Author: koalie

The visit to Volcan Poas almost happened. We drove on tracks and bumpy roads, passed through clouds and when we reached the entrance of the park, the cloud we were in was so thick that we made a U turn and went somewhere else instead. A wonderful place, La Paz waterfall gardens. In retrospect it’s too bad we wasted time earlier.

Highlights of La Paz waterfall gardens: walking in a giant aviary –including walking where toucans fly, seeing many kinds of snakes –including some of the most dangerous ones of Costa Rica, I walked among a myriad of butterflies, and of course the waterfalls.

We continued on bumpy roads and pretty good roads, but also very shaky ones (Vlad got to push the 4WD button on the dashboard) for 2.5 hours to reach the Arenal Observatory Lodge.

We arrived a bit after sundown. The Arenal appeared enshrouded in clouds too, I see a pattern here. We’ll see tomorrow if we see it. We’re here three nights. There are numerous hikes. But now, there is sleep to be had.

See my Flickr album (241 photos).

We are in Costa Rica and the place we are at tonight happens to have wifi, woohoo!
We landed in the afternoon, it was raining, but by the time we got outside it had stopped. We didn’t see much yet, as the sun sets slightly before 6 p.m. But we hear a lot from the outside! Insects, presumably. Many of them.

The flight was long but OK. Entertainment wasn’t so much provided by the in-flight TVs –there was one every five rows, attached from the ceiling, and while the list of films was impressive on paper, they showed only a couple. Instead, some of the entertainment was provided by a group of eleven Russian next to us, all males. The stewardess even took from them a big bottle of alcohol, and kept coming back, asking them to not stand in the aisle. There was this one massive guy, one as we see in movies, and he acted very much like he was either a body guard, or a handyman –or both. All of them looked Russian, to the exception of two old men, who looked British, and one teenager. The boy didn’t look like any of them, except he had blue eyes. The rest of our entertainment came from eating tray food, playing Angry Birds, listening to music, and sleeping. Sleeping wasn’t an issue. We went to bed real late the night before and woke up entirely too early.

Fast forward to the car rental place at a five-minute drive in shuttle from the San Jose airport. The people wanted us to rent a GPS and were amused that Vladimir refused because we’re using the program *he* wrote. Amused and doubtful. One of them repeated that there is only one GPS program that works in Costa Rica, because they don’t really have addresses there. Anyway. It took us where we wanted, all right.

Where we wanted is Tetual Norte, in Alajuela, not far from San Jose, and thirty kilometers away from Volcan Poas –where we’ll go tomorrow. We arrived shortly after sunset. The colours were really pretty and the noises from trees and bushes were pleasant. We ate an early dinner of Indian cuisine.

Here is an overview of our holiday:
Volcan Poas tomorrow morning and then to the Arenal where we’ll stay three days. Followed by two days near the Manuel Antonio Park, two days near the Parque Nacional Los Quetzales, three days in the Osa Peninsula near the Corcovado Park. We’ll then spend one last day near San Jose before we fly back in two weeks.

See my Flickr album (241 photos).