of the river stable. The forest along the sides of the river are known as “gallery forests” due to the abundance of wildlife along them. The trees that meet over the river serve as biological corridors of sorts, allowing living creatures to cross from one side to the other and ensuring we have plenty to look at.

We see several birds flitting about including the scarlet-rumped tanager, a sharp-looking little bird with a iridescent red back. The strange, reptilian movements of the snake bird, or anhinga capture our attention. Sand pipers run along the river’s edge. We start to see the small specimens of crocodile that frequent the river along muddy banks. The locals still choose to swim in the river and are apparently unconcerned about their presence. Basilisks, also commonly referred to as Jesus Christ lizards apparently due to their propensity for running across the water’s surface, are spotted along branches of trees at various junctures along the river.

Jaime, who seems to know a wealth of information about most of Costa Rica’s 800 species of birds, bats, and many of its other flora and fauna, points out howler monkeys lounging in some nearby trees and seems to be communing with them as he lets out a string of sounds that sound suspiciously just like the ones coming from the monkey’s tree.

Halfway along our river journey, we stop at a local farm to snack on mild cheese, plantains, and a special sweet bread made from a starchy vegetable of some kind . Chickens and roosters run haphazardly along the length of the property, popping out in amusing and hilarious places. There is a little orange and white cat with a crooked tail looking for attention. The Costa Rican attitude towards dogs and cats are very different from our own. They find our propensity for letting our pets sleep on the bed very strange. All the farm’s inhabitants have recently been amused by a tourist who picked up the feline and started kissing it.

The first cat in our story, but certainly not the last (photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

We get to meet Don Pedro, the 99 year old owner of the farm and the surrounding land. He loves to pose for photos with visitors, uttering the countdown “1,2,3 – whiskey!” before the shutter clicks. Two of his daughters care for him. They also seem intensely interested in the fact that Rob and I are twins (gemelos in Spanish), and recount additional anecdotes concerning the subject.

We continue our journey with more crocodiles slipping by the raft and some definite mis-identifications. Jamie has coined terms like “log-o-dile” and “branch-o-dile” for our blunders. We get to chatting about alcohol, technology, and politics, so it feels like we could be sitting at anyone’s kitchen table, shooting the breeze. It’s nice.

We drag ourselves out of the raft at the end and into a blessedly air-conditioned van. The tour company has one more stop for us however, at the Las Iguanas Restaurante, where piles of vegetables lie in wait for the masses of fat, lazy iguanas on the premises.

We go into town later to eat at a local soda (basically small, local Costa Rican eateries) and watch the afternoon storm come in. I failed to mention in earlier posts that we are here during the rainy season. The country gets up to a yearly average of 180 + inches of rainfall in some regions. We see the skies darken and the locals run for cover. I’ve made the mistake of ordering a hamburger in a place that does not specialize in hamburgers, and as I munch on the strangely crispy, wafer-thin version of comfort food from home,  I hear the whirr of the generator kicking on behind us.

We have another voucher that came with our booking for a night hike around the Volcano but I am exhausted once back at the hotel and can barely move. While I go off for my first massage ever, Robert decides to partake in the second adventure of the day, and comes back with a far-away picture of a toucan, more breath-taking visuals of the volcano, and a sighting of a mot mot which is a fascinating local bird. They are lovely, with two prominent tail feathers naked except for small circular tufts at the ends. Folk lore attributes the missing feathers to an origin story of the world.  The gods asked all the animals to help build the earth, but the mot mot shirked its duty and hid in a hole with his  tail feathers exposed. The other animals grew angry and pulled the feathers from his posterior. When the gods came to see the animal’s final work, the mot mot strutted about as if he had assisted. The gods, seeing his tail feathers, knew of the deceit and the mom mot was banished to live in a hole in the ground. Consequently, they do nest in depressions in the earth as we found out later in our trip.

We both lay down for a few minutes intending to drag ourselves off to a 24 hour soda in town but fast fall asleep early, which is a trend we will repeat at least a couple more times before our trek is done.

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Day 2 – It’s a Beautiful Day

I slip out of bed into the view of daylight. It’s the first time I will get to set eyes on the landscape and I am thrilled. The sliding glass door in our room faces the volcano and it’s the first thing I see, impossible to miss (… when graced with clear skies. However, the region often experiences some low hanging clouds that can oddly enough make you question if you saw something there in the first place). The volcano has been dormant for almost a year, but there is a sense of unsteadiness laced about it.

Arenal Volcano (photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

Even though exhausted, we don’t sleep in very much, which essentially sets a precedent for the entire trip. Breakfast at the hotel is exciting. The proper staples of a Costa Rican breakfast often include rice and beans (gallo pinto), eggs, and a slice of farm-made cheese, all of which prove to be my favorite choices. (Signs all over the country tout this as a “Tipico” breakfast) There is plenty of fruit, and sweet plantains which are also popular in just about every location we visit.

We decide to strike it on our own in the morning and head towards the La Fortuna Catarata – a local waterfall. We snake back down towards town and take a right past a local grocery and young school-aged children playing soccer, until we reach dirt and rock roads. Rob is thrilled to see what our little underpowered car will do with the new terrain and we slip and slide our way to the waterfall’s entry point. After paying the entrance fee, we stand at a look-out point where we see an aerial view of the fall before starting down to the waters below.

Arial view of the La Fortuna Catarata (photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

There are steps made from grids of concrete, and concrete posts with lengths of chain running between them. There is too much to take in, and everything has the green glow of life around it. We already start to see species of Ficus trees which are common throughout Costa Rica. Some species are sinister and will strangle its host tree, sometimes to death, all the while encasing its victims body with its own tangle of growth. In same cases, you can see the hollow core where the original tree once was.

Ficus Tree - La Fortuna Waterfall (photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

We finally reach the base of the waterfall, and everything is hued in a breathtaking blue green. There are little pockets of flowing water downstream, where fish weave in and out of our legs. We make our way to the central pool and slip in as we’ve just watched other visitors do. The water churns with the massive energy – we can only get 20 feet or so from our starting point before we are unable to fight the energy of the water any further. A quick and careful trek (the rocks are slippery with scums of algea) behind the waterfall reveals a mural of hanging vines and trickles of moisture. The pressure is noticeably lower behind the fall and you can sometimes feel your eardrums pop.

Base of La Fortuna Catarata (Photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

Behind the La Fortuna waterfall (photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

Looking up from the waterfall (Photo credit: Carrie Schuman)

Later in the afternoon, I convince Robert to drive us towards Arenal National Park and ask if he’d be willing to scope out Skytrek – a tour featuring a sky tram and a series of zip lines that criss-cross above forest floor. Zip lines are a typical part of canopy tours and other tourist traps around the area. We find out there are no less than 250 versions of this in the region. However, thanks to Moon’s guide to Costa Rica, my interest has been piqued in this particular experience, as they proclaim these are the tallest in the country.

I am terrified of heights and one experience comes back to me – once, I had a panic attack as a teenager when faced with a 60 foot high platform/zip line, an impossibly tame version of what we are now contemplating. The highest of these platforms is 200 m, or more than 600 ft above the forest floor.  However, I was instructed by multiple  friends before leaving on this momentous trip not to say no, so I agree with nervous apprehension.

In the sky tram, which will first bring us to the top before starting the zip lines, we chat with Mariano and Tatiana from Brazil and talk politics and culture. The apex yields a stunning view of the Arenal Volcano and Lake Arenal which sits at it’s western side. We run through two practice zip lines with our overly-personable instructors, Jose and Carlos, who teach us to cross our ankles and bend our knees towards our chest while straightening our elbows, and what to do should the pully stop on the cable hundreds of feet above the bottom. The way they show us to flip around and pull ourselves along the remaining length of steel rope hand-over-hand, makes me think of scenes from “Cliffhanger”. The thought of it makes me a little woozy, maybe not as much from the heights as from recalling Stallone’s stunning cinematic performance.

After two practice lines, I am somehow chosen to go first. Momentum launches me, screaming,  off the first platform. (I will be made fun of mercilessly as we traverse the rest of the zip lines. I do not entirely commit to the screaming thing and they come in these bizarre fits and bursts, that apparently left everyone else doubled over in laughter while they were waiting for their turn). I do manage to cowboy-up and turn my head side-to-side to take in the view and appreciate how high up I really am. Carlos slows down the pulley at the end of the line and I almost fall over from the adrenaline coursing through my system, making my legs wobbly and weak. There are a total of five of us completing the pathway of zip lines down to the bottom including a  man with a thick Georgia Southern accent who raises Chickens for Tyson and grows peanuts for distribution to several candy companies. We are not action-movie material.  Rob and I learn a couple new phrases: “muy divertido” – very fun, and the Costa Rican mantra, “Pura vida”, or pure life. This phrase opens doors for the Costa Rican traveler, their version of “it’s all good!”

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Day 1 – You Can’t Get There From Here (Or “The Road to La Fortuna”)

I have been waiting for this moment. We set off for the airport courtesy of Robert’s friend Jason, who will be house-sitting while we’re gone. It’s the uncivilized hour of 3 am – Rob has not slept at all, and I have had 3 or 4 hours of agitated sleep. Our flight is slated for Miami and then another into Costa Rica. Waiting in line to check baggage, we hear a murmer from another traveler that the 5:25 flight to Miami has been canceled. Set back number 1. However, Rob and I are both roll with the punches sort of people so we kindly chat with the airline representative about how we will manage to actually set foot in Costa Rica. She puts us on a slightly later flight into Miami and we end up with a five hour layover waiting for our final flight. We sit in an exit row which, besides the altruistic goal of agreeing to help people should the plane engage in any blackbox sort of behavior, allows us some blessed leg room on a crowded 757.

We touch down in San Jose at around 5:30 pm, except in Costa Rica, it is 3:30 pm. We drag our belongings into the lines waiting for security and customs. The customs official places the first stamp in my passport and nods positively in response to my nervous energy and excitement.

We leave the airport to find a raucous mess of tour companies all trying to find their patrons. Destination Costa Rica, the middle-middle man, who has handled most of our bookings, will shuffle us to our rental car, but not before a sly unaffiliated, slightly ratty-looking man tries to direct us into a competitor’s van. Europcar robs us blind when charging for their full-coverage insurance option. This is not entirely to be unexpected as Costa Rican driving involves a little dose of crazy and a larger one of chutzpah, and some kind of insurance is mandatory in the country. They have “upgraded” us to a Daihatsu – a little Japanese SUV whose names means “beautiful small”. Dark is already setting in due to our later arrival time and the sky is overcast – it is the rainy season after all.

Our little Diahatsu. It got progressively dirtier as the trip went on.

San Jose is a crazy, busy kind of place. There are very few lights at intersections. In the style of many busy metropolises world-wide, there are lots of motorcycles and mopeds zipping in and out of the flow of traffic. Rob takes over driving not 15 minutes after we leave the rental place as it’s obvious he’s better suited to the activity. I drove in the Boston area off and on during the few years I lived down that way, but the aggressiveness and the defensive skills needed never really entered my blood stream they way they did Robert’s.

The drive to Arenal Paraiso, the resort we are staying at outside of the Arenal Volcano is predicted at three hours. Not 20 minutes after we start our trip, the skies open up and we’re bathed in torrential sheets of rain. We are exceedingly glad to have a GPS for our trip as just like the guides say, the roads are confusing and poorly marked. The drivers here are daredevils, reckless in many cases, and will ride in two lanes, pass without notice, and pay little heed to speed limits. However, the fines for speeding here are a $600 ticket, so we are conservative. We already start to notice the steep drop offs of 2-5 ft present at the shoulder of most roads here. My guess is the usual suspect responsible for no shoulders on the roads is the massive amounts of rain the country receives during the rainy season.

After passing through some hubs of suburban activity, we reach the mountain route that will lead us to La Fortuna, the little town nestled beneath the volcano. The roads are impossibly sharp and winding here. The night is dark, the rain is intense, much of the drive brings us through patches of thick haze and fog. Combined with the many people – often wearing black – haphazardly walking home on the side of the road, the steep drop-offs, and the animals we occasionally see darting across, the drive is one of the most intense I’ve ever experienced, requiring us both to stare ahead of us with rapt attention and constant communication. There are also a multitude of bridges and our GPS chimes each time with a warning indicating “dangerous bridge ahead”. We soon figure out the yielding system as only one car can generally drive across at a time. There is one particular bridge that is bigger than the rest and although I can’t see the surrounding landscape, I get the sense of the cavernous space beneath us and in some sense am slightly grateful to be traversing at night when I can’t fully appreciate the looming space underneath.

We reach Arenal Paraiso only 10 – 20 minutes later than expected even with the intensity of the travel. We are ushered to a lovely little suite where we begin to relax. There are two rocking chairs on a little back veranda that we sit to take in our first interaction with the volcano. We hear the whirs, clicks, and biological thrum of the area and see a few haphazard lightning bugs blink off and on in the corner. It’s decidedly funny to experience this at night and feels oddly surreal, like we’ve traveled to a glorified version of the rainforest cafe, because we can only hear a soundscape, taste a foreign air. We’ve yet to actually lay eyes on most of what waits for us.